RMS, ESR and Gates are definetly not famous because of their achievements in programming.
ESR, I will grant, though he has written some useful tools. RMS, on the other hand, first became famous because of EMACS and GCC. He became *more* famous later on for his "other" activities, but he was originally a programmer. Bill Gates was certainly famous early on because of programming -- he personally wrote the Microsoft BASIC interpreter that was ported to many personal computers of the time (e.g., the TRS-80). That's what made Microsoft their original money. People think Gates has always been some satanic businessman, but no, he was originally a programmer and a very good one, too. [MS/Basic fun fact: it had a built-in editor based on 'vi' that I only realized was 'vi' much later on.]
Wouldn't it make more sense to simply add one point (or one-half, if you will) to both the Male and Female genders?
Except that would make the numbers (and definitely of gender) utterly meaningless if people could simply choose what to call themselves. The premise of the whole point is that there are fewer famous biological females. Who cares what psychological issues they're carrying around? Genetic gender is the only reasonable definition to use.
When a venture capitalist walks into a programming shop with his MBA that has taught him to stereotype people as much as possible to fit them into market segments the last thing he wants to see is a female programmer telling him how she is going to change the world.
While a pile o' poo-poo. This is wrong on multiple levels.
First, how much V.C. money did Torvalds take? RMS? ESR? Pike? Ritchie? Kernighan? Hell, how about Gates? Generally speaking, legendary programmers become legendary by *programming*, not by "being made" by some VC.
Second, you fundamentally misunderstand the role of VC people. They do not create people, they finance people that already created. Either they already have a business that has become successful and they want to take the next step, or they've already had a considerable track record and have enough credibility to get money. In neither of these scenarios does being a woman matter. VCs want to make money. They'd give a monkey ten million if that monkey already had a track record of making money (and they often have, come to think of it).
Or to put it another way, would Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina (regardless of what you think of them) have any trouble walking into a VC firm with their big idea and getting some big money? Not at all. Of course, they're not technical people, but the point is that VCs want a return on investment with as little risk as possible.
Oops, I misread your quote. I thought you were saying that computing itself would be a divide by zero without her. Now I see you were making a joke. Carry on and ignore my post.:)
Yeah, if it weren't for her, computing the ratio would always exit with division-by-zero. We owe her much.
Oh, please. That is absurd to the point of being sexist. Are you saying that Babbage's machines would never have been designed if it wasn't for her? Yes, she was in a remarkable position for a women by the standards of the day, but she was at most a transcriber, and perhaps might have added some original material.
Of course, it's also absurd to argue that Babbage himself was as important as you raise Ada to be, as though we wouldn't have computers at all if it wasn't for him.
No one can prove Evolution nor can anyone prove Creation.
Er, considering evolution has been observed (yes, including new species creation), I don't know how much more proof you need. Of course, creation as described in the Bible has zero observable evidence.
Unless you mean human evolution, and yes, barring a time machine, we can't directly observe pre-humans changing into humans. We can only look at the mountain of fossil evidence showing clear pre-human bones that bear no resemblance to anything else except humans. But I suspect that no amount of evidence is good enough for you.
then a $700 billion bailout for an economy that's been run into the ground doesn't phase you?
Yes, Bush has sucked, but I hate to break it to you: It was Clinton/GORE that enacted the policy that destroyed the economy. They're the ones that pushed for the looser mortgage standards so that "poor people could afford to buy a house". In fact, the Republicans tried several times to tighten things up during the last eight years, but were blocked primarily by Democrats. If Gore had been President, certainly nothing would have changed on this particular score. It was his own policy, after all.
Not to say I don't blame Bush for the crisis, by the way (see my recent posts on this exact subject -- Bush had the responsibility to see this coming and deal with it).
There's a disconnect there, somewhere, and you don't see it. Are you willing to betray some core values you have to support ones you disagree with simply because it didn't work out?
Actually, I would love to vote Republican -- if they actually believed in the core values they claim to. They simply don't. Based on *results*, the Democrats are actually more fiscally responsible than the Republicans. I'm done listening to what Republicans say they believe in.
And you know what I've (finally) figured out? They've *NEVER* believed in what they say they believe in, all the way back through Reagan, who presided over a huge expansion of government (and yes, I know there was a Democrat congress, but Reagan didn't exactly stand in their way).
