No offense to the previous poster, and all offense intended to the moron moderator... but there really was no content to this post. Hardly worth a score +1.
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Not much, in my opinion. Think about the kinds of stores you generally see in a mall: Housewares shops. Clothing and shoe stores. Stores that sell "random pieces of garbage" for impulse-shoppers (e.g. Dapy). Stores that sell sunglasses, perfume, jewelry. What do all these stores have in common? They all require some basic level of intimate human interaction with the products in order to sell merchandise. These kind of stores will *never* be replaced by web-based variants! Nobody's going to buy a perfume they can't smell, a pair of jeans they can't try on, or a little piece-of-crap knickknack they haven't seen before. Very few people will buy frying pans or massage chairs or home-entertainment systems on the Internet. Imagine the shipping rate for a big-screen television!
Sure, there are lots of stores that will definitely see a bit of a reduction in sales due to online commerce: record stores, bookstores, and, perhaps, stores that sell videos and DVDs. What do these shops have in common, though? Their merchandise can be disseminated, in "sample" form, over the internet! You can listen to a CD before you buy it, or read a chapter of a book online at amazon.com. Maybe soon, you'll be able to download scenes from DVD movies and watch them, as well, before you buy. I've yet to see a mall which consists solely of stores which sell media, though. I've yet to come a cross a mall which is composed of even a strong minority of these kinds of shops. Usually, there's one or two big record stores, one or two bookstores, and an "Electronics Boutique". The loss of sales in three to five stores out of forty or fifty in a small shopping center isn't much to cry about, if I'm a mall owner.
To add to my assumption that this is all much ado about nothing and a rather bad case of paranoia on one mall owner's part, CNN.com just ran a story today that says that fully 75% of all consumers in the country had never shopped online! Not only that, but most of those that do buy online never spend more than $200, and most spend under $50. What's that mean? Books and CDs, to me.
Methinks someone needs a dose of reality.
-A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
At least the original post had some content. The best you could muster was a worthless opinion and an insult. What'll you do for your next trick, dickbag?
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Much as I think this is a terrible hoax (what better way to get publicity than to claim Big Bad Government is bothering you?), I have the thing mirrored here. Have fun...
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
In 10 years, people will laugh at what we consider "fast". Do you honestly think people will only be able to get by with a mere megabit per second of bandwidth? On the other hand, I anticipate I'll still be able to listen to a baseball game by the pool or at the beach on my little cheap AM radio.
Oh, and until FM radio can be broadcast over hundreds of miles, which AM can do easily, there will still be a need for AM radio. There's a *reason* AM is still around, and it's not simply because stations own the bandwidth still.
Wake up, indeed.
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"I can't download pr0n as fast as I should be able to, so let's ditch AM radio!" Now, let's see which came first, has more users (listeners), and is generally more useful to a greater amount of people. That would be AM radio. Maybe ADSL should be the one to have to change, wouldn't you say? Or, should I and millions of other people give up our baseball games, news reports, and weather so you can play Quake a little faster? It seems awfully ignorant to want to get rid of an entire medium just because another, poorly-designed, newer medium chokes because of it.
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Money for ESR. Remember, this is a _gift_ culture. If he can't feed his family from books, he's going to find some other (possibly not programming) way to do it.
It would be interesting to see this scenario played out in a court of law:
Judge: The defendant stands accused of soliciting money for sex. How do you plead?
ESR: Your honor, I plead not guilty! My family was starving! My septuplets were crying out from pain of hunger! It was either this or *shudders* accept that position at Microsoft.
Judge: I see your point. Case dismissed. You are free to go.
-A.P. (note for the humor-impaired: this was meant to be taken lightly) --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
As for "freedom of choice" when it comes to operating systems, it has been pointed out time and time again that it is impossible to purchase a laptop computer without paying for Microsoft Windows. That blows your pie-in-the-sky freedom theory out of the water.
Now, as to the previous poster's comment about Microsoft and your subsequent condemnation of it: I really don't know why so many people think that corporations are physical entities and, as such, should be given the same treatment as one would to, for instance, their grandmother. Why should I kowtow to Microsoft? If I think they suck, I sure as hell have every right to say so. It's not like Microsoft's feelings will be hurt -- they're not human beings! I can't piss them off; I can't punch them in the stomach, much as I'd like to sometimes. It's bad enough that corporations have been endowed with the same property rights as human beings have in this country; do we really have to start ascribing emotional attributes to them too? Some would have it that way, though, it seems... it's a shame.
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
There were three sentences in my reply. Your comment applies to the third sentence only. Please check your comment, reread my original comment, and reply again. Thanks for playing.
