While I agree there is a certain element of "let's just bash it because it is Vista" in this thread, there is the bigger issue that Ballmer and Microsoft refuse to acknowledge that there is a huge backlash against Vista because of real or perceived shortcomings. Instead of addressing the problem, he talks about "value". That is the real story here, not whether or not Vista sucks. I don't think it's that bad (and I'm an OS X user). I would like to put it on my XP partition, but I really don't feel like paying that much just to try it out.
Well that is mostly incorrect. He may have written a book, and I'm sure it is mostly correct (because there are too many people out there that can disprove any fallacy he writes). Most likely you've summarized it incorrectly.
United States Signal Intelligence Directive 9 prohibits the wire-tapping or voice intercept of the citizens of a country that is hosting US intelligence agencies and USSID 18 prohibits the wire-tapping of US Citizens anywhere in the world or by any entity that is an interest to the US (the UK/NZ/Austrailian agencies). While we depend on the help of other countries, we apply the same rules banning the collection of intelligence on US citizens regardless if we are operating in the UK, or if the UK is acting on our behalf from Germany.
As they say on slashdot...."nothing to see here, move along..."
You are not half as important as you think you are. In otherwords, the NSA and the GCHQ have no interest in your mundane life. More importantly, they have no TIME to monitor your stupid phone calls.
Thank you again, for bringing back a level of respectful dialogue. I don't think we entirely disagree. I have no qualms with Steve Ballmer, a top executive of the biggest software company in the world, trying to defend his product. Even the biggest Microsoft hater on the planet understands the people that work for that company have an obligation to put it in the best light possible.
I think there is a bit of contention in this conversation about what the mom meant by her daughter being 13. On one hand, it can be read as, she's only 13 and thus knows nothing about computers. Definitely a stupid argument on the mom's behalf, if this is what she intended. I think, however, that she simply means that kids don't think about computers in terms of "value" in the way a marketing guru like Ballmer does. The mom (and myself included) is simply astonished that Ballmer would use such an out-of-touch defense of the product. I find it to be a disingenious and transparent defense on Ballmer's behalf, although I don't oppose his effort to "sell" his product. I think there are camps on slashdot who just jump in here to bash Microsoft, but I'm certainly not doing that. Then there are camps that do anything to defend Microsoft from the slashdot bashfest. Neither side sees this issue with clarity.
Thank you for the measured response; slashdot could use more posts like yours and less hasty "YOU ARE A TROLL" flames.
Where Ballmer screwed up was pushing the adult-droid sense of value back in the Mom's face when he could have said, "yes, but doesn't your daughter just love all the cool shiny gadgets that ONLY Vista has to offer? Obviously your daughter liked them, so why go back to Vista?". But instead, we get the feeble quasi-jedi mind tricks of "consumer must see value in Microsoft product" type comments.
As for my son, he got an F for the quarter, so I told him if he brings that up to a B, and keeps all As in the other subjects, I will buy him a video iPod. Of course that elevated to, "if I get straight As, will you buy me an iPhone?". Man, kids these days!
This isn't about me. I've used gadgets. I've been using widgets ever since they've been on the Mac. I like gadgets and widgets. None of this matters, nor was I implying that it did.
Sorry to reply to my own comment, but after taking a huge beatdown, I feel I need to clarify my post. I originally said:
Teenagers don't care about value, because they have no concept of what value is.
When I should have said, "teenagers don't care about adult values, because teens have their own concept of what is valuable." Please tell me I'm not the only one that notices that teens values are vastly different than those of adults.
Christ, for the last time. I am not marginalizing the girl, nor is the mother. The mother's response is tell Mr. Ballmer that her child is 13-years old and doesn't give one rat's ass about Microsoft's marketing spins of "value".
I'm sorry I worded it poorly, but I didn't meant to infer that teens aren't allowed to have their own concept of value. I'm merely stating that children's concept of value does not match up with big corporation executive's concept of value, and it is ridiculous for Mr. Ballmer to spin it as such.
I have a 12 year old son who asked me to buy him a video iPod because he wants one (values it for peer reasons, personal reason, materialistic reasons, whatever). No need to lecture me about not understanding kids...I get it already.
You missed my point entirely. Allow me to clarify. A thirteen-year old child does not understand the term value in the same manner that a 50-something year old Microsoft executive does. That executive, then, is way off base on trying to use that trump card.
I'm saying a teenagers concept of value is incongruent with a mega-corporation's concept of value, because a teenager has no concept of the adult world when it comes to business practices. Of COURSE value is subjective, which was my point in the first place in pointing out why Ballmer is so wrong.
Best post this month! You summarized my research in the first three paragraphs. Why the hell did I even bother? I spent all that money, and you spent none, yet we come to the same conclusion. Don't I feel like a fool now:-)
A school I used to work at started handing out faux-Microsoft certifications for kids who where able to figure out the features of Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc. which is kind of scary, since: a) real certifications already exist, and b) they were only demonstrating a mastery of training, but not education. You can train a monkey or a dog, but you can't educate one. Unfortunately, most people, even those in the field of education, equate "training" with "education", mostly because they don't understand technology well enough themselves to push their students beyond the "training" mode.
