Holy shit, what an asshole. (BTW, I did a little google research on this and it looks totally legit, there's a lot of sources posting this message and details about the employee's lawsuit.)
Now the PC is becoming a workstation for professionals. That means we need an OS built for this new needs. GNU/Linux UI's do have some advantage in this, however there is still too much Server OS, in its design
No, there isn't. Linux works perfectly well as a workstation OS or even a laptop OS these days, esp. with the KDE interface (IMO). Try out the latest Linux Mint KDE edition on a corporate laptop (Thinkpad or Latitude) and see for yourself.
The only real hindrance to Linux in this role is compatibility with existing applications and infrastructure (which, admittedly, is a BIG hindrance). Most corporations are tied heavily to MS infrastructure: Outlook/Exchange for email/calendaring, Active Directory for LDAP services, Windows Server and CIFS/SMB for file sharing, MS Office and its file formats, and a whole host of 3rd-party applications that only run on Windows, which of course varies widely with industry and department. Some of this stuff can be worked around: AD can be replaced with Linux-based LDAP servers, which is mostly compatible (AD is MS's version of LDAP with extensions, which they're famous for: EEE), and Windows file servers can just be replaced with NFS servers if you're moving desktops to Linux, or Samba servers if you want some transition time. However, the whole Outlook & Exchange combo seems to be a big problem on Linux for some reason; I do believe there's some (non-free) Linux-based alternatives here though. But all the Windows-only applications and enterprise software are a problem. Some might work in WINE with heavy testing, but others won't. You could also install VMs with Windows for employees who still need such things, or you might be able to run them on Windows Terminal Servers. The Office file formats are a problem too; Libre/OpenOffice is partially compatible with those, but not entirely, and formatting problems are common. The rise of web-based applications (esp. for enterprise software) is making Windows less necessary than it was before, but it's a slow change, esp. since some of that web-based software still uses ActiveX controls.
But if a new company started up and wanted to eschew MS technologies altogether, and didn't rely on some Windows-only software for some aspect of its business, it's entirely doable to use Linux for workstations and laptops.
It's more when they're developing software for them. If they were to use an Android device for example, they have the source to the OS, and an abundance of hardware providers making products with different sizes and features. With Apple, you have exactly one. If they raise prices or do something you don't like, you're stuck
Yes, but if your business is all about selling iApps, there's not much you can do about that. The simple fact is (unfortunately IMO but I can't control the masses) Apple's iDevices are very popular among the general population, making Apple the most valuable company in the world (IIRC). So developing software for iDevices can be very profitable. Being reliant on Apple is just the risk that goes along with that line of business.
What's dumb is making your business unnecessarily dependent on another (single) company. If your business is making add-on software for a particular company's devices, well there's no way to get around being dependent on that company, and you'll just have to live with that. But if your business is something entirely different, like manufacturing or selling some kind of physical widget, then it'd be pretty dumb to make your business dependent on Apple (or MS for that matter) if it's possible to structure things so you're not dependent on anyone.
Finally, developing software for iDevices doesn't mean you have to be totally dependent on Apple; there's nothing stopping you from also developing software for Android devices, or Windows Phone, or PCs for that matter, except of course developer resources. Lots of app companies make apps for both iOS and Android, because if they only develop for one, then they're leaving out roughly half the market. So even here, you don't have to be 100% dependent on one company; if Apple bans your app for some dumb reason, you can still sell it to Android users (and WP users too, though that's a small sliver of the mobile phone market).
I see I've been modded as a troll for making that point again... very nice.
That's because Slashdot these days is mostly populated by Apple and MS shills (or at least, they have most of the mod points due to Slashdot's idiotic moderation system--anyone who has a valid point to make isn't allowed to moderate, and vice-versa). Just try making a post pointing out something good about Linux and watch yourself be modded -1, Troll while some other post regurgitating MS marketing points is modded +5.
So what we really need is some kind of transparent helmet, or helmet that just looks like a hair-do, so drivers think you're an idiot who isn't wearing a helmet when in fact you are.
2.) Military (US Army): similar to your wife's viewpoint.
My wife was actually in the Air Force and ANG for a while, and mostly enjoyed the experience. Note, this was back in the 90s; she got out before Bush was elected, and things seem to have changed since then. She was more the "tomboy" type like you mention in point #1, and got along well with guys for the most part. There was one incident where a guy tried to rape her in some barracks, however; she stabbed him in the abdomen with her keys and fled, and never had any more problems with him. I'm not sure how he explained to the base doctor how he managed to sustain a serious puncture wound with keys like that.
