Where did I say that Google forces themselves down anybody's throats? I only pointed out that they have no real competition in the search engine and online advertising businesses. Not having competition is the definition of monopoly. You can play fair and still be a monopoly.
Compete with whom? Nobody has a search engine that's nearly as popular as Google. And if you want to buy cheap pay-per-click ads, Google is your only serious option.
Which is not to say that Google doesn't deserve its success. They didn't blunder into their main business, the way Microsoft did. Their search engine succeeded because it was designed to keep working as the Internet grew. And althought they sort of blundered into the ad business, they didn't make the kind of stupid mistakes MS made when it blundered into the OS business.
Still, Google is almost as much as monopoly as Microsoft. The fact that they got there through their own smarts, as opposed to Bill Gates' blind luck in the IBM/Digital Research fiasco, is beside the point.
Still, Google is rising fast. Will we someday see Google's net income overtake that of Microsoft, I wonder?
Well, right now, Google's revenue is mainly driven by the growth of the Internet, since it comes mostly from those little ads. I suppose if the Internet grows by a factor of 4, then yeah, they'll have more income than MS. But it'd be better if they had more followthrough on their other ventures, so they weren't so dependent on one single business.
You think hospitals have been ignoring this problem? Remember, every time it happens, they get sued for big bucks. Everything you can think of, you can bet they've tried.
Sure, CSS has issues, but most of his frustration appears to stem from the fact that he really doesn't know much about CSS.
Most of Dvorak's issues seem to come from his own ignorance.
Bush probably did go easy on MS, but the government did not have the court rulings...
Which they didn't have because they didn't ask for them. A court is not going to be hard on a defendent if it's clear that the prosecution no longer gives a shit.
I'll say it again: If you know you're not going to watch Hotel Rwanda, don't put it in your queue. What, is there some kind of culture nazi standing over your shoulder when you access netflix.com? The gap between the person you like to think you are and the person you really are is one of those life issues you're going to have to address one of these days. It has nothing to do with Netflix.
I figure you get Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera to the table, you'd have some pretty interesting standards developed that the browsers might stick to.
That's not Microsoft's history with standards bodies. They come up with some ideas that rely heavily on their own technology. (Did you know that the first version of XSL used Visual Basic as a transform language?!) When the other participants fail to react with total enthusiasm, they decide that standards are overrated.
To be fair, Netscape in its heyday was just as bad as Microsoft when it came to ignoring standards. But I've long thought that both Microsoft and Netscape would have been more standards compliant if W3C had done something to encourage standards compliance. Like trying to issue standards on a timely basis, instead of just assuming that implementers would sit on their hands until standards were ready. Or like creating standards tests instead of waiting for third parties to do it.
But no, they just shrug their shoulders and keep creating standards that nobody will ever implement. W3C has not been effective for a very long time.
The rent-but-don't-watch phenomenon was around long before Netflix. In fact, I often heard it cited as a reason for switching to Netflix: people would keep renting but not get around to watching them before they had to go back.
That guy who cancelled his membership because his movies were gathering dust probably should have just gone to a cheaper membership. His main "problem" is that he has a life, that consists of more than watching movies. Good for him. But it's nice to have some low entertainment around when you need it.
Funny story, not quite related: I know a couple who used to have the two-at-a-time membership. They kept fighting over which one to watch first, then they wouldn't watch either. Now they have the one-at-a-time membership, and everybody's happy.
Notice my sig? Don't confuse ad hominem attacks with simple name calling. The AH fallacy, simply put, is that the validity of the argument depends on who makes it. If somebody says, "You're an idiot, therefore your argument is bullshit", that's ad hominem. But if somebody says, "your argument is bullshit, therefore you're an idiot", there's no fallacy of any kind — the argument is perfectly valid. Of course, a valid argument isn't necessarily a true argument. Your homework assignment is to explain why. Please don't cite Wikipedia as a source.
For those in the dark, GIMP is a state of the art image manipulation software which runs on multiple architectures and OSes and which is released under the GNU free License (GPL).
This writer begins by making sure his audience knows exactly what he's talking about. That is not allowed on Slashdot!
Your argument assumes that (a) all accidents consist of simple collisions and (b) SUVs are no more likely to get in an accident than ordinary cars. I'm not even going to bother with (a). As for (b), there's the notorious tendency of SUVs to roll over. (You did follow my link before arguing about it, didn't you? Sorry, stupid question.) Plus there's the fact that most SUV drivers just don't have the expertise to drive trucks — and SUVs are trucks — safely. (They really should have the same licensing requirements as other trucks.) By the time you add up all the dangers that you get with an SUV, any safety advantage you get by the fact that you have more metal than the other guy (assuming he's not driving an SUV too!) is more than wiped out.
