I haven't heard of the carbohydrate cravings angle, but that fits me pretty well. I drink about 2 liters of Diet Mt Dew a day on average. Actually, I found a reasonable alternative to soda pop is flavored (but unsweetened) seltzer water. I haven't been buying any recently, but it would be good to get back to that. It's a little bitter and is definitely an acquired taste, but I like the fizz. Plus it's a lot cheaper. You can get a liter of flavored seltzer 2 or 3 for a dollar at the grocery store. Of course, there are the versions flavored with artificial sweeteners, but then you're basically back to soda pop again.
You're points are well made. The problem is that about 99% of the people in this country don't follow any of them, so the informed votes get lost in the noise.
What planet are you from? You could buy CDs as far back as 1983, maybe before, but that's when I first saw them. Heck, I was a "late" adopter, I didn't start buying CD's until 1989. Philips invented the technology in 1978.
Windows' 'Find an application to handle this file extension' functionality seems about as useless as this, also.
I recall when I was first using XP, which came on a laptop I had purchased around 2002, I clicked on a README from some source code I downloaded. XP, of course, didn't know what to do with it, and the "Find an application" feature, of course, didn't do anything. What's worse, is that Windows does not recognize _no_ file extension as a kind of file, so you cannot assign a default behavior in Explorer (for which I would think Notepad or another text editor would be a good choice).
So XP with all its millions of lines of code and thousands of man-years of development is wholly incapable of handling the humble README file. I haven't used Vista, nor do I have plans to, but I wouldn't be surprised if it can't either.
This is a big reason why some people hate Microsoft: their absolute incompetence at some of the most basic features of an OS, things that should have been solved 20 years ago, despite having the technical skill and wherewithal to make some of the most sophisticated code in the world.
The MS C++ compiler was, at least as of a couple years ago, the most compliant of the elephantine C++ standard of all C++ compilers. That's a tremendous technical accomplishment and worthy of huge praise, yet Windows XP doesn't know what to do with README files, and worse, can't be told. MS is a like a schizophrenic idiot savant with multiple personality disorder: It can multiply two 4-digit numbers in its head in a second, but can't remember to change its underwear.
Windows automatic codec download probably works fine for Microsoft codecs that no one uses, although why wouldn't those don't come preinstalled in the first place?
You know viewing video files was horrible in the early 90's because you needed a different player for each format. Then MS released ActiveMovie, which improved things immensely, but by now, it's back to being almost as bad as it used to be where you have to be a friggin' detective to figure out what you need and where to get it. Sure, it will play in WMP (unless it's Real, which is one of about a million reasons why Real just needs to die) but WMP does absolutely nothing to facilitate that.
The best way to avoid that kind of blackmail is to be the kind of person that establishes a certain level of trust. Without extraordinary-seeming evidence (which, to be fair, is fakeable these days) I doubt you could convince my wife that I was up to no good, nor could you convince me about her because we trust each other. Similarly, I have a network of friends, relatives and associates that I can use as character references.
Am I blackmailable? Sure, if someone wants to hard enough, but I've tried to maintain a reputation such that people who know me would be disinclined to believe such an allegation. Basically, you need to try to be a decent person. I don't have to worry about my wife or kids finding porn on my computer because there isn't any. I wouldn't be embarrassed if someone were to see my browser history (except for maybe all the time I spend on sites like/.). I don't have to worry about the kids or wife finding things around the house that I wouldn't want them to see because there isn't anything.
I don't have to worry about a prospective employer finding out things about me online because there's nothing there I'm embarrassed about (now, whether or not they like my arrogant opinionated ranting is another matter). In other words, the best way to avoid that problem is to not allow yourself to be easily implicated.
Of course, in the case of the the subject of the article, there are lots of benign things that can get the government all up in your case, not to mention the proclivity of (at best) semi-competent bureaucrats to make huge mistakes, but that's a different matter, and as we continue to let the U.S. government take more and more power, this kind of problem will become more and more common. The problem is that I don't see an easy solution. Both political parties are equally culpable and equally eager to continue down that road, and they've done such an effective job that even mentioning a third party is greeted with scorn and derision (or at best a sense of utter futility), although I think at this point, it's the only alternative that makes sense. This is not a post-9/11 problem... it's been going on for decades, it's just accelerated.
Actually, in all the years WMP has had that capability I've _never_ seen it download a codec. It always fails, and never tells me anything useful. I'd rather deal with Linux where I might have to figure things out more often, than Windows where it pretends it will figure things out but doesn't really do anything. Windows still has a lot of very basic usability problems in some areas.
Linux has lots of usability problems, too, but I find myself a lot more patient using it because I haven't paid some company with tens of billions in the bank, a grotesquely arrogant attitude and 3 decades of experience that still can't get some simple things right.
