Though Packard Hell soldiered on for years in the US market as a 'cheap' entry level computer despite it's [well deserved] odious reputation among the cognoscenti. It didn't finally flatline in the US until the mid/late 90's. I remember a (joke) contest at a BBS party in the early 90's - first prize was two (dead) Packard Hell machines. Second prize was one working Packard Hell...
But yeah, even though they are now almost forgotten today (how fast they forget!) Compaq was the leader in PC's through the 80's and most of the 90's.
From most of the comments, so far, you pretty much could have put a period after that and called it a day. Most Slashdotters are too young to remember the early days of Windows, let alone the early days of DOS. Most of the comments to date are nothing more than regurgitated anti-MS FUD, short on facts and long and hyperbole.
People like Mitch Kapor didn't see any value whatsoever in graphical environments - after all he was selling 1-2-3 hand over fist to companies still running DOS.
The reality is that no one saw it, except Gates.
Yep. Bill Gates are prophesying an integrated GUI and an integrated application suite as early as 1986-87. When he finally delivered the first, his competitors treated Windows as though it was no different than the half a dozen GUIs available at the time that ran on top of DOS. More than a couple of them responded by either delivering their own GUIs or delivering one that ran on top of Windows... Then Microsoft shipped Office and OLE. Windows 3.1 was nothing more than a nail in his competitors coffins - but they were already nearly fastened shut. From the inside.
He points to Lotus and whines about lack of innovation. I'd really like to know exactly what innovations that microsoft have made that are relevant to their customers and Lotus product.
OLE, Office, and getting the dammed things to market on time and more-or-less functional.
But i agree, there was a lot of luck involved, and a but of underhanded backroom deals.
Right, luck in terms of timing, but this quote really bothers me:
"Most of our competitors were very poorly run"
The initial competitors were IBM and Apple, both are alive and well.
Certainly they are alive and well - now. In the time period under discussion, that emphatically was not true.
IBM was reduced to a second string player in the PC market within a few years. They never did quite grok the PC market and had their clocks handily cleaned by Compaq, Kaypro, and others.
Apply very nearly committed corporate suicide in the same time frame - between ever heavier handed monopoly practices, the high cost of the Lisa, and the poorly performing early Mac's. As with IBM, cheap clone PCs reduced them from a market leader to a has been.
Repeat after me, "a company cannot exploit its monopoly to become a monopoly".
No but they can be handed a monopoly (by another near monopoly).
The problem is - that's still recursive logic. When the IBM PC debuted, IBM didn't have a monopoly on that market. No one did, as the market largely didn't exist. (To the extent it did, the monopoly on the PC belonged to Apple!)
Nor did IBM's 'monopoly' of the PC market last long, as more than a few companies were quick off the mark to get their entries to market. So quickly and so successfully that IBM was all but knocked out of the ring within a couple of years.
Some of this I blame on the current school systems in place. There seems to be a lot more cheating going on and as a result not much character building. The rest I blame on poor roll models for the kids today. What with athletes almost openly using steroids and rappers thinking its cool getting busted the kids today don't have anyone to look up to. The easy way out is how it is done. A real shame that it has devolved to this.
It's much more than schools. Read any/. discussion of IP and watch how many people explain that "downloading isn't theft". Just today there is a discussion here on/. on how using using someone elses Wi-Fi isn't theft either.
I would certainly agree that the "real world" routinely ignores the Constitution and what it says about war...
People with any knowledge of history know the world is different than it was in 1787. Folks living in some idealistic dream world believe otherwise.
The founding fathers certainly have a much better track record than the "police action" crowd. How many "police action" wars have we won (0) vs. how many wars have we won (5)?
Much depends on which column your biases place which war and how your biases define winning and losing.
This system is certainly preferable to what we have today, which is essentially a constant state of conflict.
ROFTLMAO. If you believe that in past we weren't in a state of constant conflict... I have some prime waterfront property for you in Florida.
Yeah, I was appalled by the grandparent as well. It is always amazing to me how much bias is still tolerated, nay tacitly encouraged, here in the US. If the GP had used "nigger" or "faggot" instead of "redneck" - he'd have been modded 'flamebait' or 'troll' and his post soon forgotten down in the -5 basement.