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
To be honest, as a customer, I don't give a rat's ass if the publisher eats that month or not. If there are more ads in the magazine than useful content, the magazine is staying on the rack. That's why I prefer web content. Not only is it more current, but there's only one little ad at the top of the page. Web magazines are *forced* to be 99% content. This I like.
- A.P. (100,000 hits a month isn't much, btw...) --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
I'm sure everyone who's ever bought a laptop with Windows preinstalled on it simply because there was no other way to purchase a laptop will agree with you. Oh, but, yeah, they should probably just be lugging around typewriters, that's right.
Why is it that only stupid people seem to be Microsoft apologists?
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
You're trying to tell us that the Chinese spent all that time pilfering secrets from America's top-secret government-funded research laboratories, and the only secrets they stole were for technology the United States' own space program abandoned almost 30 years ago? What the holy hell are you on about?
Please, go back to making Monica Lewinsky jokes or something. God knows, we could use more of those!
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
The only customers for mainframes have historically been banks, insurance companies, and large fortune 500 companies and colleges who need to manage enormous databases. It's not like your average Joe has big iron in his basement, and banks/insurance companies/colleges aren't about to switch their operating system over, especially when even a minutes' worth of downtime would probably cost a bank several million dollars.
Not to mention the specialized hardware IBM mainframes use. It's not just a CPU and a few busses you have to be worried about. Literally *everything* has its own controller. Code would need to be written for so many things besides simply the CPU that, when all is said and done, what you'd have would be a far cry from the Linux we all know and love.
To put it bluntly: I'll believe it when I see it.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"How many cable channels does one man really need?!"
Perhaps you should ask Ted Turner. He owns about a billion or two cable chanels at last count, three-fourths of which are showing poorly-colorized movies as we speak.
- A.P. (Am I the only one who thinks that the early-80s "marvel" of colorization should stay forgotten? Did people all really look like fleshy pink fetuses in the 1920s?) --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
It's a shite state of affairs when a small group of misguided, yet rich, people have the ability and the desire to silence all those who disagree with them. Such is the sad story of Scientology, and, unless some kind soul starts sniping them all off one by one, so shall it remain.
That could just be my evil body thetans talking, though. Maybe if I paid L. Ron a few hundred grand I could have that taken care of...
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
I'm thinking of getting one myself. It's supported in Linux, does hardware raid 0, 1, 0/1, 3, 5, 30, and 50. Does anyone have one? Is it decent? Can I trust my data to it? It's $150 on pricewatch, which sounds like a damn good deal for something with its own CPU on board.
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Back on subject. USB on linux is a priority for Mac users. It was not a priority for linux before then. The floppy disk as we know is going to be gone eventually. Do you have a 5.25" disk drive on your computer? Hmmm, that was available a few years ago.
So were 5 megabyte hard drives. What's your point? If your point is that things change in the computer industry and that it somehow follows that the floppy disk drive should be abandoned, I have to disagree with you.
The floppy disk and diskette drive are very useful if and when Shit ever Happens to your machine and you need to get it up and running again. (Forgot that root password? No floppy? Oops, you're screwed.) Sure, you can boot off a CD-Rom, but what happens if and when your machine dies and you *don't* have a boot CD? You can't just download one on another machine and burn it most times. You *can* do that with a floppy, and I've *had* to do that on a few occasions. Floppy drives are (were?) ubiquitous. Everyone has one. Not many people I know have a CD-R, or a Zip drive, or some other means of booting their PCs.
Think of the floppy drive as a glorified emergency escape hatch on your computer. (Would you feel safer on a plane with no emergency exits?)
Food for thought.
=A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Reverse-engineering is perfectly legal. It's safe for me to assume that that's what you've done in order to make a working Napster client without help from the author. You should have no problems (read: Napster should have no legal issues with you) releasing your client. There should also be no problem with releasing the source code to your program, since it's your code and not Napster's. If it weren't for people like you who spend the time to figure out how a "secret" protocol works, there'd be no real useful ICQ clients for Linux.
Go for it, I say.
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Slashdot Mirror
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Sure, there are lots of stores that will definitely see a bit of a reduction in sales due to online commerce: record stores, bookstores, and, perhaps, stores that sell videos and DVDs. What do these shops have in common, though? Their merchandise can be disseminated, in "sample" form, over the internet! You can listen to a CD before you buy it, or read a chapter of a book online at amazon.com. Maybe soon, you'll be able to download scenes from DVD movies and watch them, as well, before you buy. I've yet to see a mall which consists solely of stores which sell media, though. I've yet to come a cross a mall which is composed of even a strong minority of these kinds of shops. Usually, there's one or two big record stores, one or two bookstores, and an "Electronics Boutique". The loss of sales in three to five stores out of forty or fifty in a small shopping center isn't much to cry about, if I'm a mall owner.
