GL blames the internet for jarjar?
on
Quickie Fu
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· Score: 1
With all due respect to the redoubtable Commodore, that's a misleading thing to say. Lucas blames the internet for the idea that GL is a racist for having made JarJar the way he was. He does not say "well, if people on the internet were nicer, then jar jar wouldn't have been such a crappy character." Nope, jar jar's annoyingness -- I'll admit to never having seen racism in the character -- was all GL's fault ("assuming" he had complete control), as far as GL says; it's the 'net reaction that GL thought sucked.
And while we're picking nits: I think the ebay piece was a link of the day on UF recently.
If capitalism produces people like you then give me socialism anyday.
Anyone know the lyrics to the "Red Flag"?
For every person who tells me "socialism doesn't work" I find at least one Dutch or Canadian person (just for two examples) who has pretty damn good evidence that it does, in the right dosage. While I disagree with the AC's post to which bil's is a reply, I don't think bil's response has the right tone to make the point that needs to be made.
Notice that "socialism" isn't the view that every industry is under direct central control. Kids, centralized, socially-based planning built your roads, probably educated you, and even if it didn't do so directly, it made it possible for the people who did do so to pay for it out of their own pockets by providing a society and infrastructure that makes the amassing of wealth by an individual possible.
Notice that, even according to recent mythologies, a centralized, government-appointed (granted, not elected) board has been implicated in the continued financial success of the US (Big Al Greenspan and the Fed), and on some of those occasions the commitment of public funds was necessary.
So here's the deal: I'll lay off the comparisons to Scrooge for people who think that free markets and their attendant inequalities are, in the right context and dosage, a Good Thing if those who don't think unfettered socialism is the be-all and end-all lay off comparisons to totalitarian regimes for those who advocate a governmental role in some industry or other.
The 550-MHz Pentium III will drop 10 percent from $723 to $646 while the 500-MHz version of the chip will go from $473 to $415.
The 500-MHz version of Athlon currently sells for $324 while the 550-MHz and 600-MHz versions sell for, respectively, $479 and $699.
Assuming AMD is able to produce K7s in bulk, though, I don't see Intel's drops making that big a bite into AMD's sales, (at least not at the high end). I mean, there's still 90$ difference for the 500Mhz models and $170 for the 550Mhz.
'course, they didn't say enough about the respective prices on the lower-end chips to make a reasoned guess about how things will turn out there; I thought that's where AMD had hurt Intel's profits the most.
Yeah, apostrophecolon is a true parody (I especially like the acronym-ridden headline) while hassnot is just hte visuals. Moderators, add points to brennanw's post!
Let's not forget about Abner Louima...another "accidental police shooting" (ex'-uh-KYU-shun) in NYC recently. Four NYC cops burst through a man's door and fired 41 shots, hitting him 29 times (lousy hit-miss ratio, by the way) and killing him. The guy was an immigrant, unarmed, not charged with or suspected of a crime. WTF??
For one pedant point... or probably not because I'll misspell his name: you're thinking of Amidou Diallo, not Abner Louima (who was beaten and sodomized with a broomstick by some of NYC's finest). And the jackbooted thugs in question (both times) were local dudes promoting Hizzoner Giuliani's politeness scheme.
Every time I hear people clamoring for law and order I think of how RG has done that job. So, mind you, did Ayatollahs Khomeini and, at least until recently, Khameini (again with the spellings; my apologies).
The point (and, like Ellen deG, I do have one) is that these examples are localized; I agree with the general sentiment that "law and order" regimes^h^h^h^h^h^h^h administrations generally have this kind of worry behind them, but the abuses usually seem to be localized (yes I have heard of Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the Freemen). When the issue is a national "fell-swoop" takeover by the nations' own sons and daughters, forget it, ain't gonna happen -- here I cite not only Waco, but other sagacious/.ers.
What worries me is the long, slow, corporate takeover. Forget jackboots, think pinstriped suits. Every morning, the news show I listen to breaks in with copious amounts of information about the stock market and large businesses. Social well-being seems to be equated to financial health, which seems for all intents and purposes to be measured by how much the top 1% of income earners make and how good they feel about the economy. But then, that makes this post redundant, and I don't want to be known as "Jeremiah," so I'll end it here.