Oh, and on a personal note, ugly is, as ugly does, IMHO. I've seen a lot of attractive people that have become instantly, overpoweringly, butt-ugly just by opening their mouths and speaking! (or by deeds)
Yes, a physically attractive person can quickly make themselves unattractive by acting like an ass. However, it doesn't work the other way. Someone who looks like Rosie O'Donnell or Roseanne Barr, no matter how wonderful a personality they have, is not going to seem highly attractive in a sexual way. You might be very happy to be friends with them, but taking them to bed generally requires a certain amount of physical attraction for most people.
And to answer your question? The Asian corps value profits, both big AND relatively small, and so as long as a group isn't in the red? it'll tend to stay going.
I guess that partly explains why Asia is taking over the global economy while the US is quickly going the way of the Roman Empire.
Google on the other hand starts from "what cool shit can we do and how can we make money out of it?" "Hey employees, spend 20% of your time brainstorming cool stuff, we'll see if we can use that shit".
Actually, last I heard, Google was no longer doing the 20% thing. It seems like they've given up on the "what cool shit can we come up with?" tack, and now are trying to force more integrated services on everyone, which no one seems to want.
Maybe for now. It could be that Google is taking a longer view (I know, this doesn't seem normal for them given how much they shut stuff down, but maybe G+ is considered much more important). Facebook looks like it's headed for doom; more and more people are closing their accounts there, and recent news shows that the youngest generation thinks FB is passe, and they only bother getting FB accounts because their parents and relatives are on there. I really think FB's days are numbered, and they're already headed the way of MySpace. So maybe Google is trying to set themselves up to become the next big social network, by offering privacy features that FB totally lacks ("circles").
Personally, I think the whole thing is a bad idea. People need to abandon these proprietary social networks and move to a totally decentralized social network, not dependent on any one provider.
Take IBM's PC division, they were making between 8-12% profit every year, year after year. But you see while most countries have companies that would say "solid profits every quarter, that's good right?" they weren't making the same as the #1 company of the time which was Dell, so out it had to go!
I wonder how this compares to companies like South Korea's Samsung and Daewoo or Japan's Yamaha, or other Asian conglomerates. Those companies don't seem to have a problem having lots of different divisions, probably not all super-profitable. As long as something's profitable, why would you want to get rid of it? But these stupid American companies are all about downsizing; if something isn't highly profitable, they'll just sell it off to someone else, like IBM did with their PC and hard drive divisions.
I guess the only parts of Google you can really count on are search and Maps.
Well yes, if you're going to buy them in large enough quantities, that's the best thing to do. If you're not buying in large enough quantities, however, that's probably not an option.
It doesn't have a huge desktop following because most companies use Windows for that. They do that for various reasons: 1) inertia, and 2) applications and infrastructure, namely Office and Outlook/Exchange (and also Active Directory), though there's also lots of 3rd-party applications which are Windows-only that the business may be tied to.
If a business decides they want to free themselves of MS, however, it's quite feasible, depending on what they do and what applications they rely on. With more and more apps being web-based, the MS dependency is shrinking. With governments, it's easier because they can call the shots; they don't need to worry about being 100% compatible with everyone's MS Office documents; they can use LibreOffice and if they have any problems, tell the other organization to provide it in a more compatible format or fuck off. Businesses (which have competitors) don't usually have that luxury. And there's alternatives for Outlook/Exchange out there, though they aren't as popular. Google stuff is becoming a stronger alternative (Docs and Calendar). Aside from this, you can always run Windows Terminal Services for necessary Windows apps, or run Windows in a VM.
- Organizations and social clubs of all stripes. Whatever you're interested in (which incidentally means that you immediately have a shared interest)
Men and women frequently have very different interests. How many women are interested in computer programming (as a hobby) or electronics or woodworking? How many men are interested in knitting or quilting?
- Shows, sporting events, and other entertainments. Again, you immediately have something that you both like or at least tolerate enough to make the effort to be there.
You complain about people hitting on people at work, and you think THIS is appropriate? Going up to some random woman at a sporting event or theater show and hitting on her? Really??? Holy shit.
- Swing dancing and folk dancing.
See my comment above about men and women having different interests. I don't give two shits about swing or folk dancing, and even less about country dancing.
- Yes, at bars or restaurants. You don't have to be a drunk to go to a bar for 1-2 drinks once in a while
Restaurants aren't places to meet people. There's rarely single people there, except at the bar (if it has one), and you don't walk up to women sitting alone at a table and ask to sit with them. And yes, the people who frequent bars usually are drunks. There is one exception: you'll sometimes find single non-drunk people sitting at the bar in a nice restaurant, eating actual food, but frequently these people are business travelers. That's fine if you want a one-night stand, but not so great for a relationship, since long-distance relationships almost never work out.