Yes, but there is one small problem... We never declared war.
So what? This isn't a D&D session where you can't use your +5 Sword of MagicBabble unless you specifically tell the DM you are drawing it in preference to your +3 Mace of WooHoo. The real world doesn't work like that.
It is not the satellite that is important. It is the launcher. A 1000 £ orbital launcher of 20 grams satellites is assured to bring some innovation to the art of spatial launch.
True - but so what? Innovation at that scale is pretty pointless unless it will scale to useful payload ranges. (Which is far from certain and is probably unlikely in practice.)
Sounds like a wonderful idea for Dr Who or Star Trek technobabble - but RTG's work via radioactive decay, not via fission. These ideas won't work in the real world.
This land-owner was overreacting to the presence of a large group of people on the public road close to their property, not to trespassers.
Ah yes, the Slashdotter demographic speaks from their basement the standards all people must live by.
Meanwhile, out here in the real world, here are the problems I've seen while living in rural areas or have been seen close friends who live in rural areas; meth cookers, partiers leaving behind trash, partiers damaging property, vandalism to buildings and equipment, motorbikes and quads damaging property and interfering with livestock, livestock killed, livestock stolen, cars and trucks stolen, marijuana being raised along the edges of fields and in woods, etc. etc. etc...
There's a reason, multiple reasons, why the land owner reacted the way he did.
I have a friend who is a serious geek, who was once behind some of the major open source projects many of us now use daily, who has an OLPC and loves it. It's not her primary computer, but she never intended it to be, and for the purposes she bought it for, she is very pleased with it.
I find it interesting that you invoke your friends high status - but neglect to tell us exactly what she uses it for that so pleases her. Are we supposed to accept the OLPC is a Good Thing merely because Somebody Important uses it [for some unspecified purpose]?
I agree with you in observing that all the published commentary so far has indicated strongly that children seem very happy with and comfortable with the OLPCs, so the claim that they're too complex for children to use is highly questionable.
The claim is not that OLPCs are too complex for children, or that children will be uncomfortable around them - but whether or not children will be able to use them to learn. There's a big difference there.
The/why/ is curiosity. Kids have lots of it, but you tend to lose it over time as they get slapped in the hand and get told by adults to get serious. There's no telling to the number of great engineers (or doctors, or artists, or what-have-you) that we missed out due to stifled curiosity.
On the other hand, I find it much more likely that we have gained engineers (and doctors and artists and what-have-you) because the kids did get serious. Those professions require more than simple curiosity, they also require a large measure of mental and self discipline. Any fool can ask 'why?'. It takes much sterner stuff to seek the answers and apply them.
what is the best way to encourage and teach someone to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism? Is it even a teachable skill, or is it just an innate part of the geek personality?
Given years of responses I've read on Slashdot, I'd say that it's not an innate part of the geek personality, at least as the geek personality is currently understood. Honest skepticism requires a working knowledge of the topic in question, and most modern geeks don't even bother to try and educate themselves.
I say 'modern geek', because when I was growing up 'geek' and 'nerd' were terms applied to people with a bent towards knowledge (often esoteric and specialized) well beyond the norm (hence "computer geek") - coupled with an ability to discuss, dissect, and analyze topics on an objective basis. Or, as the teacher who advised the debate team I was on in my senior put it: "You won't find a geek as valedictorian, and few geeks win [grade based] academic scholarships, but you will find them in the chess club, the model rocket club, and on the debate team".
Being a modern geek on the other hand is all about fitting in with other 'geeks'. You have to watch the 'right' anime, be a fan of the 'right' TV shows and movies (or directors/producers), support the 'right' political causes and holding the 'proper' opinions... A modern geek must run one of the 'right' OS's and vociferously attack those who use the 'wrong' OS or hold the 'wrong' views on F/OSS, etc. etc. It's all about groupthink.
I never heard the term "geek cred" until I was well into my forties.
I am no perfect teacher, nor am I claiming to be an expert. I do teach middle schoolers (ages 10-13 at my school) and I try to show and teach them on a daily basis to question the world around them.
Teaching people to question is easy. The trick is to not stop there - the trick is to teach them to seek answers. (And to accept that sometimes they might not like the answers.)
