I didn't say it was practical: of course Microsoft won't actually do it. Honestly, though, I don't believe the claims of there being any reason not to other than trying to force the upgrade cycle along. Too many other browsers have managed the same things IE9 does, and IE10 claims it will do, all while running with no problems on XP.
I award you 2/10. You've picked a topic that will surely gather a number of bites, but your original post betrays so little knowledge of the subject matter that those bites will catch onto you too quickly: the threads will fizzle only two or three exchanges deep. No epic flamewar for you.
Formatted hypertext with images is a common and effective way to present data to the user. In the case of a media player, this can include album or movie data, lyrics, liner notes, or, as others have noted more cynically, a store.
Browser engines are as good a method as any of providing that functionality. They're better than many, in fact. Reusing an existing engine is less bloaty than cooking up a new one for every task.
Yes, and the fact remains that Microsoft is not going to auto-upgrade users of any version of IE to Opera. Since we're dealing with sticks in the mud who don't upgrade of their own volition, this leaves Opera sadly out of scope.
It's not my intent to knock Opera. It's a very nice browser. But it's not in the scope of this discussion.
It's also easier to say "But... but I'm different; I can handle texting while driving" even when the proof is on the table that the human brain is not wired for such feats.
That's very nice, but I don't think Microsoft is going to be auto-upgrading its users to Opera 12 from any version of IE, and so it's not really in scope here.
Unfortunately, Microsoft chose not to support IE9 on Windows XP, so we're going to be stuck with IE8 for quite some time yet.
Mind you, this is still cause for some celebration, as IE8 represents major improvement over its predecessors. But it's not the fundamental fix to the Web that an update to IE9 would be. When Microsoft swallows its pride and ports it (or puts XP support into IE10), that will be cause for dancing in the streets.
I don't see what's so "not-protest" about opposing what another entity has expressly stated a desire to do. Consider SOPA, for example: it has not actually been enacted, but some elements are actively trying to do so, and people protest against that. What makes the Tea Party different, other than that you disagree with a caricature of their position that you have projected onto them?
NYMEX did it, you can bet the hedge fund managers and investment bankers of the world are doing it.
That's a very serious accusation you're making. Care to back it up?
and like that dude recently said on bbc. governments dont run the world. Goldman Sachs runs the world. Goldman makes huge profits from slavery (i.e. globalization) , why would they want to stop it?
Ah, so here we get to the gist of things: you aren't a fan of competing in the job market, so you call it slavery in an attempt to whip up other people's pathos. You also throw in a conspiracy theory for good measure.
A lot of people seem to think that feminism is arguing that men and women are the same, but that is wrong. Feminism merely argues that men and women are of equal worth, that they both have equally valuable roles on society. The fact that historically the role of women and home makers and mothers has been seen as less important that earning a wage is the cultural bias, not the idea that men and women are different which is a simple fact.
The second wave rather screwed up the "equally valuable roles" thing, though. They argued that these roles were indeed less important, and that women were assigned to them for that reason. This argument is starting to fall out of fashion, but vestiges remain, most notably in the idea that other goals are "higher."
As I said before, though, I'm OK with this. I don't use ABP to stick it to The Man; I use it because a number of my ads either actually make my browser unusable or are annoying enough to seriously detract from my browsing experience. If ABP can block only these while letting more benign ads through, then I applaud them: it allows site owners who don't employ these ads to keep their revenue, and it provides a clear alternative for site owners who currently do employ these ads. That's the sort of thing that actually stands a chance of making some change.
In fact, I wish this weren't optional. There's a difference between protesting against certain odious forms of advertising and simply stealing content. The people who run this just to stick it to The Man are not allies in that fight.
I don't use Adblock to stick it to The Man; I use it due to the prevalence of excessively annoying and/or resource-hogging ads. If Adblock can block only those while letting more benign ads through, then I consider that a vast improvement, because it doesn't strip revenue from site owners who don't employ these unseemly tactics in monetizing their sites. Furthermore it provides owners who do employ such tactics a clear path to more revenue, which, unlike current solutions, actually stands a chance of encouraging change in the way things are advertised online.