- If you're a freethinker / agnostic / atheist, then try hanging out with the local freethinker / agnostic / atheist group. If there isn't one, try to start one.
Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Let's all meet to discuss how we don't believe in something! How much conversation about that do you really think you can have?
I'm sorry, you sound like a total idiot. Workplaces are perfectly valid places to meet single people, and the idea that you should never hit on someone at work is simply ridiculous and asinine. This of course doesn't mean you should stalk someone; once they say "no" once, you have to leave them alone or else you're committing harassment and can be fired, but asking someone out once is perfectly acceptable.
What companies are tying themselves to Apple mobile devices? I guess you're talking about something where they're taking iPads and building them into something else. I guess the justification there is there's not too expensive and easy to get, but it really would make more sense to use Android tablets instead since there's multiple vendors, and it's even possible to root them and install alternative software on them.
With people, it's easy to understand. Individuals just don't think in these terms much. They either take it for granted that a vendor will always be around (and really, Apple isn't going anywhere anytime soon) and don't think about abuse (like having your digital media deleted because some license-holder said so, like has happened with Amazon ebooks), or figure they can buy something else later.
A CLI is notoriously non-discoverable, but the ability to type a few letters that should be in the command somewhere can help a lot (assuming it's not a Unix CLI where all command names are encrypted).
That's what the "apropos" command is supposed to be for: you can search for commands that relate to something with that command. Unix CLIs have "man" (manual) pages you can access with "man [command]". Obviously, if you don't know the name of the appropriate command beforehand, that isn't much help, but that's what the "apropos" command does: it lets you search all the man pages for keywords, which will help you find the appropriate command. This has been a standard part of Unix for ages.
This (and the getting data out of the system bit that another responder mentioned) is precisely why I added the phrase "unless it's something that's easily transferred between competing services". Web services are fine if you can transfer everything to a competing provider with a few keystrokes, but when your business is reliant on something totally proprietary run by one other company, which has no alternatives whatsoever, you've put your business at great risk.
You are the one who is delusional if you think "not hitting on women at work" means "never have sex". But maybe this is because I have a social life when I'm not working.
It's really simple: There are times and places where it's acceptable to try to get laid. There are times and places where it's not acceptable. Work (and work-related activities like professional conferences) fall into the second category. Are you really so desperate for contact with women that the only ones you meet are the ones who are paid to be there?
Lots of people meet their partners at work. It's not a "no-dating" place, though most places will frown on bosses dating subordinates. Where else are you going to meet eligible people anyway? Really, I'd like you to answer this, because I'm calling bullshit on this.
There's only a few places to meet people in modern American society: 1) school (high school, college). We're talking about the workplace here, so obviously we're talking about people who are no longer students, and apparently are still single, which shouldn't be unusual. 2) church. If you're not religious, this isn't much help. 3) bars/clubs. If you're not an alcoholic, or would prefer to avoid dating an alcoholic, this isn't much help. 4) work. You spend at least 1/3 of your day here; why wouldn't you want to date someone here? You're not going to get to know someone as well in any other venue, except maybe school which doesn't apply. 5) online dating. This seems to be where everyone who couldn't meet anyone in 1-4 goes to date, and it shows in the quality of people there. There's no shortage of people complaining about all the absolute losers and total freaks they've met on online dating sites. This doesn't mean you can't find a quality person there, but the signal:noise ratio is very low.
And if I were a woman in nursing, I'd consider it my responsibility to consider that a problem and try to put a stop to it so that men who are good at nursing will be more likely to go into the field.
What about other fields? From what women, including my own wife and my mother, have told me, this stuff isn't a problem unique to nursing, it's a problem unique to female-dominated work environments. My wife generally dislikes other women because she's had so many negative experiences with women in the workplace, even in workplaces that were male-dominated: there's always a "jezebel" woman who goes out of her way to dominate things and be the "queen bee", and make sure all the other women are either under her thumb, or pushed out if she sees them as a threat.
It's not like women are some alien species, they would simply like in a professional context to be judged on their capabilities and accomplishments rather than sexual attractiveness to male colleagues or bosses.
That may be true for some, but there's definitely a very significant number of them who use their looks to their advantage. It's not just women either; attractive people of both genders use it to their advantage, even if they're not fully aware of it or trying to do so intentionally. There's been studies of this; people like to be around other attractive people (of either gender, it's not always opposite-gender), and will put extra effort into pleasing attractive people which they won't do for ugly people. You can get a lot of favors and special treatment just by being attractive (and it usually helps to be nice of course), which ugly people just won't get no matter how nice they act.
Google isn't the only company driving US industries into the ground, it's endemic in US corporate culture. Hopefully other countries will take over these industries.
