What do you think would happen if, say, Utah lost proper government for a while and became a place ruled purely by the whims of religious men with absolute power and no desire to let things change?
Isn't this how our current Federal government is organized?
That would be a reasonable reply, except that I'm anything BUT a right-winger. I'm was using generalities, and I don't truck with either party. If you noticed, I made a negative comment about both parties. I think your left-wing defensiveness is turned on a little high.
Are you kidding? I think you're forgetting that they have a better chance with the right-wing side that is soft on large corporations. Liberal Dems are for big government and are harder on big business, so why would MS think a government in that environment would be easy to manipulate?
As an American living in California I'd like to go on record and say that I've only met these "fundies" when I was visiting the 'Southern' states.
As an American living in Ohio (which is in the Mid-West), and not being a "fundie" (as the parent so eloquently put forth), I feel it needs to be said that EVERY state over here has their share of religious zealots.
Yes, even (gasp!) California!
The south may have more people of "Faith", but some of the nuttiest religions came out of places like California. (Can anyone say Scientology?)
Also, I love how teh parent describes the existence of fundamentalists as "I've been told they exists in some large numbers.....". Hehehe.
Next week on Bible Planet: See the native breeding grounds for the rare, and very lethal, CathoJehoBaptologists.
Now don't get me wrong. We have our fair share of religous nutbags here, but for the most part, those that are believers in most mainstream faiths are devout, rather than fanatical. They are just normal (we call them "normies") people who believe in God in one fashion or another.
I, sadly, am not one of them. Honestly, I believe it would be wonderful to have such strong Faith, but I just can't bring myself to do it.
Proof, man. Gotta' have proof. Shame, that.
I do have the utmost respect for many of our down-to-earth spiritual leaders. Just not the nutbags.
If the profits outweigh the cost of the lawsuit...
Ed Norton played a character in Fight Club that worked for a company that used that sort of logic:
"Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."
I am worried if they succeed in pushing this standard, and sites other than Microsoft.com start requiring it
So is it ok that a lot of sites require Flash? Flash is not FOSS. It's binary compiled files.
The flash development tools are very expensive and Adobe is NOT the king of trutworthiness. They are a large company after all. $$ is always the bottom line.
So you have to install another plugin? Who cares? If you have Flash.... Silverlight's not that much different. And it's even more open than Flash, with a rich SDK behind it: Moonlight.
MMORPGs such as WoW are generally designed to be relatively undemanding, to maximise the player-base
Gonna' have to disagree with you there. EVE Online is pretty hard on the resources, especially with the expansion patch that is being rolled out today. The creators of EVE realize that their player-base isn't going to come close to WOW (I think they have only 200,000 registered accounts right now), so the experience is what they go in for. The release going out today, called Trinity, is a completely revemped graphics engine.
Now I know somebody's gonna' say "EVE is nothing like WOW or LOTRO!". True, is caters to the Sci-Fi fan and not the fantasy fan, it is an incredibly beautiful game, requires a lot of patience, has the biggest virtual universe of any other MMO and the average player-age is 27. Not 15.
But it's still an MMO and the creators still rely on the monthly subscriptions from their player-base. So they make the game player-friendly, while at the same time push the limits of many machines vid cards & ram.
We bash corruption. We find it, demonstrate it, expose it, and decry it.
Wow. Fanatical much?
Big Business will do what it wants, when it wants. I agree with you that the current administration has an unrivaled suckage factor. But I seem to remember Microsoft going through lawsuit after lawsuit back during the Billary administration. In fact, in 2000, the freakin' US government sued Microsoft.
Do you see Microsoft changing its ways?
No.
No amount of demonstrating, exposing or decrying will stop the Big Bad from doing pretty much exactly what they want. If they are stalled in one direction, they have enough creative lawyer-types to find another way.
And before you accuse me of anything, my little friend, I agree. Big Biz is evil. Power does indeed corrupt, and that's exactly what I was talking about in my post.
I'm not giving MS the benefit of anything. I was responding to another post, saying that what MS is doing is not that unusual for big business, and Apple could just as easily fall into the same pattern if they were put in the position to do so. I never said it was a GOOD thing, but you can't deny it's better for THEIR bottom-line.
I doubt it. Slashdotters seem to enjoy bashing big-business, regardless of the company. Yes, Apple has a better, cleaner history than Microsoft, but if they started fueling an industry so that something big went their way, you would see a large amount of Apple-bashing on this site. And I'm sure that if put in the right situation, Apple would have no problem doing exactly what MS is doing. It's better for the bottom-line.
It seems to me that Slashdotters are the kind of people that will always root for the underdog. No matter what.
I actually applaud this. This site isn't full of mealy-mouthed yes-men (and women). If we ever need another revolution in the US, I think Slashdotters would instantly join the cause. (from their basements and with their mother's permission, of course)
No seriously. Microsoft doesn't do anything to benefit anyone other than itself. We know that. We've seen that time and time again.
Um....this comment actually fits almost ALL large companies.
Do you honestly think the execs over at Sony think "Hmmm. If we do this, it will benefit our customers, even though we will lose money. I say we think about the people and not our bottom line this year."
No, my friend, parent is not a gullible fool. Every big corporation runs about the same way. What MS is doing is just good business sense. They'll piss a lot of people off, but like any other company, they will rationalize it with thicker wallets at the end of the day.