HER interpretation of "value" is the issue, your definition doesn't matter.
And neither does Steve Ballmer's then. What Ballmer/Microsoft believe to be "value" is consistently not in line with what consumers/users believe, which is my entire point.
Hmm, interesting. I read it differently. I read it as, "my daughter is 13 and has no concept of your marketing hype of value." Others, it appear, have read it as, "my daughter is 13 so she can't be expected to know how to use a computer." I guess unless we know what the mother meant by the comment, we won't be able to come to a common agreement.
Well, that's a new definition of trolling to me. It is so painfully obvious that Ballmer is spinning the entire situation by dropping the "value" line. I would have said the same thing if Steve Jobs had done this.
Completely anecdotal, but my best friend (just finished his PhD, since we are talking about highly intelligent people switching away from Windows) switched to all OS X in his household, because in his words: "I've given Microsoft a pass for long enough". This implies that Vista is the "final straw" and not necessarily the worst OS ever.
I'm not saying her opinion doesn't matter or that nobody should listen to her. I'm saying her opinion is not swayed by the "value" nonesene one bit because that is an adult marketing concept heaved in the direction of a teenager.
(gotta get my posts in while on lunch...these things come in bunches ya know)
So you are trying to tell me that my interpretation of the subjective term "value" is not accurate? Are you telling me there is no "value" in the amount of time I save by NOT futzing around with my computer or wasting time responding to nonsensical, unneeded dialogue windows? Wow, I'd hate to live in your household.
I'd tell you myself, but I don't know why FOSS allows for better education, because my research didn't focus on FOSS. This is why I'm asking this guy to tell us. I'm not trying to make ANY point about FOSS, nor am I going about it in a roundabout way. Like you, I would LOVE to hear about the impact FOSS has on education.
What I WAS trying to do, however, was not sound like an argumentative jerk. I apologize for being too apologetic. (Oh, the irony of that statement).
I did define what "value" means to me as a home user, you just need to read my entire post. Granted, my meaning of "value" may not be the same as yours, but I'm willing to bet that most home users, to incude 13-year olds, have a different view of "value" than Steve Ballmer does, which is the entire point of my post. I apologize if I didn't make that painfully clear.
Back to the bigger point at hand. The reason I don't use MS Windows is because of their heavy reliance on big, sweeping, empty concepts such as "Value". Tell/show me what your product can do, and quit feeding me a bunch of bs marketing terminology.
All Ballmer had to do was apologize to the lady for her one isolated frustrating experience, and chalk it up as an anecdotal problem. Instead, the used-car salesman kicked in and he threw "value" back in the lady's face.
I use exactly one widget in OS-X: a World of Warcraft thingy that looks up stuff for me. I have to admit, it is pretty valuable in the amount of time I save looking for random dudes on huge maps. Then again, I have to question how much "value" there is in the months of my life I've wasted running a little dwarf around the screen;-)
Also, "she's 13" is not a valid retort for why it shouldn't matter that she found value in it
Actually it is the PERFECT retort, because it shows just how out-of-touch Microsoft is. Teenagers don't care about value, because they have no concept of what value is.
Ballmer's response is a nice little nutshell of everything wrong with Microsoft and why I'm a home Mac user (replace Mac with Linux if you must, but the point is the same). Ballmer talks of "value", as if HOME USERS give a shit. Microsoft is in so deep to corporate ass kissing, they forget that there are millions of home users who use computers for things OTHER than work and "value" means something completely different to a home user. If I have to give into Mr. Ballmer's Econo-spin I'd have to tell him that "value" to me means I sit down at my computer and use it with as little fuss and interruption from the OS as possible. In this scenario, every flavor of Windows ever has very little value. My time and convenience have more "value" to me than any corporate bottom-line will ever have. In fact, I'd rather NOT be able to do something than be stuck in the perpetual co-dependent cycle that Microsoft has created.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm a home Mac user.
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While I agree there is a certain element of "let's just bash it because it is Vista" in this thread, there is the bigger issue that Ballmer and Microsoft refuse to acknowledge that there is a huge backlash against Vista because of real or perceived shortcomings. Instead of addressing the problem, he talks about "value". That is the real story here, not whether or not Vista sucks. I don't think it's that bad (and I'm an OS X user). I would like to put it on my XP partition, but I really don't feel like paying that much just to try it out.
United States Signal Intelligence Directive 9 prohibits the wire-tapping or voice intercept of the citizens of a country that is hosting US intelligence agencies and USSID 18 prohibits the wire-tapping of US Citizens anywhere in the world or by any entity that is an interest to the US (the UK/NZ/Austrailian agencies). While we depend on the help of other countries, we apply the same rules banning the collection of intelligence on US citizens regardless if we are operating in the UK, or if the UK is acting on our behalf from Germany.
