I'm taking a CS degree right now, at University of Maryland, and this program is tracks-based. Mostly a bunch of programming courses, plus a few gen-ed types (tech writing, ethics), there's a Java/OOP/Design track, a Network programming track, a Unix/Perl/Shellscripting/C++ track, a database track - granted, by the requirements, you're supposed to take either a smattering, and get to the end of at least one track, or focus on two tracks and finish them both -
Right in the middle there, there's a prerequisite for a Discrete Math class - it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb, and it's completely different in character from all the other classes, in that it's all abstract math. It was the hardest class, by far, yet. At least for me. It really threw me for a loop, because I am not proficient at math. But by the end of that course, I grew to be aware, that this course was THE central course that the entire rest of the program was based upon. In fact, I kind of wished it had been broken out into two or three courses, so that we could learn the various areas with more depth, because Discrete Math covers several topics that are only tangentially related (set theory, logic and arguments, graphs, functions). The biggest problem for me was lack of depth, and too fast a pace. I had a lot of discussions with the professor about this, and he said that the reason this class does not get the Program-level attention that it should, is that there is such a huge demand for skill-based classes.
And I can see this. Skills are really what I was looking for when I began the program (in addition to my "piece of paper"). Quite often, when we're interviewing job candidates who are fresh college grads, even at the masters level (heh, especially at the masters level, it seems), we encounter candidates with no real-world programming skills whatsoever. And an appalling lack of capability to apply their degree knowledge to real-world programming or other engineering tasks. THAT'S the big shortcoming. That's the one critical factor that seems to be so hard to find. And really, the only way to KNOW that somebody has that skill, is if they can demonstrate real-world programming skills. When we get stuck with someone like this, without the gumption, we usually stick them on requirements analysis or documentation.
And I think this is the big problem in the field today. There isn't a good way to tell if a candidate has that magical quality of "gets shit done". Unless he or she has a history of "getting shit done".
My BFA degree (many years ago) required sufficient Art History to qualify for an Art History degree. The only missing element was a requirement for an additional year of foreign language study.
We used to say, that if you couldn't handle software engineering, you took computer science. If you couldn't handle that, you took Information management systems. If you couldn't handle that, you took Management information systems (yes, there was a differnce), and finally if you couldn't hand that, you took some business administration course.
. . . and the real travesty, is when you complete your Software Engineering Degree, and start working, those people who took the Business Administration courses will be your boss, and will earn twice as much as you.
I don't get why the skeptisism is drawn by party lines.
It's the "Liberal Media". The Rush Limbaughs (and others) of the world, claiming that Climate Scientists are a racket, trying to shake down the government for money, and cushy tenured slots at ivy league schools.
The Religious side - of course, wants to believe that we Americans, are "special" and "blessed" with our lifestyle by God, and that only satanic commies want to take that away from our Blessed Birthright. The oil is a gift from God for his Chosen People - America.
And if the Earth's climate IS changing, it's God's doing, not Man's, and it's all part of God's plan (even if that means we're in the end-times, and everyone's going to die, the good separated from the bad, etc.)
The Economic side, well-recognizes that our entire economic prosperity is based on stealing petroleum resources. Cheap Energy is the input to our economy that allows us (Americans) to prosper better than other countries. And that if we go "green" - we'll just be handing our prosperity over to the "wogs" - who will burn that oil anyway, and with that engine of prosperity now working for them, they'll be able to afford the military force required to keep us from stopping them from doing it. (note: Saudi Arabia's growing influence, and the army of Jihadis they've manufactured with their widespread funding of Madrassas world wide - these disaffected angry kids are not attacking Saudi Arabia - they're attacking US, funded by money we spent on oil we bought from Saudi Arabia).
It's easy to see why this is political.
On that note, I'm also CERTAIN that the vast majority of "Global Warming" believers, do believe it BECAUSE they are Democrats/Liberals, and because it is the opposite belief of Republicans. This has no bearing, of course, on whether or not Anthropogenic Global Warming is true. (it is). It just goes to show, that on an issue that is as scientifically complex as this issue is, the vast majority of people are going to choose sides for political reasons, rather than actually learning the science. For those who do not understand climate science to the depth of a PhD, (ie, 99% of humanity - including myself), this is what it comes down to. Why do *I* believe AGW is real? Because the counterargument (vast conspiracy of left wing scientists trying to get government funding for their work?) is so fucking stupid.
