Wow, you've finally made some form of assertion about technical competence. Too bad your assumption as to my youth and unfamiliarity with device drivers is severely misjudged... and, frankly, unrelated to the manner in which Microsoft had baked in all sorts of consumer-oriented functionalities into their Windows 9x OSes.
(I'm certain we can both agree that the devices group @ Microsoft had their own... hiccups... that started in the early 90's and hit rock-bottom when Vista was released.)
I took OpenStack for a spin last week and I like where they're going. It brings the CLI access from the AWS world with the mature web-based deployment tools of Azure -- and allows for GCE-type sophisticated apps to run within their contexts. This unique combination has made it appealing for me -- and surely whets the appetites for tons of onlookers who are waiting for the chips to fall before making any company-wide commitments.
Ostensibly, they'll have to endure 2-3 major outages in the next few years before seeing the commitments its customer base truly has with them. Hopefully they don't endure any major outages... although they do run atop the AWS IaaS platform...
Your entire post was nothing but a red herring designed to make it sound like you have an understanding of software systems
FWIW, instead of presenting any evidence to demonstrate that YOU know anything about software systems, you're instead making blanket statements criticizing others (i.e. me) for not understanding software systems. I can go ahead and cite the official Microsoft Windows API documentation from pre-1995 which clearly describes how an ISV should consume their published API's to mimic certain behaviors that are native to a Microsoft-built application... but any such actions would do nothing to demonstrate whether YOU have any knowledge or understanding of the Windows OS.
If you were so smart and all that, then why aren't you a multi-billionaire managing empires of powerful companies doing wild, crazy, and innovative things that will make all of mankind stand back in awe? Because you don't know everything and you're not always right. Heck, you probably did not graduate from a top flight University with a perfect (or above) GPA and all associated honors. Why not? Because you answered questions wrong. Because you did (do?) not know everything.
In case you didn't catch it, when you stated that, "Obviously, if I have software [...]," you actually reinforced my point: the judge only succeeded prima facie in removing some components to IE but that it was not thoroughly tested and was thus a premature declaration -- and demonstrated his bias in the entire matter. And proving whether OS configuration changes will break the most common commercial applications is a relatively trivial task... it's called testing. Certain assertions may be derived based on the outcomes of a thorough battery of tests.
Now if only there was a concept called the Scientific Method which would expound on such an approach to validate an hypothesis...
You have absolutely no idea how to develop software.
Clearly, you're the one who fails to understand how to develop software (my personal accomplishments since pre-dotcom era aside). Having libraries distributed along with its own dependencies as part of the commercial "operating system" does not result in a "far less secure" OS. The renderer has, for all intents and purposes, always been distributed as part of Windows; heck, everybody knows that Microsoft has given desktop developers too many choices when they even added Windows Forms and XAML into the mix. (BTW, I wonder where the rendering concept behind XAML came from... peculiar...)
Since all things GUI are ostensibly a separate stack atop Windows Kernel, the notion of security (more or less) is inconsequential. What Microsoft has been doing is segregating the various Win API's and rewriting them to be coded more securely (read: removing the hacks). Whether the API's were used for GUI-related functions or simply basic authentication made no difference to the general need of rewriting the software more securely.
By moving the processing capacities into individual rendering containers, and those containers operating within a limited memory space, it allows the underlying OS to operate with better performance since all apps would operate within the same closed environment (containers) thus allowing better task management optimizations... as opposed to allowing every app to roam free. This notion of containers is the premise behind current-day hypervisors and hardware resource allocation.
The Judge - a techno neophyte at best - was able to remove it.
Just because some special needs kids can remove a few DLL's from the Windows/System32 folder doesn't mean anything. After all, virus and malware writers simply replace existing DLL's with their own files -- which also results in "removing" the functionality exposed by the DLL's in question.
Heck, products like Windows XP Lite show that you can remove a shit ton of stuff from your Windows install -- but that functionality or backwards compatibility will be impaired or crippled with either past, present, or future generation commercial software you would install onto the OS.
Being a neophyte, the Judge clearly did NOT prove that he both removed the "offending" feature AND maintained complete commercial software compatibility across the entire Windows ecosystem by all previously-Certified-for-Windows applications. Therefore, his own claims are baseless and should never have been used... he should have recused himself immediately, or thrown the entire case out the window on a basis of partiality and let the case start over from the beginning.
