It's vivid, simple, easy to adapt to other scenarios, as you've demonstrated -- and, it fits with the terminology I already use for the act of installing Windows.
The same researcher last week outlined a batch of additional vulnerabilities in HP and Compaq laptops, for which HP later issued patches."
OK, I admit, you didn't say "batch" in the context I'm about to use it, but bear with me. What these automatic update programs do is simple enough to put in a batch file. A small one. With a decent man page, I mean README.txt file, even mega-dolt users could get all their updates on schedule, including programs and parts they haven't purchased yet. The marginal improvement in convenience was never worth the effort it took to put basic functions under control of a GUI. When those same marginal improvements in convenience also make the purchaser vulnerable to infiltration, or even simplY vandalism "only" requiring a re-install, it's time for a grown-up computer with an actual operating system, structurally distinct from its bundled web browser.
Measurable field data exists, and native speakers of English, in context, are now using the word "brick" to mean precisely what you are all claiming it cannot mean.
Good point. What's more, if all speakers of Standard American English coordinate introduction of one slang term to the lexicon, "slanglish," it will remove the ambiguity of meanings of words in English by re-assigning those to the subset it really is, "slanglish."
dis: 1. prefix 2. meaningless noise 3. see "slanglish" dictionary
bling: 1. meaningless noise 2. see "slanglish" dictionary
Let's not forget that before the nutcase currently in the White House, the term was "Centrist," not "conventional," and the same trait was considered a good approach to politics, because then no particular form of extremism is imposed on anybody. The average is always boring, and chosen by most, but the important thing is what is not imposed, and increasing that.
Most people don't seem to compare the magnitudes of current memory requirements against previous ones, notice that the ratio is ~100,000 from Vista to 3.11, and go "Hmm."
For a new computer user I am tempted to say XP, but they know nothing, so they have to learn at the beginning of any OS that they use. If you are learning from scratch you might as well learn the latest generation that is going to be around for a while, so new users should choose Vista over XP. (Yes it's painful) If you know windows you should wait till the latest generation gets a little older and more stable.
The public skipped WinMe, and they should skip Vista, for very similar reasons, which the phrase "polished turd" describes succinctly.
The First Amendment does not apply to these things any more than it would protect a kidnapper who gives the excuse "I just wanted to talk to her." You cannot legally force others to listen to you. If you want me to listen to what you say, you must say something that is interesting to me. Advertising might not cut it. Tough luck.
Do the voices tell you to do things?
If they instruct you to spend money on any passive form of entertainment, you can rest assured that it's "only" advertising.
If they instruct you to be proactive in any way, they are probably something even more malign than advertisements. But now all the nuts who thought they were hearing voices can now reasonably wonder whether some waste of skin pilfered one of these devices from the assembly line and is fucking around.
A frequency is inaudible to humans if it does not set the eardrums vibrating, but I wonder about vibrations of other parts of the body. It would depend, of course, on the frequency used. But 100dB is a non-negligible amount of physical energy; my guess is that residents near these things will have disproportionate numbers of headaches and other pain that isn't easily diagnosed. I hope somebody does as you says, and furthermore that they sue the manufacturer for reckless endangerment, and bankrupt it.
Most of the posts here simply ignore the "sexual selection" part of the evolution. This doesn't make sense, since this could be the 60% of all the reasons for human evolution. In Darwin's work, sexual selection is side by side with "survival of the fittest", but after that it kind of gets ignored, at least until last 20 years.
I agree with that observation. What say you of the hypothesis that the cause of same is the number of two-legged primates whose response to knowledge of the phenomenon "sexual selection" is anxiety vis-a-vis their own fitness?
First argument for my hypothesis: VIAGRA!
Human intelligence is basically shaped by sexual selection. Humas/monkeys survived just fine without super intelligence. Human brain is basically a giant sexual ornament, analog to peacock's tail. Many aspects of human intelligence like humor, music, language are a result of sexual selection. "Survival of the fittest" can explain none of those traits.
"Fitness" implies some purpose, but does not specify what that purpose is.
There is no need to standardize what are already de facto standards. Somebody above really summed up the problems that html specs seek to reduce with the phrase "proprietary pet projects."