After studying a couple hundred issues of "The Incredible Hulk" plus the TV show and the movie, I think I've got a pretty good understanding of the physics of gamma radiation.
I see no reason to think they don't have (legally) valid patents that open software infringes, or that they wouldn't be able to defend them in court.
Perhaps so, but the moment they start, IBM will roll up its sleeves, walk over, push billg down on the floor, stand on his concave chest and dangle-spit on his face. Then it will stroll over and casually administer a double-jock-lock to Monkeyboy and give him purple nurples until he cries.
The moment MS tries to offensively leverage its patents to threaten Linux, IBM will have to dig out all the hundreds of patents that Microsoft is in violation of (because among IBM's many legitimate patents, I'm sure they have plenty of obvious ones too). IBM wrote the book on Microsoft's behavior, and even though they play much more nicely these days (well, as far as I know anyway), I don't think they would take a liking to MS messing with something they've invested heavily in, i.e., Linux.
Microsoft has to tread the fine line between effective FUD and ticking off the real 800-pound gorilla of the technology world.
This is good. Like I said elsewhere, I don't want to see Microsoft gone, but I think it would be good if they could get smacked down really hard, learn a little humility and return to the business of writing software. If they'd spend a little more time doing than and a little less time expecting to be King of the World and attacking anyone and anything that challenges that delusion, they'd probably make more money. I'd gladly buy software from MS again if I thought it was worth buying, but given what they've been doing lately I don't expect to ever buy MS software again.
Good point. It occurred to me some time after I wrote this that IBM is another 800-pound gorilla who could sit on Microsoft's chest and dangle-spit in its face until it starts behaving.
I would love nothing more than to see MS get smacked down hard. Not because I want to see Microsoft disappear, I'm just absolutely sick of all their FUD, and hearing all the crap from their executives who are either loud-mouthed boors, disconnected from reality, bullies, liars or all 4.
The thing is Microsoft can't unleash the patent threat because it would backfire, but they can still use all their money, power, lawyers and influence to absorb, destroy or otherwise neutralize their competition.
Seems to me it's a bluff, but when you're an 800-pound gorilla of a company you can back up a bluff by just litigating all your competition out of business. Face it, no company can stand up to Microsoft, and they will just attempt to survive by attrition like they always had. In a world that made sense they might be subject to anti-trust action by the government, but we all know that Congress and the Administration are falling all over each other to see who can be the bigger bitch of big, rich companies like MS.
I think the only conclusions that you can draw is that 1.) Microsoft is sweating and 2.) They are dropping all pretense of competing through selling better technology. They are, in effect, admitting they can't compete in the market, but since they wield enough power to _be_ the market, they will just screw with everyone until they either go broke, get bought, or quit because they know they can't beat 10 figures in a court of law.
I agree, Excel _is_ good. On the other I think Word is the worst piece of software ever written except for crappy 1990's VB shareware and Lotus Notes, which is the worst piece of software ever made by man (and that includes the Melissa virus).
I haven't tried the latest version, but at least up until now, Word has been a usability nightmare, and since it stopped getting more useful and powerful 10 years ago, there's been nothing but but bloat added to it since. A bunch of tick marks on some marketing drone's list. No one respects bloat. No one could ever be a fanboy of bloat. How many Netscape zealots were there after 4 came out?
Microsoft does some really neat things, especially Microsoft Research, but they are far overshadowed by its vast amount of mediocre and bad things. But even still, MS has software that could be worthy of cult-status, if they weren't a huge monopolistic bully that will do anything to succeed in business _except_ compete. Like was said above, cults grow up around the underdogs, but cults can also grow up around something large and tyrannical, like the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany. Microsoft does have a lot of fanboys and dedicated diehard customers, but I suspect that most of them are not technical users. Cults can also grow up around innovators, and Microsoft hasn't innovated anything in a decade or more. They've done some good things, but none of it was innovative. Anything innovative that they could do is released years earlier by Apple or the open source world. Microsoft has invested so much energy, effort and resources into being a monopoly they don't have any other way to compete. And that's a company that won't attract a "cult".
Starting off with such a blatant Straw-Man is quite impressive. I never mentioned Bush. I did mention Rumsfeld. Then you move on to the standard exaggeration part...
It's a joke, son. Laugh. Besides, if Rumsfeld didn't represent Bush's policies then I need a lesson in how the U.S. government is composed. My point was that the anti-French feeling in this country goes back decades, it is not new.
Slashdot Mirror
I resent your insinuation! I saw the light of day just last Wednesday!
I haven't heard of the carbohydrate cravings angle, but that fits me pretty well. I drink about 2 liters of Diet Mt Dew a day on average. Actually, I found a reasonable alternative to soda pop is flavored (but unsweetened) seltzer water. I haven't been buying any recently, but it would be good to get back to that. It's a little bitter and is definitely an acquired taste, but I like the fizz. Plus it's a lot cheaper. You can get a liter of flavored seltzer 2 or 3 for a dollar at the grocery store. Of course, there are the versions flavored with artificial sweeteners, but then you're basically back to soda pop again.
