The smartest decision would be to let Yahoo die on its own
Not if you can have a say in where current Yahoo users end up. If you can migrate that marketshare to your own products (whether or not you maintain the Yahoo brand name), you're better off (as Microsoft) than letting Google get them.
In the end, there's good cause to think that a merger will result in synergies that will improve overall margins.
Also, I'm pretty sure those guys gave some thought to it before bidding over $40Bn.
Well, let's think about how Apple just recently switched from IBM PPC to Intel processors. The old legacy PPC software still runs on newer Intel Macs thanks to Rosetta, and to most users there is no difference.
Agreed, an entirely new operating system would be a little bit of a bigger challenge, but if they can have an invisible Rosetta-like translation, they would allow users to slowly transition from legacy applications to the newer ones.
Microsoft would first have to make sure that all legacy apps run transparently on the new OS, and then release native versions of all their apps (Office, etc.). My guess is that most Windows users would keep using Windows in order to have the apps they're used to, and as a result, developers would have incentives to produce native software.
Let me explain... Phone conversation goes approximately as follows: You: Can you disable text messaging on my account please?
Customer Support Rep: That's not possible.
You: Can I speak to your manager?
Repeat 3 times until you reach the right level. You can also, as a subtle insult replace "your manager" with "someone technical" or even "someone competent".
I was engineering and computer science, also from a "major" U.S. university. I'd say if you went to a good school (preferably liberal arts), your major doesn't matter that much. I'm in strategy consulting now, very different from what I studied. I still feel that my engineering background helps me every day. Although starting salaries may be slightly lower than engineering, and work is very very busy, career opportunities are good and you'll be catching up to engineers in terms of salary after a couple of years.
From my understanding of the article (no, I didn't RTFA, of course) what's new here is that the VoIP client can switch from regular GSM to Wifi-VoIP in the middle of a phone call. I may have misunderstood since I didn't read the article, but in case I got it right, you have to realize the complexity of this. It's really pretty cool.
I won't bother addressing your flamebait statement of "sub-par phone with a fancy interface". I don't have an iPhone myself (but definitely plan on getting the new one) because until now it's not been a great business-oriented phone (support of Exchange in particular). But every single person I've met who bought an iPhone absolutely loves it. I'll let you know what I think (objectively) once I get the new one.
Apple's idiocy in restricting the hell out of it
Really, are you completely oblivious to the fact that restrictions such as "don't use VoIP over your data plan" aren't dictated by Apple but by the telcos? It's probably part of the contract and if it weren't Apple wouldn't have a network for people to use iPhones on. Have you seen how badly Verizon cripple all their phones?
To push the previous point a little further, you also have to keep in mind how many concessions Apple has managed to force on AT&T. Apple has - literally - changed the industry in many positive ways. Here's a very interesting article I'd recommend reading: The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry.
At the expense of sounding like an Apple fanboi myself (I like their products, but I think I'm generally fairly objective) I'm guessing that you're on the opposite end of fanboi-ism and it makes you feel smart: in the same way that fanbois think they're superior because they use Apple products, you think you're smarter than they are because you don't. I think both sides - fanbois and anti-fanbois - should try to be more objective and recognize Apple for their good things - design, innovation, user interface, and in this situation changing the wireless industry - and their bad things - hype, pricing, etc.
Its a pity Apple places artificial restrictions on the phone & doesn't allow this sort of functionality.
You have to keep in mind, this restriction is undoubtedly imposed by the telcos, not Apple.
Apple isn't really in a position to shoot their distributor/service provider in the foot.
The problem is that they really want to present it as another theory. If you present this in a science class to kids who are 10 years old, and you present it next to evolution, these kids don't necessarily have the ability to critically distinguish creationism/ID from a scientific theory.
You blur the lines, making them think "they're both just theories, there's no more evidence in favor of one than the other", when really there's a whole lot of difference between what the scientific community considers a theory, and the much broader meanings the word has in common usage.
Personally, I can totally accept that people want to educate their kids and provide them with more material to develop their critical thinking by presenting religious views in a religious studies class. In fact, I believe children should be given a solid background with regards to all major religions to foster tolerance. But this just does NOT belong in a science class.
