Well, that's good enough for me. I thought that the deal was just duped unsuspecting consumers myself. Now that it's gone for a short time) consumers are protected from making bad, uninformed decisions.
So what you're saying is that people are too stupid to be able to make decisions for themselves. In fact, we're the ones that should be making the decisions for them? Can we say 'Big Brother' here?
Something tells me it would. All those Linux haters would have had a hey-day. What can you say? Maybe it *wasn't* ethical. But if the other side would have done it to you, then why act as if you are a nice "moral" guy and let them take advantage of you? You need to take your victories too, or just give up.
Too right it's not ethical. But it's not the ethical issue that worries me so much. The core issue as I see it is that consumer protection law was being used to in effect extort money from what was a completely legitimate business offer. The next time that a consumer law like this one is presented for a reading, large corporations will be able to wave this case of abuse as an example as to why it shouldn't be passed. We're just giving the corporate lobbyists more ammunition to use against us!
I guess it's like beating up a bully. Sure it's unethical to beat someone up, but you know they are going to do it anyways. So you beat them up first to protect other innocent children.
So what you're saying is that we should use any weapon against Microsoft? Even when that means that we're abusing a law that was originally put in place for a noble reason? Even though in this case they were offering a completely legitimate deal to the consumer? If we start walking this path, then we're going to end up as the next big corporate bully-boy.
We shouldn't be trying to beat them by becoming them. We're meant to be better than that. Let's try to win this battle on our own merits, not by beating them at their own game.
How exactly does this come under consumer protection??? Microsoft aren't abusing the consumer in this case. They are simply offering a $400 rebate!
ABUSING consumer protection law like this devalues what the law-makers were trying to achieve, and in my opinion makes it less likely that these consumer protection laws will be passed in the future.
This is the point that I was trying to make when the original article was posted. This is just a case of people using a law that was created to protect consumers as a means to now rip-off a company. Well congratulations folks - you've now managed to get the deal pulled.
An interesting question I'd like to ask everyone here is this. Would the responses and the reporting have been the same if it were someone like VA or RedHat running a $400 back deal?
What, a little like (a) correcting my usage of Pointy-Haired-Boss when in fact you were incorrect in your understanding of the phrase, and (b) implying that it was actually a spelling error on my part while putting a glaring spelling error in your post title.
If you can't take it, then don't dish it out!
As far as reading the rest of your post, of course I did. I just didn't have anything extra to add and therefore didn't bother to reply to that part.
Why was my post marked with a '1'? Well, it's because I've posted comments before which people have found interesting and moderated up. Why are your posts '0' or below? Because you're posting as an Anonymous Coward and/or have been moderated down.
You can shove all you want. The fact of the matter is that Lucas created SW, he owns SW, and he can do whatever he likes with SW. If you don't like what he's doing then I'm afraid that's just tough luck. He's not in it for the personal popularity. He's not in it for your approval, love, or worship. He's in it for the money.
The sad fact of the matter is that if every geek who read/. decided to join the Lucas boycott, and convinced every one of their relatives and friends to join too, it would put only the tiniest of dents into the Lucas profit machine.
It's also not true to say that 'Everyone doesn't like it'. The truth of the matter is that 99% of his purchasing public really couldn't give a crap about it. They'll continue to buy SW merchandise whether the DVD's are released now, in ten years, or if Georgie boy decides to forget the whole thing and cram the film masters up his ass.
He knows that he can get everybody to buy the initial VHS release, the digitally re-mastered VHS release, the special edition VHS release with the extra 30 seconds of film cut from the original movie, and the five year anniversary boxed set VHS release before he gives us the DVD version.
I'm waiting for the "George Lucas' bank account is now bigger than Bill Gates'" Super-Duper-$-$-$-Box-Set release myself.
I wouldn't necessarily classify Microsoft's OS efforts as 'dangerous'. The biggest risk we run using NT around the office is the worry that one of our developers is going to get so sick of NT crashing during compiles that he/she sticks his/her head through their monitor:-)
'Supremely frustrating' is the phrase I'd most commonly use.