I tried to install Tomcat the other day for a rehosting consulting job I was tasked with.
The initial part of the install went fine, though the documentation seems to be written by someone from another planet. Very strange verb tenses, grammar, poor train of thought throughout (very jumpy).
Anyway, after I got Tomcat up and running, I realized I needed a connector to hook it into Apache. The docs were kind of sketchy on this (yes, they brought it up, but not in an organized, linear manner. It's like the docs are a stream of consciousness effort).
If you need to be led like a cocker spaniel through the installation of the core applications necessary for a Java web server, what expertise are you expecting to be paid for? Is $40-$100 for a printed manual too onerous?
It would be, if Coke had an 80--90% market share in both the vending machine and soda markets.
If 80%-90% of the market wanted Coke, what would give the remaining 10%-20% of the market the right to demand that our favorite sodas be sold, in Coca-Cola's vending machines?
Hold it right there. I can state unequivocally, from personal experience of both, that switching to Linux is far less disruptive to health than substantial disruption of my standard sleep cycle. That is a completely inappropriate analogy for the time spent learning something new. People do not die or go insane from learning to use a new product. Substantial disruptions of sleep cycle are known to have severe effects on health, far beyond mere inconvenience. Totally inappropriate comparison.
There's also alternatives to the 8/16-hour sleep cycle, but they're just not viable to the general populace. It's the choices of those people.
Secondly, the implication that the inconvenience -- however great -- of switching operating systems somehow grants you the right to do other than accept the trade-offs of a competitor's product or settle for what you have, is offensive and overtly communist. It is not my job, or Bill Gates', Steve Ballmer's, or even Steve Jobs' job to make anything "viable" to you, nor to anybody else. There are trade-offs in free market competition, as in the rest of life. Granted that there is some learning curve in adopting a new operating system -- be it the next version from the same vendor or the product of a competitor -- such does not justify any counterargument to the very valid observation you attempted to refute:
We may not *know* it till then, but it might exist nonetheless. For instance, maybe OS X and Linux don't have a real chance of displacing Microsoft in the OS market, but are they effective competition? By that I mean that they are viable alternatives.
Judge Jackson specifically said they weren't. Think about the implications of this. It says that people really have no choice. And yet there are plenty of people reading this thread who have chosen to use these products instead of Windows. I don't see why this isn't competition.
2) Disallow "Exclusivity" clauses in OEM contracts. OEMS should be allowed to sell whatever OS they care to without penalty.
I am not a lawyer or legal expert, and the following analysis is based on various un-cited sources, including hearsay.
As I understand it, contract law theory & tradition already require that terms of any contract which would nullify the inalienable rights of any party be treated as unenforceable. It seems obvious to me that "Exclusivity" clauses in OEM contracts would nullify the OEMs' property rights, and thus be unenforceable, should any OEM try to exercise their legal right to do business with as many partners as they are willing & able. Evidently, this question has not been raised between the two parties involved. The right to do business with other software houses should not be forced on OEMs if they don't want it, any more than MacOS, and its cost, should be forced on consumers who don't want it.
1) Disallow Volume Discounts to OEMS. A standard price for Windows for all.
I think that would infringe on legitimate property rights of Microsoft, and her partners. I agree that company is a problem, but it should be remedied within respect for their legitimate rights.
3) Stop hiding the cost of Windows in the price of the PC. The PC hardware should be offered at $X and the purchaser then offered a selection of OS and support options to choose from.
I expect the OEMs already have the right, according to common law & contract precedent, but do not have sufficient market incentive to exercise that right. Until exercise of such right is profitable to them, ie until they are motivated to do so by pursuit of happiness, who are you & me to force that upon them?
4) Force MS to adopted accepted industry standards and disallow the use of proprietary protocols and formats which are designed solely as a means to lock in users to the Microsoft platform.
Microsoft effectively defines "accepted industry standards," due to the percentage of the percentage of the industry that adopts whatever Microsoft ships. The goal of defining and implementing standards such as http 4.0 is one I would appreciate, but to be effective, we would need to define standards based on some stricter professional criteria than what is standard in the industry. What those should be exactly I don't know, but things like the ability to function without any particular third-party compiler, framework or run-time environment is my first inclination.