It's easy to be skeptical. It's hard to be rational.
What do you call that? I call it gross breach of fiduciary duty to your stockholders. I am fortunately not a Yahoo stockholder, but if I was, I'd be pretty pissed about this.
I am a Yahoo! stockholder - and I'm pretty pleased because I don't want to be a Microsoft stockholder.
Otherwise people are supporting a candidate who doesn't consider it worthwhile to sit down and learn how to check his email.
He doesn't sit down and check his paper mail either I bet. Nor does he answer his own door when UPS or FedEx rings I suspect.
So what? Personally, I vote for candidates on their relevant skills, positions on issues, and (for incumbents) voting record. I could give a rat's ass whether he checks his own email or changes his own oil because there are completely and utterly irrelevant to what I'm "hiring" him for.
Computer skills are absolutely no indication of ones abilities. The are absolutely no indication of ones understanding of 'tech' issues. The delusion that one has to have 'x' skillset to understand 'y' issue (or issues) is one nearly unique to Slashdot. (Especially since 'y' issue is utterly unrelated to being able to use a computer.) I don't see machinists from Boeing complaining that any candidate does not understand labor issues because no candidate has been a machinist. Etc. Etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Though Packard Hell soldiered on for years in the US market as a 'cheap' entry level computer despite it's [well deserved] odious reputation among the cognoscenti. It didn't finally flatline in the US until the mid/late 90's. I remember a (joke) contest at a BBS party in the early 90's - first prize was two (dead) Packard Hell machines. Second prize was one working Packard Hell...
But yeah, even though they are now almost forgotten today (how fast they forget!) Compaq was the leader in PC's through the 80's and most of the 90's.
From most of the comments, so far, you pretty much could have put a period after that and called it a day. Most Slashdotters are too young to remember the early days of Windows, let alone the early days of DOS. Most of the comments to date are nothing more than regurgitated anti-MS FUD, short on facts and long and hyperbole.
Yep. Bill Gates are prophesying an integrated GUI and an integrated application suite as early as 1986-87. When he finally delivered the first, his competitors treated Windows as though it was no different than the half a dozen GUIs available at the time that ran on top of DOS. More than a couple of them responded by either delivering their own GUIs or delivering one that ran on top of Windows... Then Microsoft shipped Office and OLE. Windows 3.1 was nothing more than a nail in his competitors coffins - but they were already nearly fastened shut. From the inside.
OLE, Office, and getting the dammed things to market on time and more-or-less functional.
Certainly they are alive and well - now. In the time period under discussion, that emphatically was not true.
IBM was reduced to a second string player in the PC market within a few years. They never did quite grok the PC market and had their clocks handily cleaned by Compaq, Kaypro, and others.
Apply very nearly committed corporate suicide in the same time frame - between ever heavier handed monopoly practices, the high cost of the Lisa, and the poorly performing early Mac's. As with IBM, cheap clone PCs reduced them from a market leader to a has been.
The problem is - that's still recursive logic. When the IBM PC debuted, IBM didn't have a monopoly on that market. No one did, as the market largely didn't exist. (To the extent it did, the monopoly on the PC belonged to Apple!)
Nor did IBM's 'monopoly' of the PC market last long, as more than a few companies were quick off the mark to get their entries to market. So quickly and so successfully that IBM was all but knocked out of the ring within a couple of years.
It's much more than schools. Read any
People with any knowledge of history know the world is different than it was in 1787. Folks living in some idealistic dream world believe otherwise.
Much depends on which column your biases place which war and how your biases define winning and losing.
ROFTLMAO. If you believe that in past we weren't in a state of constant conflict... I have some prime waterfront property for you in Florida.
Yeah, I was appalled by the grandparent as well. It is always amazing to me how much bias is still tolerated, nay tacitly encouraged, here in the US. If the GP had used "nigger" or "faggot" instead of "redneck" - he'd have been modded 'flamebait' or 'troll' and his post soon forgotten down in the -5 basement.
But use "redneck" instead - and it's funny.
So what? This isn't a D&D session where you can't use your +5 Sword of MagicBabble unless you specifically tell the DM you are drawing it in preference to your +3 Mace of WooHoo. The real world doesn't work like that.