But the reason that you can do this in California and not anywhere else is because California has an extra law allowing it. This law was written to protect consumers against unscrupulous sales behavior from companies trying to piggy-back their own insurance/financing deals onto purchases. I'm pretty sure it wasn't designed to allow people to essentially rip-off a company for $400 and then cancel their contract. As I said - abuse of the legal system.
Here's another question for you - V.A. been running a promotional where you signed up for a 3 year support contract or something and they gave you $400 to spend on hardware, would SlashDot be reporting it like this?
Surely this would be abusing a loop-hole in the legal system for financial gain; Something that this community is up in arms about when it's a big corporation trying to crush the 'righteous'.
I completely agree. The real question is do we want this situation to continue into the future? If we want to gain significant market penetration and actively combat the evil empire, then I suspect the answer is an emphatic 'No!'. Like it or not, most people are ignorant of the complexities of Unix and want to remain that way. A good move for our community right now would be to make efforts to hand-hold the techno-ignorant and not to alienate them at the very first step in their journey.
As you can probably tell, I feel quite strongly about this.
Oh, I'm sorry. I was just of the opinion that the community members on Slashdot (which is the community that I am referring to) would like to see Linux gain widespread acceptance.
Thank you for reminding me that we can still find arrogance and elitism in our industry.
If that's your attitude then don't whinge and whine because most of the world has chosen to use Windows. I was under the impression that most of our community wanted to make our software better for everyone. That's going to need flexibility on our part, and is certainly going to involve moving away from obscure command-line functions and parameters.
If you don't want to move away from this paradigm then you're going to have to accept the fact that most people are going to prefer windows.
I'm not sure that the fact that Windows appeals to the unwashed masses is the reason that most geeks hate it (although of course it is going to be the reason for some - I suspect the same sub-set of people who regularly go to Star Trek conferences and point out the inconsistencies between episodes;-)
The reasons that most of my geek friends and aquaintances dislike windows is because it is a horrendously designed piece of bloat-ware that is likely to explode and burn your eyebrows off if your code tries to do anything clever. Oh yes, and it's controlled by a monopoly with all the inherent morals of Ghengis Khan:-)
Congratulations! Welcome to the wonderful world of geekdom. I too started in the land of assembly language and command lines, at a time when there just weren't many people to ask for help from. In those days computers were only accessible to those who were willing to spend hours digging through FAQ's and manuals to get information on that elusive assembly language call or command line parameter. None of us minded doing this because we all loved learning new information and technologies. We all reveled in sharing our knowledge with other people like us. Other people who understood what 'grep' did, or knew what register-indirect mode was.
Things have changed.
Today 95% of computer users (...he said, plucking the figure firmly from between both buttocks...) want to browse the web. They want to write a quick letter to their auntie Edna. They want to play the odd game, and expose their bank accounts to attacks from hackers by using Quicken. What they don't want to do is spend hours reading through dusty manuals or lengthy FAQ's looking for the answer to one of their questions. They wouldn't know a thread-lock if it came out of the code and bit them on the arse, and they want to keep it that way!
So, ultimately we as a community have to decide whether we're going to make our software (I'm not just limiting this to Linux/FreeBSD/GNU software - it applies equally to everything we produce) accessible to the vast unwashed masses, or whether we want to keep it firmly in the domain of the tech-elite.
We are coming to the point where we have to take these decisions about our favourite pieces of software. We just have to remember that whatever decision we make now, we're going to have to live with in the future.
Taken as a joke, that comment is pretty funny. Unfortunately, I suspect that there is more than a grain of truth in that little message.
Quite honestly, it's elitist opinions like this one that will help keep Micro$oft's sorry efforts the Operating Systems of choice for the majority.
The sad fact of the matter is that the average Joe User doesn't want to have to read through reams of manuals to get their computer working. They want quick, easy, 'sound-bite' (should that be sound-byte?) help information. They want the 'Press F1 for a graphically pretty' type of help. But most of all, they don't want to be met with derision and hostility from the existing user community.
Hmmm, sending my mind back through the hazy fog that was my childhood I seem to remember broadcast companies in the U.K. transmitting a special marker signal at the start and end of commercials that would allow video recorders to automatically pause and un-pause their recording (automatically skipping the commercials for you).
