office 97 had enough features already. the bloat continues ever forward.
Yes, but you don't understand. Office 97 will no longer be supported by Windows [Version #] and Office [Version #] will not open files from Office 97. Moreover the new computer you got comes with Windows [Version # Home Edition] and you can not install Windows 2000 on it to run Office 97 because the computer won't let you. So, you see, you must now use Windows [Version # Home Edition (or better)] requiring an upgrade to Office [Version #]. New features don't matter because no one knows how to use them anyway. It's all about the upgrade cycle, which somehow we are supposed to embrace, mostly because our clueless coworkers are afraid of OpenOffice and the version of Office they run will not save to ODF by default and, even if you can manage to persuade your clueless coworkers to save in ODF, [Office Version #] will probably save a non-conforming document anyway that purposefully doesn't open correctly in OpenOffice.
No one would go for that because everyone has thoughts that they don't want others to know about. It'd be like if someone invented and sold real x-ray glasses--there'd be a massive public outcry over it and they'd be banned immediately.
Except when they are used in airports to catch terrorists.
when you figure out how to have a human society without the need for police, get back to us. until then, your rant speaks more to your psychological problems than any valid observation of reality
And your response speaks to your inability to read. He didn't say anything about the need for police. He was making the point that police are bureaucrats. Big difference--try reading it again. And if you respond, please include relevant quotes that support your assertions.
First, no one cares about looks. Feel: yes, looks: no. As long as it doesn't *hurt* the eyes (violet letters on a red back ground for example), users don't care that much, especially if it the look is tunable. And don't confuse "hurts" with "ugly" here. Ugly is a matter of taste.
Users do care about performance and they do care about security. But what really gets users to buy operating systems is brand recognition and lock-in. This latter point is probably difficult for you to accept, but deep down you know it's true and I know it's true. And complaining about "lamers" isn't going to make the "linux fanboi" you hate so much ignore that one bit.
Second, I'm amazed that people take the time to be offended by the abbreviation "M$". Really, what's it to you or anyone else? Why devote the energy to acting offended and why does it reduce people like you to childish name calling (a la "douche")? "M$" is a useful abbreviation that differentiates microsoft from multiple sclerosis or a Masters of Science. Hell, if microsoft had any sense, they'd trademark it. The only reason I don't use "M$" is because "lamer douche" abbreviation nazis would mod me down for it.
What do *you* mean "those people"? You aren't even "those people". In fact, I'm not a "those people" and I'm offended at *your* use of "those people". You people!
My first question: what the hell were passwords doing in a.doc?
In the old days (C. 2000), students applied for an account and then the authentication info was mailed to them in hard-copy through the department. I don't know the exact route, but at some point, a secretary was required to create a "merge mail" with the info for the new batch of students each year. You can see how the merge mail database might be a handy document to send another (clueless) secretary if said secretary needed some trivial amount of information that might be in that database.
I was once emailed word file with about 300 student's names, birthdates, social security numbers, and yes, user passwords for their university accounts. It was not encrypted and it was unsolicited--she needed help "opening" it. I promptly encrypted the file, deleted the original from my pop account, and then went to her computer and changed the name to have a ".doc" suffix. She was magically able to open it after that.
These are the people we entrust with our sensitive information.
1) Microsoft does notify you if you actually read the information about what you are downloading.
In the fine print? You know that's BS. How about a dialog that says "do you want to modify your firefox install with our blah blah extension y/n?" You know and I know that fine print on an FF (thanks for explaining the acronym by the way) is not read by end users.
2) Firefox also notifies you when it starts up. If you don't want it just click disable.
Most users don't remember what they installed and think that it was already there so they must have authorized it at some point or maybe that some IT guy did. We are not talking about/. guru-geeks, we are talking about clueless office workers and casual home users--99% of the market.
1) Adobe Acrobat.. Firefox is not an Adobe application !!! [etc]
Adobe Acrobat is not a browser--it is not a competing product. None of the examples you listed are competing products. You can't make the distinction? The crux of the problem is a conflict of interests--and whose interests is MS going to look out for when it installs an extension to a competing product?
