When you've got literally millions of reporters all out there reporting, and almost that many with decently high-end cameras taking decent photos...it sortof becomes unnecessary to throw Dan Rather on a jet.
For some reason I read that last part as "becomes unnecessary to throw Dan Rather off a jet", and my next thought was "Hey, I'd pay to see that".
...did you even read the part of the summary where it says that, after replacing the DLL, Windows locked them out of their own Local Settings folder? As in, would not let them modify their own files?
Erm, I hate sticking up for Microsoft here, I really do. But you're forgetting that Microsoft doesn't rely entirely on it's OS to make money: it also has its Office suite. And if you think Excel and PowerPoint are inferior to their open-source alternatives, you're insane.
So, even if everybody were to switch to Mac or Linux overnight, Microsoft would still be able to make money. (at least until OpenOffice finally catches up)
That may have been true before, when he was an actual lawyer. Not anymore, though.
Nobody's going to listen to the talking head introduced as "Jack Thompson: Disbarred Lawyer" who wasn't already convinced that video games are evil incarnate.
I have calculated that there is almost no chance of money spontaneously raining out of the sky above me. However, I was drunk when I made those calculations, so they are most certainly wrong.
I didn't mention market share, and it doesn't matter whether they follow through on the threat. My point was that companies are using Linux as a way to force Microsoft to lower their prices, leading to a decline in Microsoft's income.
Dwarfed by Microsoft's market share or not, Linux certainly has a hand in Microsoft's decline. Want to guess how many times companies have used "We're considering migrating to Linux" as a way to force Microsoft to lower its price?
Microsoft paid 10000 people for 5 years to produce Vista. So, while Vista is definitely selling and producing revenue, what I want to know is whether they've made back the money they invested. If not, it's a failure in every sense of the word.
And, just to be a nitpick the revenue stats, we're not counting the sales of Vista licenses where XP was installed instead.
I'm willing to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt for now, because it hasn't yet tried to wipe its collective ass with the Constitution.
As long as we're complaining about the UI, I may as well add my own from my (brief) experience of Vista via my brother's laptop: Why do I have to dick around 3 menus deep to change my wireless network? Not to mention how hard it is to get to the IP address settings.
Oh, and one core of his dual-core laptop was being entirely consumed by the print spool process trying to print to a disconnected printer. To fix it, I had to boot into safe mode and delete an obscure file in an obscure directory deep within the bowels of c:\windows. Linux had never looked so simple.
I don't know about you, but my newspapers constantly have articles on how the schools have no budget and the teachers are poor and the buildings are falling apart and yadda yadda yadda. You'd think they'd jump at a chance to save some cash, no matter how little.
I put Microsoft's continued dominance down to momentum ("everybody uses Microsoft products") and fear ("if I decide to save some cash by moving from Windows to Linux, but the migration fails, we'll be out a lot of time and money and I'll be out on the street").
Yeah, having DRM on your system allows you to play DRM'd media, but only if the providers of that media think you paid for it. And you're trying to play it with approved software. And you don't try making a backup. And you don't have any programs installed that they don't like. And their DRM code isn't buggy. That's control, all right, but the one in control sure ain't you.
Even cooler/stranger, the virtual particle that goes into the black hole effectively has negative energy, so the black hole loses mass each time it consumes one.
Sadly, I'll have to dispel that "black hole consumes enough matter and then explodes" theory. For something (like a particle in that sort of explosion) to escape a black hole, it would have to travel faster than light. Accelerating a particle to/above the speed of light requires an infinite amount of energy, so there simply isn't enough energy in the black hole (or the universe) to make the black hole explode.
There are theories that within each black hole is a universe all to itself, but even if it's true we'd never be able to observe it.
People often choose bad passwords in spite of good password policies, i.e. just because you make them use a 10 character combination of letters/numbers/symbols doesn't mean they won't choose a password that's easy to guess (Passw0rd!!).
Thanks a lot, jerk. Now I'll have to change my password after you leaked it all over the net.
As someone who occasionally gets called to rid my neighbors' computers of malware, I've come to realize just how profitable a computer repair business could be. If I wasn't around, they'd be taking their PCs to Geek Squad and paying $100 to have their computer formatted, or just buying a new computer altogether.
Computers that work as intended and don't get infected make for a poor computer-repair business.
Slashdot Mirror
When you've got literally millions of reporters all out there reporting, and almost that many with decently high-end cameras taking decent photos...it sortof becomes unnecessary to throw Dan Rather on a jet.
For some reason I read that last part as "becomes unnecessary to throw Dan Rather off a jet", and my next thought was "Hey, I'd pay to see that".
...did you even read the part of the summary where it says that, after replacing the DLL, Windows locked them out of their own Local Settings folder? As in, would not let them modify their own files?