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Poor Jack. No friends. Maybe that's why he's so grouchy.
Where did I say that Google forces themselves down anybody's throats? I only pointed out that they have no real competition in the search engine and online advertising businesses. Not having competition is the definition of monopoly. You can play fair and still be a monopoly.
I never said this was MS's fault. I only linked the Windows Media Player page because it was the best example I could find of silly-looking skins.
Compete with whom? Nobody has a search engine that's nearly as popular as Google. And if you want to buy cheap pay-per-click ads, Google is your only serious option.
Which is not to say that Google doesn't deserve its success. They didn't blunder into their main business, the way Microsoft did. Their search engine succeeded because it was designed to keep working as the Internet grew. And althought they sort of blundered into the ad business, they didn't make the kind of stupid mistakes MS made when it blundered into the OS business.
Still, Google is almost as much as monopoly as Microsoft. The fact that they got there through their own smarts, as opposed to Bill Gates' blind luck in the IBM/Digital Research fiasco, is beside the point.
Get a life, dude.
Slickness and Intuitiveness are not incompatible goals. Its just that lately, Slickness is a major design goal, and Intuitiveness isn't a goal at all.
You think hospitals have been ignoring this problem? Remember, every time it happens, they get sued for big bucks. Everything you can think of, you can bet they've tried.
And of course it's totally impossible for the nurse who does the counting to miscount, especially after a 6-hour operation.
I use the CSS validator myself. It badly needs work.
I'll say it again: If you know you're not going to watch Hotel Rwanda, don't put it in your queue. What, is there some kind of culture nazi standing over your shoulder when you access netflix.com? The gap between the person you like to think you are and the person you really are is one of those life issues you're going to have to address one of these days. It has nothing to do with Netflix.
Not a problem.
That's not Microsoft's history with standards bodies. They come up with some ideas that rely heavily on their own technology. (Did you know that the first version of XSL used Visual Basic as a transform language?!) When the other participants fail to react with total enthusiasm, they decide that standards are overrated.
To be fair, Netscape in its heyday was just as bad as Microsoft when it came to ignoring standards. But I've long thought that both Microsoft and Netscape would have been more standards compliant if W3C had done something to encourage standards compliance. Like trying to issue standards on a timely basis, instead of just assuming that implementers would sit on their hands until standards were ready. Or like creating standards tests instead of waiting for third parties to do it.
But no, they just shrug their shoulders and keep creating standards that nobody will ever implement. W3C has not been effective for a very long time.
That guy who cancelled his membership because his movies were gathering dust probably should have just gone to a cheaper membership. His main "problem" is that he has a life, that consists of more than watching movies. Good for him. But it's nice to have some low entertainment around when you need it.
Funny story, not quite related: I know a couple who used to have the two-at-a-time membership. They kept fighting over which one to watch first, then they wouldn't watch either. Now they have the one-at-a-time membership, and everybody's happy.
Where did I say anything about assigning fault?
Chill out dude. Hollywood keeps coming up with lame distribution models, and people keep ignoring them. No big deal.
Notice my sig? Don't confuse ad hominem attacks with simple name calling. The AH fallacy, simply put, is that the validity of the argument depends on who makes it. If somebody says, "You're an idiot, therefore your argument is bullshit", that's ad hominem. But if somebody says, "your argument is bullshit, therefore you're an idiot", there's no fallacy of any kind — the argument is perfectly valid. Of course, a valid argument isn't necessarily a true argument. Your homework assignment is to explain why. Please don't cite Wikipedia as a source.
(I no longer carry a pocket knife.)
Your argument assumes that (a) all accidents consist of simple collisions and (b) SUVs are no more likely to get in an accident than ordinary cars. I'm not even going to bother with (a). As for (b), there's the notorious tendency of SUVs to roll over. (You did follow my link before arguing about it, didn't you? Sorry, stupid question.) Plus there's the fact that most SUV drivers just don't have the expertise to drive trucks — and SUVs are trucks — safely. (They really should have the same licensing requirements as other trucks.) By the time you add up all the dangers that you get with an SUV, any safety advantage you get by the fact that you have more metal than the other guy (assuming he's not driving an SUV too!) is more than wiped out.