The problem is that people they fire are never the ones who are responsible for the bad decisions in the first place. To wit: Ballmer is in his second decade as CEO despite the fact that he has yet to make a single good decision. What I can't figure out is what Gates ever saw in him in the first place, because Bill Gates _did_ know what he was doing. He was a ruthless, evil SOB, but he was also effective. Ballmer's just evil.
If it were possible for Microsoft's board to realize Ballmer needs to go, it would have happened years ago. Clearly they'll never get rid of him until he wants to go.
See, and this is what people forget. Just because these meds are over-prescribed doesn't mean that they aren't effective, nor that there aren't many people who genuinely benefit from them. I'm glad to hear your life has been improved. I know a bit about depression, but I can't imagine what "severe" depression must be like. Don't let the cynics get to you.
I agree. Netflix's movie selection is pretty horrible over all (thank the media leviathans who do everything they can to screw over their customers), but there are a lot of old and obscure things that make up for the loss. Futhermore, they have a decent selection of TV shows. I've been watching stuff on Netflix almost every day and do not feel I'll be running out of stuff to watch any time soon.
Nevertheless, I am sick of the stupid games played by the content owners. Stuff comes and goes completely at random and there's no rhyme or reason to it, only the complete capriciousness of the movie studios. It's even worse with Hulu where you get less with a paid account than you get with a free one (assuming you want to use your TV instead of your computer). That's nothing but pure spite.
In a world of 500 channels and the Internet in general, it's a great time to be a long-tailer, and I can only hope that people who want to relive the Bad Old Days by creating an artificial monopoly on distribution will hopefully suffer the painful death they so richly deserve.
True, but clearly Microsoft has clearly considered this scenario and rejected it.
Jailbreaking RT might be a great thing, but it's not what MS wants or they wouldn't have made it necessary in the first place. I think they place as much importance on control as they do sales.
I could personally do some cool stuff with a jailbroken RT machine since I run a lot of open-source software, but I would be afraid of Microsoft doing everything in its power to plug that hole and leaving me with a device that only runs don't-call-it-Metro apps.
If, on the other hand, they were to relent and not try to stuff the genie back in the bottle, it could be a win all around.
Perhaps, but Microsoft has released libraries to use Kinect with Windows. I would think that they would be doing everything they can to come up with ways to use this innovative and successful device as a new peripheral for computers because:
1. There are possibly some really cool applications of Kinect technology that could enhance Windows (though I'm not too sure what they would be... certainly using a Kinect to control a Windows Media Center could be very useful). 2. There would be a reason to purchase a Kinect beyond using with the X-Box, which means more sales.
Maybe 8 million Kinects no longer means 8 million X-Boxes, but what if it's 16 million Kinects instead?
On the other hand, jailbreaking RT means more people might be using it, but they wouldn't be using it in ways that Microsoft intended. Of course, if that happens, then it goes to show Microsoft's short-sightedness or narrow-mindedness in creating such a crippled product in the first place. Nonetheless, I would think that maintaining control of how their products are used is as important to Microsoft (for better or worse) as is their ability to sell them.
I see their compliment sort of like a scene in an action movie:
"Ah, Mr. Bond. Your escape from my heavily armed henchmen was clever. Very clever, indeed. But let's see how clever you are when I drop you in the piranha tank."
It's good PR on their part to not act offended, but I would bet they are.
It seems to me the homebrew Kinect stuff can only affect Microsoft by causing more Kinects to be sold. Jailbreaking RT obviates the whole reason it exists.
Because in nearly 40 years, Microsoft has never been a good sport about anything, and the last thing Microsoft has ever wanted is any decrease in their ability to control what their users do.
Frankly, I'm surprised at their reaction. Maybe they already have a fix in the channels and know they will plug the hole soon.
I can't imagine Microsoft being so blase about this particular form of jailbreak, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered to implement the app lockout in RT in the first place. The whole point of Windows 8 seems to be, yeah, there are the usual improvements and bug fixes that come with each new release of Windows, but primarily the whole point of the product seems to be nothing more than laying the groundwork for their own walled garden, and to get a foothold in the mobile device market where they have been foundering for years.