I never understood why Microsoft forced Internet Explorer inside Windows. Did they fear Netscape's "API" would really threaten them ?
It's funny how Windows 98 Second Edition had this feature, Active Desktop, which allowed for the display of web content (plug-ins and all) directly onto the desktop background, and also supported native XML feeds (CDF)... and today everybody's going ga-ga over HTML5-based "apps" which run "native" to their mobile operating environment with the ability of utilizing an API -- XmlHttpRequest, developed by Microsoft Office team for their Outlook Web Access UI back in Exchange Server 5 days.
Yeah, clearly Microsoft had no idea that web-based content would be fetched for display in an OS... and that the renderer has best performance and security capabilities if it were baked into the OS instead of being bolted on.
Their worst offense? Trying to appease the tin-foil-hat world by repackaging the rendering contained via the MHTML (MHT) [Mime HTML] viewer. This very container is the sole "workspace" that modern mobile OSes truly allow app developer apps to run within -- and the boundaries of mobile security -- by instantiating multiple containers, each with its own ability to operate in the background as "background tasks."
(To all onlookers [not the quoted commenter] Microsoft always had a good working relationship with most commercial enterprises until the whole antitrust crap started. In the decade-plus since that nonsense started, Microsoft has been searching for ways of rekindling that fire... but their intent of helping commercial enterprises succeed has never truly gone away.)
Right, except for their licensing agreements whereby Siri in iOS 7 will be supported by Bing, whereby Facebook is in bed with Microsoft tech (although not a fully committed marriage), and consumers are still buying Xboxes by the hundreds of thousands globally every month... and their Windows Azure platform is already a billion-dollar business (their 15th?), and they've sold more than $1B worth of Surface devices... and everyone still wants their software to be supported on other OSes (e.g. Office for iOS)... not to mention the billions they spend on R&D every quarter via Microsoft Research with no necessary intent of commercializing the advancements themselves.
That's terrific! You can start that quest by staying in school... and learning to read academic journals about subjects affecting the real world -- not just the comics page in your community newspaper.
You're stating a series of opinions while missing the point: if the work product is related to your job then it becomes indistinguishable from the job itself. There must be clear boundaries separating your personal work from your professional work.
Most professors want everything for themselves -- or stick it to their employers -- much the same way every other working shlub does. There's nothing special about professors which exempt them from employment law, contract law, and whatever other categories of law that apply to working stiffs.
If you write a cookbook but are otherwise a cosmetologist, then all the power to you -- the boundaries are pretty distinct. If you write a collegiate textbook about the planet Mars, and are publishing a thesis about the planet Venus... sorry, the boundaries aren't clear enough to argue that the textbook is not associated with your field of study.
...there will be a gigantic dick... who responds with "meh."
Your comment is clearly overrated and should be construed as flame bait. It also deserves a "meh" since it adds nothing to the topic of AI and whether the individual profiled in the story is contributing something novel in the general quest for improvements in artificial intelligence -- or the availability of open source software which can be amalgamated into an AI-related project.
Not everything you do while working is part of that "service"
Actually, if it is remotely related to the service, then yes it is part of said service. If you solve a math problem while paid by the math department, then the department has first dibs on your solution. If you're an oncologist and find a cure using your employer's resources, then your employer also has first dibs on the cure -- unless otherwise stipulated in the terms of employment.
Being a computer programmer is the same thing -- it's a service. Whatever is produced, whether directly or indirectly, if it relates to the professional field of employment, then it can be claimed by the employer... unless the terms of employment state things one way or the other.
You see, Einstein solved math and physics problems while working at a post office. Since the post office is NOT a math and physics laboratory (in the career sense), then the post office does not have dibs on the solutions.
If you think that "increased exposure to opinions that may not be of interest" is a bad thing for a person something is horribly wrong with the world.
There's a difference between being exposed to opinions once disagrees with (great for building an argument for/against a topic) and opinions of no interest (like 30-minute informercials aimed at an audience not comprising yourself). The former (disagreed opinions) is exemplified by the plethora of commentators who try to convince the world that they're right... the latter (no interest) is exemplified by the mere practice of "channel surfing."
Nobody has ever declare that channel surfing was a productive practice for society and really allowed the viewers to change the world for the better for the next generation. And with tens of thousands of cable TV stations each focused on a narrow audience, the probability of expending a greater amount of time surfing in hopes of finding that TV program that actually is of interest is increased (more time spent) for potentially marginal gains (diluted or repetitive opinions/counter-arguments).
Alas, the increased exposure to material that does not encourage a person to say, "yeah, this was really worthwhile and I am such a more productive member of society," is pretty much a bad thing...... unless you want everyone to be dumb, degenerate, and pointless to the point of sitting in floating chairs (as in Wall-E) or just being totally retarded (as in Idiocracy).
Out of interest, do you watch TV/Movies anyway?... I get the 'good' from your post, with less (but admittedly not "no") exposure to the 'bad' and the 'ugly'.
Yes, I certainly am exposed to modern day media (as evidence by my commenting here) however I pride myself for being a discriminating person: I rely not on the number of stars or trophies awarded to a film, but instead on the thoughtful reviews by film critics (both amateur and professional). Such practice affords me with staying current on [relatively contemporary] pop culture while mitigating the risks of being the overwhelmed by inevitably non-priority productions.
Put it another way: I put my own interests ahead of those suggested to me by mass media. I attend local performing arts productions, I read high-brow periodicals, I keep tabs of film critics "gone rogue" (Roger & Ebert used to provide thoughtful reviews... 'til they stopped caring), I read books at the library and bookstores. If something is not of interest, then I will not commit any time to the material -- I will walk out of a film, I will skip a meet-up, I will take an actual bath and just relax.
In my world, my sense of being matters more than whatever the boob-tube tells me. My purpose? Nobody knows. But being comfortable under my skin? Priceless.
We've got the Internet, so why dumb yourself down by passivly staring at...
You almost had a valid point, except that the effects of the Internet are the same as that of a Television. Future generations of smart televisions (like coupling an Xbox One w/ Kinect into a TV set) will allow you to yell at the screen, for your rants to get transcribed in real-time and automatically added to the multimedia transcript so various users can both experience the program AND the reactions as they happened. That's as close to Reality TV as we'll ever get -- a replay of a single Live moment of television but syndicated, translated, and repeated 5 times a day on show-exclusive cable networks... accessible on any device on-demand.
As illustrated above, we're simply posting on a designated website instead of conversing through TV. Same shit, different technology mix.
I'm now one of those in the "don't have a TV" crowd, and I believe that theories of economics have affected the masses by way of the television.
The Good for Viewers: A means of visually confirming events and visually experiencing other people's imaginations via scripted TV. The Good for Broadcasters: A means of sharing an opinion to audiences in real-time (same goes for the Internet), which inevitably shapes "public opinion."
The Bad for Viewers: Increased exposure to opinions that may not be of interest -- which results in a reduction in lifetime sense of productivity. The Bad for Broadcasters: Increased exposure and association to opinions which promulgate the decreased sense of productivity.
The Ugly for Viewers: Dumbing down of society thanks to the "rush to the bottom" of the social ladder in the quest for a falsely placed sense of greater social connection and relevance. The Ugly for Broadcasters: Entirely responsible for the crap on TV and for the dumbing down of society to the point of retardation.
I must have missed it.... where is privacy protected by the constitution?
(Hint: it's not in the fourth amendment.)
Similar to "what is a right?" The concept of privacy is pervasive but not worded literally per 21st Century American English for an 18th Century document.
Since the First Amendment provides for the right of beliefs and expression, and what is "wrong" is a moral consideration governed by personal beliefs, then the notion of privacy (freedom FROM observation, intrusion, and attention) is covered by the same Amendments which provide the rights FOR even having beliefs.
That's silly. Privacy is a constitutional right -- so important that it's part of the original Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments). To state that the desire to MAINTAIN your right to privacy means you have ill intent to "do wrong" (whatever the hell THAT means) is saying that nobody has any rights whatsoever -- since whatever is "granted" is as easily revocable and ostensibly temporary.
Furthermore, what constitutes "wrong"? Who's the judge? It's a moral characterization to actions of an inalienable right afforded by our founding fathers. Your statements simply don't make sense.
That's a little harsh. Just as PHP can be run on a Windows Desktop, it can be run on Windows Azure -- either as an OS-ignorant web app, or as part of a full-blown Hyper-V compatible VM instance. (Naturally the same goes for any/all programming languages that are portable/compatible with the.NET framework or web deployment strategies in place today and in the future.)
For the billions of Windows PCs and Servers currently deployed worldwide, Microsoft is allowing their apps and services to run in an hosted infrastructure.
The "cloud" is merely a bunch of servers commercially owned by somebody else; the OE is what is marketed as "PaaS and IaaS cloud-based offerings." Let's try to stay away from all of the cloud hype and just recognize that an web app running on a VM does NOT have a requisite of having to be a non-Microsoft VM.
By reapplying the term "Operating System" to include on-premise and in-cloud environments, Microsoft is redefining Windows to simply become an operating environment -- we all know this, but they're making their direction rather crystal.
This redefinition actually increases the potential of the Windows brand and Microsoft is currently assuring its long-term survival by calling their hosted platform as Windows Azure. By running their Office, Xbox, Server, and Development tools in their Azure cloud, they are helping organizations still exploit the benefits of any Microsoft investment without necessarily being locked into the hassles of device-specific nuances.
If I were starting a business today, I would probably go with the Office 365 offerings (which run on Azure) and develop against their tools Services. Then, I would simply BYOD to become my computational gateway -- be it an Android, iPad, Berry, or Win8/WinPhone8. Ostensibly, the UI is programmed in HTML5 (with localStorage), the data-sync occurs via APIs, and the business rules engine (BizTalk) is as sophisticated as my business actually needs.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, you've finally made some form of assertion about technical competence. Too bad your assumption as to my youth and unfamiliarity with device drivers is severely misjudged... and, frankly, unrelated to the manner in which Microsoft had baked in all sorts of consumer-oriented functionalities into their Windows 9x OSes.
(I'm certain we can both agree that the devices group @ Microsoft had their own... hiccups... that started in the early 90's and hit rock-bottom when Vista was released.)
I concur.
I took OpenStack for a spin last week and I like where they're going. It brings the CLI access from the AWS world with the mature web-based deployment tools of Azure -- and allows for GCE-type sophisticated apps to run within their contexts. This unique combination has made it appealing for me -- and surely whets the appetites for tons of onlookers who are waiting for the chips to fall before making any company-wide commitments.
Ostensibly, they'll have to endure 2-3 major outages in the next few years before seeing the commitments its customer base truly has with them. Hopefully they don't endure any major outages... although they do run atop the AWS IaaS platform...
Your entire post was nothing but a red herring designed to make it sound like you have an understanding of software systems
FWIW, instead of presenting any evidence to demonstrate that YOU know anything about software systems, you're instead making blanket statements criticizing others (i.e. me) for not understanding software systems. I can go ahead and cite the official Microsoft Windows API documentation from pre-1995 which clearly describes how an ISV should consume their published API's to mimic certain behaviors that are native to a Microsoft-built application... but any such actions would do nothing to demonstrate whether YOU have any knowledge or understanding of the Windows OS.
If you were so smart and all that, then why aren't you a multi-billionaire managing empires of powerful companies doing wild, crazy, and innovative things that will make all of mankind stand back in awe? Because you don't know everything and you're not always right. Heck, you probably did not graduate from a top flight University with a perfect (or above) GPA and all associated honors. Why not? Because you answered questions wrong. Because you did (do?) not know everything.
In case you didn't catch it, when you stated that, "Obviously, if I have software [...]," you actually reinforced my point: the judge only succeeded prima facie in removing some components to IE but that it was not thoroughly tested and was thus a premature declaration -- and demonstrated his bias in the entire matter. And proving whether OS configuration changes will break the most common commercial applications is a relatively trivial task... it's called testing. Certain assertions may be derived based on the outcomes of a thorough battery of tests.
Now if only there was a concept called the Scientific Method which would expound on such an approach to validate an hypothesis...
You have absolutely no idea how to develop software.
Clearly, you're the one who fails to understand how to develop software (my personal accomplishments since pre-dotcom era aside). Having libraries distributed along with its own dependencies as part of the commercial "operating system" does not result in a "far less secure" OS. The renderer has, for all intents and purposes, always been distributed as part of Windows; heck, everybody knows that Microsoft has given desktop developers too many choices when they even added Windows Forms and XAML into the mix. (BTW, I wonder where the rendering concept behind XAML came from... peculiar...)
Since all things GUI are ostensibly a separate stack atop Windows Kernel, the notion of security (more or less) is inconsequential. What Microsoft has been doing is segregating the various Win API's and rewriting them to be coded more securely (read: removing the hacks). Whether the API's were used for GUI-related functions or simply basic authentication made no difference to the general need of rewriting the software more securely.
By moving the processing capacities into individual rendering containers, and those containers operating within a limited memory space, it allows the underlying OS to operate with better performance since all apps would operate within the same closed environment (containers) thus allowing better task management optimizations... as opposed to allowing every app to roam free. This notion of containers is the premise behind current-day hypervisors and hardware resource allocation.
The Judge - a techno neophyte at best - was able to remove it.
Just because some special needs kids can remove a few DLL's from the Windows/System32 folder doesn't mean anything. After all, virus and malware writers simply replace existing DLL's with their own files -- which also results in "removing" the functionality exposed by the DLL's in question.
Heck, products like Windows XP Lite show that you can remove a shit ton of stuff from your Windows install -- but that functionality or backwards compatibility will be impaired or crippled with either past, present, or future generation commercial software you would install onto the OS.
Being a neophyte, the Judge clearly did NOT prove that he both removed the "offending" feature AND maintained complete commercial software compatibility across the entire Windows ecosystem by all previously-Certified-for-Windows applications. Therefore, his own claims are baseless and should never have been used... he should have recused himself immediately, or thrown the entire case out the window on a basis of partiality and let the case start over from the beginning.
This is just Ontario. They're very (different kind of) special in that province.
I never understood why Microsoft forced Internet Explorer inside Windows. Did they fear Netscape's "API" would really threaten them ?
It's funny how Windows 98 Second Edition had this feature, Active Desktop, which allowed for the display of web content (plug-ins and all) directly onto the desktop background, and also supported native XML feeds (CDF)... and today everybody's going ga-ga over HTML5-based "apps" which run "native" to their mobile operating environment with the ability of utilizing an API -- XmlHttpRequest, developed by Microsoft Office team for their Outlook Web Access UI back in Exchange Server 5 days.
Yeah, clearly Microsoft had no idea that web-based content would be fetched for display in an OS... and that the renderer has best performance and security capabilities if it were baked into the OS instead of being bolted on.
Their worst offense? Trying to appease the tin-foil-hat world by repackaging the rendering contained via the MHTML (MHT) [Mime HTML] viewer. This very container is the sole "workspace" that modern mobile OSes truly allow app developer apps to run within -- and the boundaries of mobile security -- by instantiating multiple containers, each with its own ability to operate in the background as "background tasks."
(To all onlookers [not the quoted commenter] Microsoft always had a good working relationship with most commercial enterprises until the whole antitrust crap started. In the decade-plus since that nonsense started, Microsoft has been searching for ways of rekindling that fire... but their intent of helping commercial enterprises succeed has never truly gone away.)
Right, except for their licensing agreements whereby Siri in iOS 7 will be supported by Bing, whereby Facebook is in bed with Microsoft tech (although not a fully committed marriage), and consumers are still buying Xboxes by the hundreds of thousands globally every month... and their Windows Azure platform is already a billion-dollar business (their 15th?), and they've sold more than $1B worth of Surface devices... and everyone still wants their software to be supported on other OSes (e.g. Office for iOS)... not to mention the billions they spend on R&D every quarter via Microsoft Research with no necessary intent of commercializing the advancements themselves.
Yup, sounds like they're in decline.
We all want to be just as smart as you
That's terrific! You can start that quest by staying in school... and learning to read academic journals about subjects affecting the real world -- not just the comics page in your community newspaper.
This is Google, where everything is considered "beta" -- including security fixes and revenue-driving products.
You're stating a series of opinions while missing the point: if the work product is related to your job then it becomes indistinguishable from the job itself. There must be clear boundaries separating your personal work from your professional work.
Most professors want everything for themselves -- or stick it to their employers -- much the same way every other working shlub does. There's nothing special about professors which exempt them from employment law, contract law, and whatever other categories of law that apply to working stiffs.
If you write a cookbook but are otherwise a cosmetologist, then all the power to you -- the boundaries are pretty distinct. If you write a collegiate textbook about the planet Mars, and are publishing a thesis about the planet Venus... sorry, the boundaries aren't clear enough to argue that the textbook is not associated with your field of study.
...there will be a gigantic dick... who responds with "meh."
Your comment is clearly overrated and should be construed as flame bait. It also deserves a "meh" since it adds nothing to the topic of AI and whether the individual profiled in the story is contributing something novel in the general quest for improvements in artificial intelligence -- or the availability of open source software which can be amalgamated into an AI-related project.
Apparently he doesn't know how to configure an Apache's DocumentRoot, either (see http://frdcsa.org/)
I gotta admit, that's he only thing that REALLY caught my attention.
This guy's approach to Weak AI is "meh" at best. There's nothing that he's said which hasn't already been done before.
Not everything you do while working is part of that "service"
Actually, if it is remotely related to the service, then yes it is part of said service. If you solve a math problem while paid by the math department, then the department has first dibs on your solution. If you're an oncologist and find a cure using your employer's resources, then your employer also has first dibs on the cure -- unless otherwise stipulated in the terms of employment.
Being a computer programmer is the same thing -- it's a service. Whatever is produced, whether directly or indirectly, if it relates to the professional field of employment, then it can be claimed by the employer... unless the terms of employment state things one way or the other.
You see, Einstein solved math and physics problems while working at a post office. Since the post office is NOT a math and physics laboratory (in the career sense), then the post office does not have dibs on the solutions.
If you think that "increased exposure to opinions that may not be of interest" is a bad thing for a person something is horribly wrong with the world.
There's a difference between being exposed to opinions once disagrees with (great for building an argument for/against a topic) and opinions of no interest (like 30-minute informercials aimed at an audience not comprising yourself). The former (disagreed opinions) is exemplified by the plethora of commentators who try to convince the world that they're right... the latter (no interest) is exemplified by the mere practice of "channel surfing."
Nobody has ever declare that channel surfing was a productive practice for society and really allowed the viewers to change the world for the better for the next generation. And with tens of thousands of cable TV stations each focused on a narrow audience, the probability of expending a greater amount of time surfing in hopes of finding that TV program that actually is of interest is increased (more time spent) for potentially marginal gains (diluted or repetitive opinions/counter-arguments).
Alas, the increased exposure to material that does not encourage a person to say, "yeah, this was really worthwhile and I am such a more productive member of society," is pretty much a bad thing...... unless you want everyone to be dumb, degenerate, and pointless to the point of sitting in floating chairs (as in Wall-E) or just being totally retarded (as in Idiocracy).
Out of interest, do you watch TV/Movies anyway? ... I get the 'good' from your post, with less (but admittedly not "no") exposure to the 'bad' and the 'ugly'.
Yes, I certainly am exposed to modern day media (as evidence by my commenting here) however I pride myself for being a discriminating person: I rely not on the number of stars or trophies awarded to a film, but instead on the thoughtful reviews by film critics (both amateur and professional). Such practice affords me with staying current on [relatively contemporary] pop culture while mitigating the risks of being the overwhelmed by inevitably non-priority productions.
Put it another way: I put my own interests ahead of those suggested to me by mass media. I attend local performing arts productions, I read high-brow periodicals, I keep tabs of film critics "gone rogue" (Roger & Ebert used to provide thoughtful reviews... 'til they stopped caring), I read books at the library and bookstores. If something is not of interest, then I will not commit any time to the material -- I will walk out of a film, I will skip a meet-up, I will take an actual bath and just relax.
In my world, my sense of being matters more than whatever the boob-tube tells me. My purpose? Nobody knows. But being comfortable under my skin? Priceless.
We've got the Internet, so why dumb yourself down by passivly staring at ...
You almost had a valid point, except that the effects of the Internet are the same as that of a Television. Future generations of smart televisions (like coupling an Xbox One w/ Kinect into a TV set) will allow you to yell at the screen, for your rants to get transcribed in real-time and automatically added to the multimedia transcript so various users can both experience the program AND the reactions as they happened. That's as close to Reality TV as we'll ever get -- a replay of a single Live moment of television but syndicated, translated, and repeated 5 times a day on show-exclusive cable networks... accessible on any device on-demand.
As illustrated above, we're simply posting on a designated website instead of conversing through TV. Same shit, different technology mix.
I'm now one of those in the "don't have a TV" crowd, and I believe that theories of economics have affected the masses by way of the television.
The Good for Viewers: A means of visually confirming events and visually experiencing other people's imaginations via scripted TV.
The Good for Broadcasters: A means of sharing an opinion to audiences in real-time (same goes for the Internet), which inevitably shapes "public opinion."
The Bad for Viewers: Increased exposure to opinions that may not be of interest -- which results in a reduction in lifetime sense of productivity.
The Bad for Broadcasters: Increased exposure and association to opinions which promulgate the decreased sense of productivity.
The Ugly for Viewers: Dumbing down of society thanks to the "rush to the bottom" of the social ladder in the quest for a falsely placed sense of greater social connection and relevance.
The Ugly for Broadcasters: Entirely responsible for the crap on TV and for the dumbing down of society to the point of retardation.
[end rant]
I must have missed it.... where is privacy protected by the constitution?
(Hint: it's not in the fourth amendment.)
Similar to "what is a right?" The concept of privacy is pervasive but not worded literally per 21st Century American English for an 18th Century document.
Since the First Amendment provides for the right of beliefs and expression, and what is "wrong" is a moral consideration governed by personal beliefs, then the notion of privacy (freedom FROM observation, intrusion, and attention) is covered by the same Amendments which provide the rights FOR even having beliefs.
That's silly. Privacy is a constitutional right -- so important that it's part of the original Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments). To state that the desire to MAINTAIN your right to privacy means you have ill intent to "do wrong" (whatever the hell THAT means) is saying that nobody has any rights whatsoever -- since whatever is "granted" is as easily revocable and ostensibly temporary.
Furthermore, what constitutes "wrong"? Who's the judge? It's a moral characterization to actions of an inalienable right afforded by our founding fathers. Your statements simply don't make sense.
I wonder if that means lower taxes...
VZW Engineer on lover's lane: Can you hear me now?
NSA Technician: Check.
VZW Engineer across the street from a Meth lab: And now?
NSA Technician: Check.
VZW Engineer in the depths of FBI (Hoover Building): Can you hear me now?
NSA Technician: Check.
VZW Engineer in the Pentagon data center: How about now?
NSA Technician: Check.
VZW Engineer in the NSA data center: How about now?
NSA Technician: No comment.
That's a little harsh. Just as PHP can be run on a Windows Desktop, it can be run on Windows Azure -- either as an OS-ignorant web app, or as part of a full-blown Hyper-V compatible VM instance. (Naturally the same goes for any/all programming languages that are portable/compatible with the .NET framework or web deployment strategies in place today and in the future.)
For the billions of Windows PCs and Servers currently deployed worldwide, Microsoft is allowing their apps and services to run in an hosted infrastructure.
The "cloud" is merely a bunch of servers commercially owned by somebody else; the OE is what is marketed as "PaaS and IaaS cloud-based offerings." Let's try to stay away from all of the cloud hype and just recognize that an web app running on a VM does NOT have a requisite of having to be a non-Microsoft VM.
By reapplying the term "Operating System" to include on-premise and in-cloud environments, Microsoft is redefining Windows to simply become an operating environment -- we all know this, but they're making their direction rather crystal.
This redefinition actually increases the potential of the Windows brand and Microsoft is currently assuring its long-term survival by calling their hosted platform as Windows Azure. By running their Office, Xbox, Server, and Development tools in their Azure cloud, they are helping organizations still exploit the benefits of any Microsoft investment without necessarily being locked into the hassles of device-specific nuances.
If I were starting a business today, I would probably go with the Office 365 offerings (which run on Azure) and develop against their tools Services. Then, I would simply BYOD to become my computational gateway -- be it an Android, iPad, Berry, or Win8/WinPhone8. Ostensibly, the UI is programmed in HTML5 (with localStorage), the data-sync occurs via APIs, and the business rules engine (BizTalk) is as sophisticated as my business actually needs.