Erm, I hate sticking up for Microsoft here, I really do. But you're forgetting that Microsoft doesn't rely entirely on it's OS to make money: it also has its Office suite. And if you think Excel and PowerPoint are inferior to their open-source alternatives, you're insane.
So, even if everybody were to switch to Mac or Linux overnight, Microsoft would still be able to make money.
(at least until OpenOffice finally catches up)
Perhaps, but somehow I doubt social engineering would be able to affect 475 computers as easily when they're using a non-Windows OS.
The difference is that MacOS is made solely by Apple, which is a company, and can therefore be killed. Linux can't.
That may have been true before, when he was an actual lawyer. Not anymore, though.
Nobody's going to listen to the talking head introduced as "Jack Thompson: Disbarred Lawyer" who wasn't already convinced that video games are evil incarnate.
Because, in Unix terms, the applications are all horribly written and want to store your personal settings in /etc
I have calculated that there is almost no chance of money spontaneously raining out of the sky above me. However, I was drunk when I made those calculations, so they are most certainly wrong.
*waits expectantly*
To me, that sounds more like nostalgia than karma.
Not to worry, our flag lapel pin factories have all been moved to China. Freedom is safe for another day!
I didn't mention market share, and it doesn't matter whether they follow through on the threat. My point was that companies are using Linux as a way to force Microsoft to lower their prices, leading to a decline in Microsoft's income.
Dwarfed by Microsoft's market share or not, Linux certainly has a hand in Microsoft's decline. Want to guess how many times companies have used "We're considering migrating to Linux" as a way to force Microsoft to lower its price?
Apparently they're trying to attract the lucrative "tech-savvy masochist" demographic.
Microsoft paid 10000 people for 5 years to produce Vista. So, while Vista is definitely selling and producing revenue, what I want to know is whether they've made back the money they invested. If not, it's a failure in every sense of the word.
And, just to be a nitpick the revenue stats, we're not counting the sales of Vista licenses where XP was installed instead.
I'm willing to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt for now, because it hasn't yet tried to wipe its collective ass with the Constitution.
As long as we're complaining about the UI, I may as well add my own from my (brief) experience of Vista via my brother's laptop: Why do I have to dick around 3 menus deep to change my wireless network? Not to mention how hard it is to get to the IP address settings.
Oh, and one core of his dual-core laptop was being entirely consumed by the print spool process trying to print to a disconnected printer. To fix it, I had to boot into safe mode and delete an obscure file in an obscure directory deep within the bowels of c:\windows. Linux had never looked so simple.
I don't know about you, but my newspapers constantly have articles on how the schools have no budget and the teachers are poor and the buildings are falling apart and yadda yadda yadda.
You'd think they'd jump at a chance to save some cash, no matter how little.
I put Microsoft's continued dominance down to momentum ("everybody uses Microsoft products") and fear ("if I decide to save some cash by moving from Windows to Linux, but the migration fails, we'll be out a lot of time and money and I'll be out on the street").
According to Symwave, this will result in 'speeds previously unattainable with legacy USB technology.'
New technology will be faster than old technology? Impossible!
DRM gives you control? Bullshit.
Yeah, having DRM on your system allows you to play DRM'd media, but only if the providers of that media think you paid for it. And you're trying to play it with approved software. And you don't try making a backup. And you don't have any programs installed that they don't like. And their DRM code isn't buggy.
That's control, all right, but the one in control sure ain't you.
Even cooler/stranger, the virtual particle that goes into the black hole effectively has negative energy, so the black hole loses mass each time it consumes one.
Sadly, I'll have to dispel that "black hole consumes enough matter and then explodes" theory. For something (like a particle in that sort of explosion) to escape a black hole, it would have to travel faster than light. Accelerating a particle to/above the speed of light requires an infinite amount of energy, so there simply isn't enough energy in the black hole (or the universe) to make the black hole explode.
There are theories that within each black hole is a universe all to itself, but even if it's true we'd never be able to observe it.
People often choose bad passwords in spite of good password policies, i.e. just because you make them use a 10 character combination of letters/numbers/symbols doesn't mean they won't choose a password that's easy to guess (Passw0rd!!).
Thanks a lot, jerk. Now I'll have to change my password after you leaked it all over the net.
As someone who occasionally gets called to rid my neighbors' computers of malware, I've come to realize just how profitable a computer repair business could be. If I wasn't around, they'd be taking their PCs to Geek Squad and paying $100 to have their computer formatted, or just buying a new computer altogether.
Computers that work as intended and don't get infected make for a poor computer-repair business.
-1, Hysterical Conclusion Jumping
Considering how they seem to be able to define the units whatever way they like, I wonder if a hard drive company could get away with this:
New 6TB* Hard Drive!
Only $250!
*1TB = 10GB
Yessir, come 2009, we'll all be playing Duke Nukem Forever on our Linux desktop with a 1TB SSD.