You are not half as important as you think you are. In otherwords, the NSA and the GCHQ have no interest in your mundane life. More importantly, they have no TIME to monitor your stupid phone calls.
His point is he's not a Mac user and doesn't know what he's talking about?
I think there is a bit of contention in this conversation about what the mom meant by her daughter being 13. On one hand, it can be read as, she's only 13 and thus knows nothing about computers. Definitely a stupid argument on the mom's behalf, if this is what she intended. I think, however, that she simply means that kids don't think about computers in terms of "value" in the way a marketing guru like Ballmer does. The mom (and myself included) is simply astonished that Ballmer would use such an out-of-touch defense of the product. I find it to be a disingenious and transparent defense on Ballmer's behalf, although I don't oppose his effort to "sell" his product. I think there are camps on slashdot who just jump in here to bash Microsoft, but I'm certainly not doing that. Then there are camps that do anything to defend Microsoft from the slashdot bashfest. Neither side sees this issue with clarity.
Where Ballmer screwed up was pushing the adult-droid sense of value back in the Mom's face when he could have said, "yes, but doesn't your daughter just love all the cool shiny gadgets that ONLY Vista has to offer? Obviously your daughter liked them, so why go back to Vista?". But instead, we get the feeble quasi-jedi mind tricks of "consumer must see value in Microsoft product" type comments.
As for my son, he got an F for the quarter, so I told him if he brings that up to a B, and keeps all As in the other subjects, I will buy him a video iPod. Of course that elevated to, "if I get straight As, will you buy me an iPhone?". Man, kids these days!
This isn't about me. I've used gadgets. I've been using widgets ever since they've been on the Mac. I like gadgets and widgets. None of this matters, nor was I implying that it did.
There. All better? Can we put this to rest now?
I'm sorry I worded it poorly, but I didn't meant to infer that teens aren't allowed to have their own concept of value. I'm merely stating that children's concept of value does not match up with big corporation executive's concept of value, and it is ridiculous for Mr. Ballmer to spin it as such.
You missed my point entirely. Allow me to clarify. A thirteen-year old child does not understand the term value in the same manner that a 50-something year old Microsoft executive does. That executive, then, is way off base on trying to use that trump card.
I'm saying a teenagers concept of value is incongruent with a mega-corporation's concept of value, because a teenager has no concept of the adult world when it comes to business practices. Of COURSE value is subjective, which was my point in the first place in pointing out why Ballmer is so wrong.
A school I used to work at started handing out faux-Microsoft certifications for kids who where able to figure out the features of Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc. which is kind of scary, since: a) real certifications already exist, and b) they were only demonstrating a mastery of training, but not education. You can train a monkey or a dog, but you can't educate one. Unfortunately, most people, even those in the field of education, equate "training" with "education", mostly because they don't understand technology well enough themselves to push their students beyond the "training" mode.
Hmm, interesting. I read it differently. I read it as, "my daughter is 13 and has no concept of your marketing hype of value." Others, it appear, have read it as, "my daughter is 13 so she can't be expected to know how to use a computer." I guess unless we know what the mother meant by the comment, we won't be able to come to a common agreement.
Well, that's a new definition of trolling to me. It is so painfully obvious that Ballmer is spinning the entire situation by dropping the "value" line. I would have said the same thing if Steve Jobs had done this.
Completely anecdotal, but my best friend (just finished his PhD, since we are talking about highly intelligent people switching away from Windows) switched to all OS X in his household, because in his words: "I've given Microsoft a pass for long enough". This implies that Vista is the "final straw" and not necessarily the worst OS ever.
I'm not saying her opinion doesn't matter or that nobody should listen to her. I'm saying her opinion is not swayed by the "value" nonesene one bit because that is an adult marketing concept heaved in the direction of a teenager.
So you are trying to tell me that my interpretation of the subjective term "value" is not accurate? Are you telling me there is no "value" in the amount of time I save by NOT futzing around with my computer or wasting time responding to nonsensical, unneeded dialogue windows? Wow, I'd hate to live in your household.
What, that might be legal in Kentucky...or somewhere....right? Anyone?
What I WAS trying to do, however, was not sound like an argumentative jerk. I apologize for being too apologetic. (Oh, the irony of that statement).
Back to the bigger point at hand. The reason I don't use MS Windows is because of their heavy reliance on big, sweeping, empty concepts such as "Value". Tell/show me what your product can do, and quit feeding me a bunch of bs marketing terminology.
All Ballmer had to do was apologize to the lady for her one isolated frustrating experience, and chalk it up as an anecdotal problem. Instead, the used-car salesman kicked in and he threw "value" back in the lady's face.
I use exactly one widget in OS-X: a World of Warcraft thingy that looks up stuff for me. I have to admit, it is pretty valuable in the amount of time I save looking for random dudes on huge maps. Then again, I have to question how much "value" there is in the months of my life I've wasted running a little dwarf around the screen ;-)
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm a home Mac user.