If you take away the drive towards the walled garden and the idea of running Windows on tablets and phones, nothing about Windows 8 makes any sense.
It happened to me the last time I tried to create a Word document from scratch back in 2006. I was using Word for the Mac and several pages into a detailed document Word crashed and I could no longer open up the document. Someone suggested later after I restarted from scratch (with OpenOffice) that Open Office might have been able to read the corrupted document. I've never seen applications that had to be so aggressive against their own bugs as the Office apps. I was in the unfortunate situation of having to do some VBA in Excel last year and frequent reboots were absolutely necessary to being able to get work done... and Excel claiming "Your document has been corrupted and needs to be restored" after a successful save was a daily event.
Furthermore, if you are relying on Office for legal documents, then you deserve what you get.
Yes, I realize that the legacy formats are a big issue here, because they still have to be reverse-engineered to be supported (and ironically, non-Microsoft software has a better reputation for compatibility than Office itself, which tells you something).
I didn't even want to mention the can of worms that is VBA because in addition to being a vintage 1990 development environment, it exposes the fact that Office apps are incredibly brittle and unstable.
But Office is still a monopoly, so it will remain a boat anchor on productivity and innovation for the whole software industry.
But... but... but... the Office document formats have been documented! Third-party compatibility shouldn't be an issue any more. Nor should MS have to rely on a quarter century of some of the cruftiest code on the planet to maintain their monopoly. They can simply create new apps with more flexible (and comprehensible) UIs and modern, efficient code to replace the legacy Office.
Not to mention sweeten their wine, a practice which continued up until the 18th century or so with a piece of lead shot dropped in a glass of port. And let's not forget cosmetics.
Good point there. Look at Facebook, for example. Yes, I use Facebook, and no, I am not an idiot. Deal with it.
Nonetheless, most commentary on FB is a sentence or so. I have maybe a half dozen out of 200 or so that ever write more than a sentence or two. I've been known to write essays myself, but few people have that much to say (which might be a good thing). I don't use the FB app on my Android phone because if I wanted to say something, it would be way too much trouble to enter the text on that tiny keyboard with my big ol' sausage fingers.
But most people aren't like that. Most people are happy to communicate in short busts of chatspeak (something we old school nerds outgrew 25+ years ago), and for them Windows 8 is fine. Microsoft seems to think they should address the Lowest Common Denominator and less the rest of us rot, and frankly, that's fine with me. If it weren't for gaming and a very small number of other apps, I wouldn't bother using Windows at all. But I don't hate Windows 7 (usually) and it would be a hassle to have to reboot to play games, so it remains, but if Windows ever becomes any amount of hassle and reversion to a decent version is no longer possible, I'll just abandon it for good, and I'm sure there are a lot of folks like me.
Well, someday I will give it another shot _with_ tutorials. I've known that tutorials exist and that I'm going to really have to use them, it's just that 99% of software can be figured out, as another poster said, by messing around with it.
Thanks for the encouragement. I will definitely have to check out the tutorials.
And I totally understand about "messing around with it". I'm working on a contract fixing bugs for some network management software. I've only been there for 4 months. One of the support people I'm working with was asking me recently if I'd had any training in the software. My response was something to the effect of "Heck, no, I've just messed around with it." (Actually, I probably just laughed.) Yes, I don't know much and need to learn more, but that hasn't stopped me from fixing several bugs already... a couple of which have been plaguing them for months.
Thanks for the encouragement... it's definitely something I want to do... in my ever-shrinking free time.
I also know a couple of my kids would get a kick out of using it as well. One of them has done some stuff with Google Sketch and some other simpler tools. We have several times commented to each other that we would love to try to conquer the basics of Blender.
Slashdot Mirror
They should. The real question is: Why would anyone punish themselves by using it?
Wow, it's so flat... it reminds me of Windows 2. Except on Windows 2 you could tell what was a button.
So, if the plural of "stylus" is "stylii", does that mean the plural of "radius" is "radiii"?