If any one of us became that big. We'd do the same.
Slashdot Mirror
Guns don't kill people. Chuck Norris kills people.
There. Fixed that for you.
None of these are available from central IT support.
Almost all of them are essential at my accounting firm.
Not today it's not!
That's what is so great about Pi Day!
Just don't eat the flag.
Sounds almost like flying.
And be designed on top of that
There. Fixed that for ya' This is Slashdot, after all.
VERY misleading! Hotmail works for me too! And I'm running IE, Windows Xp Pro and......oh wait. Sorry. Nevermind.
You're actually quite the impressive name-dropper.
Hey! As a native Clevelander, I resent tha.....oh nevermind. *sigh* Can't really argue with you.
Isn't this how our current Federal government is organized?
meh.
That would be a reasonable reply, except that I'm anything BUT a right-winger. I'm was using generalities, and I don't truck with either party. If you noticed, I made a negative comment about both parties. I think your left-wing defensiveness is turned on a little high.
Are you kidding? I think you're forgetting that they have a better chance with the right-wing side that is soft on large corporations. Liberal Dems are for big government and are harder on big business, so why would MS think a government in that environment would be easy to manipulate?
Imp
As an American living in Ohio (which is in the Mid-West), and not being a "fundie" (as the parent so eloquently put forth), I feel it needs to be said that EVERY state over here has their share of religious zealots.
Yes, even (gasp!) California!
The south may have more people of "Faith", but some of the nuttiest religions came out of places like California. (Can anyone say Scientology?)
Also, I love how teh parent describes the existence of fundamentalists as "I've been told they exists in some large numbers.....". Hehehe.
Next week on Bible Planet: See the native breeding grounds for the rare, and very lethal, CathoJehoBaptologists.
Now don't get me wrong. We have our fair share of religous nutbags here, but for the most part, those that are believers in most mainstream faiths are devout, rather than fanatical. They are just normal (we call them "normies") people who believe in God in one fashion or another.
I, sadly, am not one of them. Honestly, I believe it would be wonderful to have such strong Faith, but I just can't bring myself to do it.
Proof, man. Gotta' have proof. Shame, that.
I do have the utmost respect for many of our down-to-earth spiritual leaders. Just not the nutbags.
But I found his post to be well-written, logical and IT MADE ME THINK for a second.
That's insight. To make someone stop and go "Hmmm. That's very interesting.".
I may agree or disagree, but I found the man's insight into the role of a man over his wife's fetus to be well thought out.
"Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."
The flash development tools are very expensive and Adobe is NOT the king of trutworthiness. They are a large company after all. $$ is always the bottom line.
So you have to install another plugin? Who cares? If you have Flash.... Silverlight's not that much different. And it's even more open than Flash, with a rich SDK behind it: Moonlight.
Whoosh!!!!!
Gonna' have to disagree with you there. EVE Online is pretty hard on the resources, especially with the expansion patch that is being rolled out today. The creators of EVE realize that their player-base isn't going to come close to WOW (I think they have only 200,000 registered accounts right now), so the experience is what they go in for. The release going out today, called Trinity, is a completely revemped graphics engine.
Trinity Homepage: http://www.eve-online.com/trinity/index.html.
Now I know somebody's gonna' say "EVE is nothing like WOW or LOTRO!". True, is caters to the Sci-Fi fan and not the fantasy fan, it is an incredibly beautiful game, requires a lot of patience, has the biggest virtual universe of any other MMO and the average player-age is 27. Not 15.
But it's still an MMO and the creators still rely on the monthly subscriptions from their player-base. So they make the game player-friendly, while at the same time push the limits of many machines vid cards & ram.
Wow. Fanatical much?
Big Business will do what it wants, when it wants. I agree with you that the current administration has an unrivaled suckage factor. But I seem to remember Microsoft going through lawsuit after lawsuit back during the Billary administration. In fact, in 2000, the freakin' US government sued Microsoft.
Do you see Microsoft changing its ways?
No.
No amount of demonstrating, exposing or decrying will stop the Big Bad from doing pretty much exactly what they want. If they are stalled in one direction, they have enough creative lawyer-types to find another way.
And before you accuse me of anything, my little friend, I agree. Big Biz is evil. Power does indeed corrupt, and that's exactly what I was talking about in my post.
I'm not giving MS the benefit of anything. I was responding to another post, saying that what MS is doing is not that unusual for big business, and Apple could just as easily fall into the same pattern if they were put in the position to do so. I never said it was a GOOD thing, but you can't deny it's better for THEIR bottom-line.
It seems to me that Slashdotters are the kind of people that will always root for the underdog. No matter what.
I actually applaud this. This site isn't full of mealy-mouthed yes-men (and women). If we ever need another revolution in the US, I think Slashdotters would instantly join the cause. (from their basements and with their mother's permission, of course)
Um....this comment actually fits almost ALL large companies.
Do you honestly think the execs over at Sony think "Hmmm. If we do this, it will benefit our customers, even though we will lose money. I say we think about the people and not our bottom line this year."
No, my friend, parent is not a gullible fool. Every big corporation runs about the same way. What MS is doing is just good business sense. They'll piss a lot of people off, but like any other company, they will rationalize it with thicker wallets at the end of the day.
If any one of us became that big. We'd do the same.
There. Fixed it for you.