Well, I'm not really seeing Microsoft bring anything to the table. It's like they are coming to the Opensource people looking for free freelance work, and having no plans to release anything major in the open source.
I'd be more welcoming of the them if they made one of their major players open source like..Windows, Office and the like.
I think that mindset is from the "gimmee" games that are so easy you never die once. Which produces the impatient gamer. Our society has gotten to a point that it has to be "NOW NOW NOW!" even in gaming where games that have any form of grind or puzzles are a BIG turn off as they don't offer instant gratification.
Just compare Nethack to a game like the modern RPGs. In Nethack, I still haven't exactly figured out what all the buttons do, while in the newer RPGs I find I NEVER have to buy healing potions. Not even for boss battles.
I find it funny, I once sharked Tellah to have more MP than he did and he sure as heck cast it then xD
Anyways... bringing it on topic...
Even those games had some form of puzzle or hidden treasure that you could get by listening to the clues or pushing the boxes.
Let's not forget the modern faire of Etrian Odyssey and their hand drawn maps. So the genre is still alive. Though on that second installment they kinda twinked out a little.
Also maybe make a facebook group "Boycott Scrabble support Scrabulous" or some such. Make people aware that they are supporting such crap when they play the facebook game.
I think the other part "and call other POTS numbers" renders those useless. You would still have to buy minutes or such to call others.
Or so it seems.
Though i think the main thing wrong with Skype is that it uses YOUR computer to process other's conversations and images/files...like maybe...child porn and other nasty stuff.....
Why not offer to be a free Genius Bar or tech support or something like that. If you can do something faster and better than them, that's the ultimate way of trumping them.
Nobody seems to be blaming Microsoft..they seem to be blaming Vista specifically.
Let's face it. Vista is a less than stellar OS, it does crazy things that people don't like..heck DOWNGRADING from it is a FEATURE.
I take that Sandisk also tried their SSDs on XP,OSX and various Linuxes as well and can conclude that they performed to spec. So if I was Sandisk I'd just release the product with a BIG disclaimer "WILL NOT WORK WITH VISTA" and go with it like that.
I think the main problem is the use of seamless installers. YOu have DEBs and RPMs that are supposed to make everything work, however RPM can be a pain to install on Debian and I think the reverse is also true. So you need a standard install method for all flavors first...
Also you need to have dependencies taken care of. No one likes dependency hell. You get a great program and find you can't run it because you don't have stupidprogram2.3 only stupidprogram2.0 however the apt sources only have 2.0 and aren't going to upgrade for another year or so. So you have to compile it...stupidprogram2.3 needs uselessprogram1.4 which also isn't on apt and THAT needs yet another thing. So just apt-get installing something doesn't work either.
Windows had the advantage of having everything already there and if you need an extra program it's usually only.NET or GTK where one install makes lots more things work.
The only problem is that Intel at least will be installed on all new computers at retail with Windows Vista DRM edition and will probably say that it will protect the consumer from bad nasty unwanted stuff...
I think this is the reason why alternate fuels aren't more popular. It's that in order to use them you have to pay a tax, and there is no system to pay that tax. Thus, it is illegal to use that fuel. Also, when thse fuels are taxed, I'm sure they'll be taxed heavily just so Big Oil can make up their profits they'll be losing on people not using gas.
For the people that are like "well the money has to come from somewhere" that's what state income tax and sales tax is for, to pay for public spaces.
Comparing labtop.org to classmatepc.com (Organiation VS Commercial Business) is that the labtop.org is trying to be the best it can be. It's Open source and basically open everything. If the kid wants to program up the next Halo then they can do that with the OLPC, however Intel (And M$) does seem to just want to just cut into the business and give these kids a cheap windowsbox. However we all know that when these M$ boxesneed upgrading, they are going to have to shell out more money for ClassmatePC Vista or whatever.
I'm hoping OLPC is able to knock Intel and M$ out and show the world it's not about getting more consumers, but getting education to more people.
