What = installing software automatically, under the radar, without asking. Read the other posts for more detail.
Where is there any maliciousness here?
Didn't say there was. Actually I said the exact opposite. But characterizing it as 'innocent' is just letting Microsoft off the hook too easily. Read what I wrote again if its confusing.
Oh, and it was an honest mistake in the first place, not some horrible malicious act.
Not really buying it. It may not have been some horrible malicious act... but it sure was not some 'innocent mistake.'
Sure, innocent mistakes happen at big companies (like the whole thing with Amazon de-ranking Gay and Lesbian books). But for a company that is a constant target of anti-trust suits, who is notorious for this kind of thing, you think by now that they would be more careful. Its hard to believe that someone internal at Micrsoft didn't realize what was this was doing and just say 'fuck it' - even if it was a low level developer, somebody had to know - at the very least the guy(s) who wrote the code. I mean come on, this took some work to do. Its not like the amazon issue where practically one click of a check box reclassified a whole genre of books... some one had to put finger to keyboard and code this out.
So I think its really really hard to call this an innocent mistake. Maybe not a 'horrible malicious act' but once again they are injecting their shit into other peoples shit.
I do in fact tell that to my email client regularly. It doesn't seem to listen though. The damn thing still refuses show me my new mail until my plane lands in Newark.
Google Gears pretty much takes care of the flaky connection problem
When you can take 'pretty much' out of that sentence, then we are in business.
How does it handle situations like when you are on a plane and and you want to pull up a year old document that you could use as a template for the one you are working on now?
You don't really think local internal storage is more reliable than the cloud?
Yes I do... Well, as I said in my original post ''And by reliability of the cloud, I actually mean reliability of your internet connection''
I am not really saying anything new or different. I am not talking about backups, or long term retention of data, or any of that. My original post was just an acknowledgment that to compete with Microsoft, Google has to have an offline strategy.
There are still plenty of times when I can't access the net: In planes, trains and automobiles. At my parents house. In pretty much all of Vermont. Even at the local Starbucks in the west village in New York Fucking City of all places (they want me to pay for wifi). And very very very rarely my internet goes down at home.
So its not even about unreliable ISPs. Its just that I move around a lot. On one level its not fair to call these 'reliability' issues at all. But on another level, from the perspective of the average Joe, if he can't reliably access his data, then that's a hassle and gives local internal storage a perceived reliability advantage.
But Microsoft people have a good point about the cloud. Forget speed, think about reliability. And by reliability of the cloud, I actually mean reliability of your internet connection.
I think it will be a long time before the internet/cloud can compete with local internal storage. So for Google to compete, cloud features are an awesome additional feature, but to really succeed, I think they need to be able to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft on the desktop without requiring an internet connection.
uhh, to those who might be wondering about the whole dead babies in the eyes thing... yes it was a joke. A sad attempt at 'the lowest form of wit' - ie. sarcasm. Directed at all those who object to any form of stem cell research, embryonic or not.
Yup, I get you. I completely understand why my generalizations would annoy some people (a lot of people). I guess you could call me cynic, but I just feel like in most cases, people care an awful lot about things like pedigree and prestige. So in real world terms, I feel like I made a pretty fair generalization.
In a perfect world, college applicants (and their parents) would think about what the right learning environment is for the student. They would look at which institution will care for and nurture intellectual and personal growth.
And we haven't even started talking about tuition costs. Ivy League is supposed to be need-blind-admission, but I know of a lot of middle class kids who get in but don't qualify for financial assistance. Those kids are in a very tricky middle ground of being neither rich enough nor poor enough to afford the school.
I've certainly known people to apply to more than one school on that list (and get into more than one), so, no, it is not the case that if you get in, you are going to go.
I guess the underlying assumption I made is that Harvard is automatically #1 no matter what, even compared to the other Ivy League and top tier schools. None-the-less, more often than not Harvard is not ranked #1. (oh and sorry to the guy from Yale who replied down below;)
And for the rest of the "top" schools, if you get into more than one, you still probably won't look at the rankings.
I've always wondered about these rankings. If you get into Harvard, aren't you pretty much going to go there, regardless of whether it is 1st, 2nd or 15th on the school rankings. And doesn't the same go with most Ivy League schools, as well as schools like Stanford, MIT, and a few others.
And by extension, it seems likely that these schools get the lions share of the best applicants... again, regardless of their rankings that year. And on top of that, aren't all the best professors trying to get jobs at these schools?
Maybe these rankings are more helpful to deciding where to go to school once you get past the top 20 schools, but based on this news I doubt it.
Microsoft will just have to bribe some rusky official and this will all go away. Sure they will make some noise to make it all seem legit, but in the end this will get resolved in a back room with a nice fat check.
In strictly financial terms, I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing for Apple.
On the one hand exclusivity between iTunes and iPod/phone means you have to have an iPod to use iTunes. More hardware sales for Apple.