There was none of this talk of limiting the powers of the executive... when RONALD REAGAN was President!
What, Reagan was President? And he did stuff that should have had him impeached (or was criminally ignorant of same), and it didn't have to do with his member, and..?
Man, and here I was thinking that had been a dream. Those Demmycrats sure have dropped the ball. Or they didn't have a wave of millennial hysteria to surf in on. Offtopic note: as Professor Gould over at Harvard has pointed, out, Dennis the Short, on whose calculations our calendar are based (yes, it parses right), got the big J's dates wrong and the popular millennial mark actually occurred in '96 or '97. Besides, we're nowhere near a millenium with the Jewish calendar.
Well, with Screaming Lord Sutch (sp?) dead, who should run the U.S. Monster Raving Loony party? Oh, yeah they've found him already, "W." =)
The story about people's fears about martial law was almost amusing. I mean, the people there were spinning scenarios and the author didn't really work to counterbalance that, unless mentioning the person reading the Roswell book was supposed to do that. I don't know anything about the organization that held the conference, but, geez... I mean, how much credibility is added to the idea that "the big creep" might declare martial law by this story?
Sorry, you'd see mobilization of troops well before New Years Eve anyhow. Clamping down on the US is not a small operation -- even with all the weaponry at the disposal of the military, I'm sure the Michigan Militia will be able to save us all. Failing that, there's always Michael Moore as a backup.
You DO know the story of the Osborne computer don't you?....and how that company's failure was caused by blabbing too much about a future, yet-to-be-released product that it caused all sales of it's current products to come to a halt, therefore ending their ability to even produce their new product.
I wonder though, whether the computer world has changed enough from those days for this not to happen. IIRC, Osborne produced *the* "portable" computer, there really wasn't any serious competition to them (well, Compaq had its models, but they were pretty far behindin terms of sales and future technology weren't they?). The market for sub $1k (hell, sub $.5K) computers looks to be picking up (this is off the top of my head, so corrections with backing joyfully accepted), and AMD could easily sell any backlog of K6-2 and -3's it might have to keep in business until the K7 sales pick up.
I suppose that with Intel being the market leader and producing chips that aren't that much more expensive than AMD's offerings, things could actually be worse for AMD than they were for Osborne, too.
the legal responsibilities of the executives of a company are to their shareholders. You can be thrown in jail for violating this. Check your facts.
Law, shmaw;) Actually my point wasn't intended as a legal one (I mean, c'mon, do you really believe I think record industry execs ought to be thrown in jail for putting out dreck?), although I do find your point interesting.
But since you bring it up, you can also be thrown in jail if it turns out that the best way to make your stock goes up by directly killing innocent people or (more commonly) dumping dioxins into the town's water supply.
So the original point still stands: the fidelity owed to "the shareholders" (which, in practice, amounts to stock prices) is not absolute. I would also be quite happy to argue that the law, on this point, is an ass, or at least short-sighted. While there are no doubt good reasons for having a legal stick with which to beat miscreant managers, you would think that any law prescribing relentless pursuit of profits should be carefully crafted to prevent, oh, I dunno, crappy but profitable health-care management schemes (and whaddaya know, even the republicans agree with me on this one. I always knew they were at least minimally rational...
Latest in my series of "Notes from a Peeved Canadian" =)
True enough as far as it goes,and not really in opposition to what I said. 'Course there ain't perfect information, but I think I gots pretty good information that these domain names (not the ones listed, anyhow) are really worth much (nyuk-nyuk-nyuk? I prefer IP addresses, thank you very much).
I don't think much of your example as an analogy to the case of domain names. The lottery ticket has a measurable worth that's well agreed-upon prior to the bidding. But for a commodity like a domain name, if it ain't something that already has a brand name or well-known idea behind it, AND no one's willing to pay you for it then it ain't worth squat, except (as other examples here have shown) maybe sentimental value. Most domain names that have recognition value other than the "instant" ones (barnes and noble's, e.g.) got that value through hard work (almost Lockean, when you think about it -- my plug for erudition).
As was pointed out in other posts, people don't find your site by typing in the name unless they're bored as stink. If it's the name of an existing company, NIS won't let you hold it for an extortionate price, and so it ain't worth nuffin' to no one, economic idealizations or not.