And you know what else I've lately found out? Historically, the United States since the 50s has consistently done better under Democrat administrations than Republican ones. Check this out, as one reference. Look for others if you don't trust that one.
I can only conclude that the Republicans talk about freedom, but actually take it away (see also: The SS, I mean, the DHS, torture, Palin mocking constitutional rights in her speech, etc etc). And while the Democrats talk about taking away freedom, they *actually* take away less than the Republicans.
Then when you combine that with the fact that I *DESPISE* the theocratic wing of the Republican party and I think they should mind their own business, you come up with me: a man sick of the Republican hypocrisy, and concluding that the Democrats actually end up doing the least amount of damage. Results, my friend, results. They're all that matters.
There simply is no reason to vote for the Republicans these days. They have all the religious nuts combined with the neocon belief of interfering in every country combined with spenders drunk with their own power combined with the absolute corruption of letting Wall Street manipulate the financial markets.
But I understand your point of view. My hard-core Republican brother is also holding fast to his perception of the Republicans being the "smaller government" party. I'm currently having this same debate with him.:)
The Republicans suck. And they may have *always* sucked.
You DO understand that Presidents don't write laws?
But Presidents do have a few party members that can. And last I checked, the Republicans had a *majority* in congress during the time you say they were trying to fix this. And if congress won't play ball, then the President threatens to veto legislation. He gets on the television and addresses the American people. In short, the President is supposed to be a leader that gets in there and kicks some ass until things get solved, particularly when congress fails to act. Bush certainly paid attention when it was time to blow, er, I mean spend more money on the total incompetence of the running of the war.
And that Bush has been dealing with other probably more important issues than watching our pocketbook?
Based on the scale of the current crisis, apparently there *weren't* more important issues than our economy.
And with all your complaints, you expect him to be competent enough to have managed the problem? Do you WANT more government control and intervention in the economy? Because that's EXACTLY what you're asking for.
No, I'm asking for results. More regulation, less regulation, maybe whatever you claim the Republicans introduced way back when. I WANT RESULTS. As I said, there is one incontrovertible fact: the economy is in grave danger. Unless you're claiming that no one could have foreseen this crisis (which is B.S., of course), then Bush had the responsibility to have competent people around him to see this coming and listen to them.
Bottom line, there is only one metric that matters: RESULTS.
He was pushing for some reforms since 2001 - that's not exactly doing nothing [...]
"Pushing" is not results. I literally don't care what they we're doing all this time. There is only one fact that matters, and that fact is that the man in charge failed to prevent the crisis that you acknowledge he knew was coming. The ONLY thing that matters to me is results. And based on results, Bush is an abject failure on this score (and nearly every other score, but I digress).
I recognize the roots of this came from the left. And they should be held responsible as well. But one man had the responsibility to SOLVE IT before it became a $700 billion dollar debacle.
As for McCain, I have zero confidence in that idiot. He's uneducated, he picked a horrendous VP candidate, he's a hothead who can't even control himself in public enough not to call his wife a c***, he dumped his crippled wife pretty damn fast once he returned from the war for a rich socialite.
I may not agree with Obama on a lot of issues, but at least I know he's not a moron. Is it too much to ask for educated Republicans who aren't dishonorable embarrassments to run for President?
German cars can be more reliable than Asian cars, they're just "different" as in you MUST keep up on maintenance. Asian cars are appliances. You drive them until something big breaks and you go cut a new one out of its shrink wrapping.
Well, sheesh, ANY pile of crap will go forever if you "keep up on maintenance" (even, say, a Fiat). Not that German cars are piles of crap, but are you seriously arguing it's a design "feature" that you have to baby them otherwise they won't last? I highly doubt there's some German engineer sitting around thinking, "Ya, ve could design da engine to nicht burn ze oil, but das customzers like to tinker wit de shpringenverk."
You're falling into the there's-one-person-to-blame trap that the pols are trying to trap you in for the political season. PLEASE keep in mind that much of the situation here lies in the laps of practically everyone in Washington and a good portion of the financial sector who went along with it.
Yes, but there are two dimensions to the "blame" here. There is the blame on the people who began the policies and who were complicit in allowing it to happen. Then there is the responsibility of the man in charge who is supposed to monitoring the country and who is supposed to sound the alarm.