As far as I remember, the whole scheme was blown out of the water when the advertisers pointed out that they REALLY didn't like that very much, and that it was going to cost the broadcast companies that implemented it DEARLY.
Of course, I may just be hallucinating the whole sorry story. Who knows?
About two years ago now I was living and working in London, England (being English, this isn't too uncommon:-). I was working for a large international bank which was going through a particularly messy merger. Well my project got canned as part of the merging process, and I had to decide what direction I was going to take my career in; Would I stay with the new merged company, switch to a different company within London, or do something daring with my life?
Scanning the internal vacancy lists one day, I noticed what seemed to be a prime project (cutting edge technology, pure Java client/server programming - a juicy prospect for a true geek) was touting for experienced development staff. The only problem with the job was that it was in Chicago. Let's face it - without making a major change to my lifestyle, the commute was going to kill me:-)
That evening I went home, and (as is usual for many a geek) logged onto the Internet. I had (and still have) a large set of friends that I keep in touch with through IRC and ICQ; some friends from college days, some friends from work, and some known purely through the 'net. I was just about to head off to bed when I get an ICQ 'random chat request' from someone I'd never heard from before. Well, always open to new friendships, I accepted the chat and found myself talking to a young lady from, of all places, Chicago. "Great" I said, "Do you mind if we chat about your home town tomorrow night, 'cos I might be moving there".
Well, we spent the next evening chatting about Chicago. Pretty soon we found ourselves chatting about music - I introduced her to Mozart, and she introduced me to Jimmy Buffet (I still don't think that's a fair trade;-) After music came art, poetry (OK, I admit it - I'm a geek with a taste for Byron), politics, pets, food, wine, technology, etc, etc, etc. We grew to love each other's company, and looked forward to every evening spent talking.
Four and a half thousand miles is a very great distance to keep a relationship alive across, though. The ICQ sessions switched to long, long evening chats on the 'phone (I can still remember hearing her voice for the first time!). Our phone bills grew exponentially:-) I came across to Chicago to interview for the job, and we both met face-to-face for the first time.
I was offered the job, but had to live and work in England until my work visa was finalized (a process which eventually took close to a year). During this year, she came to holiday with me in England for ten days, but apart from that we had to make do with our nightly 'phone conversations. Of course, I eventually got my work visa, and moved to Chicago for my new job, and for the woman whom I now knew I loved.
What happened to us? We married, and we're currently expecting our first child early next year. Sometimes things just work out:-)
I don't feel that online relationships (or at least relationships that start online) should be any different from any other relationship you may have. Be yourself. Be honest and open with those you trust. Remember that much of the process of finding the right person is just random chance (what if I'd not been the one that ICQ chose to connect my wife with that evening? What if I'd not heard of the Chicago job that morning?)
Sometimes wonderful things happen when you're least expecting them...
OK, so we're all in agreement; Software patents are A Bad Thing (tm). If we don't stop them, then we're going to see the knowledge base of common algorithms (and this 'watershed' algorithm is one of the most common when date processing) whittled away. I for one don't relish spending 90% of my time fighting court cases against bully-boy corporations for using algorithms and techniques that have been commonly available and shared within our community for years.
So the question is this. How do we get our voices heard by the people who control these processes? How do we put a stop to this ridiculous situation?
Yes, Celerons are easy to overclock. However, later model PII's and PIII's are impossible to overclock without modification as Intel locked their clock speeds. I should imagine that the next generations of Intel chips will be exactly the same.
How much heat can you seriously expect to suck away from the processor core? Well, as an example Kryotech manage to suck away enough heat to allow them to run a regular Athlon processor at 900MHz.
Slashdot Mirror
Behold the Nomad Jukebox, which can hold 6GB of music and is about the size of a discman.
See it here
--
...is there a Slashdot check-box that we can tick so that we don't have to watch the movie?
:-)
(For the humour impaired, please note the smiley)
--
Well, that's good enough for me. I thought that the deal was just duped unsuspecting consumers myself. Now that it's gone for a short time) consumers are protected from making bad, uninformed decisions.