On the other hand, opening up iTunes to other popular media players (which technically they do already on a limited basis), means more iTunes Store revenue. Itunes might also be a gateway application to get people to try other Apple hardware. (Some people do actually like iTunes)
A close look at Apple's financials would tell us a lot. I don't care enough about it to go through there 10Ks and 10qs, and they might not even break out the data that you would need, but if they did... you would want to look at where they have the most sales (iPod/iPhone vs. Music/Video downloads). But you would also want to look at profit margin, and factor in growth assumptions for iTunes downloads vs ipod hardware.
so what, another update to Direct X and another batch of video cards that support it. Or partially support some of the features, or 100% all of the key features, but not some others. or some variation on that. Blah blah blah
These smartphone touch based OSs like Android and iPhoneOS bode well for a market segment that just never took off... Tablet Computing.
Bill Gates was a big believer in the Tablet form factor, but it never took off because it used the Windows UI (Start Bar, icons, windows), AND because it basically requires the use of a stylus. Now Bill Gates may be the kind of guy who has his shit together enough to not lose his stylus constantly, but a lot of the rest of us do not. If there is one thing you have to give Apple credit for is realizing that "nobody likes a stylus" and building an OS around touch.
A scaled up iTouch/Android/WebOS style interface on a tablet sized device sounds pretty cool to me. And if you really want a stylus, it should be and optional device, not the default method of input.
Well this knocks off one of the major reasons I was hesitating on getting the Pre.
And lets not just assume Apple will sue. As others have pointed out, Apple does allow other players.
But will movies and TV shows work? (no they are drm protected). Guess I'll have to rely on the Sling app for the Pre, or hopefully a hulu solution.
Call me naive, but I wonder why Hulu would not just embrace Boxee and try to work with them. It would save them all the development time and expense, and still allow them to stream their ads. Why should Hulu care how their content is distributed AS LONG AS they get the ad revenue. And they can still develop their own app if they like.
Slashdot Mirror
Fair enough.
uhhh crap. you said 'honest', not 'innocent' in your original post. global replace that in all my subsequent posts.
Had to know what?
What = installing software automatically, under the radar, without asking. Read the other posts for more detail.
Where is there any maliciousness here?
Didn't say there was. Actually I said the exact opposite. But characterizing it as 'innocent' is just letting Microsoft off the hook too easily. Read what I wrote again if its confusing.
Oh, and it was an honest mistake in the first place, not some horrible malicious act.
Not really buying it. It may not have been some horrible malicious act... but it sure was not some 'innocent mistake.'
Sure, innocent mistakes happen at big companies (like the whole thing with Amazon de-ranking Gay and Lesbian books). But for a company that is a constant target of anti-trust suits, who is notorious for this kind of thing, you think by now that they would be more careful. Its hard to believe that someone internal at Micrsoft didn't realize what was this was doing and just say 'fuck it' - even if it was a low level developer, somebody had to know - at the very least the guy(s) who wrote the code. I mean come on, this took some work to do. Its not like the amazon issue where practically one click of a check box reclassified a whole genre of books... some one had to put finger to keyboard and code this out.
So I think its really really hard to call this an innocent mistake. Maybe not a 'horrible malicious act' but once again they are injecting their shit into other peoples shit.
Yeah, tell that to the email clients...
I do in fact tell that to my email client regularly. It doesn't seem to listen though. The damn thing still refuses show me my new mail until my plane lands in Newark.
Google Gears pretty much takes care of the flaky connection problem
When you can take 'pretty much' out of that sentence, then we are in business.
How does it handle situations like when you are on a plane and and you want to pull up a year old document that you could use as a template for the one you are working on now?
You don't really think local internal storage is more reliable than the cloud?
Yes I do... Well, as I said in my original post ''And by reliability of the cloud, I actually mean reliability of your internet connection''
I am not really saying anything new or different. I am not talking about backups, or long term retention of data, or any of that. My original post was just an acknowledgment that to compete with Microsoft, Google has to have an offline strategy.
There are still plenty of times when I can't access the net: In planes, trains and automobiles. At my parents house. In pretty much all of Vermont. Even at the local Starbucks in the west village in New York Fucking City of all places (they want me to pay for wifi). And very very very rarely my internet goes down at home.
So its not even about unreliable ISPs. Its just that I move around a lot. On one level its not fair to call these 'reliability' issues at all. But on another level, from the perspective of the average Joe, if he can't reliably access his data, then that's a hassle and gives local internal storage a perceived reliability advantage.
I stand corrected. I shall endeavor to more thoroughly proof-read my posts regarding dead babies, the killing of living babies, or both.
But Microsoft people have a good point about the cloud. Forget speed, think about reliability. And by reliability of the cloud, I actually mean reliability of your internet connection.