What I can't believe is the number of people quoted who say "people don't understand how valuable this domain name is, it's worth so much!"
Oh come on! domain names, like anything else, are worth what people are willing to pay for them. Diamonds are valuable because deBeers keeps the supply line clogged, not because they're really scarce, and if people weren't willing to accept the stupid idea that an engagement ring should be a) bought at all and b) cost you at least two months salary (!!), diamonds wouldn't be worth much (apart from their industrial applications).
If nobody's willing to pay for them, they're worthless. These people have gotten the idea that the 'net and anything related to it is just a gold mine waiting to be tapped, and can't believe that you could do something related to it and not make a quick few million.
Man, the capacity for self-deception in some people is to be marvelled at.
Why did the price of records double once they were distributed on CDs???
I suspect you already knew this, but (and I'm prolly talking out of my ass here, too, but I wouldn't be surprised to find my story is true).
Turn back the clock: there's a new technology, digital recording. Wow! Listen to that sound quality! Don't you want it? But wait, for quality like that, you've gotta pay! Be the first on your block with a CD-player. Oh, and you'll have to pay for the CDs too!
Fast-forward: the market bore the prices. People didn't complain (enough), the economy got better and people still bought it. Simple supply and demand.
Which is, of course, why DAT vanished: it would have made trading recordings that retained their original quality through repeated use -- unlike vinyl and cassettes -- more commonplace, cutting into potential profits. That, too, is why the industry thinks MP3 (not just illegal ones) must die.
The companies tell you that they need big markups since 4 out of 5 records never turn a profit (recording, distribution, marketing costs, etc.)
Y'know, I've always thought they could avoid this problem by marketing less crappy music (i.e. less music that is crappy, and music that is less crappy).
And I've always pictured the record industry as run by seven 300 year old men who are still alive only because of a constant infusion of the blood of young virgins. Of course they're going to fight anything tooth and nail that cuts into their profits. "As everybody knows", the responsibility of the executives of a company are to its stockholders... what a load of crap. Even if true, they have responsibilities to the public, and the endless assault on my ears of the crap that sells is a violation of that responsibility.
The loss of freedom does not require dark-cloaked men who sneak through the shrubs and say "How can we eliminate the dreaded First Amendment."
Nope. Just duly elected, hysterical officials who think that the state has an interest in preventing its citizens from expressing disagreement with their policies by burning a piece of cloth and 34 state legislatures willing to go along with them about that.
Sorry, it's a current rant of mine.
Oh yeah, and for the "hacker/cracker" thing. Here is the cost of others' "confusion": you can't go around calling yourself a 'hacker' in non-geek settings and expect not to have to explain what you mean. There are better things with which to occupy your time than worrying about this. People who write for the more mainstream (non-geek-centric) media have to be understood in 500 words or less, and they can't spend some of those precious words in EVERY ARTICLE IN WHICH THE WORD APPEARS ('hacker' has a popular history, as you of course know; one can't undo it in a single piece) to salve the wounded feelings of the (relatively) few who are offended by this.
Note, ladeez n' gennulmin, that 'cracker' also has a pejorative use that has nothing to do with computers...
Furthermore, since the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890, which is before the actions alleged by Microsoft, before Microsoft was even incorporated and--assuming Gates is not the immortal and timeless Dark One--before the founders of the company were even born, the current FTC/DoJ/LMNOP case against Microsoft is not an ex-post-facto application of the Act.
Methinks you doth assume too much;)
Man, the number of people who still appear to think it's about MS's success rather than their success at the expense of others and with -- the evidence seems clear enough -- malice of forethought toward anybody else who even thinks about trying to make a buck or two off of software is getting me down. Read the papers, mon petit chat, and see *how* MS got where they are, with ample warning (see: Standard Oil, IBM) that sooner or later the DOJ could come down on them.
Uhh, this article lacked the touch of Swift, if indeed it was truly meant as satire in the first place. I wasn't entirely sure this was meant as satire at all (remember, it is posted on a not-just-for-geeks site, and comes from the MS universe).
It seemed to me that Shuman's point was to blame "the consumer" for bloated software, without much of a sense that he might be joking. I mean there's the crack about SWAT teams, but a lot of the stuff he mentioned about win versions supporting legacy apps rang true (disclaimer: not being a serious coder, I don't know enough technical details to know whether it's really true that support for legacy code is responsible). I'm not asking for a "wink" tag in there, but lemme tell ya, he could have done more exaggeration if his aim was satire.