I also support making it the default, and in fact I'd prefer it if they made it mandatory. I fully support protesting against annoying and browser-killing ads, but people who just want to stick it to The Man are not our allies.
If you can't change the OS configuration, you're screwed.
What I'd suggest for something like this is to set up a locked-down OS image for the testing app, and make that image do what you want (which should probably include some kind of heartbeat script that notifies a proctor if a machine goes down, for example if someone is trying to reboot it).
When the time comes to test, netboot the machines using that image. When testing is over, boot the machines back up normally.
"Assuming Jack Thompson is capable of such emotions"? If he were not capable of such emotions, he would not be nearly as much of a problem: not only is he capable of them, but they misfire pretty much constantly on things that shouldn't be triggering them.
The fear of "waste" by rapid prototyping doesn't just show up in a reluctance to use it. Such prototypes have a nasty habit of evolving into the production code that they were never actually meant to become, and that causes headaches for everyone.
It's an incorrect use of rapid prototyping, but it happens, and that needs to be accounted for.
IT worker in what country? Obviously not the United States. With the constant threats of lay-offs and outsourcing and the high cost of living, I have never heard of any IT working thinking that their pay needs to be lowered!
No one wants their pay to be lowered. I don't either, and that's why I struggle with this: I'm not satisfied with any answer yet, but this is the closest, being the only one thus far that doesn't reduce to mere socioeconomic aesthetics or base eudaimonia.
Pretty much this. That's not to say that Chrome is bad: it isn't. But Firefox is trying to be Chrome, and no one is ever going to be better at being Chrome better than Chrome itself (except possibly Chromium, but that's something of an academic debate).
In the process, Firefox is rapidly losing its own way. This is a shame, because I found more than a few of Firefox's old ways better than its new ones, or Chrome's for that matter. We're losing choice in the browser market because it's coming down not so much to a choice between Chrome and Firefox as between Chrome and imitation-Chrome, and Chrome will always win that.
tl;dr version - Firefox lost its way when it started imitating other browsers, because it will never be able to beat the originals. It must instead become its own original, as it once was.
If outsourced labor can provide essentially the same productivity for a far lower cost, then what does that say about the value American labor provides? This is Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound": the jobs aren't go exactly where he thought it would, but that's a minor detail. The principles of his prediction were dead-on.
The numbers are simple: you can get basically the same quality and quantity of product (be that code, widgets, or most other things) from foreign labor, all for considerably less cost. This is why businesses outsource, and it's tough to even blame them: like anyone engaging in trade, even consumers, they're merely looking to get the best value for the money they spend. If you want to end outsourcing, then one way or another you have to change the numbers: lower foreign productivity, raise foreign costs, raise American productivity, or lower American costs.
Lowering foreign productivity would work if it were possible, but it depends entirely on factors over which no entity in the US has any real control, making any attempts to do so meaningless. So this is out.
Raising American productivity is slightly more practical, in that the factors involved are of the sort that the US actually has control over. The problem is that it takes sweeping cultural changes to do this, and that requires new generations. We don't have time for that; we need something that applies here and now. So this, too, is out.
That leaves cost-based approaches: either lower American costs or raise foreign costs. Raising foreign costs basically amounts to the imposition of import duties: tax the wazoo out of foreign imports (including code written for hire) until outsourcing costs more than hiring from within the US. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but no side of the aisle actually wants to do it right now, especially not with the countries that would most need to be targeted, because those countries have us over a barrel debt-wise.
That leaves only one option: lower the cost of American labor. As an IT worker myself, I'm no more a fan of this than anyone else on this site, but it is by far the most, if not the only, realistic solution.
The ESRB is an especially poor rating system, exemplified by its use of the word "mature" in the ratings themselves. This renders it too easily used as a marketing term for vendors looking to market some of the most puerile content imaginable to the segments of the population least able to handle it, all by using the word "mature" to imply that the game will make them feel like men. Indeed, there are entire companies that depend on this business model: witness Rockstar.
When and if the ESRB removes marketing terms from its ratings, they may deserve to be taken seriously. Certainly not until then.
Slashdot Mirror
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.