Much of this technology for productivity increases is not sustainable. For many reasons; salinity build-up from over irrigation, declining fresh water supplies, reliance on artificial nitrogen-based fertilizers (which requires petroleum to synthesize), desertification, etc.
There's ample reason to worry that food productivity per acre could level off or even decline in the next century.
If your solution to "CO2 is causing climate change" is, "Shut down industry and transportation," you can just leave the conversation right now. No one wants to hear about how great it will be when there's 5.8 billion fewer people in the world and everyone that's left lives like the Pennsylvania dutch.
More like "Mad Max" - because sooner or later, our carbon-based economy will run out of feedstock (petroleum) - those who did not adapt to renewables or alternatives (hate to say it: fission), will either perish, or fight for survival (and likely take a few billion out as "collateral damage" - since nuclear weapons will be the only viable warfighting method without ready access to petroleum). (those who did adapt, will likely be the collateral damage anyway).
Frankly, I don't think there's any way in hell to regulate our way out of this mess. Because people are going to fight any attempt to be "regulated" into a greener lifestyle, (which will carry with it the absolute requirement of some form of enforced fecundity control).
After people finish fighting for this limited resource, and the right to have as many children as God Commands Them To, there sure as hell WILL be 5.8 billion less people in the world. And the remainders won't be living like the Pennsylvania Dutch. They'll be living like Mad Max.
Once again; no I do not believe humanity can change this fate. Some of us are very determined. But we have to win against the people with all the money, who will stand to lose that money in the process - they are happy to die rich in an apocalypse, than to cede their power and control over humanity.
The whole family watches then the whole family should pay.
Yes, I'm sick to death about how, when my neighbor, with his 5 kids, rents a movie, all seven of them (plus their two damn yappy dogs) get to watch the movie for the same price I pay for just me and my Partner, and our seven cats. It's outrageous. It makes me want to download more movies to watch on my iPhone.
I don't get into downloading movies - got better things to do than chase my tail with all the garbage files, encrypted RAR files that ask you to go to installspyware.com with Internet explorer to get a password only to find out that the file has some 60 year old movie you never heard of and now your machine is part of a botnet (no, I dont' do it but i know people who do).
. . . not to mention waiting two weeks for a torrent that downloaded 90% in the first week, creeped up to 98% by the 10th day, and just sat there unfinished. Congratulations. You just kept your computer running for two weeks solid burning electricity , ate up 4.5 GB of your Hard Drive, slogged your network bandwidth, and exposed your IP address to RIAA (and NSA) scrutiny - and in the end, have nothing useful.
No - I can't see how illegal movie downloads are anywhere near worth the effort.
The OLPC shows what engineers can do when they are able to stop thinking about what will make the most money, and just try to make something great.
Well - this is what engineers learn in engineering school. And NOT what Business people learn in MBA school.
It's more profitable to tap a niche-hipster market with an overpriced device, and sell tens of thousands, than it is to try to reach a market of hundreds of millions with a marginally profitable device.
Destiny Welles (gak!) of the Register made an interesting point in her most recent in a series of Second Life articles. She said it was the whitest, most middle-class environment she's ever been in. She changed her avatar to a black woman, and she said she got hit on easily 10 times less.
She attributes this fact to the topic we used to all talk about back in the 1990's - the "Digital Divide". People who play SL, are typically wealthy, upper-middle-class people, who can afford broadband connections, and a fairly high-powered computer system, and who have enough time to spare from making a living in their First Life, to devote to a Second Life.
I think it was an astute observation.
While the internet tends to mask things like race, sex, (and magnify things like political stance or religion), this masking also has the effect of making us all believe we're interacting with a well-rounded audience, when in fact, as white-middle-class folks, we're probably even more isolated on the internet than we are in our gated suburban communities.
