One thing they failed to mention in the movie...
on
Review: Black Hawk Down
·
· Score: 5, Informative
It might change your mind about the way they think about the innocent Somalians. If you read the book you learn how these folks really "fight": like cowards. They used women and children as human shields. Their tactics were to run out of crowds, rapidly fire off a few unaimed rounds, and then run back in.
There is one instance in the Bowden's book that describes a man lying prone in the middle of the street behind no hard cover. Two women were kneeling, one on either side of him, and children were sitting on top of him. The ranger's response to this was pretty impressive, IMHO... a ranger threw a flashbang grenade (yes, just like half-life) at them and the women and children promptly scattered, leaving the prone man entirely uncovered, an easy target who was quickly killed.
Make no mistake, there were Somalians who fought bravely, but the overall picture is that they fought using the most dispicable tactics available: they tried to take advantage of the fact that the United States holds human life sacred.
All this information I have conveyed is based directly on the book. My knowledge comes entirely from reading Mark Bowden's book and watching the movie. The book is widely acknowledged as the truth and a significant section of the book is even devoted to specifically backing up each claim and source.
Other inaccuracies in the movie inclue:
- The rangers didn't take over the Somalian truck and use it to destroy the other Somalian truck.
- The little bird gun runs were constant throughout the night... this was the ONLY reason the Somalis were kept from overrunning the rangers.
- The night was never quiet.
- more that I don't remember.
Again, all this information is based on my reading of the book. I'd appreciate anyone who can point out any inaccuracies in this statement.
I do this too. I've got a Gary Fisher X-Caliber, with a few mods.
But you can't REALLY beat motorcycles. You're probably doing the exact same thing I am, which is standing at the crosswalk looking up at the left-turn signal for oncoming traffic to go yellow. When it does, you lock in to both pedals, and within a half second of being set up your light goes green and you go for it. The reaction time is so quick that you're going to get a better start that anyone else.
If you've got a well set up mountain bike and ride a lot, you can really suprise the hell out of everyone up to about twenty or thirty miles an hour, I'll give ya that:)
And btw, to the folks who think motorcycles have so much torque... a competent bicyclist has proportionally a whole lot more. 175mm cranks and a 200lb rider locked in to both pedals (so he can push down and PULL UP) is going to generate more than 100ft-lb of torque, with a total vehicle weight about one-third of the motorcycle.
Now if I could just figure out how to get my Z71 to beat my bro's supercrew:)
"Custom software"? More like a custom protocol stack!
I'm not very knowledgeable about IP, but wouldn't UDP with a checksum work just fine? Just send regular updates and have the recipient machine notify the admin if more than three or so timed updates didn't show up or were corrupted.
Do you buy the second copy frrom the retailer, or directly from Microsoft? If you buy Windows for $99, Microsoft doesn't see $99, they see maybe $40, once you count packaging, shipping, and retailers fees. I believe to sell a product retail profitably you have to be able to manufacture (in software, that includese paying programmers) it for 25% of the retail price. This means Microsoft is making at least two if not three times as much money when you buy the additional license.
Exactly what is the problem that you have with me owning a "luxury" pickup?
Is it because it gets 5mpg less than your car, sit stoo high, or am I just going against the "active lifestyle" theme of pickup ownership by having ordered mine with leather seats and ass warmers?
Who are you to question what kind of vehicle someone else drives?
If you want to buy an LT model truck or sport ute (LT = heated, pleather, power seats in addition to all other options on truck), you have to get OnStar. There is no way for me to purchase the GM vehicle I want without buying onstar, and then having the burden of removing it and ordering a panel for the next trim level down to fill the hole.
1.) Its quite possible (probable, even) that a lot of Americans are going to die from retaliation to these attacks. This really sucks, and while we all hope it doesn't happen, it probably will.
2.) In this war, which was declared on September 11, we have lost far more civilian casualties than they. Unless they attack us with chemical/germ/nuclear methods, it will likely stay that way.