In other words, there is the guy who started the fire, and then there is the guy whose job is supposed to be on the lookout for fires. In this case, the lookout ignored the smoke while he was snoring, then ignored the licking flames while he was scratching his butt, then ignored the spreading full-on fire while he was doing his exercises, and only when it was an out-of-control inferno did he make a few calls. And only when a few firemen were staring up at Armageddon did he decide, under pressure, to actually sound a general alarm.
No, Bush didn't personally light the fire. But he's personally responsible for allowing it to be come a crisis. I'll also warn you not to fall into the trap of spreading the blame so thin that you conclude that no one was ultimately responsible. It was Bush's watch. He failed.
Why do so many people go to McDonald's? I mean, McDonald's has food that "tastes like sh** but you can eat it."
Because it tastes awesome. Not particularly healthy, but awesome. Especially the french fries. Let me guess -- you're a vegan?
Why do so many people like Subway?
Oh, because they use fresh baked bread? Because it's fairly healthy? And how exactly do you screw up a sandwich, anyway?
Don't get me wrong -- Toyota produces a quality product, but it's just not as good as some of the major European brands (let's face it, the Germans know how to engineer good cars!)
Asian cars destroy German cars on long-term reliability. I prefer Honda, but they're all pretty good. I liked my couple of Benzes, but they weren't as good as their reputation after 70-80K miles.
Several senators - particularly Dodd and Sanders - continually blocked measures by the Bush administration to actually be responsible in their required oversight of Fannie and Freddie.
That doesn't mean, by the way, that it isn't Bush's fault. It is absolutely Bush's fault. If they saw that this catastrophe was coming, then Bush by God should've been on the TV every night talking to the American people and shaming the Democrats.
The love affair with overpriced auction winnings is waning. More and more people are realizing that most of the stuff on ebay that you can get at your local store or at another retailer on the internet is usually ridiculously overpriced. The days of paying 105% of new price for used goods are over.
What? What are you talking about? Show me an action that sold for more than local store retail.
The vast majority of eBay items are used merchandise.
3rd Party candidates do more for public discourse than you are giving credit for. A vote for a third party is a vote for the ideals and message of that party and can sway the big two into discussing it at the very least especially if it looks like votes will be taken from them by the 3rd party candidate.
That sounds great, but to be able to vote for a third party candidate, you have to have a third party and a third party candidate that aren't complete extremist wackos. Name one viable third party candidate that is worth of the position of President of the United States.
And don't say the Libertarians. They're the least wacko, but right in their platform they want to sell off the national parks. Next.
You'd do well to not admit publicly, without anonymity, that you thought the ad devastated Apple - you might be not be realizing what message you're sending to those around you, about yourself.
And I wouldn't admit to anyone around you that you actually think anyone cares about the message you send under these circumstances.
If you think that Windows and OSX are equal in time it takes to get things done, then you havnt used the Mac much:) OSX has plenty more key shortcuts etc to move about, desktop view, switch programs, tabs etc.
I'm guessing you haven't used Windows very much. Windows has keyboard shortcuts for all of those and more. In fact, traditionally the Mac has been terrible when it comes to keyboard shortcuts (the last time I used a Mac was probably 8 years ago and was appalled). Apparently OS/X is better on that score these days. I can use Windows without ever touching the mouse (and often do).
If you think Windows doesn't have keyboard shortcuts, that's simply not true. The reason is actually historical -- DOS was obviously very keyboard based, and Microsoft wanted Windows to be usable to people who didn't have a mouse when they upgraded.
I find it interesting that you are familiar with my work habits and needs and know exactly how fast I can work in different operating systems. Are you a stalker?
I don't need to see your driving habits to know you can't drive faster in a blue Civic than you can in a red Civic.
I've been working as a designer since 1992 and have never used anything but a Mac in any studio I have worked for. Maybe you should go play with GIMP and make more amatuer RGB graphics...
What is about being a designer that causes you to think that your personal anecdote has any statistical relevance to anything? And I've got news for you... Photoshop has been available for Windows since 1992. And Adobe sells *far* more Windows copies than they do on the Mac. AND -- I know this is going to be a shock -- you can do anything on the PC that you can do on the Mac. And no, you can't "work faster" on the Mac than you can on Windows. They are effectively identical.
Oh, and one last thing. The GIMP is typically used under Linux, and very rarely under Windows.