So, on that basis: yes, I'm glad that internet petitions give "my people" more of a voice, because between the monied interests of the far right, and the popular interests of the far left, the middle class has been getting drowned out and decimated in this country for over 30 years, and at an ever quickening pace. But on the other hand, I see this process as too easily subverted by monied interests (ie. grassroots campaigns - remember the outrage of the 100 million complaint emails to the FCC from people who saw Janet Jackson's tit, when only 50 million people even watched the game on TV?), and the process will unfairly exclude the poor.
I'll take another stab at this; (though I like your idea of trying to form a concrete plug beneath the clay layer - I wonder if the dynamics of the mud at such high pressure would even allow this - and I also wonder how long it would take to drill down that deep. . . )
Seems like it might be a good idea to dig a trench to divert the mudflow, and let it flow out, though away from populated areas. Depends on how far away the sea is though, a long trench could take a very long time to dig too.
Waterboarding? or other forms of simulated drowning? More like 48 seconds. It's a VERY effective method of torture. (however, not effective at determining the truth).
No single company can do this and cripple the US but if they ever decide to move collectively for some reason, the US is screwed.
BS and FUD.
If any company left the US, then there's a nice crispy spot in the market just waiting to be filled by a new enterpreneur, who had previously been prevented from entering the market by the dominant hegemony.
I think it would be a great thing if all the current large multinationals pulled out. Good riddance to bad rubbish. There's plenty of other Americans with the knowhow and initiative to build a strong economy without the robber barons.
In short - there will be no consumer demand for these devices because consumers will not be able to afford to USE them. (sure, I can STORE tons of data, but if you charge me $$$ per bit to move it anywhere, what fucking good is it?)
The whole reason Internet demand took off, was the very cheap and unrestricted access we all had, in the early 1990's and the rapid improvement in modem transfer speeds (until we hit the "shotgun" speed barrier - hell I can't even remember what that was, 28.8?). Then broadband came, and suddenly, people could swap more than text, and demand exploded even more. Seagate sold a BUTTLOAD of hard drives, because people were filling them up with stuff they downloaded for next to nothing.
But on the locked-down vender-controlled cell-phone network, I guaranfucking-TEE you, that this device will have NO consumer-driven demand. Like the cameras. They're on every fucking phone. Few people actually use or want them. The only difference here is - Even if the COST of the storage is subsidized, the user "pays" for it, in the form of physical bulk and battery life. - if the user can't USE the drive, the cell phone company tries to ram it down his throat by bundling it with all phones, the user's going to go to a different carrier that has the smaller phone without the drive storage (if that choice is even possible).
They've either got to open up the bandwidth cost (for consumers) for moving data in and out of these things, or they've got to make them MUCH smaller (trivially smaller), in order for consumers to buy-into this thing. Otherwise, there will be zero demand for them.
mean, even with a near-total monopoly like microsoft, there are still people on the fringe selling alternatives -- and they can make money on it, by either selling something higher quality, or much cheaper.
I don't think that's what's happening in the OS market.
People who compete with Microsoft are not actually competing in Microsoft's market.
Microsoft's market is a unified Server/Desktop network operating system. Nobody else really makes what Microsoft makes. Novell does not. Sun does not. Apple does not. RedHat does not. You give me an example of any other player that is competing with Microsoft on their terms, and I'll give you a counterexample as to why they're actually NOT competing; but rather trying to eke out a living in a niche market. True - Sun does sell a Desktop/Server solution - but Sun Ray's are not the same thing, because you can't take the Desktop home, and use it in a standalone mode, and run stuff like Photoshop, (et al) on it. True - Apple does sell a Desktop/Server solution, but Apple does not seriously pursue the server market (by offering competitive prices, or working with ISV's to provide some semblance of Network Management software, like Tivoli, or OpenView, or the equivalent of Microsoft's ActiveDirectory/Group Policy (etc) functionality.) True - RedHat probably offers the closest thing to what Microsoft offers in terms of an integrated Desktop/Server network operating system. But the Ernie Ball story about how - there IS functionality sacrificed when going from Microsoft to Linux. (Linux does everything he NEEDS, but there's additional functionality Microsoft offers that he doesn't NEED, but a lot of other customers DO need - specifically, some of the Outlook/Exchange/Office functionality.) - what works for Ernie Ball but not for other customers puts the RedHat offering into a niche market. Yeah - 90% of what's "missing" is cruft. But look at the marketshare.
