I personally don't care what's in Longhorn, for the same reason that I couldn't care less about XP - I don't use them and I never intend to.
Unfortunately, those nifty "know who you talk to, how you work, etc" features will STILL affect me because, sadly, the people I interact with will use Longhorn.
Similar to hotmail/passport - if you send a message to someone barely past the brainstem stage who's onboard hotmail/passport (wittingly or otherwise), YOUR thoughts also end up in that system.
(Gee, in such a situation it would be nice to use that DRM hardware crap mentioned recently to disallow manipulation or storage of my docs/messages by hotmail/passport.)
With Microsoft Rotor, you will leverage your synergies to a higher ROI on your brain-share throughputs - now with new patented Microsoft "Shit-In-A-Box" Technology*!
* Microsoft Rotor "Shit-In-A-Box" technology includes intellectual property licensed from Star Trek Ear-worm Developer Systems, Inc.
Having actually talked to quite a few "average users" who don't care about technological superiority, when I say "Mozilla kills popups dead" their eyes bug out and they immediately want it.
Yep, there's nothing like trying to masturbate to animal porn and getting interrupted by a midget-porn popup to motivate the "average user" to seek out a new browser.
Andreessen: Generally, Microsoft is a partner of Loudcloud, and we work really well with them at Loudcloud because we support their technology and we have a bunch of customers running on Windows. So we don't take formal positions on remedies or lawsuits.
Andreesen, you pussy.
I guess we know who wears the panties in that relationship.
To take one example, anyone who takes a flight on US Airways will notice that the check in desk assistant takes a vveeerrrrry looooonnnggg time to do the simplest tasks. This is because the SABRE booking system she is using was written thirty five years ago and is technically obsolete in every posible way.
Oh, I see - system performance directly correlates to the *age* of code. So code, like people, gets rickety and frail of its own accord, even if no other factors change.
That would explain why the 150k assembler code I wrote fifteen years ago must be soooo verrrry much slowwwer than the multi-megabyte ASP.NET monstrosity some guy wrote last week on the same 640K hardware. It's simply that my code has gone geriatric.
I found myself lapsing into a "Rain-Man" accent reading your post.
"They should pick an OS and go for it, definitely pick an OS, definitely. Yeah, I'm all for standards. Microsoft standards. Yeah. Wapner in five minutes."
Some people seem to think open source wins when Microsoft looses so much money to Linux that it has to close up shop, and no one can make money at programming because the open-source horde can do it for free.
No, I think open source wins when it makes it infeasible for MS to continue its predatory practices. When MS can no longer coerce its customers to do things that are in MS's interest instead of their own. When MS stops corraling its consumer-level users into greater world-domination schemes like passport. When MS can no longer get away with perverting standards.
There is a place for MS in my world, but not in its current state. It has to concede to the notion that it's part of a greater, heterogenous computing community and start cooperating with others instead of dominating, raping, and pillaging wherever it goes.
I, for one, hope that Microsoft continues to "innovate", pushing computers into new territories, and creating homogenized landscapes in it's wake that the open-source virus can take over.
First, a lot of people would argue with your claim that Microsoft innovates. It buys, assimilates, integrates, locks in, and then it markets. Where it does innovate, proprietary standards (or one-way standards support) and lock-in are first principles in its design processes.
Second, the computing landscape you describe would not be formed by natural forces; the resulting environment would be carefully engineered to be inhospitable to "the open-source virus" (if not totally uninhabitable). Think "software patents".
Getting people to pay for something they can download for free isn't easy. I think the answer is to get the money up-front, but still make the results of the work open source:
Develop a product spec and series of development milestones.
Get contributions toward the project (from individuals as well as corps) and hold the cash in escrow.
Pay out portions of the escrow as milestones are achieved.
Completed work gets GPL'ed as it is released.
Of course there are a thousand and one details and obstacles to this approach.
Among them: getting contributors to accept that the work they've paid for will be used for free by lots of people.
They will simply have to want it bad enough to accept that, and to understand that this funding model, while not equal, is reciprocal. They will end up using other software that has been developed under the same model, but that they did not want bad enough to contribute to. Having the cost spread out among all the "project founding members" might make it easier to swallow.
Another: There will have to be some minimalist project management involved. Policies and procedures for accepting developers into the paid developers pool - and removing them as well. How to divvy up payments equitably. Project and milestone definition itself will be an up-front task that might end up being uncompensated.