How can we once and for all get these people to understand the meaning of a scientific theory??
Next thing we'll hear is that because we teach imaginary numbers in math class, we can teach imaginary science in science class.
Although I'm not saying the article makes sense (who RTFA anyway?), I could see a way that data has not always been "paradigm agnostic" insofar as in many situations we collect data after formulating a vague theory. We then use the data to refine our theory or to disprove it. But seldom do we start collecting data without any idea of what we may find.
I guess my point here, is that with the tools the article may or may not mention (who RTFA anyway?) you could feed them any kind of data, and they will try to find a correlation and determine whether some predictive theory can be made, without really knowing what they're looking for, other than some form of pattern.
The article is still WTFey, and perhaps deliberately confusing to appear smart, but this is how I would define "paradigm agnostic". Most research is done with an idea of what will be found or disproved. YMMV
He does raise an interesting question (and I'm in no way bashing Vista):
how do browsers compare on Mac OSX? Does Safari compare similarly to Firefox 3 on Mac OS X?
I wouldn't be surprised if Safari performs better on OS X than on Vista because Apple has put more time into developing the Mac version...
Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if Firefox is optimized for the larger Windows market. I know that back in the day, on the old PPC macs, Firefox was pretty slow, which was a good reason to use Safari.
After all, when Google started it was only funded with a few hundred thousand dollars. Then again, when Google started, the Internet itself was considerably smaller, and the pages indexed by Google were much fewer. It was also slower and processing power wasn't as much of a limiting factor as your network connection.
Although the idea that Google may in fact be serving all our searches with just one server seems kind of appealing, let's not kid ourselves, they have many large data centers. They use relatively cheap, commonplace equipment, but in every data center they have guys with shopping carts (really) swapping out defective servers as they walk down the aisles. (their infrastructure and file system is really interesting, actually)
But don't forget that Google doesn't just provide search. They also provide storage-intensive services such as email (more than 6GB of storage space per account now I think) or video (youTube). One of the main reasons for having many data centers is to be able to push content (email, youTube videos, etc.) as close as possible to the end user before the user asks for it to minimize latency. User A in NY wants to watch a video, it goes much faster to send it from a data center in NY than to have to send it from CA. Serving video content or generally large amounts of data is a very capital intensive business that requires a lot of network and server infrastructure.
Also, $15-$20B annual revenue is what most people would consider gigantic, even if the number of employees isn't anywhere close to that of Walmart, or other giants such as GM or GE.
Minister of Fisheries Isn't the Minister of the Internets supposed to be under the authority of the Minister of Fisheries? How do they catch their fish otherwise?
At best it can detect that something was noticed. Precisely. I think the point is that it will bring your attention to something that you subconsciously noticed but didn't consciously process. That way you can take a second look at it and determine how to deal with it.
I'm wondering if it would bring lots of useless stuff to your attention and just give an information overflow. There's a reason we're applying a sort of filter. This would somewhat result in eliminating that filter. It may bring important stuff to your attention, but it might also risk distracting you unnecessarily.
As far as I can tell, other spyware vectors such as commercially developed BitTorrent clients and "smiley face" silliness have not taken off on the Mac. I don't intend to start a flamewar, but it seems to me that until recently, Mac users were overall a little more technical and computer-savvy than your average Windows user. This isn't to say there aren't uber-technical Windows users, just that most non-technical people chose Windows out of convenience.
Because a lot of viruses, spyware, hacks and exploits depend on a user to inadvertently install or run it ("oh,.exe file in my email from someone I don't know? Let's double-click it to find out what it is!") and people are inappropriately educated about the risks of opening unsafe attachments, it seems Windows is intrinsically more at risk due to its user base.
I think Linux, on the other hand is generally used by tech-savvy people who know what to open and what to put in the trash immediately. It would be more difficult to write a virus that's spread thanks to user naivete.
Because of how Apple has (in the US at least) somewhat exploded in recent years and the user-base is increasingly people attracted to the simplicity and the "pretty design", I feel OS X may be becoming more vulnerable.