What are you talking about? I thought it was *devastating* to Apple. Primarily because it's true. The vast majority of people -- and yes, creative people -- use PCs. The Mac ads have always been arrogant and condescending, and this is a major "up yours" to Apple.
And the tagline is absolutely perfect: "Life Without Walls". That's a direct hit on the most obnoxious characteristic of the Apple world -- the lock-in.
These ads are as good as the other ones were bad, and they were REALLY bad.
i'm one of those morons whose brain simply cannot accept "that's the formula and that's just how it is". i have to know *why*, or it just doesn't sink in.
I don't know what kind of math classes you had, but in every class I've ever had, they *always* derive the formulas when they teach them. That's the whole point of advanced math -- building on foundations to get to more powerful concepts. In fact, I'm so terrible at memorization that that was how I typically passed math tests. If I couldn't remember something, I would rederive it.
For working in that army of Java and.NET developers that drives the industry, do you really need to understand anything beyond basic algebra? Why burden CS students with silly classes when they won't even need to know what an integral is? I think it's a scam perpetrated by the academic industry to force us to pay for more credits and more books.
CS stands for "Computer Science" -- it the science of computer algorithms, with (hopefully) a mathematical basis. Pull out your Knuth books and tell me you don't need math.
If you want less math and more engineering, then choose Software Engineering.
If you want even less math and want just to be part of the "army", then choose IT as your major.
As for me, the only time I've had to dust off Calculus was about 20 years ago before the web, when I had to figure out under a deadline how to calculate the distance between a pair of longitude/latitude coordinates. Of course, now I would just Google it in about five seconds, so this isn't a good example.:)
One time, I did have to pull out logarithms to do an estimate of key capacity in an index file... which apparently stumped about 10 programmers that my boss had asked before he got to me. Which I guess either proves 1) you don't have to know any math to be part of those 10, or 2) if you know math, you can actually impress people occasionally.:)
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RMS, ESR and Gates are definetly not famous because of their achievements in programming.
ESR, I will grant, though he has written some useful tools. RMS, on the other hand, first became famous because of EMACS and GCC. He became *more* famous later on for his "other" activities, but he was originally a programmer. Bill Gates was certainly famous early on because of programming -- he personally wrote the Microsoft BASIC interpreter that was ported to many personal computers of the time (e.g., the TRS-80). That's what made Microsoft their original money. People think Gates has always been some satanic businessman, but no, he was originally a programmer and a very good one, too. [MS/Basic fun fact: it had a built-in editor based on 'vi' that I only realized was 'vi' much later on.]
Wouldn't it make more sense to simply add one point (or one-half, if you will) to both the Male and Female genders?
Except that would make the numbers (and definitely of gender) utterly meaningless if people could simply choose what to call themselves. The premise of the whole point is that there are fewer famous biological females. Who cares what psychological issues they're carrying around? Genetic gender is the only reasonable definition to use.
When a venture capitalist walks into a programming shop with his MBA that has taught him to stereotype people as much as possible to fit them into market segments the last thing he wants to see is a female programmer telling him how she is going to change the world.
While a pile o' poo-poo. This is wrong on multiple levels.
First, how much V.C. money did Torvalds take? RMS? ESR? Pike? Ritchie? Kernighan? Hell, how about Gates? Generally speaking, legendary programmers become legendary by *programming*, not by "being made" by some VC.
Second, you fundamentally misunderstand the role of VC people. They do not create people, they finance people that already created. Either they already have a business that has become successful and they want to take the next step, or they've already had a considerable track record and have enough credibility to get money. In neither of these scenarios does being a woman matter. VCs want to make money. They'd give a monkey ten million if that monkey already had a track record of making money (and they often have, come to think of it).
Or to put it another way, would Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina (regardless of what you think of them) have any trouble walking into a VC firm with their big idea and getting some big money? Not at all. Of course, they're not technical people, but the point is that VCs want a return on investment with as little risk as possible.
Oops, I misread your quote. I thought you were saying that computing itself would be a divide by zero without her. Now I see you were making a joke. Carry on and ignore my post. :)
Yeah, if it weren't for her, computing the ratio would always exit with division-by-zero. We owe her much.