But "redneck," when used in an equally hateful way, is okay--and that's not really right.
Redneck isn't so bad. It means your neck is red from working out in the sun all day, like you should be doing. Honky? That's a stupid name. I'm not really felling anything here. If you want to piss off a white dude, don't use it. Cracker? That's a favorite of black comedians and so it's a bit trite. It's probably the closest that comes to being offensive. It comes from "whip crackin'" on the slaves. But there are about as many whip crackers alive today as there are former slaves--so it's anachronistic at best.
But I'll tell you what really can irritate a white dude more than names. It's that anger at white people. Until I moved to LA, I've never seen anything like it. I think it's anger at "the man." I feel it worst from bus drivers. But they really shouldn't exude that anger because if they were to stop and think about it for a minute, they'd realize that *THE MAN* DOESN'T RIDE THE BUS!
BS, but not complete BS. Small differences drive the highly sensitive *UI designer crazy*. 99.9% of end users (the ones that don't program UIs) don't care at all. I've got a multitude of apps running on my OS X box. The native cocoa ones are iTunes, Mail, Terminal, Preview, and Disk Utility. The best UI, though, is probably firefox. I have a scientific program (motif?) running via X-forwarding. It looks fine. No one is going to sweat the details like how wide the scroll buttons are or an off-shade border around a progress bar. Users just don't care.
Here is what is important to an end-user: making buttons and menu items for common tasks easy to find and quick to execute. The other related important consideration is consistency of keyboard shortcuts. I think Adobe sucked at this for a while. Things like font kerning really don't matter to anyone but UI designers.
Seriously Google how hard can it be? Just use GTK, its light, useful and even a weekend coder can use it.
I think you are getting modded flamebait on this one because fans of any other toolkit can say the same thing about their favorite toolkit--of course that isn't really flamebait, but I'm not metamoderating here.
More to the point, Linux UI suffers not from lack of good toolkits but for a lack of standardized metaphors for user actions. I'll give an example of the worst form of lack of standardization: the installation file. There is no standard installation file format in Linux similar to say, for example, the.pkg files of OS X or simply a self installing executable in Windows as one might create with inno setup. To create such a file would take windows manager specific knowledge (e.g. gnome, kde, etc.) and knowledge of myriad other parameters relating to the configuration of the end-user's box.
The multi-Linux distro answer becomes that one must create a behemoth batteries-included executable that makes no assumptions about the end-user's configuration. Installation instructions become: "put this in a bin in your path", and it is further up to the end-user to create a button on the tool bar.
Actually, I feel a rant coming on, so I'll stop for now.
Maybe they had a tip of some home-grown terrorist action planned. Maybe they even stopped one. You don't know. Did you even try to ask?
I've been treading karma thin ice in this thread, but I'll tread some more. Yes. I do ask these questions. And yes, there was a concocted report that has seen some criticism, mostly from the conservative wing. I'm not from the conservative wing, but my inclination is that this report is a thinly veiled excuse for a DHS presence at the tea parties.
Also, the DHS was there and they were not secretive about it. I am not claiming any such secrecy or conspiracy. I am only claiming that the DHS was "apparently" (see my original post on this for usage of that word) dispatched for political intimidation--mild though it may be.
You may propose that they had some legitimate reason to be there that could not be handled by local police. I propose that a couple of cars cruising around is not my idea of (1) sufficient reinforcement, (2) proper use of Federal forces, (3) cognizant of the political undertones of such a presence.
Also, concerning (3) and our interpretation of Federal activities, I live by this rule: assume the worst.
That's a normal police operation, nothing special.
We differ in opinion here. It's normal for local police to patrol demonstrations. It's not normal for Federal police to patrol demonstrations. I find the latter creepy. I would hope most others do too. If this practice is a legacy of the Bush era, I'm still waiting for it to change under Obama. If this is new to the Obama administration, then I'm changing parties.
Now if you claim it was a coincidence, then I can't argue. We are talking about the same administration that flew an ensemble of fighter jets chasing a 747 over NYC a couple of weeks ago.