I think it will be a long time before the internet/cloud can compete with local internal storage. So for Google to compete, cloud features are an awesome additional feature, but to really succeed, I think they need to be able to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft on the desktop without requiring an internet connection.
uhh, to those who might be wondering about the whole dead babies in the eyes thing... yes it was a joke. A sad attempt at 'the lowest form of wit' - ie. sarcasm. Directed at all those who object to any form of stem cell research, embryonic or not.
Yup, I get you. I completely understand why my generalizations would annoy some people (a lot of people). I guess you could call me cynic, but I just feel like in most cases, people care an awful lot about things like pedigree and prestige. So in real world terms, I feel like I made a pretty fair generalization.
In a perfect world, college applicants (and their parents) would think about what the right learning environment is for the student. They would look at which institution will care for and nurture intellectual and personal growth.
And we haven't even started talking about tuition costs. Ivy League is supposed to be need-blind-admission, but I know of a lot of middle class kids who get in but don't qualify for financial assistance. Those kids are in a very tricky middle ground of being neither rich enough nor poor enough to afford the school.
I've certainly known people to apply to more than one school on that list (and get into more than one), so, no, it is not the case that if you get in, you are going to go.
I guess the underlying assumption I made is that Harvard is automatically #1 no matter what, even compared to the other Ivy League and top tier schools. None-the-less, more often than not Harvard is not ranked #1. (oh and sorry to the guy from Yale who replied down below ;)
And for the rest of the "top" schools, if you get into more than one, you still probably won't look at the rankings.
I've always wondered about these rankings. If you get into Harvard, aren't you pretty much going to go there, regardless of whether it is 1st, 2nd or 15th on the school rankings. And doesn't the same go with most Ivy League schools, as well as schools like Stanford, MIT, and a few others.
And by extension, it seems likely that these schools get the lions share of the best applicants... again, regardless of their rankings that year. And on top of that, aren't all the best professors trying to get jobs at these schools?
Maybe these rankings are more helpful to deciding where to go to school once you get past the top 20 schools, but based on this news I doubt it.
What is the world coming to? Now they are killing dead babies and putting them into peoples eyes! The insanity!!!
hmm, I think you checked the wrong persons history... but i forgive you, n00bs are allowed such mistakes.
Normally I don't feed the Trolls, but whats the deal with this post ^^. I have seen it before, word for word. Same exact off-topic rant about linux?
/. reader who has actually saved this text just so he can paste it into slashdot posts? Really? Why?
Is there some
You make a really good point.
Except the part about windows 98 being less than 10 years old...
Microsoft will just have to bribe some rusky official and this will all go away. Sure they will make some noise to make it all seem legit, but in the end this will get resolved in a back room with a nice fat check.
To bad this story is bogus. I was really looking forward to paying money to Hulu AND being forced to watch commercials.
quit your job and let someone else deal with it
In strictly financial terms, I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing for Apple.
On the one hand exclusivity between iTunes and iPod/phone means you have to have an iPod to use iTunes. More hardware sales for Apple.
On the other hand, opening up iTunes to other popular media players (which technically they do already on a limited basis), means more iTunes Store revenue. Itunes might also be a gateway application to get people to try other Apple hardware. (Some people do actually like iTunes)
A close look at Apple's financials would tell us a lot. I don't care enough about it to go through there 10Ks and 10qs, and they might not even break out the data that you would need, but if they did... you would want to look at where they have the most sales (iPod/iPhone vs. Music/Video downloads). But you would also want to look at profit margin, and factor in growth assumptions for iTunes downloads vs ipod hardware.
so what, another update to Direct X and another batch of video cards that support it. Or partially support some of the features, or 100% all of the key features, but not some others. or some variation on that. Blah blah blah
These smartphone touch based OSs like Android and iPhoneOS bode well for a market segment that just never took off... Tablet Computing.
Bill Gates was a big believer in the Tablet form factor, but it never took off because it used the Windows UI (Start Bar, icons, windows), AND because it basically requires the use of a stylus. Now Bill Gates may be the kind of guy who has his shit together enough to not lose his stylus constantly, but a lot of the rest of us do not. If there is one thing you have to give Apple credit for is realizing that "nobody likes a stylus" and building an OS around touch.
A scaled up iTouch/Android/WebOS style interface on a tablet sized device sounds pretty cool to me. And if you really want a stylus, it should be and optional device, not the default method of input.
Well this knocks off one of the major reasons I was hesitating on getting the Pre. And lets not just assume Apple will sue. As others have pointed out, Apple does allow other players. But will movies and TV shows work? (no they are drm protected). Guess I'll have to rely on the Sling app for the Pre, or hopefully a hulu solution.
Call me naive, but I wonder why Hulu would not just embrace Boxee and try to work with them. It would save them all the development time and expense, and still allow them to stream their ads. Why should Hulu care how their content is distributed AS LONG AS they get the ad revenue. And they can still develop their own app if they like.