True - but so what? Innovation at that scale is pretty pointless unless it will scale to useful payload ranges. (Which is far from certain and is probably unlikely in practice.)
Sounds like a wonderful idea for Dr Who or Star Trek technobabble - but RTG's work via radioactive decay, not via fission. These ideas won't work in the real world.
That's certainly not an opinion shared by the [growing!] geocaching community.
Ah yes, the Slashdotter demographic speaks from their basement the standards all people must live by.
Meanwhile, out here in the real world, here are the problems I've seen while living in rural areas or have been seen close friends who live in rural areas; meth cookers, partiers leaving behind trash, partiers damaging property, vandalism to buildings and equipment, motorbikes and quads damaging property and interfering with livestock, livestock killed, livestock stolen, cars and trucks stolen, marijuana being raised along the edges of fields and in woods, etc. etc. etc...
There's a reason, multiple reasons, why the land owner reacted the way he did.
I find it interesting that you invoke your friends high status - but neglect to tell us exactly what she uses it for that so pleases her. Are we supposed to accept the OLPC is a Good Thing merely because Somebody Important uses it [for some unspecified purpose]?
The claim is not that OLPCs are too complex for children, or that children will be uncomfortable around them - but whether or not children will be able to use them to learn. There's a big difference there.
On the other hand, I find it much more likely that we have gained engineers (and doctors and artists and what-have-you) because the kids did get serious. Those professions require more than simple curiosity, they also require a large measure of mental and self discipline. Any fool can ask 'why?'. It takes much sterner stuff to seek the answers and apply them.
Given years of responses I've read on Slashdot, I'd say that it's not an innate part of the geek personality, at least as the geek personality is currently understood. Honest skepticism requires a working knowledge of the topic in question, and most modern geeks don't even bother to try and educate themselves.
I say 'modern geek', because when I was growing up 'geek' and 'nerd' were terms applied to people with a bent towards knowledge (often esoteric and specialized) well beyond the norm (hence "computer geek") - coupled with an ability to discuss, dissect, and analyze topics on an objective basis. Or, as the teacher who advised the debate team I was on in my senior put it: "You won't find a geek as valedictorian, and few geeks win [grade based] academic scholarships, but you will find them in the chess club, the model rocket club, and on the debate team".
Being a modern geek on the other hand is all about fitting in with other 'geeks'. You have to watch the 'right' anime, be a fan of the 'right' TV shows and movies (or directors/producers), support the 'right' political causes and holding the 'proper' opinions... A modern geek must run one of the 'right' OS's and vociferously attack those who use the 'wrong' OS or hold the 'wrong' views on F/OSS, etc. etc. It's all about groupthink.
I never heard the term "geek cred" until I was well into my forties.
Teaching people to question is easy. The trick is to not stop there - the trick is to teach them to seek answers. (And to accept that sometimes they might not like the answers.)
It's easy to be skeptical. It's hard to be rational.
And here on Slashdot, their as common as dirt.
Or, as a friend of mine puts it "there is a reason why the Puget Sound area is a petri dish for serial killers".
I am a Yahoo! stockholder - and I'm pretty pleased because I don't want to be a Microsoft stockholder.
A web based email reader that lets you sort your mail? Or that lets you see just your unread messages?
I invite you to study English history, as there has been all three things. Multiple times.
Most countries in Europe, in their current form, are younger than the US.
He doesn't sit down and check his paper mail either I bet. Nor does he answer his own door when UPS or FedEx rings I suspect.
So what? Personally, I vote for candidates on their relevant skills, positions on issues, and (for incumbents) voting record. I could give a rat's ass whether he checks his own email or changes his own oil because there are completely and utterly irrelevant to what I'm "hiring" him for.
Here!, have! a! few! more! exclamation! points! collect! enough! and! your! argument! becomes! valid!
Computer skills are absolutely no indication of ones abilities. The are absolutely no indication of ones understanding of 'tech' issues. The delusion that one has to have 'x' skillset to understand 'y' issue (or issues) is one nearly unique to Slashdot. (Especially since 'y' issue is utterly unrelated to being able to use a computer.) I don't see machinists from Boeing complaining that any candidate does not understand labor issues because no candidate has been a machinist. Etc. Etc.