I didn't say it was practical: of course Microsoft won't actually do it. Honestly, though, I don't believe the claims of there being any reason not to other than trying to force the upgrade cycle along. Too many other browsers have managed the same things IE9 does, and IE10 claims it will do, all while running with no problems on XP.
I award you 2/10. You've picked a topic that will surely gather a number of bites, but your original post betrays so little knowledge of the subject matter that those bites will catch onto you too quickly: the threads will fizzle only two or three exchanges deep. No epic flamewar for you.
Formatted hypertext with images is a common and effective way to present data to the user. In the case of a media player, this can include album or movie data, lyrics, liner notes, or, as others have noted more cynically, a store.
Browser engines are as good a method as any of providing that functionality. They're better than many, in fact. Reusing an existing engine is less bloaty than cooking up a new one for every task.
Honest question: is English your native language?
Yes, and the fact remains that Microsoft is not going to auto-upgrade users of any version of IE to Opera. Since we're dealing with sticks in the mud who don't upgrade of their own volition, this leaves Opera sadly out of scope.
It's not my intent to knock Opera. It's a very nice browser. But it's not in the scope of this discussion.
It's also easier to say "But... but I'm different; I can handle texting while driving" even when the proof is on the table that the human brain is not wired for such feats.
That's very nice, but I don't think Microsoft is going to be auto-upgrading its users to Opera 12 from any version of IE, and so it's not really in scope here.
How'd you get IE9 running on XP?
Unfortunately, Microsoft chose not to support IE9 on Windows XP, so we're going to be stuck with IE8 for quite some time yet.
Mind you, this is still cause for some celebration, as IE8 represents major improvement over its predecessors. But it's not the fundamental fix to the Web that an update to IE9 would be. When Microsoft swallows its pride and ports it (or puts XP support into IE10), that will be cause for dancing in the streets.
I don't see what's so "not-protest" about opposing what another entity has expressly stated a desire to do. Consider SOPA, for example: it has not actually been enacted, but some elements are actively trying to do so, and people protest against that. What makes the Tea Party different, other than that you disagree with a caricature of their position that you have projected onto them?
NYMEX did it, you can bet the hedge fund managers and investment bankers of the world are doing it.
That's a very serious accusation you're making. Care to back it up?
and like that dude recently said on bbc. governments dont run the world. Goldman Sachs runs the world. Goldman makes huge profits from slavery (i.e. globalization) , why would they want to stop it?
Ah, so here we get to the gist of things: you aren't a fan of competing in the job market, so you call it slavery in an attempt to whip up other people's pathos. You also throw in a conspiracy theory for good measure.
A lot of people seem to think that feminism is arguing that men and women are the same, but that is wrong. Feminism merely argues that men and women are of equal worth, that they both have equally valuable roles on society. The fact that historically the role of women and home makers and mothers has been seen as less important that earning a wage is the cultural bias, not the idea that men and women are different which is a simple fact.
The second wave rather screwed up the "equally valuable roles" thing, though. They argued that these roles were indeed less important, and that women were assigned to them for that reason. This argument is starting to fall out of fashion, but vestiges remain, most notably in the idea that other goals are "higher."
As I said before, though, I'm OK with this. I don't use ABP to stick it to The Man; I use it because a number of my ads either actually make my browser unusable or are annoying enough to seriously detract from my browsing experience. If ABP can block only these while letting more benign ads through, then I applaud them: it allows site owners who don't employ these ads to keep their revenue, and it provides a clear alternative for site owners who currently do employ these ads. That's the sort of thing that actually stands a chance of making some change.
In fact, I wish this weren't optional. There's a difference between protesting against certain odious forms of advertising and simply stealing content. The people who run this just to stick it to The Man are not allies in that fight.
I don't use Adblock to stick it to The Man; I use it due to the prevalence of excessively annoying and/or resource-hogging ads. If Adblock can block only those while letting more benign ads through, then I consider that a vast improvement, because it doesn't strip revenue from site owners who don't employ these unseemly tactics in monetizing their sites. Furthermore it provides owners who do employ such tactics a clear path to more revenue, which, unlike current solutions, actually stands a chance of encouraging change in the way things are advertised online.
I also support making it the default, and in fact I'd prefer it if they made it mandatory. I fully support protesting against annoying and browser-killing ads, but people who just want to stick it to The Man are not our allies.