The problem is that people they fire are never the ones who are responsible for the bad decisions in the first place. To wit: Ballmer is in his second decade as CEO despite the fact that he has yet to make a single good decision. What I can't figure out is what Gates ever saw in him in the first place, because Bill Gates _did_ know what he was doing. He was a ruthless, evil SOB, but he was also effective. Ballmer's just evil.
Don't forget "so Microsoft and Google can lose it more easily".
Microsoft used to adhere to that standard. Very strictly.
But they gave up on it around the time XP came out.
These days, I bet none of the UI designers at MS even know what CUA is.
If it were possible for Microsoft's board to realize Ballmer needs to go, it would have happened years ago. Clearly they'll never get rid of him until he wants to go.
What the platforms don't have the exact same version of the JRE for one.
See, and this is what people forget. Just because these meds are over-prescribed doesn't mean that they aren't effective, nor that there aren't many people who genuinely benefit from them. I'm glad to hear your life has been improved. I know a bit about depression, but I can't imagine what "severe" depression must be like. Don't let the cynics get to you.
I agree. Netflix's movie selection is pretty horrible over all (thank the media leviathans who do everything they can to screw over their customers), but there are a lot of old and obscure things that make up for the loss. Futhermore, they have a decent selection of TV shows. I've been watching stuff on Netflix almost every day and do not feel I'll be running out of stuff to watch any time soon.
Nevertheless, I am sick of the stupid games played by the content owners. Stuff comes and goes completely at random and there's no rhyme or reason to it, only the complete capriciousness of the movie studios. It's even worse with Hulu where you get less with a paid account than you get with a free one (assuming you want to use your TV instead of your computer). That's nothing but pure spite.
In a world of 500 channels and the Internet in general, it's a great time to be a long-tailer, and I can only hope that people who want to relive the Bad Old Days by creating an artificial monopoly on distribution will hopefully suffer the painful death they so richly deserve.
True, but clearly Microsoft has clearly considered this scenario and rejected it.
Jailbreaking RT might be a great thing, but it's not what MS wants or they wouldn't have made it necessary in the first place. I think they place as much importance on control as they do sales.
I could personally do some cool stuff with a jailbroken RT machine since I run a lot of open-source software, but I would be afraid of Microsoft doing everything in its power to plug that hole and leaving me with a device that only runs don't-call-it-Metro apps.
If, on the other hand, they were to relent and not try to stuff the genie back in the bottle, it could be a win all around.
Perhaps, but Microsoft has released libraries to use Kinect with Windows. I would think that they would be doing everything they can to come up with ways to use this innovative and successful device as a new peripheral for computers because:
1. There are possibly some really cool applications of Kinect technology that could enhance Windows (though I'm not too sure what they would be... certainly using a Kinect to control a Windows Media Center could be very useful).
2. There would be a reason to purchase a Kinect beyond using with the X-Box, which means more sales.
Maybe 8 million Kinects no longer means 8 million X-Boxes, but what if it's 16 million Kinects instead?
On the other hand, jailbreaking RT means more people might be using it, but they wouldn't be using it in ways that Microsoft intended. Of course, if that happens, then it goes to show Microsoft's short-sightedness or narrow-mindedness in creating such a crippled product in the first place. Nonetheless, I would think that maintaining control of how their products are used is as important to Microsoft (for better or worse) as is their ability to sell them.
Be sure to take your epilepsy medication!
I see their compliment sort of like a scene in an action movie:
"Ah, Mr. Bond. Your escape from my heavily armed henchmen was clever. Very clever, indeed. But let's see how clever you are when I drop you in the piranha tank."
It's good PR on their part to not act offended, but I would bet they are.
It seems to me the homebrew Kinect stuff can only affect Microsoft by causing more Kinects to be sold. Jailbreaking RT obviates the whole reason it exists.
Why wouldn't they?
Because in nearly 40 years, Microsoft has never been a good sport about anything, and the last thing Microsoft has ever wanted is any decrease in their ability to control what their users do.
Frankly, I'm surprised at their reaction. Maybe they already have a fix in the channels and know they will plug the hole soon.