It seems like it's a stupid idea to build a business around any particular web service at all nowadays (unless it's something that's easily transferred between competing services), but Google services do seem to be much worse than average for longevity.
I don't know about your IT department, but ours has very strict standards about supportability, health of a company, number of customers and business strength, etc. Those things are key to investing heavily in a software or hardware platform. You don't want to drop millions on a product only to find the company has gone under and won't be supporting your purchase. There comes a point when an OS reaches enough market saturation that it is largely considered a viable alternative that has achieved it's own momentum. Linux simply hasn't gotten to that place yet.
This is BS. Red Hat is already a much larger and more profitable company than lots of other OS vendors, such as Green Hills. I don't see Green Hills' puny size preventing it from being used for various DoD projects. Novell is also a pretty sizeable company with their own distro. You don't have to be popular enough to be sold in Best Buy for corporate IT departments to invest in you; just look at how much weird enterprise software out there is bought by IT shops, despite the fact that no one else uses it. IT departments don't hesitate to drop millions on that software, even though most of it is utter shit.
Yes, it is. I've been using it as my sole desktop OS since 1999. Many governments have adopted it as their sole desktop OS as well, including Munich Germany. It works great, as long as you keep in mind its limitations (just like any OS, or anything at all for that matter). If you're trying to use it as a clone for Windows, it's going to fail; it simply isn't going to work well if you try to run it in an environment that absolutely needs to be 100% compatible with Windows software and standards. However, this is true for Mac OSX too, and I don't ever see anyone saying "Mac OS is not a serious desktop OS".
I mean, suppose all of a sudden Intel, AMD, and nVidia got together and decided to totally change everything. New ISA, no more DirectX or OpenGL, etc, etc. Everything would need to be reported, redeveloped, and it would be a massive problem.
This wouldn't happen, because, as you say, everything would need to be re-developed, and it would put these companies out of business. I don't just mean Linux software would need to be re-ported, I mean they'd have to wait for all-new software of every kind to be developed to run on their chips. It's not like MS can port Windows to a whole new ISA in 3 months and the companies which use OpenGL/DX would be able to get together and develop a new graphics API and port all their software to it in that time. It would take years for the dust to settle, and I'm just talking about proprietary software here, and totally neglecting open-source stuff. So the very idea is just ludicrous.
This idea that a Steam Box is needed for some kind of stability is silly.
No it's not. It's about control. With Win8, MS is trying to take more control over the PC software ecosystem by emulating Apple's "app store", and they're also moving development in a new direction with the Metro UI. Independent software companies which are mostly tied to the MS platform, and don't like the way it's going, would be stupid to put all their eggs in one basket, which of course is why you see more software for Macs these days that 10 years ago. Valve's direction makes total sense: they're trying to get more control over the platform their software runs on, and that's pretty easy to do with Linux since it's open, allowing you to build custom OS builds easily, and also allowing software vendors a certain amount of power in dictating the direction of development of the OS if they wish (and the existing players agree with them and accept their patches), which you simply don't get with a proprietary OS vendor.
The parent has it right: It is an ego thing, and a thing to try and protect Steam.
That's not an "ego" thing, that's good business sense. Putting your company's future in the hands of another company which doesn't have your interests at heart, and which actually competes with your company in some ways (MS has their own games division), is utterly stupid.
Which ironically was forced on NASA as a cost cutting measure,
Cost-cutting measure? How so? As I understand it, the Space Shuttle came about because the military wanted a way of putting secret satellites into orbit, and also going back up later and retrieving them and bringing them back to Earth. If it weren't for the crazy requirement of bringing big things back to Earth, the SS would never have been developed; they'd have stuck with traditional rockets with crew capsules, like the Soviets' Soyuz, and the upcoming larger one which is (was?) under development.
Yes they will. If a business is less profitable, fewer people will engage in it. To believe otherwise is just plain stupid.
That assumes that there's other businesses which they could take up instead. I imagine the number of business opportunities in Africa are limited. You really think that the warlords are just going to give up using people as slaves and go work regular 9-5 jobs if extremely lucrative businesses dry up?
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Holy shit, what an asshole. (BTW, I did a little google research on this and it looks totally legit, there's a lot of sources posting this message and details about the employee's lawsuit.)
Now the PC is becoming a workstation for professionals. That means we need an OS built for this new needs. GNU/Linux UI's do have some advantage in this, however there is still too much Server OS, in its design
No, there isn't. Linux works perfectly well as a workstation OS or even a laptop OS these days, esp. with the KDE interface (IMO). Try out the latest Linux Mint KDE edition on a corporate laptop (Thinkpad or Latitude) and see for yourself.
