... or it might just be a previously-molten chunk of a Kazakhstani launch vehicle.
As for the possible extra-terrestrial encounter at O'Hare, I'd certainly like to say that they definitely inspected the most boring city on the planet, next to Milwaukee and Bismarck.
Actually, I think there's a good addendum to the theory...
People hate their ____ providers when one or more of the following are satisfied: 1) the user feels the product is absolutely necessary for effective an lifestyle, 2) the user feels that there's no other options for similar products, 3) the user is faced with the possibility that they do not have ultimate control of the product or their use of the product.
This is probably a sub-set of the "denial cycle" in some way.
When it comes to commercial products, people hate their ____ providers (fill in the blank with the service).
Blizzard makes a decent MMO product that millions of people use, but there's a HUGE group of their players who *hate* them even though they use the product. Same with Sony Online Entertainment and Turbine and so on.
The same goes for Sprint, Cingular, Verizon, ATandT, et cetera for mobile telephone service -- especially big hatred among the users there, but the service is generally the same across the board... and it's even more ubiquitous.
Microsoft is the big, bad behemoth that gives everyone their Operating System. Billions of people hate Microsoft, yet hapily use the product (myself included), likely for the same reason as the above reasons.
The only non-commercial exception to this is Government, even though it's the same concept -- everyone hates their goverment, but without the governing, the world would fall apart and it would be a much, much worse place -- theoretically speaking, of course.
I've been working on a MediaWiki modification that details every portion of the function/object/application creation process. The idea was that I could put a function or object together using pre-existing chunks in the wiki and then the end result will automatically be fully commented and based on code that has already been tested and proven.
No more buffer overflow exploits, no more null pointer dereferences, and no more need for 30+ libraries that have duplicate or similar code in them... or so the thought goes.
So far, I have a few entries targetted for the 6502 processor and the script that generates the end result code is mostly working... sort of. heh. Eventually, I'll fill it out with more useful stuff and then make it public, but until then, it's just a hobby to pass the time.
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... or it might just be a previously-molten chunk of a Kazakhstani launch vehicle. As for the possible extra-terrestrial encounter at O'Hare, I'd certainly like to say that they definitely inspected the most boring city on the planet, next to Milwaukee and Bismarck.
One of these days, I'm going to learn English grammar. Someday, someday.
Actually, I think there's a good addendum to the theory...
People hate their ____ providers when one or more of the following are satisfied:
1) the user feels the product is absolutely necessary for effective an lifestyle,
2) the user feels that there's no other options for similar products,
3) the user is faced with the possibility that they do not have ultimate control of the product or their use of the product.
This is probably a sub-set of the "denial cycle" in some way.
When it comes to commercial products, people hate their ____ providers (fill in the blank with the service). Blizzard makes a decent MMO product that millions of people use, but there's a HUGE group of their players who *hate* them even though they use the product. Same with Sony Online Entertainment and Turbine and so on. The same goes for Sprint, Cingular, Verizon, ATandT, et cetera for mobile telephone service -- especially big hatred among the users there, but the service is generally the same across the board... and it's even more ubiquitous. Microsoft is the big, bad behemoth that gives everyone their Operating System. Billions of people hate Microsoft, yet hapily use the product (myself included), likely for the same reason as the above reasons. The only non-commercial exception to this is Government, even though it's the same concept -- everyone hates their goverment, but without the governing, the world would fall apart and it would be a much, much worse place -- theoretically speaking, of course.
I've been working on a MediaWiki modification that details every portion of the function/object/application creation process. The idea was that I could put a function or object together using pre-existing chunks in the wiki and then the end result will automatically be fully commented and based on code that has already been tested and proven.
No more buffer overflow exploits, no more null pointer dereferences, and no more need for 30+ libraries that have duplicate or similar code in them... or so the thought goes.
So far, I have a few entries targetted for the 6502 processor and the script that generates the end result code is mostly working... sort of. heh. Eventually, I'll fill it out with more useful stuff and then make it public, but until then, it's just a hobby to pass the time.