I was just curious to know more about your example of "Car and Driver" magazine not being impartial. I've read C/D for quite a while, and have found that this magazine contains the most fair and unbiased, uninfluenced views in automotive journalism. I don't even know of any publication that I've felt comes close to their level or journalistic integrity. They tend to apologize for false statements in the magazine when written to, and even print extremely criticizing letters from readers in every issue.
As an example, there was a small-car comparo a few months back where they slammed Toyota, one of their largest advertisers, calling their new Echo: "Something entirely new from Toyota: a big mistake."
I just don't see why you would have used C/D as your example, why not Motor Trend, who can't say anything bad about any car, and is roughly equivalent to PC Magazine in this regard.
This is honestly just curiousity, I don't mean to flame, and my apologies to the parents of idiot moderators who will denounce this as offtopic, even though the SUBJECT already says so.
This guy is completely unbiased!
on
Netscape 6.1
·
· Score: 2
What's wrong with you paranoid slashdotters, why can't you see that this article reads the exact same way as THIS ONE?:-)
What is the fallout of loooking at the source code for a product and then writing your own from scratch. First of all, what does it take to actually establish guilt if the company that allowed you to see the source thought you had done wrong with it?
Is the possibility of being sued after having looked at someone else's code real, or is this just/. paranoia? If this were true, whats to stop Linus from suing Microsoft when he sees microsoft.com in kernel.org's transfer logs? --
You seem to place emphasis on the term "TECH SUPPORT."
While I'm somewhat out of the loop on how the average (90%) of computer users are able to do anything with Win9x, I am aware that the support costs for such boxen can be quite unpleasant. If you want Windows, NT4 and 2k have lower TCO than 9x. It baffles me why businesses still have the majority of workstations running 9x.
To most home users Windows NT and Windows 2000 have never even existed. These folks are about to see what in their minds will be the greatest technological leap in computer technology since the GUI.... the computer that doesn't crash all the time. I'll RECOMMEND that home users purchase this damn thing just so I don't have to deal with another call where I have to help a friend install new device drivers and give him the "Okay, I will help you with this, but because you're running 9x, there is a very slight chance that even if I do everything right your computer will stop working and you'll have to reinstall everything." speech.
Windows 2000, in my experience, doesn't blow up when you plug in a USB whatzimagigger or install the latest version of Quake. 9x does. Simply the benefit Dell/Compaq/Gateway etc. will get from not having to handle grandma calling and asking why the screen turns blue when the computer turns on is going to dramatically impact a few profit margins.
Chances are if you're reading/. and do REAL work with computers, you use *nix/2k, and maybe me/98 for games. The rest of the world has it REALLY bad and this thing is going to be the best thing since sliced bread once word gets out. --
XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services!
I got a flyer from MS today that used the word XML about 500 times. Just thought I'd offer you all a brief summary:)
Okay, Microsoft, I'm tired of hearing about how the future of the world is XML Web Services. Yes, I think XML Web Services might be a really great idea. I don't think those of us with our heads screwed on correctly can imagine them to be the silver bullet MS does.
Seems the PR folks over there have learned that "if it says XML, it is good", and have run with it. Personally I think C# and the CLR are much more important than XML Web Services. So is Visual Basic-dot-NET, as I've heard rumors that Microsoft has actually made a noble attempt to clean up the evil that is Visual Basic-dot-6.
Can someone please explain to me if I'm missing the point on.NET though? I mean, all I understand is that Microsoft has three fairly cool technologies based on XML and Java-like-technologies (CLR, C#, XML services). They are grouping these together and calling them an exciting new platform, and brand-tying things together in an unheard of fashion even for Microsoft. Then we have a product "HailStorm" built on this technology, whose value I would measure with numbers less than 0. This seems like Windows DNA, take 2, only this time there actually is a little tiny bit of substance to the company-wide branding scheme.