So what you're saying is that people are too stupid to be able to make decisions for themselves. In fact, we're the ones that should be making the decisions for them? Can we say 'Big Brother' here?
Something tells me it would. All those Linux haters would have had a hey-day. What can you say? Maybe it *wasn't* ethical. But if the other side would have done it to you, then why act as if you are a nice "moral" guy and let them take advantage of you? You need to take your victories too, or just give up.
Too right it's not ethical. But it's not the ethical issue that worries me so much. The core issue as I see it is that consumer protection law was being used to in effect extort money from what was a completely legitimate business offer. The next time that a consumer law like this one is presented for a reading, large corporations will be able to wave this case of abuse as an example as to why it shouldn't be passed. We're just giving the corporate lobbyists more ammunition to use against us!
I guess it's like beating up a bully. Sure it's unethical to beat someone up, but you know they are going to do it anyways. So you beat them up first to protect other innocent children.
So what you're saying is that we should use any weapon against Microsoft? Even when that means that we're abusing a law that was originally put in place for a noble reason? Even though in this case they were offering a completely legitimate deal to the consumer? If we start walking this path, then we're going to end up as the next big corporate bully-boy.
We shouldn't be trying to beat them by becoming them. We're meant to be better than that. Let's try to win this battle on our own merits, not by beating them at their own game.
/me takes deep breath and calms down.
--
How exactly does this come under consumer protection??? Microsoft aren't abusing the consumer in this case. They are simply offering a $400 rebate!
ABUSING consumer protection law like this devalues what the law-makers were trying to achieve, and in my opinion makes it less likely that these consumer protection laws will be passed in the future.
--
This is the point that I was trying to make when the original article was posted. This is just a case of people using a law that was created to protect consumers as a means to now rip-off a company. Well congratulations folks - you've now managed to get the deal pulled.
An interesting question I'd like to ask everyone here is this. Would the responses and the reporting have been the same if it were someone like VA or RedHat running a $400 back deal?
--
Trivial? Mindless?
What, a little like (a) correcting my usage of Pointy-Haired-Boss when in fact you were incorrect in your understanding of the phrase, and (b) implying that it was actually a spelling error on my part while putting a glaring spelling error in your post title.
If you can't take it, then don't dish it out!
As far as reading the rest of your post, of course I did. I just didn't have anything extra to add and therefore didn't bother to reply to that part.
Why was my post marked with a '1'? Well, it's because I've posted comments before which people have found interesting and moderated up. Why are your posts '0' or below? Because you're posting as an Anonymous Coward and/or have been moderated down.
--
...and while I'm at it, you spelled 'bosess' incorrectly.
Stones.... glass houses.... ?
--
You can shove all you want. The fact of the matter is that Lucas created SW, he owns SW, and he can do whatever he likes with SW. If you don't like what he's doing then I'm afraid that's just tough luck. He's not in it for the personal popularity. He's not in it for your approval, love, or worship. He's in it for the money.
/. decided to join the Lucas boycott, and convinced every one of their relatives and friends to join too, it would put only the tiniest of dents into the Lucas profit machine.
The sad fact of the matter is that if every geek who read
It's also not true to say that 'Everyone doesn't like it'. The truth of the matter is that 99% of his purchasing public really couldn't give a crap about it. They'll continue to buy SW merchandise whether the DVD's are released now, in ten years, or if Georgie boy decides to forget the whole thing and cram the film masters up his ass.
--
He knows that he can get everybody to buy the initial VHS release, the digitally re-mastered VHS release, the special edition VHS release with the extra 30 seconds of film cut from the original movie, and the five year anniversary boxed set VHS release before he gives us the DVD version.
I'm waiting for the "George Lucas' bank account is now bigger than Bill Gates'" Super-Duper-$-$-$-Box-Set release myself.
--
I wouldn't necessarily classify Microsoft's OS efforts as 'dangerous'. The biggest risk we run using NT around the office is the worry that one of our developers is going to get so sick of NT crashing during compiles that he/she sticks his/her head through their monitor :-)
'Supremely frustrating' is the phrase I'd most commonly use.
--
Pointy-HAIRED-Bosses. Can you say "Dilbert"?