The only real hindrance to Linux in this role is compatibility with existing applications and infrastructure (which, admittedly, is a BIG hindrance). Most corporations are tied heavily to MS infrastructure: Outlook/Exchange for email/calendaring, Active Directory for LDAP services, Windows Server and CIFS/SMB for file sharing, MS Office and its file formats, and a whole host of 3rd-party applications that only run on Windows, which of course varies widely with industry and department. Some of this stuff can be worked around: AD can be replaced with Linux-based LDAP servers, which is mostly compatible (AD is MS's version of LDAP with extensions, which they're famous for: EEE), and Windows file servers can just be replaced with NFS servers if you're moving desktops to Linux, or Samba servers if you want some transition time. However, the whole Outlook & Exchange combo seems to be a big problem on Linux for some reason; I do believe there's some (non-free) Linux-based alternatives here though. But all the Windows-only applications and enterprise software are a problem. Some might work in WINE with heavy testing, but others won't. You could also install VMs with Windows for employees who still need such things, or you might be able to run them on Windows Terminal Servers. The Office file formats are a problem too; Libre/OpenOffice is partially compatible with those, but not entirely, and formatting problems are common. The rise of web-based applications (esp. for enterprise software) is making Windows less necessary than it was before, but it's a slow change, esp. since some of that web-based software still uses ActiveX controls.
But if a new company started up and wanted to eschew MS technologies altogether, and didn't rely on some Windows-only software for some aspect of its business, it's entirely doable to use Linux for workstations and laptops.
It's more when they're developing software for them. If they were to use an Android device for example, they have the source to the OS, and an abundance of hardware providers making products with different sizes and features. With Apple, you have exactly one. If they raise prices or do something you don't like, you're stuck
Yes, but if your business is all about selling iApps, there's not much you can do about that. The simple fact is (unfortunately IMO but I can't control the masses) Apple's iDevices are very popular among the general population, making Apple the most valuable company in the world (IIRC). So developing software for iDevices can be very profitable. Being reliant on Apple is just the risk that goes along with that line of business.
What's dumb is making your business unnecessarily dependent on another (single) company. If your business is making add-on software for a particular company's devices, well there's no way to get around being dependent on that company, and you'll just have to live with that. But if your business is something entirely different, like manufacturing or selling some kind of physical widget, then it'd be pretty dumb to make your business dependent on Apple (or MS for that matter) if it's possible to structure things so you're not dependent on anyone.
Finally, developing software for iDevices doesn't mean you have to be totally dependent on Apple; there's nothing stopping you from also developing software for Android devices, or Windows Phone, or PCs for that matter, except of course developer resources. Lots of app companies make apps for both iOS and Android, because if they only develop for one, then they're leaving out roughly half the market. So even here, you don't have to be 100% dependent on one company; if Apple bans your app for some dumb reason, you can still sell it to Android users (and WP users too, though that's a small sliver of the mobile phone market).
I see I've been modded as a troll for making that point again ... very nice.
That's because Slashdot these days is mostly populated by Apple and MS shills (or at least, they have most of the mod points due to Slashdot's idiotic moderation system--anyone who has a valid point to make isn't allowed to moderate, and vice-versa). Just try making a post pointing out something good about Linux and watch yourself be modded -1, Troll while some other post regurgitating MS marketing points is modded +5.
So what we really need is some kind of transparent helmet, or helmet that just looks like a hair-do, so drivers think you're an idiot who isn't wearing a helmet when in fact you are.
2.) Military (US Army):
similar to your wife's viewpoint.
My wife was actually in the Air Force and ANG for a while, and mostly enjoyed the experience. Note, this was back in the 90s; she got out before Bush was elected, and things seem to have changed since then. She was more the "tomboy" type like you mention in point #1, and got along well with guys for the most part. There was one incident where a guy tried to rape her in some barracks, however; she stabbed him in the abdomen with her keys and fled, and never had any more problems with him. I'm not sure how he explained to the base doctor how he managed to sustain a serious puncture wound with keys like that.
Oh, and on a personal note, ugly is, as ugly does, IMHO.
I've seen a lot of attractive people that have become instantly, overpoweringly, butt-ugly just by opening their mouths and speaking! (or by deeds)
Yes, a physically attractive person can quickly make themselves unattractive by acting like an ass. However, it doesn't work the other way. Someone who looks like Rosie O'Donnell or Roseanne Barr, no matter how wonderful a personality they have, is not going to seem highly attractive in a sexual way. You might be very happy to be friends with them, but taking them to bed generally requires a certain amount of physical attraction for most people.
And to answer your question? The Asian corps value profits, both big AND relatively small, and so as long as a group isn't in the red? it'll tend to stay going.