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Well, I'm not really seeing Microsoft bring anything to the table. It's like they are coming to the Opensource people looking for free freelance work, and having no plans to release anything major in the open source. I'd be more welcoming of the them if they made one of their major players open source like..Windows, Office and the like.
I think that mindset is from the "gimmee" games that are so easy you never die once. Which produces the impatient gamer. Our society has gotten to a point that it has to be "NOW NOW NOW!" even in gaming where games that have any form of grind or puzzles are a BIG turn off as they don't offer instant gratification. Just compare Nethack to a game like the modern RPGs. In Nethack, I still haven't exactly figured out what all the buttons do, while in the newer RPGs I find I NEVER have to buy healing potions. Not even for boss battles.
I find it funny, I once sharked Tellah to have more MP than he did and he sure as heck cast it then xD Anyways... bringing it on topic... Even those games had some form of puzzle or hidden treasure that you could get by listening to the clues or pushing the boxes.
Let's not forget the modern faire of Etrian Odyssey and their hand drawn maps. So the genre is still alive. Though on that second installment they kinda twinked out a little.
Also maybe make a facebook group "Boycott Scrabble support Scrabulous" or some such. Make people aware that they are supporting such crap when they play the facebook game.
I think the other part "and call other POTS numbers" renders those useless. You would still have to buy minutes or such to call others. Or so it seems. Though i think the main thing wrong with Skype is that it uses YOUR computer to process other's conversations and images/files...like maybe...child porn and other nasty stuff.....
Why not offer to be a free Genius Bar or tech support or something like that. If you can do something faster and better than them, that's the ultimate way of trumping them.
Nobody seems to be blaming Microsoft..they seem to be blaming Vista specifically. Let's face it. Vista is a less than stellar OS, it does crazy things that people don't like..heck DOWNGRADING from it is a FEATURE. I take that Sandisk also tried their SSDs on XP,OSX and various Linuxes as well and can conclude that they performed to spec. So if I was Sandisk I'd just release the product with a BIG disclaimer "WILL NOT WORK WITH VISTA" and go with it like that.
Every child that was breast fed was purposefully exposed to porn, since we all know naked boobs == porn.
I'm only hoping that openoffice will open all of that junk...nothing like getting a docx that NOBODY can open...
I think the main problem is the use of seamless installers. YOu have DEBs and RPMs that are supposed to make everything work, however RPM can be a pain to install on Debian and I think the reverse is also true. So you need a standard install method for all flavors first... Also you need to have dependencies taken care of. No one likes dependency hell. You get a great program and find you can't run it because you don't have stupidprogram2.3 only stupidprogram2.0 however the apt sources only have 2.0 and aren't going to upgrade for another year or so. So you have to compile it...stupidprogram2.3 needs uselessprogram1.4 which also isn't on apt and THAT needs yet another thing. So just apt-get installing something doesn't work either. Windows had the advantage of having everything already there and if you need an extra program it's usually only .NET or GTK where one install makes lots more things work.
The only problem is that Intel at least will be installed on all new computers at retail with Windows Vista DRM edition and will probably say that it will protect the consumer from bad nasty unwanted stuff...
I think this is the reason why alternate fuels aren't more popular. It's that in order to use them you have to pay a tax, and there is no system to pay that tax. Thus, it is illegal to use that fuel. Also, when thse fuels are taxed, I'm sure they'll be taxed heavily just so Big Oil can make up their profits they'll be losing on people not using gas.
For the people that are like "well the money has to come from somewhere" that's what state income tax and sales tax is for, to pay for public spaces.
Comparing labtop.org to classmatepc.com (Organiation VS Commercial Business) is that the labtop.org is trying to be the best it can be. It's Open source and basically open everything. If the kid wants to program up the next Halo then they can do that with the OLPC, however Intel (And M$) does seem to just want to just cut into the business and give these kids a cheap windowsbox. However we all know that when these M$ boxesneed upgrading, they are going to have to shell out more money for ClassmatePC Vista or whatever.
I'm hoping OLPC is able to knock Intel and M$ out and show the world it's not about getting more consumers, but getting education to more people.