Personally - I believe that Microsoft IS a Monopoly, they ARE in violation of the law, and they ARE in violation of their Consent Decree, and I *do* believe that there was a smarmy quid-pro-quo when Bush took office and shorted out the DoJ case. I can only hope that when Bush leaves, this case will be revisited, and meaningful action will be taken. But frankly, I doubt that will happen. As it stands today, there is NO PLAYER in the entire world with the resources to even ENTER the market Microsoft is in. You see a lot of ISV's in a merger-frenzy right now, in an attempt to keep up with Microsoft. But even if every single other software company in the world merged, right now, there's no way in hell they're going to unseat Microsoft, no matter how poor a showing Vista makes. I think most people grossly underestimate the unassailable position Microsoft is in right now.
The only way to figure it out for themselves is to purchase one of everything and test it
. . . not to mention the application of this method with regard to Health Care. You're having a heart attack. Quick. Evaluate which doctor and hospital will provide you with the best "bang for your buck"! You might want to choose wisely on this one. Go ahead. Take your time. You've got at least 10 seconds of consciousness left. . .
Ernie Ball (guitar string manufacturer) got a little visit from the BSA a few years back. They didn't have any illegitimate Windows installs, but due to the audit, they missed their numbers for the month. The very next month, they hired a team of linux gurus, and migrated all of their systems to linux, and sent a "F-U" letter to the BSA and Microsoft.
I've always be irritated at how scam artists like space.com, spaceflightnow.com, and spacedaily.com can have the gall to try to CHARGE people for imagery that was created using public funding.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm taking a CS degree right now, at University of Maryland, and this program is tracks-based. Mostly a bunch of programming courses, plus a few gen-ed types (tech writing, ethics), there's a Java/OOP/Design track, a Network programming track, a Unix/Perl/Shellscripting/C++ track, a database track - granted, by the requirements, you're supposed to take either a smattering, and get to the end of at least one track, or focus on two tracks and finish them both -
Right in the middle there, there's a prerequisite for a Discrete Math class - it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb, and it's completely different in character from all the other classes, in that it's all abstract math. It was the hardest class, by far, yet. At least for me. It really threw me for a loop, because I am not proficient at math. But by the end of that course, I grew to be aware, that this course was THE central course that the entire rest of the program was based upon. In fact, I kind of wished it had been broken out into two or three courses, so that we could learn the various areas with more depth, because Discrete Math covers several topics that are only tangentially related (set theory, logic and arguments, graphs, functions). The biggest problem for me was lack of depth, and too fast a pace. I had a lot of discussions with the professor about this, and he said that the reason this class does not get the Program-level attention that it should, is that there is such a huge demand for skill-based classes.
And I can see this. Skills are really what I was looking for when I began the program (in addition to my "piece of paper"). Quite often, when we're interviewing job candidates who are fresh college grads, even at the masters level (heh, especially at the masters level, it seems), we encounter candidates with no real-world programming skills whatsoever. And an appalling lack of capability to apply their degree knowledge to real-world programming or other engineering tasks. THAT'S the big shortcoming. That's the one critical factor that seems to be so hard to find. And really, the only way to KNOW that somebody has that skill, is if they can demonstrate real-world programming skills. When we get stuck with someone like this, without the gumption, we usually stick them on requirements analysis or documentation.
And I think this is the big problem in the field today. There isn't a good way to tell if a candidate has that magical quality of "gets shit done". Unless he or she has a history of "getting shit done".
My BFA degree (many years ago) required sufficient Art History to qualify for an Art History degree. The only missing element was a requirement for an additional year of foreign language study.
We used to say, that if you couldn't handle software engineering, you took computer science. If you couldn't handle that, you took Information management systems. If you couldn't handle that, you took Management information systems (yes, there was a differnce), and finally if you couldn't hand that, you took some business administration course.
. . . and the real travesty, is when you complete your Software Engineering Degree, and start working, those people who took the Business Administration courses will be your boss, and will earn twice as much as you.
I don't get why the skeptisism is drawn by party lines.
It's the "Liberal Media". The Rush Limbaughs (and others) of the world, claiming that Climate Scientists are a racket, trying to shake down the government for money, and cushy tenured slots at ivy league schools.