Of course, to me, its really all academic. There's no way in hell I'm going to tie myself to the Windows platform after working so hard to break free. Especially with IBM and Sun putting Java exactly where all the BS hype in '95 said it was going to go and farther (No, its not in your golf clubs, but its on your server).
I just can't wait for the media to kill XML. Remember "Java is dead" or lately "Linux isn't working out?" Well, in six months, our trusty computer media will try to kill XML because its nice and trendy to do so, because it hasn't the saved world yet. While the XML technology is wonderful, I'll welcome this drivel, as XML is currently Microsoft's main buzzword. Hopefully they won't be able to adapt to the change quick enough. (And then of course in 3 years, XML will deliver on all its promises, and the media will turn around again:)) --
Swing is pretty damn fast under the 1.3.1 Hotspot Client VM on my 333MHz Linux box. I'm not exactly writing Hello World here either... the application I'm developing needs to be able to support dragging bitmapped images around on a JLayeredPane (Imagine moving layers in Photoshop). It also scales all the images when the window is resized. I had absolutely no idea Swing and the Java2D stuff was this fast before I started writing this app. And its running on a 3-year-old computer.
And please define bloated! I just can't imagine calling Swing "Bloated". Sure, there's a lot too it, but it all makes sense, works well together, and is considered by most folks to be the state of the art in GUI frameworks. I've also found it incredibly easy to learn.
Yes, I used to think Java was going to be a server-only thing and that "client side Java is dead." After working on a few projects with Swing & 1.3.1, that isn't the case anymore.
I don't mean to flame here, just had a minor problem with the one statement (I'm quite in agreement with most of whay you have to say) --
2001 Excursion, 1997 Accord, which pollutes more?
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 4
Yes, a 1997 Honda Accord pollutes more than a 2001 Ford Excursion. The Accord first met LEV requirements in 1998, and the 2001 Exursion is LEV certified. The Excursion may use twice the gas, but it has lower emissions per mile than does the Accord. The Exursion will more quickly deplete us of our fossil fuel supply, but the greenies want that.
I'm somewhat biased, as my life was saved by our suburban when a drunk driver smashed into the back of us at 55mph (It also saved the lives of the five teenagers in the Hyundai Excel in front of us). Personally I prefer full-size pickups myself, but I can entirely understand the reasons people buy SUVs. No I don't need one, but I also don't "need" a 15k RPM hard drive and a gig of RAM.
Is torching an SUV dealership justifiable? Michael, are you a complete moron? Could someone please add a checkbox to slashcode to filter out articles that are complete RADICAL left-wing bullshit? Some of us here are just programmers who want to hear about the latest technology... and I can't readily filter out articles related to "Science" to obtain this! --
I'm not trying to flame here, I just want to learn more about this.
I have not seen an ATA-based system perform this way. I find my 333MHz 20MBit (read: old!) SCSI system at work is much more pleasant to use than the 750MHz boxes with ATA66 setups (setup by Dell). All of these systems are running RH7.1.
Examples of the situation that will "bog" or rather "cripple" the faster ATA boxes but not the SCSI one include:
- Starting VMware and booting up the windows virtual machine
- Running updatedb (not really that bad though)
- Installing a couple hundred megs of RPMs.
- Installing Oracle 8i. (~500MB, uncompressing to 1.4GB)
Is there anything I can do to make the newer ATA boxes perform as well as the SCSI one? I'm getting a new computer at work soon to replace the 333, and it probably won't have SCSI, so I'm very interested to learn more.
I do know that Linux is recognizing the drives as ATA and not "reverting to PIO mode" which I've heard is the obvious solution to this type of complaint. --
"If the companies are not concerned, we're not concerned," said one Wall Street telecommunications analyst who asked not to be named. "Most of us aren't lawyers."
The person who said this either probably had his quote taken far out of context, or, if he didn't, well, then I believe he just might be quite the moron.