--
The problem isn't US wanting to run Windows apps, it's Pointy-Haired-Bosses wanting to run Windows apps!
--
But the reason that you can do this in California and not anywhere else is because California has an extra law allowing it. This law was written to protect consumers against unscrupulous sales behavior from companies trying to piggy-back their own insurance/financing deals onto purchases. I'm pretty sure it wasn't designed to allow people to essentially rip-off a company for $400 and then cancel their contract. As I said - abuse of the legal system.
Here's another question for you - V.A. been running a promotional where you signed up for a 3 year support contract or something and they gave you $400 to spend on hardware, would SlashDot be reporting it like this?
--
Surely this would be abusing a loop-hole in the legal system for financial gain; Something that this community is up in arms about when it's a big corporation trying to crush the 'righteous'.
Food for thought...
--
I completely agree. The real question is do we want this situation to continue into the future? If we want to gain significant market penetration and actively combat the evil empire, then I suspect the answer is an emphatic 'No!'. Like it or not, most people are ignorant of the complexities of Unix and want to remain that way. A good move for our community right now would be to make efforts to hand-hold the techno-ignorant and not to alienate them at the very first step in their journey.
As you can probably tell, I feel quite strongly about this.
--
Oh, I'm sorry. I was just of the opinion that the community members on Slashdot (which is the community that I am referring to) would like to see Linux gain widespread acceptance.
Thank you for reminding me that we can still find arrogance and elitism in our industry.
--
If that's your attitude then don't whinge and whine because most of the world has chosen to use Windows. I was under the impression that most of our community wanted to make our software better for everyone. That's going to need flexibility on our part, and is certainly going to involve moving away from obscure command-line functions and parameters.
If you don't want to move away from this paradigm then you're going to have to accept the fact that most people are going to prefer windows.
--
I'm not sure that the fact that Windows appeals to the unwashed masses is the reason that most geeks hate it (although of course it is going to be the reason for some - I suspect the same sub-set of people who regularly go to Star Trek conferences and point out the inconsistencies between episodes ;-)
:-)
The reasons that most of my geek friends and aquaintances dislike windows is because it is a horrendously designed piece of bloat-ware that is likely to explode and burn your eyebrows off if your code tries to do anything clever. Oh yes, and it's controlled by a monopoly with all the inherent morals of Ghengis Khan
--
Congratulations! Welcome to the wonderful world of geekdom. I too started in the land of assembly language and command lines, at a time when there just weren't many people to ask for help from. In those days computers were only accessible to those who were willing to spend hours digging through FAQ's and manuals to get information on that elusive assembly language call or command line parameter. None of us minded doing this because we all loved learning new information and technologies. We all reveled in sharing our knowledge with other people like us. Other people who understood what 'grep' did, or knew what register-indirect mode was.
Things have changed.
Today 95% of computer users (...he said, plucking the figure firmly from between both buttocks...) want to browse the web. They want to write a quick letter to their auntie Edna. They want to play the odd game, and expose their bank accounts to attacks from hackers by using Quicken. What they don't want to do is spend hours reading through dusty manuals or lengthy FAQ's looking for the answer to one of their questions. They wouldn't know a thread-lock if it came out of the code and bit them on the arse, and they want to keep it that way!
So, ultimately we as a community have to decide whether we're going to make our software (I'm not just limiting this to Linux/FreeBSD/GNU software - it applies equally to everything we produce) accessible to the vast unwashed masses, or whether we want to keep it firmly in the domain of the tech-elite.
We are coming to the point where we have to take these decisions about our favourite pieces of software. We just have to remember that whatever decision we make now, we're going to have to live with in the future.
--
Taken as a joke, that comment is pretty funny. Unfortunately, I suspect that there is more than a grain of truth in that little message.
Quite honestly, it's elitist opinions like this one that will help keep Micro$oft's sorry efforts the Operating Systems of choice for the majority.
The sad fact of the matter is that the average Joe User doesn't want to have to read through reams of manuals to get their computer working. They want quick, easy, 'sound-bite' (should that be sound-byte?) help information. They want the 'Press F1 for a graphically pretty' type of help. But most of all, they don't want to be met with derision and hostility from the existing user community.
