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A Microsoft-Speak Timeline - From Altair to Zune
netbuzz writes "No company has had more to say about software over the past 30 years than Microsoft (for better or worse). How they've said it — the actual language used — reveals a lot about the company's evolution and is the focus of a new timeline. There's a look back at a 'tag cloud' provided by the Seattle P-I. In addition to analyzing the linguistics of about 90 documents, there are also links to such gems as Bill Gates' Playboy interview and his famous 'Open Letters to Hobbyists.' From the article: 'We're talking all the way from Altair to Zune, with stops along the way for every technology the company developed, bought or borrowed, right on through to current entanglements with Vista, Linux and Google. The tool allows for an at-a-glance view of company priorities as they evolve and shift.'"
Was the missing three years- just what in the hell was Microsoft doing from 1977 to 1980 anyway?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Just like with politicians or rich movie stars, there's a giant marketing machine that can erase past wrongs/lies/etc. by blasting the message of the week. Even when you catch them in a blatant lie, with evidence--like those Jon Stewart clips comparing what Bush said a few years ago to what he says now--they can shrug it off, because they know people will A) forget or B) only get exposed to the message of the week or C) be too cynical/disillusioned to act.
from TFA:
"Who were we imitating . . . When we did the Altair BASIC? . . . And who were we imitating when we did Microsoft Word? When we did Excel? It's just nonsense"
Bill, you must've been kidding. Those were exactly the same sort of imitiations that your company now accuses FOSS of and derides them for it.
GNUstep could be that amazing development environment for linux. It (NeXTSTEP) was designed to be the perfect environment for producing elegently powerful apps very rapidly with as little code as necessary. If this project was strongly adopted by the community, the number and quality of linux apps would increase.
Unfortunately, the project seems like its stuck in stasis.
Not that should surprise any of us here, but I found somewhat humorous anyway. In the time line, for November 1984 is an ad for MS Word. While praising "Spell"'s ability to have custom words added to a dictionary they used the words cryptococcosis and aepyornis as examples of technical terms that could be added. Interestingly enough, 20+ years later, they're both still "addable". If a company was aware of these words over 20 years ago why not add them to the built-in dictionary somewhere along the way?
I don't care what it purports itself to be. I care what its impact on political discourse is. If Bill O'Reilly renamed his show to the "a lighthearted entertainment show with a moral-conservative reactionist spin" that wouldn't absolve him of all responsibility for his coverage. It is reasonable to examine the outcome of the show on the viewers (whether through intentional spin or simply aweful coverage). I'm not suggesting that we try to regulate it in any way, just that we perhaps re-think how we talk about these shows.
I don't have the survey at hand, but I have seen polls that suggest that something like ~25% of young voters got most of their 2004 election coverage news from TDS and SNL. I know some young voters like this myself. Even if some of those voters also get "news" from a blog/website heavily slanted towards their favorite political party, they are missing out. I see value in news that at least makes some attempt at providing a more moderate and informed discussion -- if nothing else to present some basic and indisputable facts (not just those that support one view or the other). There have been a number of studies that have shown that people of both political persuasions that just talk to people of their own leanings tended to get more extreme and entrenched in their views (and were more hostile to others), whereas those that talked to people of other political views tended to at least adopt a much more nuanced and open view. I suspect this is at least part of the reason why politics of both stripes has gotten more radical and combative.
To the extent that the Daily Show acts as a replacement for up-to-date news for some of its viewers and to the extent that it embarrasses politicians (or makes them look absurd/extreme) for what would otherwise be sensible and reasonable discourse (leaving aside the balance for a minute) by selective editing and quotation, I have concerns for society at large. Calling it entertainment does not automatically mean it has no negative impact on politics.
Well, maybe, but someone can't pretend they follow the world news by watching Southpark and, regardless, both in and of themselves can leave the viewer/reader in pretty sorry shape as far as balanced coverage of world events and politics goes. Slanted blogs might have their place, but when they are consumed to the exclusion of any balanced news, I suspect they a harmful to our political system.