I'm sure Phillip Morris wasn't "concerned" that the Tobacco lawsuits might be succesful. I'm sure
Microsoft isn't worried that the antitrust trial might be sucessful. There are many more cases where companies are "absoultely convinced" that such problems aren't problems.
Companies protect their PR zealously. They have to. If they let go of even a tiny bit of pride due to a problem, even a potentially disastrous one, the acknowledgement of it can have a disastrous effect. When it comes to such problems, the media will be evil and the investors become sheep.
None of this changes the fact that this guy was willing to make a just-plain-silly statement, and ZDnet actually quoted him on it. --
Anybody remember the hype that "Java was dead?" Well, here we go again...
My predictions:
Dvorak will declare Gnome dead, saying KDE has won.
Having been overcome by the excitement, Fred Moody will have a fatal seizure while trying to write a similar story.
ZDNet will run future KDE vs. Gnome reviews, and give KDE the thumbs up based on Gnome's "no longer maintained" file manager.
In the meantime, both the Gnome and KDE camps will continue building great desktop environments. Nautilus will lose its services, get cleaned up, stabilize and offer dramatic performance improvements such that it is everyday usable.
Well that's all of my rant, best be getting back to that highly lucrative Java programming now. --
Slashdot Mirror
It might change your mind about the way they think about the innocent Somalians. If you read the book you learn how these folks really "fight": like cowards. They used women and children as human shields. Their tactics were to run out of crowds, rapidly fire off a few unaimed rounds, and then run back in.
There is one instance in the Bowden's book that describes a man lying prone in the middle of the street behind no hard cover. Two women were kneeling, one on either side of him, and children were sitting on top of him. The ranger's response to this was pretty impressive, IMHO... a ranger threw a flashbang grenade (yes, just like half-life) at them and the women and children promptly scattered, leaving the prone man entirely uncovered, an easy target who was quickly killed.
Make no mistake, there were Somalians who fought bravely, but the overall picture is that they fought using the most dispicable tactics available: they tried to take advantage of the fact that the United States holds human life sacred.
All this information I have conveyed is based directly on the book. My knowledge comes entirely from reading Mark Bowden's book and watching the movie. The book is widely acknowledged as the truth and a significant section of the book is even devoted to specifically backing up each claim and source.
Other inaccuracies in the movie inclue:
- The rangers didn't take over the Somalian truck and use it to destroy the other Somalian truck.
- The little bird gun runs were constant throughout the night... this was the ONLY reason the Somalis were kept from overrunning the rangers.
- The night was never quiet.
- more that I don't remember.
Again, all this information is based on my reading of the book. I'd appreciate anyone who can point out any inaccuracies in this statement.
I do this too. I've got a Gary Fisher X-Caliber, with a few mods.
:)
:)
But you can't REALLY beat motorcycles. You're probably doing the exact same thing I am, which is standing at the crosswalk looking up at the left-turn signal for oncoming traffic to go yellow. When it does, you lock in to both pedals, and within a half second of being set up your light goes green and you go for it. The reaction time is so quick that you're going to get a better start that anyone else.
If you've got a well set up mountain bike and ride a lot, you can really suprise the hell out of everyone up to about twenty or thirty miles an hour, I'll give ya that
And btw, to the folks who think motorcycles have so much torque... a competent bicyclist has proportionally a whole lot more. 175mm cranks and a 200lb rider locked in to both pedals (so he can push down and PULL UP) is going to generate more than 100ft-lb of torque, with a total vehicle weight about one-third of the motorcycle.
Now if I could just figure out how to get my Z71 to beat my bro's supercrew
"Custom software"? More like a custom protocol stack!
I'm not very knowledgeable about IP, but wouldn't UDP with a checksum work just fine? Just send regular updates and have the recipient machine notify the admin if more than three or so timed updates didn't show up or were corrupted.