To add to my assumption that this is all much ado about nothing and a rather bad case of paranoia on one mall owner's part, CNN.com just ran a story today that says that fully 75% of all consumers in the country had never shopped online! Not only that, but most of those that do buy online never spend more than $200, and most spend under $50. What's that mean? Books and CDs, to me.
Methinks someone needs a dose of reality.
-A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Oh, and until FM radio can be broadcast over hundreds of miles, which AM can do easily, there will still be a need for AM radio. There's a *reason* AM is still around, and it's not simply because stations own the bandwidth still.
Wake up, indeed.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
-A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
It would be interesting to see this scenario played out in a court of law:
Judge: The defendant stands accused of soliciting money for sex. How do you plead?
ESR: Your honor, I plead not guilty! My family was starving! My septuplets were crying out from pain of hunger! It was either this or *shudders* accept that position at Microsoft.
Judge: I see your point. Case dismissed. You are free to go.
-A.P. (note for the humor-impaired: this was meant to be taken lightly)
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
As for "freedom of choice" when it comes to operating systems, it has been pointed out time and time again that it is impossible to purchase a laptop computer without paying for Microsoft Windows. That blows your pie-in-the-sky freedom theory out of the water.
Now, as to the previous poster's comment about Microsoft and your subsequent condemnation of it: I really don't know why so many people think that corporations are physical entities and, as such, should be given the same treatment as one would to, for instance, their grandmother. Why should I kowtow to Microsoft? If I think they suck, I sure as hell have every right to say so. It's not like Microsoft's feelings will be hurt -- they're not human beings! I can't piss them off; I can't punch them in the stomach, much as I'd like to sometimes. It's bad enough that corporations have been endowed with the same property rights as human beings have in this country; do we really have to start ascribing emotional attributes to them too? Some would have it that way, though, it seems... it's a shame.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Why not? Slashdot The Website frequently does this anyway. Sometimes it even prints out stories from two and three *months* ago. . .
-A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
- A.P. (100,000 hits a month isn't much, btw...)
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Why is it that only stupid people seem to be Microsoft apologists?
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
You're trying to tell us that the Chinese spent all that time pilfering secrets from America's top-secret government-funded research laboratories, and the only secrets they stole were for technology the United States' own space program abandoned almost 30 years ago? What the holy hell are you on about?
Please, go back to making Monica Lewinsky jokes or something. God knows, we could use more of those!
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Not to mention the specialized hardware IBM mainframes use. It's not just a CPU and a few busses you have to be worried about. Literally *everything* has its own controller. Code would need to be written for so many things besides simply the CPU that, when all is said and done, what you'd have would be a far cry from the Linux we all know and love.
To put it bluntly: I'll believe it when I see it.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Perhaps you should ask Ted Turner. He owns about a billion or two cable chanels at last count, three-fourths of which are showing poorly-colorized movies as we speak.
- A.P. (Am I the only one who thinks that the early-80s "marvel" of colorization should stay forgotten? Did people all really look like fleshy pink fetuses in the 1920s?)
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
That could just be my evil body thetans talking, though. Maybe if I paid L. Ron a few hundred grand I could have that taken care of...
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Um... It doesn't, especially when compared with ext2.
It would be awfully hard for ext2fs to corrupt its file tables since it doesn't have any. It uses inodes, like all real filesystems do.
-A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
So were 5 megabyte hard drives. What's your point? If your point is that things change in the computer industry and that it somehow follows that the floppy disk drive should be abandoned, I have to disagree with you.
The floppy disk and diskette drive are very useful if and when Shit ever Happens to your machine and you need to get it up and running again. (Forgot that root password? No floppy? Oops, you're screwed.) Sure, you can boot off a CD-Rom, but what happens if and when your machine dies and you *don't* have a boot CD? You can't just download one on another machine and burn it most times. You *can* do that with a floppy, and I've *had* to do that on a few occasions. Floppy drives are (were?) ubiquitous. Everyone has one. Not many people I know have a CD-R, or a Zip drive, or some other means of booting their PCs.
Think of the floppy drive as a glorified emergency escape hatch on your computer. (Would you feel safer on a plane with no emergency exits?)
Food for thought.
=A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Go for it, I say.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
I really hope you did notice that???
- A.P.
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"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad