Why would Microsoft lose customers if they moved overseas? Sony isn't American. Nintendo isn't American. They do quite fine here.
Sure, the government could threaten to stop using Windows, and that would take, what, 10 years to happen? And affect, what, 5% of Microsoft's sales in the U.S.?
Sure a few people who value American-made products might switch from Windows, but that wouldn't amount to line noise in terms of Microsoft's overall market. Besides, people like that are more likely to already not be using something like Windows in the first place.
The U.S. government has shown a willingness to grossly overstep its bounds in the way it makes demands of companies, but they don't have much leverage if MS hasn't taken any "bailout" money, which they don't and almost certainly won't for a decade or more. Honestly, the U.S. government needs Microsoft more than Microsoft needs the government, and that's really sad. That monopoly conviction really stung, for all of 5 minutes.
It would serve the U.S. right if by having one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world it drives the most successful, and therefore most revenue-generating companies abroad, and if that happened Congress and the White House just sit there fuming and trying somehow to blame it on Bush.
What's the matter? You don't think feelings and empathy are a good basis for law? What do you expect to base law on? Fact? Reason? Those are archaic ideas that have passed out of favor.
The plugin itself is installed without consent, and I have no doubts that this is yet another vector that will be exploited by bad guys. Microsoft keeps inventing the same bad stuff over and over and over again. Every Microsoft application expands and expands until it becomes a means by which people can take over your computer. I really thought they'd gotten past this mentality by now.
Also, does anyone else ponder why Microsoft's product names are either really generic and boring, or totally cheesy and cringe-worthy?
Possibly it's related to the fact that Microsoft's products are either really generic and boring, or totally cheesy and cringe-worthy.
The former (generic and boring names) was Microsoft's idea to subtly, or not so subtly, drive home the idea of their monopoly. Windows is a generic name. It's like "Microsoft OS"... the idea is that "Windows" is so generic it becomes interchangeable with "computer", or "software" or even "Internet". What software do you use in the office? Why, "Office"? With what do you explore the Internet? Why, "Internet Explorer". I was actually surprised that they moved away from their generic names with Vista.
The latter (cheesy and cringeworthy) is because all the cool people work for Apple and Google and, well, anywhere but Microsoft.
Seriously, what does this.NET extension do? That's the question I haven't seen a straightforward answer to. The implication is that it allows for automatic installation of software via the browser, which to me is a VERY bad thing. Billions of man-hours have been consumed by such dangerous capability and there is little evidence (to me anyway) that it's getting any better.
Frankly this is one of the many, many reasons I have abandoned Microsoft use at home. I still use XP at work, which is fine because it does what I need, but Microsoft has lost me as a customer, which I had been since the 1980s, including about 15 years as a professional Windows developer. Vista was the final straw, but it was another in a long string of reasons why I choose not to do business with such an arrogant, self-serving (at the expense of their customer), and yes, _evil_ company.
KDE4 is ~30% faster than KDE3, mainly because of the Qt4 vs. Qt3 improvements and vast redesign of the KDE itself...
Perhaps, but until recently it's been 30% less featureful and 30% buggier, and it's still got a long ways to go for the solidity and functionality of 3.5.
I use it. I like it. But I really wish 3 to 4 hadn't involved such a huge step back for so long. I understand the whys, but that doesn't make it any easier to endure. KDE should have never shipped on any distro until 4.2, which is deserving of "dot oh" status: pretty complete, maybe a little warty, but ready to be used.
I'm excited for the improvements on the horizon. KDE is really cool despite all these shortcomings.
I agree it's great news ever since "The Simpsons" made a joke about "stem cell fajitas". I'm starved.
Seriously though, it sounds like there's great potential here. I always thought embryonic stem cells would end up being a dead end, and not just for the moral reasons. It makes much more sense to me if you can do something with adult cells, especially if they come from the person to be treated.
Of course, I don't know squat about the biology involved, but common sense dictates making a cure from the cells of the person to be cured seems much more likely to work.
I find it interesting that areawise, about 80% of the happiest people in the world are counties where people primarily speak English, and about half of what's left is Scandanavia, where in addition to their native tongues, most of them speak English too.
Hmmm. Maybe speaking English is what makes people happy.;-)
How can a cable which streams digital data from A to B become obsolete due to a protocol change? Have these guys really not heard of the OSI model (also known as "common sense")?
You're assuming the manufacturers' goals include forwards compatibility and _not_ gouging the customer by every means possible.
I have a 1988 26" RCA TV and a cheap Toshiba DVD player. I will be dragged kicking and screaming into the newer technology primarily because the industry is doing everything possible to make things as confusing and risky to the customer as possible. Articles like this just make me dread upgrading even more, and I'm a tech junkie and long-time software developer.
I hope my TV lasts another 10 years. I'd rather invest the money in more seasons of my favorite shows on DVD and bigger harddrives. Besides, most of the time I'm just listening to TV anyway.
HDTV and the associated technologies are really great looking, but I'll stick to "simple" things like running bleeding-edge Linux distros.
The difference is the Free Market can try thousands of things simultaneously and will eventually get it right.
The government can try one thing. You better hope they know what they are doing. Oh wait, all the people who really know how to do things are in private enterprise. Good luck with that.
When the free market fails, you aren't forced to use its failures.
When the free market fails, you aren't forced to pay for its failures.
There's a huge difference. The government is always the worst solution for these kinds of things. The only time its acceptable is when there is simply no other alternative. For 95% of what our federal government does in the U.S., there is a better way to do it without the government. And chances are it's forbidden by the Constitution for the government to be doing it anyway, not that anyone cares.
It would have been trivial to add ", a proprietary protocol developed by Adobe Systems for streaming audio, video and data over the Internet," right after the first instance of RTMPE and it would have made the summary much more useful and informative.
Despite what a lot of the morons in Slashdot think, Microsoft does listen to people's complaints.
Yeah, AutoRun and not showing the file extensions by the default are two of the most stupid ideas Microsoft ever had, and they have a _lot_ of stupid ideas. Maybe they did listen to complaints, but it took them 15 years to do something about it. Both those features started with Windows 95.
Personally, I'd prefer to do business with a company that doesn't take 15 years to fix its mistakes.
+1 Funny doesn't give you Karma. +1 Insightful does. The mods are gaming the system to reward people who make good jokes since the system doesn't do it, if used properly. I suppose it's arguable whether the system should be changed or the metamods need to go on double-duty.
Idaho, Nevada or Texas after the Union dissolves. That's my plan. Don't think that those states are going sit on their hands if the government doesn't start reining itself in. A whole bunch of states are considering, or have even passed in at least one case, legislation to reassert their 10th Amendment rights. That's long overdue.
We are living in a time of Constituional crisis that has been building for many years. Obama is doing everything he can to push us over the edge that Clinton and Bush, etc, led us to. I for one would like to see the part of the amendment allowing for popular election of senators be repealed. It would help if some of the most powerful leaders in our country weren't elected through lowest-common-denominator elections: "Vote for me because Candidate B eats babies" "Vote for me because Candidate A molests wombats."
Of course, for that matter, we should let the House of Representatives elect the president, too. It's not like they're some brilliant group of people, but maybe it's possible we could move beyond the long line of third-string Presidential candidates we've had for the last couple decades.
Actually one of my kids had baby teeth like chalk. The front four on top were seriously chipped and broken by time he was three, and we had to get them capped just so he could eat ice cream and also not look like a Klingon when he smiled (we still joke about that).
Fortunately, his permanent teeth have been fine so far. He's 13 and hasn't had any problems since he lost his baby teeth.
You've only lost 3 harddrives in 20 years? Consider yourself lucky. I've lost 3 hard drives this year alone. Of course, two of those were quite old (5-8 years), and all were used hard.
In any event, I haven't lost anything important because I keep plenty of backups, on harddrives and optical media.
Slashdot Mirror
So what you're saying is, reading certain Wikipedia topics is like blowing too much air into a balloon. Except the balloon is your head.
Why would Microsoft lose customers if they moved overseas? Sony isn't American. Nintendo isn't American. They do quite fine here.
Sure, the government could threaten to stop using Windows, and that would take, what, 10 years to happen? And affect, what, 5% of Microsoft's sales in the U.S.?
Sure a few people who value American-made products might switch from Windows, but that wouldn't amount to line noise in terms of Microsoft's overall market. Besides, people like that are more likely to already not be using something like Windows in the first place.
The U.S. government has shown a willingness to grossly overstep its bounds in the way it makes demands of companies, but they don't have much leverage if MS hasn't taken any "bailout" money, which they don't and almost certainly won't for a decade or more. Honestly, the U.S. government needs Microsoft more than Microsoft needs the government, and that's really sad. That monopoly conviction really stung, for all of 5 minutes.
It would serve the U.S. right if by having one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world it drives the most successful, and therefore most revenue-generating companies abroad, and if that happened Congress and the White House just sit there fuming and trying somehow to blame it on Bush.
What's the matter? You don't think feelings and empathy are a good basis for law? What do you expect to base law on? Fact? Reason? Those are archaic ideas that have passed out of favor.
The plugin itself is installed without consent, and I have no doubts that this is yet another vector that will be exploited by bad guys. Microsoft keeps inventing the same bad stuff over and over and over again. Every Microsoft application expands and expands until it becomes a means by which people can take over your computer. I really thought they'd gotten past this mentality by now.
Also, does anyone else ponder why Microsoft's product names are either really generic and boring, or totally cheesy and cringe-worthy?
Possibly it's related to the fact that Microsoft's products are either really generic and boring, or totally cheesy and cringe-worthy.
The former (generic and boring names) was Microsoft's idea to subtly, or not so subtly, drive home the idea of their monopoly. Windows is a generic name. It's like "Microsoft OS"... the idea is that "Windows" is so generic it becomes interchangeable with "computer", or "software" or even "Internet". What software do you use in the office? Why, "Office"? With what do you explore the Internet? Why, "Internet Explorer". I was actually surprised that they moved away from their generic names with Vista.
The latter (cheesy and cringeworthy) is because all the cool people work for Apple and Google and, well, anywhere but Microsoft.
No, I was suggesting I couldn't tell. ;-)
Seriously, what does this .NET extension do? That's the question I haven't seen a straightforward answer to. The implication is that it allows for automatic installation of software via the browser, which to me is a VERY bad thing. Billions of man-hours have been consumed by such dangerous capability and there is little evidence (to me anyway) that it's getting any better.
Frankly this is one of the many, many reasons I have abandoned Microsoft use at home. I still use XP at work, which is fine because it does what I need, but Microsoft has lost me as a customer, which I had been since the 1980s, including about 15 years as a professional Windows developer. Vista was the final straw, but it was another in a long string of reasons why I choose not to do business with such an arrogant, self-serving (at the expense of their customer), and yes, _evil_ company.
My sarcasm meter blew a fuse on your post. The question I have is this: What does this thing do, and why would I, even in theory, want it?
KDE4 is ~30% faster than KDE3, mainly because of the Qt4 vs. Qt3 improvements and vast redesign of the KDE itself...
Perhaps, but until recently it's been 30% less featureful and 30% buggier, and it's still got a long ways to go for the solidity and functionality of 3.5.
I use it. I like it. But I really wish 3 to 4 hadn't involved such a huge step back for so long. I understand the whys, but that doesn't make it any easier to endure. KDE should have never shipped on any distro until 4.2, which is deserving of "dot oh" status: pretty complete, maybe a little warty, but ready to be used.
I'm excited for the improvements on the horizon. KDE is really cool despite all these shortcomings.
I agree it's great news ever since "The Simpsons" made a joke about "stem cell fajitas". I'm starved.
Seriously though, it sounds like there's great potential here. I always thought embryonic stem cells would end up being a dead end, and not just for the moral reasons. It makes much more sense to me if you can do something with adult cells, especially if they come from the person to be treated.
Of course, I don't know squat about the biology involved, but common sense dictates making a cure from the cells of the person to be cured seems much more likely to work.
I find it interesting that areawise, about 80% of the happiest people in the world are counties where people primarily speak English, and about half of what's left is Scandanavia, where in addition to their native tongues, most of them speak English too.
Hmmm. Maybe speaking English is what makes people happy. ;-)
How can a cable which streams digital data from A to B become obsolete due to a protocol change? Have these guys really not heard of the OSI model (also known as "common sense")?
You're assuming the manufacturers' goals include forwards compatibility and _not_ gouging the customer by every means possible.
I have a 1988 26" RCA TV and a cheap Toshiba DVD player. I will be dragged kicking and screaming into the newer technology primarily because the industry is doing everything possible to make things as confusing and risky to the customer as possible. Articles like this just make me dread upgrading even more, and I'm a tech junkie and long-time software developer.
I hope my TV lasts another 10 years. I'd rather invest the money in more seasons of my favorite shows on DVD and bigger harddrives. Besides, most of the time I'm just listening to TV anyway.
HDTV and the associated technologies are really great looking, but I'll stick to "simple" things like running bleeding-edge Linux distros.
But congress has the power to invalidate software patents because the patent system was created by congress.
Yes, but for that to happen, Congress would have to do something other than posture, and that's "above their pay grade."
Everything Congress does is solely for appearance's sake. Any actual consequences of their actions are completely unpredictable.
Only $2000?! That's like giving it away free! Surely it would be closer to $200,000 or even $2 million from IBM.
The difference is the Free Market can try thousands of things simultaneously and will eventually get it right.
The government can try one thing. You better hope they know what they are doing. Oh wait, all the people who really know how to do things are in private enterprise. Good luck with that.
When the free market fails, you aren't forced to use its failures.
When the free market fails, you aren't forced to pay for its failures.
There's a huge difference. The government is always the worst solution for these kinds of things. The only time its acceptable is when there is simply no other alternative. For 95% of what our federal government does in the U.S., there is a better way to do it without the government. And chances are it's forbidden by the Constitution for the government to be doing it anyway, not that anyone cares.
I would imagine stainless steel is much more expensive.
According to Jack Horner, professor of palaeontology
Yes, I'm sure a professor in paleontology will now everything about the genetic problems that will arise...
Except he's too busy feeling proud of himself for finding a plum.
It would have been trivial to add ", a proprietary protocol developed by Adobe Systems for streaming audio, video and data over the Internet," right after the first instance of RTMPE and it would have made the summary much more useful and informative.
That would imply /. has editors.
Despite what a lot of the morons in Slashdot think, Microsoft does listen to people's complaints.
Yeah, AutoRun and not showing the file extensions by the default are two of the most stupid ideas Microsoft ever had, and they have a _lot_ of stupid ideas. Maybe they did listen to complaints, but it took them 15 years to do something about it. Both those features started with Windows 95.
Personally, I'd prefer to do business with a company that doesn't take 15 years to fix its mistakes.
Well then... mods on crack? Ya got me.
I think they're trying to synergize the most dystopic concepts from both books. Politicians are nothing if not efficient... at making things worse.
+1 Funny doesn't give you Karma. +1 Insightful does. The mods are gaming the system to reward people who make good jokes since the system doesn't do it, if used properly. I suppose it's arguable whether the system should be changed or the metamods need to go on double-duty.
Idaho, Nevada or Texas after the Union dissolves. That's my plan. Don't think that those states are going sit on their hands if the government doesn't start reining itself in. A whole bunch of states are considering, or have even passed in at least one case, legislation to reassert their 10th Amendment rights. That's long overdue.
We are living in a time of Constituional crisis that has been building for many years. Obama is doing everything he can to push us over the edge that Clinton and Bush, etc, led us to. I for one would like to see the part of the amendment allowing for popular election of senators be repealed. It would help if some of the most powerful leaders in our country weren't elected through lowest-common-denominator elections:
"Vote for me because Candidate B eats babies" "Vote for me because Candidate A molests wombats."
Of course, for that matter, we should let the House of Representatives elect the president, too. It's not like they're some brilliant group of people, but maybe it's possible we could move beyond the long line of third-string Presidential candidates we've had for the last couple decades.
Actually one of my kids had baby teeth like chalk. The front four on top were seriously chipped and broken by time he was three, and we had to get them capped just so he could eat ice cream and also not look like a Klingon when he smiled (we still joke about that).
Fortunately, his permanent teeth have been fine so far. He's 13 and hasn't had any problems since he lost his baby teeth.
And why would a child be getting a root canal?!
You've only lost 3 harddrives in 20 years? Consider yourself lucky. I've lost 3 hard drives this year alone. Of course, two of those were quite old (5-8 years), and all were used hard.
In any event, I haven't lost anything important because I keep plenty of backups, on harddrives and optical media.