My point is not that the size of the user base (which for a hacker translates into size of the target) will drive more vulnerabilities, but rather the nature of the user base will.
In the end, security is also what you make of it, and no matter how good the system is, if the user doesn't know how to use it, there will be vulnerabilities.
You may be giving us Americans a little too much credit for geographical savvy. No shit. I went to a very good college in the U.S. and this was a conversation I had (without exaggeration):
Random girl: "Where are you from?"
Me: "I'm from Sweden."
Random girl: "So do you speak Swiss?!"
Slashdot Mirror
The smartest decision would be to let Yahoo die on its own
Not if you can have a say in where current Yahoo users end up. If you can migrate that marketshare to your own products (whether or not you maintain the Yahoo brand name), you're better off (as Microsoft) than letting Google get them.
In the end, there's good cause to think that a merger will result in synergies that will improve overall margins.
Also, I'm pretty sure those guys gave some thought to it before bidding over $40Bn.
Well, let's think about how Apple just recently switched from IBM PPC to Intel processors. The old legacy PPC software still runs on newer Intel Macs thanks to Rosetta, and to most users there is no difference.
Agreed, an entirely new operating system would be a little bit of a bigger challenge, but if they can have an invisible Rosetta-like translation, they would allow users to slowly transition from legacy applications to the newer ones.
Microsoft would first have to make sure that all legacy apps run transparently on the new OS, and then release native versions of all their apps (Office, etc.). My guess is that most Windows users would keep using Windows in order to have the apps they're used to, and as a result, developers would have incentives to produce native software.
Yes, he's called "your manager".
Let me explain... Phone conversation goes approximately as follows:
You: Can you disable text messaging on my account please?
Customer Support Rep: That's not possible.
You: Can I speak to your manager?
Repeat 3 times until you reach the right level. You can also, as a subtle insult replace "your manager" with "someone technical" or even "someone competent".
You forgot mind-reading!
I was engineering and computer science, also from a "major" U.S. university. I'd say if you went to a good school (preferably liberal arts), your major doesn't matter that much. I'm in strategy consulting now, very different from what I studied. I still feel that my engineering background helps me every day. Although starting salaries may be slightly lower than engineering, and work is very very busy, career opportunities are good and you'll be catching up to engineers in terms of salary after a couple of years.
And yet they wonder why the French Echonomy is sagging.
Unlike the U.S. economy!
I won't bother addressing your flamebait statement of "sub-par phone with a fancy interface". I don't have an iPhone myself (but definitely plan on getting the new one) because until now it's not been a great business-oriented phone (support of Exchange in particular). But every single person I've met who bought an iPhone absolutely loves it. I'll let you know what I think (objectively) once I get the new one.
Apple's idiocy in restricting the hell out of it
Really, are you completely oblivious to the fact that restrictions such as "don't use VoIP over your data plan" aren't dictated by Apple but by the telcos? It's probably part of the contract and if it weren't Apple wouldn't have a network for people to use iPhones on. Have you seen how badly Verizon cripple all their phones?
To push the previous point a little further, you also have to keep in mind how many concessions Apple has managed to force on AT&T. Apple has - literally - changed the industry in many positive ways. Here's a very interesting article I'd recommend reading: The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry.
At the expense of sounding like an Apple fanboi myself (I like their products, but I think I'm generally fairly objective) I'm guessing that you're on the opposite end of fanboi-ism and it makes you feel smart: in the same way that fanbois think they're superior because they use Apple products, you think you're smarter than they are because you don't. I think both sides - fanbois and anti-fanbois - should try to be more objective and recognize Apple for their good things - design, innovation, user interface, and in this situation changing the wireless industry - and their bad things - hype, pricing, etc.
Its a pity Apple places artificial restrictions on the phone & doesn't allow this sort of functionality.
You have to keep in mind, this restriction is undoubtedly imposed by the telcos, not Apple.
Apple isn't really in a position to shoot their distributor/service provider in the foot.