But right now, it just looks like they were there, no secret conspiracy or anything.
1. I'm not claiming a conspiracy for reasons you have eloquently outlined. 2. DHS was there. 3. There was no reason for DHS to be there except. 4. Intimidation. Now if you think that it was to intimidate "bad guys", then please tell me who these bad guys are of which you speak.
Look, I've got to double reply. Sue me. Take a look at my comments if you want to judge my conspiracy mindedness. You'll see I try to look from both sides of the political fence and reach my own conclusions. And I'll be damned if you see much conspiracy talk there. If you dig enough and know people who went to the tax day tea parties, you will find that DHS was at those parties. There was nothing in the way these parties were organized to warrant its presence--even if you ascribe to the view that they were simply a Fox news put-on.
The DHS was there to do one thing: intimidate. I imagine it had the opposite effect. If you don't get out on July 4, you'll read on July 5 that the parties were measurably bigger than on April 15.
I'm going to a rally myself although I supported and still support Obama/Biden. I will vote that ticket in '12 in all likelihood. (And I'll probably vote HRC in '16.) But The People need to be heard and seen. That's what demonstrations are for--and the people definitely do not need DHS chaperoning their demonstrations.
You linked to a site sponsored by illuminati conspiracy theorists and homeopathic medicine providers.
In this case the source doesn't matter, the picture is genuine. DHS had a presence at the tax day rallies. The pictures taken of DHS were taken by conservatives *attending* the rallies, not by conspiracy theorists. The witnesses I know are rock solid conservatives. They listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Fox news and have voted Republican for 40 years. They gave me pictures of DHS at the rally they went to. It was an Obama bash-a-thon for them. I reveled in explaining that their boy Bush started it. Trust me on this one. Go to a rally on July 4 even if you aren't conservative. You'll see DHS at your favorite spot.
Besides a few token operations to live up to its name, [DHS] focuses almost entirely on getting rid of illegal immigrants. Has nothing to do with security.
Not any more. Why was the DHS at the tax day tea parties in several cities? Here's one example. This is an agency used by the party ruling the executive branch to intimidate supporters of the opposing party. It was used that way under Bush and sadly is apparently used that way under Obama.
"Informed decisions" and "organized results" are somehow corporatespeak?
Perhaps. But 'beyond the traditional search engines' is some BS if I ever heard it. Hint: it's the internet, not a box of cereal. Google won because it was fast and lightweight. Google will continue to win because it is fastest and lightest-weight. No amount of BS is going to change the formula. Even if MS were to create a fast and lightweight search interface, they would weigh it down in no time flat because they couldn't help themselves.
Since my guess is that you work for MS, I'll give you some advice: fast, light weight, and clean. Ring a bell?
How sick would a person have to be to be incapable of disloyalty?
This is a good question. This is also known as asking the wrong question. Please turn in your security credentials now and report to the Division of Thought Alignment for an adjustment.
If yes to any of the above do you want these as officers?
If you threw out everyone who has ever done that one "immoral" thing, you'd have no one left. Everyone makes mistakes. Its even in the bible somewhere--a story about throwing stones (disclaimer: never read the bible). These are officers of a military. They are trained to kill people. Measure the morality of their actions against that fact and you'll find that indulging in something like and extramarital affair is minor by comparison. My only surprise is here is the lack of encryption.
I don't think people picked up on the double entendre. But I'll help. See, "magnetized" can go with "pin" or "box" depending on how you read it. When applied to sewing, we read "magnetized" to go with the box. However, when manually editing bits on a hard drive platter, we read "magnetized" to go with the pin. But I guess it helps if you have done the latter.
Slashdot Mirror
office 97 had enough features already. the bloat continues ever forward.