The Religious side - of course, wants to believe that we Americans, are "special" and "blessed" with our lifestyle by God, and that only satanic commies want to take that away from our Blessed Birthright. The oil is a gift from God for his Chosen People - America.
And if the Earth's climate IS changing, it's God's doing, not Man's, and it's all part of God's plan (even if that means we're in the end-times, and everyone's going to die, the good separated from the bad, etc.)
The Economic side, well-recognizes that our entire economic prosperity is based on stealing petroleum resources. Cheap Energy is the input to our economy that allows us (Americans) to prosper better than other countries. And that if we go "green" - we'll just be handing our prosperity over to the "wogs" - who will burn that oil anyway, and with that engine of prosperity now working for them, they'll be able to afford the military force required to keep us from stopping them from doing it. (note: Saudi Arabia's growing influence, and the army of Jihadis they've manufactured with their widespread funding of Madrassas world wide - these disaffected angry kids are not attacking Saudi Arabia - they're attacking US, funded by money we spent on oil we bought from Saudi Arabia).
It's easy to see why this is political.
On that note, I'm also CERTAIN that the vast majority of "Global Warming" believers, do believe it BECAUSE they are Democrats/Liberals, and because it is the opposite belief of Republicans. This has no bearing, of course, on whether or not Anthropogenic Global Warming is true. (it is). It just goes to show, that on an issue that is as scientifically complex as this issue is, the vast majority of people are going to choose sides for political reasons, rather than actually learning the science. For those who do not understand climate science to the depth of a PhD, (ie, 99% of humanity - including myself), this is what it comes down to. Why do *I* believe AGW is real? Because the counterargument (vast conspiracy of left wing scientists trying to get government funding for their work?) is so fucking stupid.
Much of this technology for productivity increases is not sustainable. For many reasons; salinity build-up from over irrigation, declining fresh water supplies, reliance on artificial nitrogen-based fertilizers (which requires petroleum to synthesize), desertification, etc.
There's ample reason to worry that food productivity per acre could level off or even decline in the next century.
If your solution to "CO2 is causing climate change" is, "Shut down industry and transportation," you can just leave the conversation right now. No one wants to hear about how great it will be when there's 5.8 billion fewer people in the world and everyone that's left lives like the Pennsylvania dutch.
More like "Mad Max" - because sooner or later, our carbon-based economy will run out of feedstock (petroleum) - those who did not adapt to renewables or alternatives (hate to say it: fission), will either perish, or fight for survival (and likely take a few billion out as "collateral damage" - since nuclear weapons will be the only viable warfighting method without ready access to petroleum). (those who did adapt, will likely be the collateral damage anyway).
Frankly, I don't think there's any way in hell to regulate our way out of this mess. Because people are going to fight any attempt to be "regulated" into a greener lifestyle, (which will carry with it the absolute requirement of some form of enforced fecundity control).
After people finish fighting for this limited resource, and the right to have as many children as God Commands Them To, there sure as hell WILL be 5.8 billion less people in the world. And the remainders won't be living like the Pennsylvania Dutch. They'll be living like Mad Max.
Once again; no I do not believe humanity can change this fate. Some of us are very determined. But we have to win against the people with all the money, who will stand to lose that money in the process - they are happy to die rich in an apocalypse, than to cede their power and control over humanity.
The whole family watches then the whole family should pay.
Yes, I'm sick to death about how, when my neighbor, with his 5 kids, rents a movie, all seven of them (plus their two damn yappy dogs) get to watch the movie for the same price I pay for just me and my Partner, and our seven cats. It's outrageous. It makes me want to download more movies to watch on my iPhone.
I don't get into downloading movies - got better things to do than chase my tail with all the garbage files, encrypted RAR files that ask you to go to installspyware.com with Internet explorer to get a password only to find out that the file has some 60 year old movie you never heard of and now your machine is part of a botnet (no, I dont' do it but i know people who do).
. . . not to mention waiting two weeks for a torrent that downloaded 90% in the first week, creeped up to 98% by the 10th day, and just sat there unfinished. Congratulations. You just kept your computer running for two weeks solid burning electricity , ate up 4.5 GB of your Hard Drive, slogged your network bandwidth, and exposed your IP address to RIAA (and NSA) scrutiny - and in the end, have nothing useful.