You're points are well made. The problem is that about 99% of the people in this country don't follow any of them, so the informed votes get lost in the noise.
It's only dead when Netcraft says it's dead.
What planet are you from? You could buy CDs as far back as 1983, maybe before, but that's when I first saw them. Heck, I was a "late" adopter, I didn't start buying CD's until 1989. Philips invented the technology in 1978.
Or did I miss a joke?
Windows' 'Find an application to handle this file extension' functionality seems about as useless as this, also.
I recall when I was first using XP, which came on a laptop I had purchased around 2002, I clicked on a README from some source code I downloaded. XP, of course, didn't know what to do with it, and the "Find an application" feature, of course, didn't do anything. What's worse, is that Windows does not recognize _no_ file extension as a kind of file, so you cannot assign a default behavior in Explorer (for which I would think Notepad or another text editor would be a good choice).
So XP with all its millions of lines of code and thousands of man-years of development is wholly incapable of handling the humble README file. I haven't used Vista, nor do I have plans to, but I wouldn't be surprised if it can't either.
This is a big reason why some people hate Microsoft: their absolute incompetence at some of the most basic features of an OS, things that should have been solved 20 years ago, despite having the technical skill and wherewithal to make some of the most sophisticated code in the world.
The MS C++ compiler was, at least as of a couple years ago, the most compliant of the elephantine C++ standard of all C++ compilers. That's a tremendous technical accomplishment and worthy of huge praise, yet Windows XP doesn't know what to do with README files, and worse, can't be told. MS is a like a schizophrenic idiot savant with multiple personality disorder: It can multiply two 4-digit numbers in its head in a second, but can't remember to change its underwear.
Windows automatic codec download probably works fine for Microsoft codecs that no one uses, although why wouldn't those don't come preinstalled in the first place?
You know viewing video files was horrible in the early 90's because you needed a different player for each format. Then MS released ActiveMovie, which improved things immensely, but by now, it's back to being almost as bad as it used to be where you have to be a friggin' detective to figure out what you need and where to get it. Sure, it will play in WMP (unless it's Real, which is one of about a million reasons why Real just needs to die) but WMP does absolutely nothing to facilitate that.
The best way to avoid that kind of blackmail is to be the kind of person that establishes a certain level of trust. Without extraordinary-seeming evidence (which, to be fair, is fakeable these days) I doubt you could convince my wife that I was up to no good, nor could you convince me about her because we trust each other. Similarly, I have a network of friends, relatives and associates that I can use as character references.
/.). I don't have to worry about the kids or wife finding things around the house that I wouldn't want them to see because there isn't anything.
Am I blackmailable? Sure, if someone wants to hard enough, but I've tried to maintain a reputation such that people who know me would be disinclined to believe such an allegation. Basically, you need to try to be a decent person. I don't have to worry about my wife or kids finding porn on my computer because there isn't any. I wouldn't be embarrassed if someone were to see my browser history (except for maybe all the time I spend on sites like
I don't have to worry about a prospective employer finding out things about me online because there's nothing there I'm embarrassed about (now, whether or not they like my arrogant opinionated ranting is another matter). In other words, the best way to avoid that problem is to not allow yourself to be easily implicated.
Of course, in the case of the the subject of the article, there are lots of benign things that can get the government all up in your case, not to mention the proclivity of (at best) semi-competent bureaucrats to make huge mistakes, but that's a different matter, and as we continue to let the U.S. government take more and more power, this kind of problem will become more and more common. The problem is that I don't see an easy solution. Both political parties are equally culpable and equally eager to continue down that road, and they've done such an effective job that even mentioning a third party is greeted with scorn and derision (or at best a sense of utter futility), although I think at this point, it's the only alternative that makes sense. This is not a post-9/11 problem... it's been going on for decades, it's just accelerated.
Actually, in all the years WMP has had that capability I've _never_ seen it download a codec. It always fails, and never tells me anything useful. I'd rather deal with Linux where I might have to figure things out more often, than Windows where it pretends it will figure things out but doesn't really do anything. Windows still has a lot of very basic usability problems in some areas.
Linux has lots of usability problems, too, but I find myself a lot more patient using it because I haven't paid some company with tens of billions in the bank, a grotesquely arrogant attitude and 3 decades of experience that still can't get some simple things right.
After studying a couple hundred issues of "The Incredible Hulk" plus the TV show and the movie, I think I've got a pretty good understanding of the physics of gamma radiation.
I see no reason to think they don't have (legally) valid patents that open software infringes, or that they wouldn't be able to defend them in court.