Yes, but you don't understand. Office 97 will no longer be supported by Windows [Version #] and Office [Version #] will not open files from Office 97. Moreover the new computer you got comes with Windows [Version # Home Edition] and you can not install Windows 2000 on it to run Office 97 because the computer won't let you. So, you see, you must now use Windows [Version # Home Edition (or better)] requiring an upgrade to Office [Version #]. New features don't matter because no one knows how to use them anyway. It's all about the upgrade cycle, which somehow we are supposed to embrace, mostly because our clueless coworkers are afraid of OpenOffice and the version of Office they run will not save to ODF by default and, even if you can manage to persuade your clueless coworkers to save in ODF, [Office Version #] will probably save a non-conforming document anyway that purposefully doesn't open correctly in OpenOffice.
You can't demonstrate you collected results from anybody who was actually any good at maths
I don't think he cares because that isn't one of his claims. He said
people with self-reported higher math skills are more likely to pick that as the correct choice
You can't see the difference so I suspect that you probably do not claim to be good at math.
In case you still aren't getting it, the operative word is claim.
No one would go for that because everyone has thoughts that they don't want others to know about. It'd be like if someone invented and sold real x-ray glasses--there'd be a massive public outcry over it and they'd be banned immediately.
Except when they are used in airports to catch terrorists.
when you figure out how to have a human society without the need for police, get back to us. until then, your rant speaks more to your psychological problems than any valid observation of reality
And your response speaks to your inability to read. He didn't say anything about the need for police. He was making the point that police are bureaucrats. Big difference--try reading it again. And if you respond, please include relevant quotes that support your assertions.
First, no one cares about looks. Feel: yes, looks: no. As long as it doesn't *hurt* the eyes (violet letters on a red back ground for example), users don't care that much, especially if it the look is tunable. And don't confuse "hurts" with "ugly" here. Ugly is a matter of taste.
Users do care about performance and they do care about security. But what really gets users to buy operating systems is brand recognition and lock-in. This latter point is probably difficult for you to accept, but deep down you know it's true and I know it's true. And complaining about "lamers" isn't going to make the "linux fanboi" you hate so much ignore that one bit.
Second, I'm amazed that people take the time to be offended by the abbreviation "M$". Really, what's it to you or anyone else? Why devote the energy to acting offended and why does it reduce people like you to childish name calling (a la "douche")? "M$" is a useful abbreviation that differentiates microsoft from multiple sclerosis or a Masters of Science. Hell, if microsoft had any sense, they'd trademark it. The only reason I don't use "M$" is because "lamer douche" abbreviation nazis would mod me down for it.
Fuck you for saying "those people".
What do *you* mean "those people"? You aren't even "those people". In fact, I'm not a "those people" and I'm offended at *your* use of "those people". You people!
My first question: what the hell were passwords doing in a .doc?
In the old days (C. 2000), students applied for an account and then the authentication info was mailed to them in hard-copy through the department. I don't know the exact route, but at some point, a secretary was required to create a "merge mail" with the info for the new batch of students each year. You can see how the merge mail database might be a handy document to send another (clueless) secretary if said secretary needed some trivial amount of information that might be in that database.
I'm sure this kind of stuff still goes on.
I was once emailed word file with about 300 student's names, birthdates, social security numbers, and yes, user passwords for their university accounts. It was not encrypted and it was unsolicited--she needed help "opening" it. I promptly encrypted the file, deleted the original from my pop account, and then went to her computer and changed the name to have a ".doc" suffix. She was magically able to open it after that.
These are the people we entrust with our sensitive information.
1) Microsoft does notify you if you actually read the information about what you are downloading.
In the fine print? You know that's BS. How about a dialog that says "do you want to modify your firefox install with our blah blah extension y/n?" You know and I know that fine print on an FF (thanks for explaining the acronym by the way) is not read by end users.
2) Firefox also notifies you when it starts up. If you don't want it just click disable.
Most users don't remember what they installed and think that it was already there so they must have authorized it at some point or maybe that some IT guy did. We are not talking about /. guru-geeks, we are talking about clueless office workers and casual home users--99% of the market.
1) Adobe Acrobat .. Firefox is not an Adobe application !!! [etc]
Adobe Acrobat is not a browser--it is not a competing product. None of the examples you listed are competing products. You can't make the distinction? The crux of the problem is a conflict of interests--and whose interests is MS going to look out for when it installs an extension to a competing product?