Do these things and Microsoft's "monopoly" would disappear within a couple of years.
I disagree. Your wish list does not include the implementation of strict standards within the market itself, so the market will continue to reward the same lack of underlying quality as it has since the micro-computer was introduced to consumers ~20 years ago. The root of the problem is not Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer or the combination of the two, as little as I like those two fiends. The root of the problem is a market that collectively doesn't care how the computer works, and in fact vehemently believes it must not be bothered to know, or care, how the computer works, but retain the right to regulate the workings of the computer.
My argument is not unrealistic, ivory tower intellectualism. Regulation of the economy and of particular industries do not accomplish their stated purposes -- cannot, in fact, accomplish their stated purposes -- because the market, which is always the root cause, remains free, and continues to exercise that freedom according to the same standards of quality, or lack of same standards, that caused each particular problem in whatever industry the public sets out to regulate, at any given time. In light of all that, I consider the prosecution of Microsoft to be largely a waste of tax money, based mostly on good intentions, but doomed ultimately to abject failure.
Even if the laptops need to be given away at first, a successful distribution in a country will show other countries what they get for their money. Time for slashdotters to get off our complacent, omni-whining asses and stop complaining about "the big guys" and =DO= something. If you can afford it, GO GET ONE.
Which is exactly the problem. The OLPC program wants children to have access to computers for educational uses. Microsoft and Intel want to make money, which they will likely not be able to do in the long run, at the prices the XO goes for. Which means that their best bet is to run it out of town then hike prices and leave out a big segment of the society. But those people don't really count as they don't have money.
A problem with that analysis is that the costs of the OLPC alone are insufficient to drive any of these corporate sponsors out of business before the Sun burns out.
Recently, we have captured quite a few of the foreign insurgents and they claim that unemployment is the reason they started fighting against America.
I guess that's not really so surprising. Unemployment is routinely cited in local sociological studies as strongly correlated to violence. Why should it be any different anywhere else?
After considering your perspective, I can begin to hold some hope that Iraq will eventually emerge from this chaos as well as Japan and Germany did from WW2. If we manage to not elect any more neo-con dufuses.
Once you start down the off-topic path, forever will it rule your destiny. Consume you it will. Or something like that.
Speaking of other countries where obesity is becoming a problem, I read somewhere not very long ago (in geological terms, anyway) that the first known civilization to show evidence of cardiac illness was Egypt, which was also the first to harvest grain and make beer. Long story short, white flour and simple carbohydrates have a higher ratio of empty calories to nutrient than just about anything else. So, unless you eat them in ridiculous quantities or eat something else, they won't nourish you very well. Pastry and liquor turn out to be the bane of humanity. Who's surprised?
With my respectable knowledge of DNS, I still declare BIND to be overcomplicated and in need of a redesign. Much like all the other big Linux apps, it consists of immensely useful functionality wrapped in a baroque layer of crud. How can someone spend so much effort writing an excellent feature set, then hide it away beneath poorly-documented interfaces that even the developers don't consistently understand ? It's a cop-out.
This is just unfathomable to me. You're talking about open source software there. Do you not see the logical flaw in your complaint?
Slashdot Mirror
It's vivid, simple, easy to adapt to other scenarios, as you've demonstrated -- and, it fits with the terminology I already use for the act of installing Windows.
dis: 1. prefix 2. meaningless noise 3. see "slanglish" dictionary
bling: 1. meaningless noise 2. see "slanglish" dictionary
How do those field data measure?
"utterly conventional"
Let's not forget that before the nutcase currently in the White House, the term was "Centrist," not "conventional," and the same trait was considered a good approach to politics, because then no particular form of extremism is imposed on anybody. The average is always boring, and chosen by most, but the important thing is what is not imposed, and increasing that.
Most people don't seem to compare the magnitudes of current memory requirements against previous ones, notice that the ratio is ~100,000 from Vista to 3.11, and go "Hmm."
The First Amendment does not apply to these things any more than it would protect a kidnapper who gives the excuse "I just wanted to talk to her." You cannot legally force others to listen to you. If you want me to listen to what you say, you must say something that is interesting to me. Advertising might not cut it. Tough luck.