Do you buy the second copy frrom the retailer, or directly from Microsoft? If you buy Windows for $99, Microsoft doesn't see $99, they see maybe $40, once you count packaging, shipping, and retailers fees. I believe to sell a product retail profitably you have to be able to manufacture (in software, that includese paying programmers) it for 25% of the retail price. This means Microsoft is making at least two if not three times as much money when you buy the additional license.
No shit. Anyone who buys a luxury truck...
Exactly what is the problem that you have with me owning a "luxury" pickup?
Is it because it gets 5mpg less than your car, sit stoo high, or am I just going against the "active lifestyle" theme of pickup ownership by having ordered mine with leather seats and ass warmers?
Who are you to question what kind of vehicle someone else drives?
If you want to buy an LT model truck or sport ute (LT = heated, pleather, power seats in addition to all other options on truck), you have to get OnStar. There is no way for me to purchase the GM vehicle I want without buying onstar, and then having the burden of removing it and ordering a panel for the next trim level down to fill the hole.
Don't visit MSN.com, even when you use IE.
It's called war. People die in war.
Two things that you might want to understand:
1.) Its quite possible (probable, even) that a lot of Americans are going to die from retaliation to these attacks. This really sucks, and while we all hope it doesn't happen, it probably will.
2.) In this war, which was declared on September 11, we have lost far more civilian casualties than they. Unless they attack us with chemical/germ/nuclear methods, it will likely stay that way.
I was just curious to know more about your example of "Car and Driver" magazine not being impartial. I've read C/D for quite a while, and have found that this magazine contains the most fair and unbiased, uninfluenced views in automotive journalism. I don't even know of any publication that I've felt comes close to their level or journalistic integrity. They tend to apologize for false statements in the magazine when written to, and even print extremely criticizing letters from readers in every issue.
As an example, there was a small-car comparo a few months back where they slammed Toyota, one of their largest advertisers, calling their new Echo: "Something entirely new from Toyota: a big mistake."
I just don't see why you would have used C/D as your example, why not Motor Trend, who can't say anything bad about any car, and is roughly equivalent to PC Magazine in this regard.
This is honestly just curiousity, I don't mean to flame, and my apologies to the parents of idiot moderators who will denounce this as offtopic, even though the SUBJECT already says so.
What's wrong with you paranoid slashdotters, why can't you see that this article reads the exact same way as THIS ONE? :-)
I could not get this to work on my own NT4 machine, its on sp6a. Any ideas/corrections?
Thanks
What is the fallout of loooking at the source code for a product and then writing your own from scratch. First of all, what does it take to actually establish guilt if the company that allowed you to see the source thought you had done wrong with it?
/. paranoia? If this were true, whats to stop Linus from suing Microsoft when he sees microsoft.com in kernel.org's transfer logs?
Is the possibility of being sued after having looked at someone else's code real, or is this just
--
You seem to place emphasis on the term "TECH SUPPORT."
/. and do REAL work with computers, you use *nix/2k, and maybe me/98 for games. The rest of the world has it REALLY bad and this thing is going to be the best thing since sliced bread once word gets out.
While I'm somewhat out of the loop on how the average (90%) of computer users are able to do anything with Win9x, I am aware that the support costs for such boxen can be quite unpleasant. If you want Windows, NT4 and 2k have lower TCO than 9x. It baffles me why businesses still have the majority of workstations running 9x.
To most home users Windows NT and Windows 2000 have never even existed. These folks are about to see what in their minds will be the greatest technological leap in computer technology since the GUI.... the computer that doesn't crash all the time. I'll RECOMMEND that home users purchase this damn thing just so I don't have to deal with another call where I have to help a friend install new device drivers and give him the "Okay, I will help you with this, but because you're running 9x, there is a very slight chance that even if I do everything right your computer will stop working and you'll have to reinstall everything." speech.