You might see mercenary developers grouping together to service these kinds of projects, particularly in regions of high technical skill but low economic activity. If it provides acceptable pay and a steady income, the groups might evolve into more formal business arrangements, and offer to take on project and milestone definition up-front, as well as handle personnel-related issues.
And of course: It would require a reputable organization to handle the funds, arbitrate disputes, etc.
If this approach yielded a few quality projects with satisfied participants, it could snow-ball. The very idea of open source / GPL software seemed simply crazy to me a few years ago. Now it's the most natural thing in the world. Open source funding models could catch on too, as open source / GPL gain more converts and respectability in the mainstream.
I am not responsible for other people's summaries, but I loved Amazon, and I loved Jeff--and the book traces the arc of the love affair. So I think resentment is too simple...if I just resented Amazon, I would have left more easily and forgotten them.
As a matter of fact, Amazon was very cool and quirky, not based on site design but the culture of the people who worked and lived there--and this book tries to track the changes in that culture as it grew at a catastrophic rate. My concern was not for the end-user experience--many more people than I are intimately familiar with what Amazon has been like as a store over the years, and that doesn't really interest me.
Nothing personal -/. always brings out the best in me.
When you say "cool and quirky culture", are you talking about people zipping around on scooters in the office, shooting you with nerf guns, and bondage-wear dress-up fridays quirky? Or flex-time, project-oriented performance measurement, educational reimbursement, because-it's-better-not-just-different quirky?
Also, reading the summary, I have to say I get the impression that perhaps you became disillusioned with the culture (whichever quirky it was or wasn't) and made Bezos the focus for your resentment?
Would it have been so hard to build a cool and quirky bookstore instead of a soulless virtual megamall?
Yeah, I can't count the number of times after a fast, efficient, complete, comprehensive Amazon search of both new and used books, media and products, having found and bought exactly what I want at a good price, that I've said to myself: "What this site really needs is to waste some of its technical and spiritual resources on some asshole's personal conception of what is 'cool' and 'quirky'". Then let's punch it up a notch with a bunch of cool Flash animations and ActiveX controls!
If I want "cool" and "quirky", I'll go to a real bookshop downtown, or buy a nad-massager at Brookstone's. When I'm on the Internet, the last thing I need is some kind of a glorified "cool" and "quirky" vanity site. I want to find what I need quickly, buy it, and get the hell out.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, those nifty "know who you talk to, how you work, etc" features will STILL affect me because, sadly, the people I interact with will use Longhorn.
Similar to hotmail/passport - if you send a message to someone barely past the brainstem stage who's onboard hotmail/passport (wittingly or otherwise), YOUR thoughts also end up in that system.
(Gee, in such a situation it would be nice to use that DRM hardware crap mentioned recently to disallow manipulation or storage of my docs/messages by hotmail/passport.)
If album sales inversely correlated to tech-savvy audiences, these guys would be fucking billionaires.
...as a matter of fact, I believe this is it.
No, actually it looked vaguely like one of the early Toyota Supras in general body shape.
With Microsoft Rotor, you will leverage your synergies to a higher ROI on your brain-share throughputs - now with new patented Microsoft "Shit-In-A-Box" Technology*!
* Microsoft Rotor "Shit-In-A-Box" technology includes intellectual property licensed from Star Trek Ear-worm Developer Systems, Inc.
I saw one of these in 1980 when I stayed the summer with my uncle in West Germany. I thought it was pretty cool!
I wonder if they sell them in the US.
...its fingernails and hair are still growing in the coffin, that's all.
Looked at 'em - wife hated 'em :-)
Yep, there's nothing like trying to masturbate to animal porn and getting interrupted by a midget-porn popup to motivate the "average user" to seek out a new browser.
I wouldn't drive one - but you should see my unpaved, 500' uphill driveway in the winter.
Andreesen, you pussy.
I guess we know who wears the panties in that relationship.
Check it out - quite extensible, and if you have the hardware on your desktop to run an IDE written in Java, a nice interface IMHO.
Oh, I see - system performance directly correlates to the *age* of code. So code, like people, gets rickety and frail of its own accord, even if no other factors change.