But "redneck," when used in an equally hateful way, is okay--and that's not really right.
Redneck isn't so bad. It means your neck is red from working out in the sun all day, like you should be doing. Honky? That's a stupid name. I'm not really felling anything here. If you want to piss off a white dude, don't use it. Cracker? That's a favorite of black comedians and so it's a bit trite. It's probably the closest that comes to being offensive. It comes from "whip crackin'" on the slaves. But there are about as many whip crackers alive today as there are former slaves--so it's anachronistic at best.
But I'll tell you what really can irritate a white dude more than names. It's that anger at white people. Until I moved to LA, I've never seen anything like it. I think it's anger at "the man." I feel it worst from bus drivers. But they really shouldn't exude that anger because if they were to stop and think about it for a minute, they'd realize that *THE MAN* DOESN'T RIDE THE BUS!
Small differences drive you crazy.
BS.
BS, but not complete BS. Small differences drive the highly sensitive *UI designer crazy*. 99.9% of end users (the ones that don't program UIs) don't care at all. I've got a multitude of apps running on my OS X box. The native cocoa ones are iTunes, Mail, Terminal, Preview, and Disk Utility. The best UI, though, is probably firefox. I have a scientific program (motif?) running via X-forwarding. It looks fine. No one is going to sweat the details like how wide the scroll buttons are or an off-shade border around a progress bar. Users just don't care.
Here is what is important to an end-user: making buttons and menu items for common tasks easy to find and quick to execute. The other related important consideration is consistency of keyboard shortcuts. I think Adobe sucked at this for a while. Things like font kerning really don't matter to anyone but UI designers.
Seriously Google how hard can it be? Just use GTK, its light, useful and even a weekend coder can use it.
I think you are getting modded flamebait on this one because fans of any other toolkit can say the same thing about their favorite toolkit--of course that isn't really flamebait, but I'm not metamoderating here.
More to the point, Linux UI suffers not from lack of good toolkits but for a lack of standardized metaphors for user actions. I'll give an example of the worst form of lack of standardization: the installation file. There is no standard installation file format in Linux similar to say, for example, the .pkg files of OS X or simply a self installing executable in Windows as one might create with inno setup. To create such a file would take windows manager specific knowledge (e.g. gnome, kde, etc.) and knowledge of myriad other parameters relating to the configuration of the end-user's box.
The multi-Linux distro answer becomes that one must create a behemoth batteries-included executable that makes no assumptions about the end-user's configuration. Installation instructions become: "put this in a bin in your path", and it is further up to the end-user to create a button on the tool bar.
Actually, I feel a rant coming on, so I'll stop for now.
I'm assuming most people here won't have a problem with this research. But truly, where is the line?
Soylent Green. The line is at Soylent Green. Be afraid.
Speaking of Art, here is some cool FoxP2 Art: http://www.foxp2.org/
Maybe they had a tip of some home-grown terrorist action planned. Maybe they even stopped one. You don't know. Did you even try to ask?
I've been treading karma thin ice in this thread, but I'll tread some more. Yes. I do ask these questions. And yes, there was a concocted report that has seen some criticism, mostly from the conservative wing. I'm not from the conservative wing, but my inclination is that this report is a thinly veiled excuse for a DHS presence at the tea parties.
Also, the DHS was there and they were not secretive about it. I am not claiming any such secrecy or conspiracy. I am only claiming that the DHS was "apparently" (see my original post on this for usage of that word) dispatched for political intimidation--mild though it may be.
You may propose that they had some legitimate reason to be there that could not be handled by local police. I propose that a couple of cars cruising around is not my idea of (1) sufficient reinforcement, (2) proper use of Federal forces, (3) cognizant of the political undertones of such a presence.
Also, concerning (3) and our interpretation of Federal activities, I live by this rule: assume the worst.
That's a normal police operation, nothing special.