Windows 2000, in my experience, doesn't blow up when you plug in a USB whatzimagigger or install the latest version of Quake. 9x does. Simply the benefit Dell/Compaq/Gateway etc. will get from not having to handle grandma calling and asking why the screen turns blue when the computer turns on is going to dramatically impact a few profit margins.
Chances are if you're reading
--
I've been having so much trouble trucking my 10 disk RAID array to LAN parties!
--
XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services! XML Web Services!
:)
.NET though? I mean, all I understand is that Microsoft has three fairly cool technologies based on XML and Java-like-technologies (CLR, C#, XML services). They are grouping these together and calling them an exciting new platform, and brand-tying things together in an unheard of fashion even for Microsoft. Then we have a product "HailStorm" built on this technology, whose value I would measure with numbers less than 0. This seems like Windows DNA, take 2, only this time there actually is a little tiny bit of substance to the company-wide branding scheme.
:))
I got a flyer from MS today that used the word XML about 500 times. Just thought I'd offer you all a brief summary
Okay, Microsoft, I'm tired of hearing about how the future of the world is XML Web Services. Yes, I think XML Web Services might be a really great idea. I don't think those of us with our heads screwed on correctly can imagine them to be the silver bullet MS does.
Seems the PR folks over there have learned that "if it says XML, it is good", and have run with it. Personally I think C# and the CLR are much more important than XML Web Services. So is Visual Basic-dot-NET, as I've heard rumors that Microsoft has actually made a noble attempt to clean up the evil that is Visual Basic-dot-6.
Can someone please explain to me if I'm missing the point on
Of course, to me, its really all academic. There's no way in hell I'm going to tie myself to the Windows platform after working so hard to break free. Especially with IBM and Sun putting Java exactly where all the BS hype in '95 said it was going to go and farther (No, its not in your golf clubs, but its on your server).
I just can't wait for the media to kill XML. Remember "Java is dead" or lately "Linux isn't working out?" Well, in six months, our trusty computer media will try to kill XML because its nice and trendy to do so, because it hasn't the saved world yet. While the XML technology is wonderful, I'll welcome this drivel, as XML is currently Microsoft's main buzzword. Hopefully they won't be able to adapt to the change quick enough. (And then of course in 3 years, XML will deliver on all its promises, and the media will turn around again
--
Swing is pretty damn fast under the 1.3.1 Hotspot Client VM on my 333MHz Linux box. I'm not exactly writing Hello World here either... the application I'm developing needs to be able to support dragging bitmapped images around on a JLayeredPane (Imagine moving layers in Photoshop). It also scales all the images when the window is resized. I had absolutely no idea Swing and the Java2D stuff was this fast before I started writing this app. And its running on a 3-year-old computer.
And please define bloated! I just can't imagine calling Swing "Bloated". Sure, there's a lot too it, but it all makes sense, works well together, and is considered by most folks to be the state of the art in GUI frameworks. I've also found it incredibly easy to learn.
Yes, I used to think Java was going to be a server-only thing and that "client side Java is dead." After working on a few projects with Swing & 1.3.1, that isn't the case anymore.
I don't mean to flame here, just had a minor problem with the one statement (I'm quite in agreement with most of whay you have to say)
--
Yes, a 1997 Honda Accord pollutes more than a 2001 Ford Excursion. The Accord first met LEV requirements in 1998, and the 2001 Exursion is LEV certified. The Excursion may use twice the gas, but it has lower emissions per mile than does the Accord. The Exursion will more quickly deplete us of our fossil fuel supply, but the greenies want that.
I'm somewhat biased, as my life was saved by our suburban when a drunk driver smashed into the back of us at 55mph (It also saved the lives of the five teenagers in the Hyundai Excel in front of us). Personally I prefer full-size pickups myself, but I can entirely understand the reasons people buy SUVs. No I don't need one, but I also don't "need" a 15k RPM hard drive and a gig of RAM.
