Slashdot Mirror

Revisionist bullshit. Computers were not all ugly off-white boxes "back in the day", and Apple has made some damn ugly hardware over the years.

First, I am not an Apple fan and most especially I am not a Steve Jobs fan. Not only did I program for the original Mac back in the early eighties, I had the deep joy of administering some NeXT boxes in the nineties. They were always, at least from a software point of view, a triumph of surface gloss over good engineering. I've never spent my own money on an Apple box, and I've never advised a customer to do so.

But.

OK, it's true that there have been very occasional ugly Apples. OK, it's true that there have been very occasional attractive case designs by other makers (I particularly like some of the mid 90s Silicon Graphics case designs, and, of course, the NeXT cubes were fantastically good to look at). But - and I say this with a very expensive designer PC case sitting under my desk - I've never seen a PC case design that didn't look awful, whereas by contrast some of the Apple case designs (Lisa; PowerMac G4 and G4 cube; Mac Mini) have been really excellent.

So no. Steve Jobs has excellent visual taste, has a history of employing good industrial designers, and generally of producing better looking products (and often better physically engineered products) than anyone else in the consumer computer industry.

It's just a shame about the software engineering.

If they sneak in to swim AND THE DOOR OR GATE IS LOCKED then the home owner is not liable. If the pool was left unlocked then the home owner is considered to be negligent.

Here's an example from ohio but this is pretty standard. The legal thinking is essentially that if you leave a piece of candy lying around should you be surprised when a toddler puts it in their mouth? By the same token should you be surprised when the neighbor hood kids use your delicious looking pool?

Next time your out back don't forget to check the lock on your gate.

Here is the link to Theo's archive on the matter:

Theo's side of the story

and a shorter commentary:

seems reasonable to me

Agreed, but it does happen some times.

Check out our Mayor, some of the people on our city council and our chief of police.

These people, AFAIK, came up through the ranks. They earned their positions on merit, not race or gender. I've never encountered news media reports hailing them as "champions of diversity" or some such.

This seems like a good thing to me. The best person gets the job, regardless of race or gender ( or any other criteria which don't impact job performance ).

Agreed, but it does happen some times.

Check out our Mayor, some of the people on our city council and our chief of police.

These people, AFAIK, came up through the ranks. They earned their positions on merit, not race or gender. I've never encountered news media reports hailing them as "champions of diversity" or some such.

This seems like a good thing to me. The best person gets the job, regardless of race or gender ( or any other criteria which don't impact job performance ).

Agreed, but it does happen some times.

Check out our Mayor, some of the people on our city council and our chief of police.

These people, AFAIK, came up through the ranks. They earned their positions on merit, not race or gender. I've never encountered news media reports hailing them as "champions of diversity" or some such.

This seems like a good thing to me. The best person gets the job, regardless of race or gender ( or any other criteria which don't impact job performance ).

"I am not an MSCE, I don't use any Microsoft OS's, and I love Java. What I was pointing out was that Sun is having major financial problems(read the parent) and if it were not for that suit and a good cash injection from Microsoft they would be having more..."

"Litigation seems to be a viable strategy for Sun too. What goes around comes around in the crazy patent game I guess."

From http://www.post369.columbus.oh.us/ExpNews.d/1997.d /971028.ExpNews.html

"Sun's first responsibility as stewards of the Java technology is to preserve the significant investments that Sun and hundreds of companies have made. We are required to take this action on behalf of our licensees, the Java industry and Sun's shareholders," said Alan Baratz, president of Sun's JavaSoft division. Baratz added that for the past six months and up until 6 p.m. Sunday, September 28, Sun worked diligently with Microsoft in hopes of convincing them to abide by their agreements.

I don't see how your follow up comment explains your first comment in the way you think it does.

Which probably means it will get struck out faster than Cool Papa circled the bases.

As a former employee of a company with offices at the Super Computer Center (The Greater Columbus FreeNet) Way to go!


I'm glad to see them get some new hardware to play quake on! Do you think this means they'll give away the Onyx2 machines they have now?