We differ in opinion here. It's normal for local police to patrol demonstrations. It's not normal for Federal police to patrol demonstrations. I find the latter creepy. I would hope most others do too. If this practice is a legacy of the Bush era, I'm still waiting for it to change under Obama. If this is new to the Obama administration, then I'm changing parties.
Now if you claim it was a coincidence, then I can't argue. We are talking about the same administration that flew an ensemble of fighter jets chasing a 747 over NYC a couple of weeks ago.
Because police often show up at rallies.
Because municipal police often show up at rallies.
Corrected that for you.
But right now, it just looks like they were there, no secret conspiracy or anything.
1. I'm not claiming a conspiracy for reasons you have eloquently outlined. 2. DHS was there. 3. There was no reason for DHS to be there except. 4. Intimidation. Now if you think that it was to intimidate "bad guys", then please tell me who these bad guys are of which you speak.
Look, I've got to double reply. Sue me. Take a look at my comments if you want to judge my conspiracy mindedness. You'll see I try to look from both sides of the political fence and reach my own conclusions. And I'll be damned if you see much conspiracy talk there. If you dig enough and know people who went to the tax day tea parties, you will find that DHS was at those parties. There was nothing in the way these parties were organized to warrant its presence--even if you ascribe to the view that they were simply a Fox news put-on.
The DHS was there to do one thing: intimidate. I imagine it had the opposite effect. If you don't get out on July 4, you'll read on July 5 that the parties were measurably bigger than on April 15.
I'm going to a rally myself although I supported and still support Obama/Biden. I will vote that ticket in '12 in all likelihood. (And I'll probably vote HRC in '16.) But The People need to be heard and seen. That's what demonstrations are for--and the people definitely do not need DHS chaperoning their demonstrations.
You linked to a site sponsored by illuminati conspiracy theorists and homeopathic medicine providers.
In this case the source doesn't matter, the picture is genuine. DHS had a presence at the tax day rallies. The pictures taken of DHS were taken by conservatives *attending* the rallies, not by conspiracy theorists. The witnesses I know are rock solid conservatives. They listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Fox news and have voted Republican for 40 years. They gave me pictures of DHS at the rally they went to. It was an Obama bash-a-thon for them. I reveled in explaining that their boy Bush started it. Trust me on this one. Go to a rally on July 4 even if you aren't conservative. You'll see DHS at your favorite spot.
Besides a few token operations to live up to its name, [DHS] focuses almost entirely on getting rid of illegal immigrants. Has nothing to do with security.
Not any more. Why was the DHS at the tax day tea parties in several cities? Here's one example. This is an agency used by the party ruling the executive branch to intimidate supporters of the opposing party. It was used that way under Bush and sadly is apparently used that way under Obama.
"Informed decisions" and "organized results" are somehow corporatespeak?
Perhaps. But 'beyond the traditional search engines' is some BS if I ever heard it. Hint: it's the internet, not a box of cereal. Google won because it was fast and lightweight. Google will continue to win because it is fastest and lightest-weight. No amount of BS is going to change the formula. Even if MS were to create a fast and lightweight search interface, they would weigh it down in no time flat because they couldn't help themselves.
Since my guess is that you work for MS, I'll give you some advice: fast, light weight, and clean. Ring a bell?
How sick would a person have to be to be incapable of disloyalty?
This is a good question. This is also known as asking the wrong question. Please turn in your security credentials now and report to the Division of Thought Alignment for an adjustment.
If yes to any of the above do you want these as officers?
If you threw out everyone who has ever done that one "immoral" thing, you'd have no one left. Everyone makes mistakes. Its even in the bible somewhere--a story about throwing stones (disclaimer: never read the bible). These are officers of a military. They are trained to kill people. Measure the morality of their actions against that fact and you'll find that indulging in something like and extramarital affair is minor by comparison. My only surprise is here is the lack of encryption.
magnetized-pin-box
I don't think people picked up on the double entendre. But I'll help. See, "magnetized" can go with "pin" or "box" depending on how you read it. When applied to sewing, we read "magnetized" to go with the box. However, when manually editing bits on a hard drive platter, we read "magnetized" to go with the pin. But I guess it helps if you have done the latter.