No - I can't see how illegal movie downloads are anywhere near worth the effort.
The OLPC shows what engineers can do when they are able to stop thinking about what will make the most money, and just try to make something great.
Well - this is what engineers learn in engineering school. And NOT what Business people learn in MBA school.
It's more profitable to tap a niche-hipster market with an overpriced device, and sell tens of thousands, than it is to try to reach a market of hundreds of millions with a marginally profitable device.
Destiny Welles (gak!) of the Register made an interesting point in her most recent in a series of Second Life articles. She said it was the whitest, most middle-class environment she's ever been in. She changed her avatar to a black woman, and she said she got hit on easily 10 times less.
She attributes this fact to the topic we used to all talk about back in the 1990's - the "Digital Divide". People who play SL, are typically wealthy, upper-middle-class people, who can afford broadband connections, and a fairly high-powered computer system, and who have enough time to spare from making a living in their First Life, to devote to a Second Life.
I think it was an astute observation.
While the internet tends to mask things like race, sex, (and magnify things like political stance or religion), this masking also has the effect of making us all believe we're interacting with a well-rounded audience, when in fact, as white-middle-class folks, we're probably even more isolated on the internet than we are in our gated suburban communities.
So, on that basis: yes, I'm glad that internet petitions give "my people" more of a voice, because between the monied interests of the far right, and the popular interests of the far left, the middle class has been getting drowned out and decimated in this country for over 30 years, and at an ever quickening pace. But on the other hand, I see this process as too easily subverted by monied interests (ie. grassroots campaigns - remember the outrage of the 100 million complaint emails to the FCC from people who saw Janet Jackson's tit, when only 50 million people even watched the game on TV?), and the process will unfairly exclude the poor.
I'll take another stab at this; (though I like your idea of trying to form a concrete plug beneath the clay layer - I wonder if the dynamics of the mud at such high pressure would even allow this - and I also wonder how long it would take to drill down that deep. . . )
Seems like it might be a good idea to dig a trench to divert the mudflow, and let it flow out, though away from populated areas. Depends on how far away the sea is though, a long trench could take a very long time to dig too.
Waterboarding? or other forms of simulated drowning? More like 48 seconds. It's a VERY effective method of torture. (however, not effective at determining the truth).
Better still, allow an exemption from the incandescent ban if, and only if, the home has its own solar power generation facilities.
No single company can do this and cripple the US but if they ever decide to move collectively for some reason, the US is screwed.
BS and FUD.
If any company left the US, then there's a nice crispy spot in the market just waiting to be filled by a new enterpreneur, who had previously been prevented from entering the market by the dominant hegemony.
I think it would be a great thing if all the current large multinationals pulled out. Good riddance to bad rubbish. There's plenty of other Americans with the knowhow and initiative to build a strong economy without the robber barons.
In short - there will be no consumer demand for these devices because consumers will not be able to afford to USE them. (sure, I can STORE tons of data, but if you charge me $$$ per bit to move it anywhere, what fucking good is it?)
The whole reason Internet demand took off, was the very cheap and unrestricted access we all had, in the early 1990's and the rapid improvement in modem transfer speeds (until we hit the "shotgun" speed barrier - hell I can't even remember what that was, 28.8?). Then broadband came, and suddenly, people could swap more than text, and demand exploded even more. Seagate sold a BUTTLOAD of hard drives, because people were filling them up with stuff they downloaded for next to nothing.
But on the locked-down vender-controlled cell-phone network, I guaranfucking-TEE you, that this device will have NO consumer-driven demand. Like the cameras. They're on every fucking phone. Few people actually use or want them. The only difference here is -
Even if the COST of the storage is subsidized, the user "pays" for it, in the form of physical bulk and battery life. - if the user can't USE the drive, the cell phone company tries to ram it down his throat by bundling it with all phones, the user's going to go to a different carrier that has the smaller phone without the drive storage (if that choice is even possible).
They've either got to open up the bandwidth cost (for consumers) for moving data in and out of these things, or they've got to make them MUCH smaller (trivially smaller), in order for consumers to buy-into this thing. Otherwise, there will be zero demand for them.