That would explain why the 150k assembler code I wrote fifteen years ago must be soooo verrrry much slowwwer than the multi-megabyte ASP.NET monstrosity some guy wrote last week on the same 640K hardware. It's simply that my code has gone geriatric.
Thanks for clearing that up.
I found myself lapsing into a "Rain-Man" accent reading your post.
"They should pick an OS and go for it, definitely pick an OS, definitely. Yeah, I'm all for standards. Microsoft standards. Yeah. Wapner in five minutes."
...to be the first generation ever to witness space-rape.
No, I think open source wins when it makes it infeasible for MS to continue its predatory practices. When MS can no longer coerce its customers to do things that are in MS's interest instead of their own. When MS stops corraling its consumer-level users into greater world-domination schemes like passport. When MS can no longer get away with perverting standards.
There is a place for MS in my world, but not in its current state. It has to concede to the notion that it's part of a greater, heterogenous computing community and start cooperating with others instead of dominating, raping, and pillaging wherever it goes.
I, for one, hope that Microsoft continues to "innovate", pushing computers into new territories, and creating homogenized landscapes in it's wake that the open-source virus can take over.
First, a lot of people would argue with your claim that Microsoft innovates. It buys, assimilates, integrates, locks in, and then it markets. Where it does innovate, proprietary standards (or one-way standards support) and lock-in are first principles in its design processes.
Second, the computing landscape you describe would not be formed by natural forces; the resulting environment would be carefully engineered to be inhospitable to "the open-source virus" (if not totally uninhabitable). Think "software patents".
Perhaps he meant Free?
Think context.
- Develop a product spec and series of development milestones.
- Get contributions toward the project (from individuals as well as corps) and hold the cash in escrow.
- Pay out portions of the escrow as milestones are achieved.
- Completed work gets GPL'ed as it is released.
Of course there are a thousand and one details and obstacles to this approach.Among them: getting contributors to accept that the work they've paid for will be used for free by lots of people.
They will simply have to want it bad enough to accept that, and to understand that this funding model, while not equal, is reciprocal. They will end up using other software that has been developed under the same model, but that they did not want bad enough to contribute to. Having the cost spread out among all the "project founding members" might make it easier to swallow.
Another: There will have to be some minimalist project management involved. Policies and procedures for accepting developers into the paid developers pool - and removing them as well. How to divvy up payments equitably. Project and milestone definition itself will be an up-front task that might end up being uncompensated.
You might see mercenary developers grouping together to service these kinds of projects, particularly in regions of high technical skill but low economic activity. If it provides acceptable pay and a steady income, the groups might evolve into more formal business arrangements, and offer to take on project and milestone definition up-front, as well as handle personnel-related issues.
And of course: It would require a reputable organization to handle the funds, arbitrate disputes, etc.
If this approach yielded a few quality projects with satisfied participants, it could snow-ball. The very idea of open source / GPL software seemed simply crazy to me a few years ago. Now it's the most natural thing in the world. Open source funding models could catch on too, as open source / GPL gain more converts and respectability in the mainstream.
F#UCKING C#UNTS, I say.
doo bee doo bee doo bee doo bee doo bee doo bee doo bee doo bee
F#ucking C#unts.
"All the better to monitor you with, my dear."
I just came in my pants.
Well said - I think I get it.
Nothing personal - /. always brings out the best in me.
When you say "cool and quirky culture", are you talking about people zipping around on scooters in the office, shooting you with nerf guns, and bondage-wear dress-up fridays quirky? Or flex-time, project-oriented performance measurement, educational reimbursement, because-it's-better-not-just-different quirky?
Also, reading the summary, I have to say I get the impression that perhaps you became disillusioned with the culture (whichever quirky it was or wasn't) and made Bezos the focus for your resentment?
Yeah, I can't count the number of times after a fast, efficient, complete, comprehensive Amazon search of both new and used books, media and products, having found and bought exactly what I want at a good price, that I've said to myself: "What this site really needs is to waste some of its technical and spiritual resources on some asshole's personal conception of what is 'cool' and 'quirky'". Then let's punch it up a notch with a bunch of cool Flash animations and ActiveX controls!
If I want "cool" and "quirky", I'll go to a real bookshop downtown, or buy a nad-massager at Brookstone's. When I'm on the Internet, the last thing I need is some kind of a glorified "cool" and "quirky" vanity site. I want to find what I need quickly, buy it, and get the hell out.