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Microsoft's Technical Glitches at CES Explained
Thomas Hawk writes "Sean Alexander is one of the guys on the Media Center Team at Microsoft who was involved in the CES presentation with Bill Gates. Sean also runs a very interesting blog called Addicted to Digital Media. Gates and Microsoft have taken a lot of heat over the course of the last two days for the technical glitches in Microsoft's presentation at CES. Sean offers us the rare glimpse on why the glitches happened and what it's like to be backstage at the big Microsoft presentation at CES. Very good follow up on Sean's part." Update: 01/08 19:03 GMT by T : Hawk writes with a static link to Alexander's story.
Damn GNU hippies! :-)
That's GNU/Hippies, GNU/dammit!
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Sure, the BSoD onstage was the IR receiver taking over Windows in a unique, unexpected way... nope. Windows is so unstable that an IR receiver can take down the kernel? That's a serious flaw in Windows.
Fuck you, fascist, with your insane "commie" talk, to a person richer, smarter, and with more Windows programming experience than you. Microslave.
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make install -not war
> Sure, the BSoD onstage was the IR receiver taking over Windows
:) (FYI, I left Microsoft four years ago, but I am sure most of the smart people I knew there still are) Oh, this is rich! Now wait, weren't we supposed to be criticising Windows here? Even if I were the Devil himself, Bill's problems would still have been with the IR receiver.
If you had read the article, you'd know that there was no BSoD. The presentation simply did not respond to Bill's remote control; it happened because the IR receiver at his seat malfunctioned. It could have been a hardware failure or interference from the environment. If Bill were using OpenOffice on Linux, the exact same thing would have happened, so your bashing is quite unfair.
> Fuck you, fascist, with your insane "commie" talk
Why is it that most Open Source advocates are so foul-mouthed? Calling the "Open Source" philosophy "communist" is not insane, but rather accurate. Communism is based on the "from each by ability, to each by his need" idea, and free software is simply a direct application of this idea. According to Stallman, each programmer should work on software for his own personal enjoyment and give it to the community. Then the community will pay him back with modifications and the rich people will pay him money, generously satisfying all his needs because he's just such a great and unselfish fellow.
> to a person richer, smarter, and with more Windows
> programming experience than you. Microslave.
Ha, ha, ha! Even calling me a Microsoft employee as a final insult
I do a free software demo once a month. I've had problems, but nothing like a BSoD. My machines, like all the other demos at CES, stay up even if pieces fail.
It sounds to me like the Microsofties did fine.
I'm not sure how you can say that. Gates was obviously pissed and did not play well with other's who tried to help him. It was a classic display of lack of cool. The aftermath is this pathetic spin piece that could be summarized in two sentences but was not. The guy is falling on his sword and trying to blame hardware for what was obviously buggy and graceless software. A poor performance followed by a lie, how sorry can you get?
Let me clearly distinguish the differences between your world and a technical demonstration.
People go to the theater to be entertained. You are supposed to suspend your disbelief. When some gadget does not work, people are entertained anyway. In fact, it can be more fun that way. No one reasonable feels cheated.
People go to a tech demo to see what you have. When what you have fails, you've seen all you need to know. You might feel cheated if you let someone blow smoke on you and you then go buy the buggy junk because you think it's not really broken. On the rare occasion something does not work at one of my demo's, I tell my audience right there and then. I don't try to hide the problems or blame shift or charge people money for something afterward.
The whole thing is just Microsoft. They made something so buggy they could not even demo it this time. They hyped it before hand and they will continue to hype it. The spin is best characterized by the phrase that was repeated in the article:
I don't want to have that kind of problem with something I pay for that supposed to just work. Microsoft is supposed to make things easy, but they don't.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.