If you can't change the OS configuration, you're screwed.
What I'd suggest for something like this is to set up a locked-down OS image for the testing app, and make that image do what you want (which should probably include some kind of heartbeat script that notifies a proctor if a machine goes down, for example if someone is trying to reboot it).
When the time comes to test, netboot the machines using that image. When testing is over, boot the machines back up normally.
"Assuming Jack Thompson is capable of such emotions"? If he were not capable of such emotions, he would not be nearly as much of a problem: not only is he capable of them, but they misfire pretty much constantly on things that shouldn't be triggering them.
The fear of "waste" by rapid prototyping doesn't just show up in a reluctance to use it. Such prototypes have a nasty habit of evolving into the production code that they were never actually meant to become, and that causes headaches for everyone.
It's an incorrect use of rapid prototyping, but it happens, and that needs to be accounted for.
If Cake is second on your list of frameworks to avoid, what's the first?
IT worker in what country? Obviously not the United States. With the constant threats of lay-offs and outsourcing and the high cost of living, I have never heard of any IT working thinking that their pay needs to be lowered!
No one wants their pay to be lowered. I don't either, and that's why I struggle with this: I'm not satisfied with any answer yet, but this is the closest, being the only one thus far that doesn't reduce to mere socioeconomic aesthetics or base eudaimonia.
Pretty much this. That's not to say that Chrome is bad: it isn't. But Firefox is trying to be Chrome, and no one is ever going to be better at being Chrome better than Chrome itself (except possibly Chromium, but that's something of an academic debate).
In the process, Firefox is rapidly losing its own way. This is a shame, because I found more than a few of Firefox's old ways better than its new ones, or Chrome's for that matter. We're losing choice in the browser market because it's coming down not so much to a choice between Chrome and Firefox as between Chrome and imitation-Chrome, and Chrome will always win that.
tl;dr version - Firefox lost its way when it started imitating other browsers, because it will never be able to beat the originals. It must instead become its own original, as it once was.
If outsourced labor can provide essentially the same productivity for a far lower cost, then what does that say about the value American labor provides? This is Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound": the jobs aren't go exactly where he thought it would, but that's a minor detail. The principles of his prediction were dead-on.
The numbers are simple: you can get basically the same quality and quantity of product (be that code, widgets, or most other things) from foreign labor, all for considerably less cost. This is why businesses outsource, and it's tough to even blame them: like anyone engaging in trade, even consumers, they're merely looking to get the best value for the money they spend. If you want to end outsourcing, then one way or another you have to change the numbers: lower foreign productivity, raise foreign costs, raise American productivity, or lower American costs.
Lowering foreign productivity would work if it were possible, but it depends entirely on factors over which no entity in the US has any real control, making any attempts to do so meaningless. So this is out.
Raising American productivity is slightly more practical, in that the factors involved are of the sort that the US actually has control over. The problem is that it takes sweeping cultural changes to do this, and that requires new generations. We don't have time for that; we need something that applies here and now. So this, too, is out.
That leaves cost-based approaches: either lower American costs or raise foreign costs. Raising foreign costs basically amounts to the imposition of import duties: tax the wazoo out of foreign imports (including code written for hire) until outsourcing costs more than hiring from within the US. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but no side of the aisle actually wants to do it right now, especially not with the countries that would most need to be targeted, because those countries have us over a barrel debt-wise.
That leaves only one option: lower the cost of American labor. As an IT worker myself, I'm no more a fan of this than anyone else on this site, but it is by far the most, if not the only, realistic solution.
Well, yeah, but that's what happens when you have generations raised to think that Robin Hood was about economics.
The ESRB is an especially poor rating system, exemplified by its use of the word "mature" in the ratings themselves. This renders it too easily used as a marketing term for vendors looking to market some of the most puerile content imaginable to the segments of the population least able to handle it, all by using the word "mature" to imply that the game will make them feel like men. Indeed, there are entire companies that depend on this business model: witness Rockstar.
When and if the ESRB removes marketing terms from its ratings, they may deserve to be taken seriously. Certainly not until then.
Since when does the Angry Video Game Nerd do movie reviews?