I guess that partly explains why Asia is taking over the global economy while the US is quickly going the way of the Roman Empire.
Google on the other hand starts from "what cool shit can we do and how can we make money out of it?" "Hey employees, spend 20% of your time brainstorming cool stuff, we'll see if we can use that shit".
Actually, last I heard, Google was no longer doing the 20% thing. It seems like they've given up on the "what cool shit can we come up with?" tack, and now are trying to force more integrated services on everyone, which no one seems to want.
Maybe for now. It could be that Google is taking a longer view (I know, this doesn't seem normal for them given how much they shut stuff down, but maybe G+ is considered much more important). Facebook looks like it's headed for doom; more and more people are closing their accounts there, and recent news shows that the youngest generation thinks FB is passe, and they only bother getting FB accounts because their parents and relatives are on there. I really think FB's days are numbered, and they're already headed the way of MySpace. So maybe Google is trying to set themselves up to become the next big social network, by offering privacy features that FB totally lacks ("circles").
Personally, I think the whole thing is a bad idea. People need to abandon these proprietary social networks and move to a totally decentralized social network, not dependent on any one provider.
Take IBM's PC division, they were making between 8-12% profit every year, year after year. But you see while most countries have companies that would say "solid profits every quarter, that's good right?" they weren't making the same as the #1 company of the time which was Dell, so out it had to go!
I wonder how this compares to companies like South Korea's Samsung and Daewoo or Japan's Yamaha, or other Asian conglomerates. Those companies don't seem to have a problem having lots of different divisions, probably not all super-profitable. As long as something's profitable, why would you want to get rid of it? But these stupid American companies are all about downsizing; if something isn't highly profitable, they'll just sell it off to someone else, like IBM did with their PC and hard drive divisions.
I guess the only parts of Google you can really count on are search and Maps.
Well yes, if you're going to buy them in large enough quantities, that's the best thing to do. If you're not buying in large enough quantities, however, that's probably not an option.
It doesn't have a huge desktop following because most companies use Windows for that. They do that for various reasons: 1) inertia, and 2) applications and infrastructure, namely Office and Outlook/Exchange (and also Active Directory), though there's also lots of 3rd-party applications which are Windows-only that the business may be tied to.
If a business decides they want to free themselves of MS, however, it's quite feasible, depending on what they do and what applications they rely on. With more and more apps being web-based, the MS dependency is shrinking. With governments, it's easier because they can call the shots; they don't need to worry about being 100% compatible with everyone's MS Office documents; they can use LibreOffice and if they have any problems, tell the other organization to provide it in a more compatible format or fuck off. Businesses (which have competitors) don't usually have that luxury. And there's alternatives for Outlook/Exchange out there, though they aren't as popular. Google stuff is becoming a stronger alternative (Docs and Calendar). Aside from this, you can always run Windows Terminal Services for necessary Windows apps, or run Windows in a VM.
- Organizations and social clubs of all stripes. Whatever you're interested in (which incidentally means that you immediately have a shared interest)
Men and women frequently have very different interests. How many women are interested in computer programming (as a hobby) or electronics or woodworking? How many men are interested in knitting or quilting?
- Shows, sporting events, and other entertainments. Again, you immediately have something that you both like or at least tolerate enough to make the effort to be there.
You complain about people hitting on people at work, and you think THIS is appropriate? Going up to some random woman at a sporting event or theater show and hitting on her? Really??? Holy shit.
- Swing dancing and folk dancing.
See my comment above about men and women having different interests. I don't give two shits about swing or folk dancing, and even less about country dancing.
- Yes, at bars or restaurants. You don't have to be a drunk to go to a bar for 1-2 drinks once in a while
Restaurants aren't places to meet people. There's rarely single people there, except at the bar (if it has one), and you don't walk up to women sitting alone at a table and ask to sit with them. And yes, the people who frequent bars usually are drunks. There is one exception: you'll sometimes find single non-drunk people sitting at the bar in a nice restaurant, eating actual food, but frequently these people are business travelers. That's fine if you want a one-night stand, but not so great for a relationship, since long-distance relationships almost never work out.
- If you're a freethinker / agnostic / atheist, then try hanging out with the local freethinker / agnostic / atheist group. If there isn't one, try to start one.
Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Let's all meet to discuss how we don't believe in something! How much conversation about that do you really think you can have?
I'm sorry, you sound like a total idiot. Workplaces are perfectly valid places to meet single people, and the idea that you should never hit on someone at work is simply ridiculous and asinine. This of course doesn't mean you should stalk someone; once they say "no" once, you have to leave them alone or else you're committing harassment and can be fired, but asking someone out once is perfectly acceptable.