Oh, please. That is absurd to the point of being sexist. Are you saying that Babbage's machines would never have been designed if it wasn't for her? Yes, she was in a remarkable position for a women by the standards of the day, but she was at most a transcriber, and perhaps might have added some original material.
Of course, it's also absurd to argue that Babbage himself was as important as you raise Ada to be, as though we wouldn't have computers at all if it wasn't for him.
No one can prove Evolution nor can anyone prove Creation.
Er, considering evolution has been observed (yes, including new species creation), I don't know how much more proof you need. Of course, creation as described in the Bible has zero observable evidence.
Unless you mean human evolution, and yes, barring a time machine, we can't directly observe pre-humans changing into humans. We can only look at the mountain of fossil evidence showing clear pre-human bones that bear no resemblance to anything else except humans. But I suspect that no amount of evidence is good enough for you.
then a $700 billion bailout for an economy that's been run into the ground doesn't phase you?
Yes, Bush has sucked, but I hate to break it to you: It was Clinton/GORE that enacted the policy that destroyed the economy. They're the ones that pushed for the looser mortgage standards so that "poor people could afford to buy a house". In fact, the Republicans tried several times to tighten things up during the last eight years, but were blocked primarily by Democrats. If Gore had been President, certainly nothing would have changed on this particular score. It was his own policy, after all.
Not to say I don't blame Bush for the crisis, by the way (see my recent posts on this exact subject -- Bush had the responsibility to see this coming and deal with it).
There's a disconnect there, somewhere, and you don't see it. Are you willing to betray some core values you have to support ones you disagree with simply because it didn't work out?
Actually, I would love to vote Republican -- if they actually believed in the core values they claim to. They simply don't. Based on *results*, the Democrats are actually more fiscally responsible than the Republicans. I'm done listening to what Republicans say they believe in.
And you know what I've (finally) figured out? They've *NEVER* believed in what they say they believe in, all the way back through Reagan, who presided over a huge expansion of government (and yes, I know there was a Democrat congress, but Reagan didn't exactly stand in their way).
And you know what else I've lately found out? Historically, the United States since the 50s has consistently done better under Democrat administrations than Republican ones. Check this out, as one reference. Look for others if you don't trust that one.
I can only conclude that the Republicans talk about freedom, but actually take it away (see also: The SS, I mean, the DHS, torture, Palin mocking constitutional rights in her speech, etc etc). And while the Democrats talk about taking away freedom, they *actually* take away less than the Republicans.
Then when you combine that with the fact that I *DESPISE* the theocratic wing of the Republican party and I think they should mind their own business, you come up with me: a man sick of the Republican hypocrisy, and concluding that the Democrats actually end up doing the least amount of damage. Results, my friend, results. They're all that matters.
There simply is no reason to vote for the Republicans these days. They have all the religious nuts combined with the neocon belief of interfering in every country combined with spenders drunk with their own power combined with the absolute corruption of letting Wall Street manipulate the financial markets.
But I understand your point of view. My hard-core Republican brother is also holding fast to his perception of the Republicans being the "smaller government" party. I'm currently having this same debate with him. :)
The Republicans suck. And they may have *always* sucked.
You DO understand that Presidents don't write laws?
But Presidents do have a few party members that can. And last I checked, the Republicans had a *majority* in congress during the time you say they were trying to fix this. And if congress won't play ball, then the President threatens to veto legislation. He gets on the television and addresses the American people. In short, the President is supposed to be a leader that gets in there and kicks some ass until things get solved, particularly when congress fails to act. Bush certainly paid attention when it was time to blow, er, I mean spend more money on the total incompetence of the running of the war.
And that Bush has been dealing with other probably more important issues than watching our pocketbook?
Based on the scale of the current crisis, apparently there *weren't* more important issues than our economy.
And with all your complaints, you expect him to be competent enough to have managed the problem? Do you WANT more government control and intervention in the economy? Because that's EXACTLY what you're asking for.
No, I'm asking for results. More regulation, less regulation, maybe whatever you claim the Republicans introduced way back when. I WANT RESULTS. As I said, there is one incontrovertible fact: the economy is in grave danger. Unless you're claiming that no one could have foreseen this crisis (which is B.S., of course), then Bush had the responsibility to have competent people around him to see this coming and listen to them.
Bottom line, there is only one metric that matters: RESULTS.
He was pushing for some reforms since 2001 - that's not exactly doing nothing [...]