Hell, for that matter, the INTERNET that Microsoft uses to bolster it's Monopoly position, was government funded.
Corporate Charters are a Government Regulation.
The public schools that probably 90% of Microsoft's employees were educated at - Government Regulation.
mean, even with a near-total monopoly like microsoft, there are still people on the fringe selling alternatives -- and they can make money on it, by either selling something higher quality, or much cheaper.
I don't think that's what's happening in the OS market.
People who compete with Microsoft are not actually competing in Microsoft's market.
Microsoft's market is a unified Server/Desktop network operating system. Nobody else really makes what Microsoft makes. Novell does not. Sun does not. Apple does not. RedHat does not. You give me an example of any other player that is competing with Microsoft on their terms, and I'll give you a counterexample as to why they're actually NOT competing; but rather trying to eke out a living in a niche market.
True - Sun does sell a Desktop/Server solution - but Sun Ray's are not the same thing, because you can't take the Desktop home, and use it in a standalone mode, and run stuff like Photoshop, (et al) on it.
True - Apple does sell a Desktop/Server solution, but Apple does not seriously pursue the server market (by offering competitive prices, or working with ISV's to provide some semblance of Network Management software, like Tivoli, or OpenView, or the equivalent of Microsoft's ActiveDirectory/Group Policy (etc) functionality.)
True - RedHat probably offers the closest thing to what Microsoft offers in terms of an integrated Desktop/Server network operating system. But the Ernie Ball story about how - there IS functionality sacrificed when going from Microsoft to Linux. (Linux does everything he NEEDS, but there's additional functionality Microsoft offers that he doesn't NEED, but a lot of other customers DO need - specifically, some of the Outlook/Exchange/Office functionality.) - what works for Ernie Ball but not for other customers puts the RedHat offering into a niche market. Yeah - 90% of what's "missing" is cruft. But look at the marketshare.
Personally - I believe that Microsoft IS a Monopoly, they ARE in violation of the law, and they ARE in violation of their Consent Decree, and I *do* believe that there was a smarmy quid-pro-quo when Bush took office and shorted out the DoJ case. I can only hope that when Bush leaves, this case will be revisited, and meaningful action will be taken. But frankly, I doubt that will happen. As it stands today, there is NO PLAYER in the entire world with the resources to even ENTER the market Microsoft is in. You see a lot of ISV's in a merger-frenzy right now, in an attempt to keep up with Microsoft. But even if every single other software company in the world merged, right now, there's no way in hell they're going to unseat Microsoft, no matter how poor a showing Vista makes. I think most people grossly underestimate the unassailable position Microsoft is in right now.
It's not a theory. It's a RELIGION.
From now on, I encourage you to refer to it as "The Cult of the Invisible Hand".
It's my windmill and I'll tilt if I want to.
The only way to figure it out for themselves is to purchase one of everything and test it
. . . not to mention the application of this method with regard to Health Care.
You're having a heart attack. Quick. Evaluate which doctor and hospital will provide you with the best "bang for your buck"! You might want to choose wisely on this one. Go ahead. Take your time. You've got at least 10 seconds of consciousness left. . .
The thing that amazes me is that so many intelligent people buy into it.
Intellectual dishonesty trumps "intelligence". We're human beings. It's what we do. Mostly.
Don't forget Carhenge, in Nebraska.
Yeah - well, I'm sure that people who are truly interested in this stuff, and determined, and have half a brain, can figure it out.
I'm not going to pay space.com to spoon-feed me a 640x480 logo-stamped image.
Ernie Ball (guitar string manufacturer) got a little visit from the BSA a few years back. They didn't have any illegitimate Windows installs, but due to the audit, they missed their numbers for the month. The very next month, they hired a team of linux gurus, and migrated all of their systems to linux, and sent a "F-U" letter to the BSA and Microsoft.
Hooray for you - we all (apparently) need to be re-taught: Fascists Are Cowards. (or closet opportunists).
Thank you for that.
I've always be irritated at how scam artists like space.com, spaceflightnow.com, and spacedaily.com can have the gall to try to CHARGE people for imagery that was created using public funding.