Just my thoughts...
--
Hehe - the Wombles comment really tickled my fancy (ooerrr missus!)
For those of you who live outside the U.K., some information on exactly what the Wombles are can be found here.
--
Hmmm, sending my mind back through the hazy fog that was my childhood I seem to remember broadcast companies in the U.K. transmitting a special marker signal at the start and end of commercials that would allow video recorders to automatically pause and un-pause their recording (automatically skipping the commercials for you).
As far as I remember, the whole scheme was blown out of the water when the advertisers pointed out that they REALLY didn't like that very much, and that it was going to cost the broadcast companies that implemented it DEARLY.
Of course, I may just be hallucinating the whole sorry story. Who knows?
About two years ago now I was living and working in London, England (being English, this isn't too uncommon :-). I was working for a large international bank which was going through a particularly messy merger. Well my project got canned as part of the merging process, and I had to decide what direction I was going to take my career in; Would I stay with the new merged company, switch to a different company within London, or do something daring with my life?
:-)
;-) After music came art, poetry (OK, I admit it - I'm a geek with a taste for Byron), politics, pets, food, wine, technology, etc, etc, etc. We grew to love each other's company, and looked forward to every evening spent talking.
:-) I came across to Chicago to interview for the job, and we both met face-to-face for the first time.
:-)
Scanning the internal vacancy lists one day, I noticed what seemed to be a prime project (cutting edge technology, pure Java client/server programming - a juicy prospect for a true geek) was touting for experienced development staff. The only problem with the job was that it was in Chicago. Let's face it - without making a major change to my lifestyle, the commute was going to kill me
That evening I went home, and (as is usual for many a geek) logged onto the Internet. I had (and still have) a large set of friends that I keep in touch with through IRC and ICQ; some friends from college days, some friends from work, and some known purely through the 'net. I was just about to head off to bed when I get an ICQ 'random chat request' from someone I'd never heard from before. Well, always open to new friendships, I accepted the chat and found myself talking to a young lady from, of all places, Chicago. "Great" I said, "Do you mind if we chat about your home town tomorrow night, 'cos I might be moving there".
Well, we spent the next evening chatting about Chicago. Pretty soon we found ourselves chatting about music - I introduced her to Mozart, and she introduced me to Jimmy Buffet (I still don't think that's a fair trade
Four and a half thousand miles is a very great distance to keep a relationship alive across, though. The ICQ sessions switched to long, long evening chats on the 'phone (I can still remember hearing her voice for the first time!). Our phone bills grew exponentially
I was offered the job, but had to live and work in England until my work visa was finalized (a process which eventually took close to a year). During this year, she came to holiday with me in England for ten days, but apart from that we had to make do with our nightly 'phone conversations. Of course, I eventually got my work visa, and moved to Chicago for my new job, and for the woman whom I now knew I loved.
What happened to us? We married, and we're currently expecting our first child early next year. Sometimes things just work out
I don't feel that online relationships (or at least relationships that start online) should be any different from any other relationship you may have. Be yourself. Be honest and open with those you trust. Remember that much of the process of finding the right person is just random chance (what if I'd not been the one that ICQ chose to connect my wife with that evening? What if I'd not heard of the Chicago job that morning?)
Sometimes wonderful things happen when you're least expecting them...
OK, so we're all in agreement; Software patents are A Bad Thing (tm). If we don't stop them, then we're going to see the knowledge base of common algorithms (and this 'watershed' algorithm is one of the most common when date processing) whittled away. I for one don't relish spending 90% of my time fighting court cases against bully-boy corporations for using algorithms and techniques that have been commonly available and shared within our community for years.
So the question is this. How do we get our voices heard by the people who control these processes? How do we put a stop to this ridiculous situation?
Yes, Celerons are easy to overclock. However, later model PII's and PIII's are impossible to overclock without modification as Intel locked their clock speeds. I should imagine that the next generations of Intel chips will be exactly the same.
How much heat can you seriously expect to suck away from the processor core? Well, as an example Kryotech manage to suck away enough heat to allow them to run a regular Athlon processor at 900MHz.