Is torching an SUV dealership justifiable? Michael, are you a complete moron? Could someone please add a checkbox to slashcode to filter out articles that are complete RADICAL left-wing bullshit? Some of us here are just programmers who want to hear about the latest technology... and I can't readily filter out articles related to "Science" to obtain this!
--
Ahem, ah, yeah, that should be "20MByte" not "20MBit" SCSI system.
I don't think a "20MBit" SCSI system would stand much of a chance at competing with anything except my TI99/4A.
--
I'm not trying to flame here, I just want to learn more about this.
I have not seen an ATA-based system perform this way. I find my 333MHz 20MBit (read: old!) SCSI system at work is much more pleasant to use than the 750MHz boxes with ATA66 setups (setup by Dell). All of these systems are running RH7.1.
Examples of the situation that will "bog" or rather "cripple" the faster ATA boxes but not the SCSI one include:
- Starting VMware and booting up the windows virtual machine
- Running updatedb (not really that bad though)
- Installing a couple hundred megs of RPMs.
- Installing Oracle 8i. (~500MB, uncompressing to 1.4GB)
Is there anything I can do to make the newer ATA boxes perform as well as the SCSI one? I'm getting a new computer at work soon to replace the 333, and it probably won't have SCSI, so I'm very interested to learn more.
I do know that Linux is recognizing the drives as ATA and not "reverting to PIO mode" which I've heard is the obvious solution to this type of complaint.
--
SCSI!
How much longer are we going to be stuck with I/O interfaces that bog the CPU (and cripple the user inteface) during heavy disc access?
Apparently only about 1% of us actually want to use our computer to do more than one thing at a time.
--
I'm currently in the process of cross-referencing it with Napster.
While still inconclusive, my early analysis indicates that such long lists of artist/albums results in higher profits for IBM and Seagate.
--
"If the companies are not concerned, we're not concerned," said one Wall Street telecommunications analyst who asked not to be named. "Most of us aren't lawyers."
The person who said this either probably had his quote taken far out of context, or, if he didn't, well, then I believe he just might be quite the moron.
I'm sure Phillip Morris wasn't "concerned" that the Tobacco lawsuits might be succesful. I'm sure
Microsoft isn't worried that the antitrust trial might be sucessful. There are many more cases where companies are "absoultely convinced" that such problems aren't problems.
Companies protect their PR zealously. They have to. If they let go of even a tiny bit of pride due to a problem, even a potentially disastrous one, the acknowledgement of it can have a disastrous effect. When it comes to such problems, the media will be evil and the investors become sheep.
None of this changes the fact that this guy was willing to make a just-plain-silly statement, and ZDnet actually quoted him on it.
--
Microsoft owns the trademark on "Windows".
So basically what were saying here is that any product name of the form Win* can have its domain taken by Microsoft.
This is not good.
Note to WinTrolls: (For once, I am simply using Microsoft as an example, and not deriding them.)
--
Nice try at thinking but check MS's financials and you'll find relatively they don't make much money from support.
Try rewording it as "If you had a monopoly and made lots of money on incompatible upgrades, would you stop developing your product?"
Or were you talking about Oracle?
Why, I'm afraid I can't begin to understand what it is you are talking about. My sig is referring to the manufacturer of Kleenex.
--
Anybody remember the hype that "Java was dead?" Well, here we go again...
My predictions:
Dvorak will declare Gnome dead, saying KDE has won.
Having been overcome by the excitement, Fred Moody will have a fatal seizure while trying to write a similar story.
ZDNet will run future KDE vs. Gnome reviews, and give KDE the thumbs up based on Gnome's "no longer maintained" file manager.
In the meantime, both the Gnome and KDE camps will continue building great desktop environments. Nautilus will lose its services, get cleaned up, stabilize and offer dramatic performance improvements such that it is everyday usable.
Well that's all of my rant, best be getting back to that highly lucrative Java programming now.
--