Do the voices tell you to do things? If they instruct you to spend money on any passive form of entertainment, you can rest assured that it's "only" advertising. If they instruct you to be proactive in any way, they are probably something even more malign than advertisements. But now all the nuts who thought they were hearing voices can now reasonably wonder whether some waste of skin pilfered one of these devices from the assembly line and is fucking around.
A frequency is inaudible to humans if it does not set the eardrums vibrating, but I wonder about vibrations of other parts of the body. It would depend, of course, on the frequency used. But 100dB is a non-negligible amount of physical energy; my guess is that residents near these things will have disproportionate numbers of headaches and other pain that isn't easily diagnosed. I hope somebody does as you says, and furthermore that they sue the manufacturer for reckless endangerment, and bankrupt it.
First argument for my hypothesis: VIAGRA! "Fitness" implies some purpose, but does not specify what that purpose is.
LOL!
There is no need to standardize what are already de facto standards. Somebody above really summed up the problems that html specs seek to reduce with the phrase "proprietary pet projects."
Too obvious.
What specific observations?
I am not a lawyer or legal expert, and the following analysis is based on various un-cited sources, including hearsay.
As I understand it, contract law theory & tradition already require that terms of any contract which would nullify the inalienable rights of any party be treated as unenforceable. It seems obvious to me that "Exclusivity" clauses in OEM contracts would nullify the OEMs' property rights, and thus be unenforceable, should any OEM try to exercise their legal right to do business with as many partners as they are willing & able. Evidently, this question has not been raised between the two parties involved. The right to do business with other software houses should not be forced on OEMs if they don't want it, any more than MacOS, and its cost, should be forced on consumers who don't want it.
I think that would infringe on legitimate property rights of Microsoft, and her partners. I agree that company is a problem, but it should be remedied within respect for their legitimate rights.
I expect the OEMs already have the right, according to common law & contract precedent, but do not have sufficient market incentive to exercise that right. Until exercise of such right is profitable to them, ie until they are motivated to do so by pursuit of happiness, who are you & me to force that upon them?
Microsoft effectively defines "accepted industry standards," due to the percentage of the percentage of the industry that adopts whatever Microsoft ships. The goal of defining and implementing standards such as http 4.0 is one I would appreciate, but to be effective, we would need to define standards based on some stricter professional criteria than what is standard in the industry. What those should be exactly I don't know, but things like the ability to function without any particular third-party compiler, framework or run-time environment is my first inclination.
I disagree. Your wish list does not include the implementation of strict standards within the market itself, so the market will continue to reward the same lack of underlying quality as it has since the micro-computer was introduced to consumers ~20 years ago. The root of the problem is not Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer or the combination of the two, as little as I like those two fiends. The root of the problem is a market that collectively doesn't care how the computer works, and in fact vehemently believes it must not be bothered to know, or care, how the computer works, but retain the right to regulate the workings of the computer.
My argument is not unrealistic, ivory tower intellectualism. Regulation of the economy and of particular industries do not accomplish their stated purposes -- cannot, in fact, accomplish their stated purposes -- because the market, which is always the root cause, remains free, and continues to exercise that freedom according to the same standards of quality, or lack of same standards, that caused each particular problem in whatever industry the public sets out to regulate, at any given time. In light of all that, I consider the prosecution of Microsoft to be largely a waste of tax money, based mostly on good intentions, but doomed ultimately to abject failure.
After considering your perspective, I can begin to hold some hope that Iraq will eventually emerge from this chaos as well as Japan and Germany did from WW2. If we manage to not elect any more neo-con dufuses.
Once you start down the off-topic path, forever will it rule your destiny. Consume you it will. Or something like that.
Speaking of other countries where obesity is becoming a problem, I read somewhere not very long ago (in geological terms, anyway) that the first known civilization to show evidence of cardiac illness was Egypt, which was also the first to harvest grain and make beer. Long story short, white flour and simple carbohydrates have a higher ratio of empty calories to nutrient than just about anything else. So, unless you eat them in ridiculous quantities or eat something else, they won't nourish you very well. Pastry and liquor turn out to be the bane of humanity. Who's surprised?