"Pushing" is not results. I literally don't care what they we're doing all this time. There is only one fact that matters, and that fact is that the man in charge failed to prevent the crisis that you acknowledge he knew was coming. The ONLY thing that matters to me is results. And based on results, Bush is an abject failure on this score (and nearly every other score, but I digress).
I recognize the roots of this came from the left. And they should be held responsible as well. But one man had the responsibility to SOLVE IT before it became a $700 billion dollar debacle.
As for McCain, I have zero confidence in that idiot. He's uneducated, he picked a horrendous VP candidate, he's a hothead who can't even control himself in public enough not to call his wife a c***, he dumped his crippled wife pretty damn fast once he returned from the war for a rich socialite.
I may not agree with Obama on a lot of issues, but at least I know he's not a moron. Is it too much to ask for educated Republicans who aren't dishonorable embarrassments to run for President?
German cars can be more reliable than Asian cars, they're just "different" as in you MUST keep up on maintenance. Asian cars are appliances. You drive them until something big breaks and you go cut a new one out of its shrink wrapping.
Well, sheesh, ANY pile of crap will go forever if you "keep up on maintenance" (even, say, a Fiat). Not that German cars are piles of crap, but are you seriously arguing it's a design "feature" that you have to baby them otherwise they won't last? I highly doubt there's some German engineer sitting around thinking, "Ya, ve could design da engine to nicht burn ze oil, but das customzers like to tinker wit de shpringenverk."
You're falling into the there's-one-person-to-blame trap that the pols are trying to trap you in for the political season. PLEASE keep in mind that much of the situation here lies in the laps of practically everyone in Washington and a good portion of the financial sector who went along with it.
Yes, but there are two dimensions to the "blame" here. There is the blame on the people who began the policies and who were complicit in allowing it to happen. Then there is the responsibility of the man in charge who is supposed to monitoring the country and who is supposed to sound the alarm.
In other words, there is the guy who started the fire, and then there is the guy whose job is supposed to be on the lookout for fires. In this case, the lookout ignored the smoke while he was snoring, then ignored the licking flames while he was scratching his butt, then ignored the spreading full-on fire while he was doing his exercises, and only when it was an out-of-control inferno did he make a few calls. And only when a few firemen were staring up at Armageddon did he decide, under pressure, to actually sound a general alarm.
No, Bush didn't personally light the fire. But he's personally responsible for allowing it to be come a crisis. I'll also warn you not to fall into the trap of spreading the blame so thin that you conclude that no one was ultimately responsible. It was Bush's watch. He failed.
Why do so many people go to McDonald's? I mean, McDonald's has food that "tastes like sh** but you can eat it."
Because it tastes awesome. Not particularly healthy, but awesome. Especially the french fries. Let me guess -- you're a vegan?
Why do so many people like Subway?
Oh, because they use fresh baked bread? Because it's fairly healthy? And how exactly do you screw up a sandwich, anyway?
Don't get me wrong -- Toyota produces a quality product, but it's just not as good as some of the major European brands (let's face it, the Germans know how to engineer good cars!)
Asian cars destroy German cars on long-term reliability. I prefer Honda, but they're all pretty good. I liked my couple of Benzes, but they weren't as good as their reputation after 70-80K miles.
Several senators - particularly Dodd and Sanders - continually blocked measures by the Bush administration to actually be responsible in their required oversight of Fannie and Freddie.
That doesn't mean, by the way, that it isn't Bush's fault. It is absolutely Bush's fault. If they saw that this catastrophe was coming, then Bush by God should've been on the TV every night talking to the American people and shaming the Democrats.
The love affair with overpriced auction winnings is waning. More and more people are realizing that most of the stuff on ebay that you can get at your local store or at another retailer on the internet is usually ridiculously overpriced. The days of paying 105% of new price for used goods are over.
What? What are you talking about? Show me an action that sold for more than local store retail.
The vast majority of eBay items are used merchandise.
3rd Party candidates do more for public discourse than you are giving credit for. A vote for a third party is a vote for the ideals and message of that party and can sway the big two into discussing it at the very least especially if it looks like votes will be taken from them by the 3rd party candidate.
That sounds great, but to be able to vote for a third party candidate, you have to have a third party and a third party candidate that aren't complete extremist wackos. Name one viable third party candidate that is worth of the position of President of the United States.