What companies are tying themselves to Apple mobile devices? I guess you're talking about something where they're taking iPads and building them into something else. I guess the justification there is there's not too expensive and easy to get, but it really would make more sense to use Android tablets instead since there's multiple vendors, and it's even possible to root them and install alternative software on them.
With people, it's easy to understand. Individuals just don't think in these terms much. They either take it for granted that a vendor will always be around (and really, Apple isn't going anywhere anytime soon) and don't think about abuse (like having your digital media deleted because some license-holder said so, like has happened with Amazon ebooks), or figure they can buy something else later.
A CLI is notoriously non-discoverable, but the ability to type a few letters that should be in the command somewhere can help a lot (assuming it's not a Unix CLI where all command names are encrypted).
That's what the "apropos" command is supposed to be for: you can search for commands that relate to something with that command. Unix CLIs have "man" (manual) pages you can access with "man [command]". Obviously, if you don't know the name of the appropriate command beforehand, that isn't much help, but that's what the "apropos" command does: it lets you search all the man pages for keywords, which will help you find the appropriate command. This has been a standard part of Unix for ages.
This (and the getting data out of the system bit that another responder mentioned) is precisely why I added the phrase "unless it's something that's easily transferred between competing services". Web services are fine if you can transfer everything to a competing provider with a few keystrokes, but when your business is reliant on something totally proprietary run by one other company, which has no alternatives whatsoever, you've put your business at great risk.
You are the one who is delusional if you think "not hitting on women at work" means "never have sex". But maybe this is because I have a social life when I'm not working.
It's really simple: There are times and places where it's acceptable to try to get laid. There are times and places where it's not acceptable. Work (and work-related activities like professional conferences) fall into the second category. Are you really so desperate for contact with women that the only ones you meet are the ones who are paid to be there?
Lots of people meet their partners at work. It's not a "no-dating" place, though most places will frown on bosses dating subordinates. Where else are you going to meet eligible people anyway? Really, I'd like you to answer this, because I'm calling bullshit on this.
There's only a few places to meet people in modern American society:
1) school (high school, college). We're talking about the workplace here, so obviously we're talking about people who are no longer students, and apparently are still single, which shouldn't be unusual.
2) church. If you're not religious, this isn't much help.
3) bars/clubs. If you're not an alcoholic, or would prefer to avoid dating an alcoholic, this isn't much help.
4) work. You spend at least 1/3 of your day here; why wouldn't you want to date someone here? You're not going to get to know someone as well in any other venue, except maybe school which doesn't apply.
5) online dating. This seems to be where everyone who couldn't meet anyone in 1-4 goes to date, and it shows in the quality of people there. There's no shortage of people complaining about all the absolute losers and total freaks they've met on online dating sites. This doesn't mean you can't find a quality person there, but the signal:noise ratio is very low.
And if I were a woman in nursing, I'd consider it my responsibility to consider that a problem and try to put a stop to it so that men who are good at nursing will be more likely to go into the field.
What about other fields? From what women, including my own wife and my mother, have told me, this stuff isn't a problem unique to nursing, it's a problem unique to female-dominated work environments. My wife generally dislikes other women because she's had so many negative experiences with women in the workplace, even in workplaces that were male-dominated: there's always a "jezebel" woman who goes out of her way to dominate things and be the "queen bee", and make sure all the other women are either under her thumb, or pushed out if she sees them as a threat.
It's not like women are some alien species, they would simply like in a professional context to be judged on their capabilities and accomplishments rather than sexual attractiveness to male colleagues or bosses.
That may be true for some, but there's definitely a very significant number of them who use their looks to their advantage. It's not just women either; attractive people of both genders use it to their advantage, even if they're not fully aware of it or trying to do so intentionally. There's been studies of this; people like to be around other attractive people (of either gender, it's not always opposite-gender), and will put extra effort into pleasing attractive people which they won't do for ugly people. You can get a lot of favors and special treatment just by being attractive (and it usually helps to be nice of course), which ugly people just won't get no matter how nice they act.
Google could destroy the US robotics industry.
Google isn't the only company driving US industries into the ground, it's endemic in US corporate culture. Hopefully other countries will take over these industries.
It seems like it's a stupid idea to build a business around any particular web service at all nowadays (unless it's something that's easily transferred between competing services), but Google services do seem to be much worse than average for longevity.
I don't know about your IT department, but ours has very strict standards about supportability, health of a company, number of customers and business strength, etc. Those things are key to investing heavily in a software or hardware platform. You don't want to drop millions on a product only to find the company has gone under and won't be supporting your purchase. There comes a point when an OS reaches enough market saturation that it is largely considered a viable alternative that has achieved it's own momentum. Linux simply hasn't gotten to that place yet.