Perhaps so, but the moment they start, IBM will roll up its sleeves, walk over, push billg down on the floor, stand on his concave chest and dangle-spit on his face. Then it will stroll over and casually administer a double-jock-lock to Monkeyboy and give him purple nurples until he cries.
The moment MS tries to offensively leverage its patents to threaten Linux, IBM will have to dig out all the hundreds of patents that Microsoft is in violation of (because among IBM's many legitimate patents, I'm sure they have plenty of obvious ones too). IBM wrote the book on Microsoft's behavior, and even though they play much more nicely these days (well, as far as I know anyway), I don't think they would take a liking to MS messing with something they've invested heavily in, i.e., Linux.
Microsoft has to tread the fine line between effective FUD and ticking off the real 800-pound gorilla of the technology world.
I called Cat Heaven, but they waffled on the issue.
But, why would they bother?
'Cause it's fun?
Perhaps the OP's sig calling for legalizing pot can shed some light...
I think you are free to choose.
I never saw that spoof, but had always assumed that the zinc movie was a spoof of this:
A Case of Spring Fever
Well, at least he has a six pack, I have a pony keg.
thats better than being stalked by remotely controlled mechanical MPAA lawyers
Yeah, mindless, souless reptiles that would disembowel you as soon as look you at you are awful... I'd rather be stalked by the dinosaurs.
This is good. Like I said elsewhere, I don't want to see Microsoft gone, but I think it would be good if they could get smacked down really hard, learn a little humility and return to the business of writing software. If they'd spend a little more time doing than and a little less time expecting to be King of the World and attacking anyone and anything that challenges that delusion, they'd probably make more money. I'd gladly buy software from MS again if I thought it was worth buying, but given what they've been doing lately I don't expect to ever buy MS software again.
Good point. It occurred to me some time after I wrote this that IBM is another 800-pound gorilla who could sit on Microsoft's chest and dangle-spit in its face until it starts behaving.
I would love nothing more than to see MS get smacked down hard. Not because I want to see Microsoft disappear, I'm just absolutely sick of all their FUD, and hearing all the crap from their executives who are either loud-mouthed boors, disconnected from reality, bullies, liars or all 4.
The thing is Microsoft can't unleash the patent threat because it would backfire, but they can still use all their money, power, lawyers and influence to absorb, destroy or otherwise neutralize their competition.
Seems to me it's a bluff, but when you're an 800-pound gorilla of a company you can back up a bluff by just litigating all your competition out of business. Face it, no company can stand up to Microsoft, and they will just attempt to survive by attrition like they always had. In a world that made sense they might be subject to anti-trust action by the government, but we all know that Congress and the Administration are falling all over each other to see who can be the bigger bitch of big, rich companies like MS.
I think the only conclusions that you can draw is that 1.) Microsoft is sweating and 2.) They are dropping all pretense of competing through selling better technology. They are, in effect, admitting they can't compete in the market, but since they wield enough power to _be_ the market, they will just screw with everyone until they either go broke, get bought, or quit because they know they can't beat 10 figures in a court of law.
No, Microsoft is to software what Stalin was to politics.
I agree, Excel _is_ good. On the other I think Word is the worst piece of software ever written except for crappy 1990's VB shareware and Lotus Notes, which is the worst piece of software ever made by man (and that includes the Melissa virus).
I haven't tried the latest version, but at least up until now, Word has been a usability nightmare, and since it stopped getting more useful and powerful 10 years ago, there's been nothing but but bloat added to it since. A bunch of tick marks on some marketing drone's list. No one respects bloat. No one could ever be a fanboy of bloat. How many Netscape zealots were there after 4 came out?
Microsoft does some really neat things, especially Microsoft Research, but they are far overshadowed by its vast amount of mediocre and bad things. But even still, MS has software that could be worthy of cult-status, if they weren't a huge monopolistic bully that will do anything to succeed in business _except_ compete. Like was said above, cults grow up around the underdogs, but cults can also grow up around something large and tyrannical, like the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany. Microsoft does have a lot of fanboys and dedicated diehard customers, but I suspect that most of them are not technical users. Cults can also grow up around innovators, and Microsoft hasn't innovated anything in a decade or more. They've done some good things, but none of it was innovative. Anything innovative that they could do is released years earlier by Apple or the open source world. Microsoft has invested so much energy, effort and resources into being a monopoly they don't have any other way to compete. And that's a company that won't attract a "cult".
double double? like a long double?
Hmmm... how about an IEEE 128-bit Tome Horton's. Do not consume if you have a heart condition.
Starting off with such a blatant Straw-Man is quite impressive. I never mentioned Bush. I did mention Rumsfeld. Then you move on to the standard exaggeration part...
It's a joke, son. Laugh. Besides, if Rumsfeld didn't represent Bush's policies then I need a lesson in how the U.S. government is composed. My point was that the anti-French feeling in this country goes back decades, it is not new.