And don't say the Libertarians. They're the least wacko, but right in their platform they want to sell off the national parks. Next.
You'd do well to not admit publicly, without anonymity, that you thought the ad devastated Apple - you might be not be realizing what message you're sending to those around you, about yourself.
And I wouldn't admit to anyone around you that you actually think anyone cares about the message you send under these circumstances.
If you think that Windows and OSX are equal in time it takes to get things done, then you havnt used the Mac much :) OSX has plenty more key shortcuts etc to move about, desktop view, switch programs, tabs etc.
I'm guessing you haven't used Windows very much. Windows has keyboard shortcuts for all of those and more. In fact, traditionally the Mac has been terrible when it comes to keyboard shortcuts (the last time I used a Mac was probably 8 years ago and was appalled). Apparently OS/X is better on that score these days. I can use Windows without ever touching the mouse (and often do).
If you think Windows doesn't have keyboard shortcuts, that's simply not true. The reason is actually historical -- DOS was obviously very keyboard based, and Microsoft wanted Windows to be usable to people who didn't have a mouse when they upgraded.
It says something about how insecure Microsoft feels about their own brand, that they're reduced to playing defense.
So, given that, what does it say about Apple that they feel the need to compare themselves to Windows?
Apparently they couldn't find any of those creative PC people to do the ad:
Er, proving... what? Is Microsoft supposed to be so petty that they insist Macs never be used by any of their third-party contractors?
On the other hand, I can *totally* imagine Steve Jobs being so petty as having something in his contracts specify that Macs must be used.
I find it interesting that you are familiar with my work habits and needs and know exactly how fast I can work in different operating systems. Are you a stalker?
I don't need to see your driving habits to know you can't drive faster in a blue Civic than you can in a red Civic.
I've been working as a designer since 1992 and have never used anything but a Mac in any studio I have worked for. Maybe you should go play with GIMP and make more amatuer RGB graphics...
What is about being a designer that causes you to think that your personal anecdote has any statistical relevance to anything? And I've got news for you... Photoshop has been available for Windows since 1992. And Adobe sells *far* more Windows copies than they do on the Mac. AND -- I know this is going to be a shock -- you can do anything on the PC that you can do on the Mac. And no, you can't "work faster" on the Mac than you can on Windows. They are effectively identical.
Oh, and one last thing. The GIMP is typically used under Linux, and very rarely under Windows.
Sheesh.
What are you talking about? I thought it was *devastating* to Apple. Primarily because it's true. The vast majority of people -- and yes, creative people -- use PCs. The Mac ads have always been arrogant and condescending, and this is a major "up yours" to Apple.
And the tagline is absolutely perfect: "Life Without Walls". That's a direct hit on the most obnoxious characteristic of the Apple world -- the lock-in.
These ads are as good as the other ones were bad, and they were REALLY bad.
i'm one of those morons whose brain simply cannot accept "that's the formula and that's just how it is". i have to know *why*, or it just doesn't sink in.
I don't know what kind of math classes you had, but in every class I've ever had, they *always* derive the formulas when they teach them. That's the whole point of advanced math -- building on foundations to get to more powerful concepts. In fact, I'm so terrible at memorization that that was how I typically passed math tests. If I couldn't remember something, I would rederive it.
For working in that army of Java and .NET developers that drives the industry, do you really need to understand anything beyond basic algebra? Why burden CS students with silly classes when they won't even need to know what an integral is? I think it's a scam perpetrated by the academic industry to force us to pay for more credits and more books.
CS stands for "Computer Science" -- it the science of computer algorithms, with (hopefully) a mathematical basis. Pull out your Knuth books and tell me you don't need math.
If you want less math and more engineering, then choose Software Engineering.
If you want even less math and want just to be part of the "army", then choose IT as your major.
As for me, the only time I've had to dust off Calculus was about 20 years ago before the web, when I had to figure out under a deadline how to calculate the distance between a pair of longitude/latitude coordinates. Of course, now I would just Google it in about five seconds, so this isn't a good example. :)
One time, I did have to pull out logarithms to do an estimate of key capacity in an index file... which apparently stumped about 10 programmers that my boss had asked before he got to me. Which I guess either proves 1) you don't have to know any math to be part of those 10, or 2) if you know math, you can actually impress people occasionally. :)