I can't imagine Microsoft being so blase about this particular form of jailbreak, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered to implement the app lockout in RT in the first place. The whole point of Windows 8 seems to be, yeah, there are the usual improvements and bug fixes that come with each new release of Windows, but primarily the whole point of the product seems to be nothing more than laying the groundwork for their own walled garden, and to get a foothold in the mobile device market where they have been foundering for years.
If you take away the drive towards the walled garden and the idea of running Windows on tablets and phones, nothing about Windows 8 makes any sense.
It happened to me the last time I tried to create a Word document from scratch back in 2006. I was using Word for the Mac and several pages into a detailed document Word crashed and I could no longer open up the document. Someone suggested later after I restarted from scratch (with OpenOffice) that Open Office might have been able to read the corrupted document. I've never seen applications that had to be so aggressive against their own bugs as the Office apps. I was in the unfortunate situation of having to do some VBA in Excel last year and frequent reboots were absolutely necessary to being able to get work done... and Excel claiming "Your document has been corrupted and needs to be restored" after a successful save was a daily event.
Furthermore, if you are relying on Office for legal documents, then you deserve what you get.
Yes, I realize that the legacy formats are a big issue here, because they still have to be reverse-engineered to be supported (and ironically, non-Microsoft software has a better reputation for compatibility than Office itself, which tells you something).
I didn't even want to mention the can of worms that is VBA because in addition to being a vintage 1990 development environment, it exposes the fact that Office apps are incredibly brittle and unstable.
But Office is still a monopoly, so it will remain a boat anchor on productivity and innovation for the whole software industry.
Why would I want OOo? It's easier to use and sometimes even loads documents that Office chokes on? What's the fun in that?
But... but... but... the Office document formats have been documented! Third-party compatibility shouldn't be an issue any more. Nor should MS have to rely on a quarter century of some of the cruftiest code on the planet to maintain their monopoly. They can simply create new apps with more flexible (and comprehensible) UIs and modern, efficient code to replace the legacy Office.
Right? Right?
Not to mention sweeten their wine, a practice which continued up until the 18th century or so with a piece of lead shot dropped in a glass of port. And let's not forget cosmetics.
Lead Acetate
Good point there. Look at Facebook, for example. Yes, I use Facebook, and no, I am not an idiot. Deal with it.
Nonetheless, most commentary on FB is a sentence or so. I have maybe a half dozen out of 200 or so that ever write more than a sentence or two. I've been known to write essays myself, but few people have that much to say (which might be a good thing). I don't use the FB app on my Android phone because if I wanted to say something, it would be way too much trouble to enter the text on that tiny keyboard with my big ol' sausage fingers.
But most people aren't like that. Most people are happy to communicate in short busts of chatspeak (something we old school nerds outgrew 25+ years ago), and for them Windows 8 is fine. Microsoft seems to think they should address the Lowest Common Denominator and less the rest of us rot, and frankly, that's fine with me. If it weren't for gaming and a very small number of other apps, I wouldn't bother using Windows at all. But I don't hate Windows 7 (usually) and it would be a hassle to have to reboot to play games, so it remains, but if Windows ever becomes any amount of hassle and reversion to a decent version is no longer possible, I'll just abandon it for good, and I'm sure there are a lot of folks like me.
Well, someday I will give it another shot _with_ tutorials. I've known that tutorials exist and that I'm going to really have to use them, it's just that 99% of software can be figured out, as another poster said, by messing around with it.
Thanks for the encouragement. I will definitely have to check out the tutorials.
And I totally understand about "messing around with it". I'm working on a contract fixing bugs for some network management software. I've only been there for 4 months. One of the support people I'm working with was asking me recently if I'd had any training in the software. My response was something to the effect of "Heck, no, I've just messed around with it." (Actually, I probably just laughed.) Yes, I don't know much and need to learn more, but that hasn't stopped me from fixing several bugs already... a couple of which have been plaguing them for months.
Thanks for the encouragement... it's definitely something I want to do... in my ever-shrinking free time.
I also know a couple of my kids would get a kick out of using it as well. One of them has done some stuff with Google Sketch and some other simpler tools. We have several times commented to each other that we would love to try to conquer the basics of Blender.