This is BS. Red Hat is already a much larger and more profitable company than lots of other OS vendors, such as Green Hills. I don't see Green Hills' puny size preventing it from being used for various DoD projects. Novell is also a pretty sizeable company with their own distro. You don't have to be popular enough to be sold in Best Buy for corporate IT departments to invest in you; just look at how much weird enterprise software out there is bought by IT shops, despite the fact that no one else uses it. IT departments don't hesitate to drop millions on that software, even though most of it is utter shit.
I think most people define it as being explicitly supported "out of the box" by a critical mass of parts of the PC ecosystem:
No, a "serious desktop OS" is something that does the tasks you require of it. Everyone has different requirements.
Major commercial software vendors
There's tons of software that doesn't work on MacOS, including lots of enterprise software. So Macs aren't "serious desktops"?
Networking equipment, printer/scanners, and other accessory vendors
I don't know of any serious printers (not cheap POS Best Buy printers) that don't work in Linux, nor any network equipment.
Native commercial game ports/support
Why the hell is this important? How many large corporations give a shit about commercial game support for their office workers' desktop PCs?
Support from ISPs, cloud backup services, etc.
Again, not important if you're a corporation or government or any serious institution.
So basically unless you can walk into a Best Buy
No serious business gives two shits about anything sold in Best Buy. Corporate IT departments do not shop at Best Buy.
Your mileage may vary - I am just proposing a definition based on mass market usage
IT departments don't give a shit about mass market usage. They only care that the applications they use are supported by the platform.
You talk like someone who's never worked in a real job at any decent company before.
Sorry, but Linux is not a serious desktop OS.
Yes, it is. I've been using it as my sole desktop OS since 1999. Many governments have adopted it as their sole desktop OS as well, including Munich Germany. It works great, as long as you keep in mind its limitations (just like any OS, or anything at all for that matter). If you're trying to use it as a clone for Windows, it's going to fail; it simply isn't going to work well if you try to run it in an environment that absolutely needs to be 100% compatible with Windows software and standards. However, this is true for Mac OSX too, and I don't ever see anyone saying "Mac OS is not a serious desktop OS".
I mean, suppose all of a sudden Intel, AMD, and nVidia got together and decided to totally change everything. New ISA, no more DirectX or OpenGL, etc, etc. Everything would need to be reported, redeveloped, and it would be a massive problem.
This wouldn't happen, because, as you say, everything would need to be re-developed, and it would put these companies out of business. I don't just mean Linux software would need to be re-ported, I mean they'd have to wait for all-new software of every kind to be developed to run on their chips. It's not like MS can port Windows to a whole new ISA in 3 months and the companies which use OpenGL/DX would be able to get together and develop a new graphics API and port all their software to it in that time. It would take years for the dust to settle, and I'm just talking about proprietary software here, and totally neglecting open-source stuff. So the very idea is just ludicrous.
This idea that a Steam Box is needed for some kind of stability is silly.
No it's not. It's about control. With Win8, MS is trying to take more control over the PC software ecosystem by emulating Apple's "app store", and they're also moving development in a new direction with the Metro UI. Independent software companies which are mostly tied to the MS platform, and don't like the way it's going, would be stupid to put all their eggs in one basket, which of course is why you see more software for Macs these days that 10 years ago. Valve's direction makes total sense: they're trying to get more control over the platform their software runs on, and that's pretty easy to do with Linux since it's open, allowing you to build custom OS builds easily, and also allowing software vendors a certain amount of power in dictating the direction of development of the OS if they wish (and the existing players agree with them and accept their patches), which you simply don't get with a proprietary OS vendor.
The parent has it right: It is an ego thing, and a thing to try and protect Steam.
That's not an "ego" thing, that's good business sense. Putting your company's future in the hands of another company which doesn't have your interests at heart, and which actually competes with your company in some ways (MS has their own games division), is utterly stupid.
Which ironically was forced on NASA as a cost cutting measure,
Cost-cutting measure? How so? As I understand it, the Space Shuttle came about because the military wanted a way of putting secret satellites into orbit, and also going back up later and retrieving them and bringing them back to Earth. If it weren't for the crazy requirement of bringing big things back to Earth, the SS would never have been developed; they'd have stuck with traditional rockets with crew capsules, like the Soviets' Soyuz, and the upcoming larger one which is (was?) under development.
Yes they will. If a business is less profitable, fewer people will engage in it. To believe otherwise is just plain stupid.
That assumes that there's other businesses which they could take up instead. I imagine the number of business opportunities in Africa are limited. You really think that the warlords are just going to give up using people as slaves and go work regular 9-5 jobs if extremely lucrative businesses dry up?