The problem is that they really want to present it as another theory. If you present this in a science class to kids who are 10 years old, and you present it next to evolution, these kids don't necessarily have the ability to critically distinguish creationism/ID from a scientific theory.
You blur the lines, making them think "they're both just theories, there's no more evidence in favor of one than the other", when really there's a whole lot of difference between what the scientific community considers a theory, and the much broader meanings the word has in common usage.
Personally, I can totally accept that people want to educate their kids and provide them with more material to develop their critical thinking by presenting religious views in a religious studies class. In fact, I believe children should be given a solid background with regards to all major religions to foster tolerance. But this just does NOT belong in a science class.
How can we once and for all get these people to understand the meaning of a scientific theory??
Next thing we'll hear is that because we teach imaginary numbers in math class, we can teach imaginary science in science class.
Although I'm not saying the article makes sense (who RTFA anyway?), I could see a way that data has not always been "paradigm agnostic" insofar as in many situations we collect data after formulating a vague theory. We then use the data to refine our theory or to disprove it. But seldom do we start collecting data without any idea of what we may find.
I guess my point here, is that with the tools the article may or may not mention (who RTFA anyway?) you could feed them any kind of data, and they will try to find a correlation and determine whether some predictive theory can be made, without really knowing what they're looking for, other than some form of pattern.
The article is still WTFey, and perhaps deliberately confusing to appear smart, but this is how I would define "paradigm agnostic". Most research is done with an idea of what will be found or disproved. YMMV
To be fair, you could also be running other software than just your browser...
He does raise an interesting question (and I'm in no way bashing Vista):
how do browsers compare on Mac OSX? Does Safari compare similarly to Firefox 3 on Mac OS X?
I wouldn't be surprised if Safari performs better on OS X than on Vista because Apple has put more time into developing the Mac version...
Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if Firefox is optimized for the larger Windows market. I know that back in the day, on the old PPC macs, Firefox was pretty slow, which was a good reason to use Safari.
What's sad is that the more Twitter posts, the more sympathy I have for Vista. (although I've never used it)
Although the idea that Google may in fact be serving all our searches with just one server seems kind of appealing, let's not kid ourselves, they have many large data centers. They use relatively cheap, commonplace equipment, but in every data center they have guys with shopping carts (really) swapping out defective servers as they walk down the aisles. (their infrastructure and file system is really interesting, actually)
But don't forget that Google doesn't just provide search. They also provide storage-intensive services such as email (more than 6GB of storage space per account now I think) or video (youTube). One of the main reasons for having many data centers is to be able to push content (email, youTube videos, etc.) as close as possible to the end user before the user asks for it to minimize latency. User A in NY wants to watch a video, it goes much faster to send it from a data center in NY than to have to send it from CA. Serving video content or generally large amounts of data is a very capital intensive business that requires a lot of network and server infrastructure.
Also, $15-$20B annual revenue is what most people would consider gigantic, even if the number of employees isn't anywhere close to that of Walmart, or other giants such as GM or GE.
No, but over 19,000 is relatively big. If you care to check:
Google Finance
I'm wondering if it would bring lots of useless stuff to your attention and just give an information overflow. There's a reason we're applying a sort of filter. This would somewhat result in eliminating that filter. It may bring important stuff to your attention, but it might also risk distracting you unnecessarily.
Because a lot of viruses, spyware, hacks and exploits depend on a user to inadvertently install or run it ("oh,
I think Linux, on the other hand is generally used by tech-savvy people who know what to open and what to put in the trash immediately. It would be more difficult to write a virus that's spread thanks to user naivete.
Because of how Apple has (in the US at least) somewhat exploded in recent years and the user-base is increasingly people attracted to the simplicity and the "pretty design", I feel OS X may be becoming more vulnerable.
My point is not that the size of the user base (which for a hacker translates into size of the target) will drive more vulnerabilities, but rather the nature of the user base will.
In the end, security is also what you make of it, and no matter how good the system is, if the user doesn't know how to use it, there will be vulnerabilities.
Random girl: "Where are you from?"
Me: "I'm from Sweden."
Random girl: "So do you speak Swiss?!"