? They got where they are using legally questionable tactics ?
I'd say that the recent editions are more like the Linux of baseball: without any really big superstars (yeah, they're all good, but not like a Bonds or a McGwire) they had a near-record breaking year and won the World Series through hard work and teamwork.
If you want a Microsoft of baseball, check out the departed Florida Marlins championship team. They won through superior spending power.
This isn't particularly responsive; the original question (which seemed honest enough, so I don't understand why you sound so peeved) concerned why the open-source community is now happier with IBM than MS, when they're both large corporations.
The answer is that open-source advocates aren't, contrary to what is sometimes suggested, inherently anti-corporate. There are better and worse corporations, and IBM appears to be headed in the right direction. IBM has shucked their monopolistic tendencies, having produced a fine OS (OS/2) that was crushed by today's bad boys and their marketing. SO IBM now hates MS too (bonus!). Recently, they have also done a number of things that indicate they're embracing the open-source ideology and have lent support to Linux. MS has produced FUD and offered a little open-source lip-service, which suggests they think we're all idiots.
In other words, IBM seems to have changed its ways, while MS still doesn't get it. Besides, whoever's heading IBM these days isn't the richest man in the world through selling crappy software from the market position he leveraged illegally =)
[I found it ironic] that Young needed to point out that theres no Micros~1 technology in RedHat. I'm sure that will be a shocker to some people....
You mean the ones that think Gates invented BASIC and DOS, right? =) I can see it:
Yah, so, like he invented the personal computer, right? And, so, like he must have invented that Yoo-nicks stuff too, right?
I guess Young felt that BusinessWeek's readers need to hear that sort of stuff.
I also found the part about the place that has 100 boxes deployed without a service contract interesting. This is what happens when you have competent IS staff, I guess.
... and a stable OS. This makes me wonder if part of MS's strategy is to make buggy OSs so they can clean up on support and... hmmm... training support staff. That's one of the things that's bugging me these days when I go to B&N or Borders and see a wall or two of MCSE training books , most of which come from Microsoft Press. There's a racket for ya.
As long as Linux' technical success doesn't get in the way of people making money off it (and wouldn't that be ironic!), I suppose that Linux advocates should be mentioning that place as an example of what software CAN be...
You know what? That's okay. We're allowed to have fun. It seems like everything is becoming about utilizing every spare second of every single day.
Agreed, and g&*%amnit I wish more people did too.
But notice the focus of the article was on the IT manager's perspective: the costs of support may outweigh the usefulness to the company of having them around, and that, I suspect, is likely true.
Slashdot Mirror
With all due respect to the redoubtable Commodore, that's a misleading thing to say. Lucas blames the internet for the idea that GL is a racist for having made JarJar the way he was. He does not say "well, if people on the internet were nicer, then jar jar wouldn't have been such a crappy character." Nope, jar jar's annoyingness -- I'll admit to never having seen racism in the character -- was all GL's fault ("assuming" he had complete control), as far as GL says; it's the 'net reaction that GL thought sucked.
And while we're picking nits: I think the ebay piece was a link of the day on UF recently.
For every person who tells me "socialism doesn't work" I find at least one Dutch or Canadian person (just for two examples) who has pretty damn good evidence that it does, in the right dosage. While I disagree with the AC's post to which bil's is a reply, I don't think bil's response has the right tone to make the point that needs to be made.
Notice that "socialism" isn't the view that every industry is under direct central control. Kids, centralized, socially-based planning built your roads, probably educated you, and even if it didn't do so directly, it made it possible for the people who did do so to pay for it out of their own pockets by providing a society and infrastructure that makes the amassing of wealth by an individual possible.
Notice that, even according to recent mythologies, a centralized, government-appointed (granted, not elected) board has been implicated in the continued financial success of the US (Big Al Greenspan and the Fed), and on some of those occasions the commitment of public funds was necessary.
So here's the deal: I'll lay off the comparisons to Scrooge for people who think that free markets and their attendant inequalities are, in the right context and dosage, a Good Thing if those who don't think unfettered socialism is the be-all and end-all lay off comparisons to totalitarian regimes for those who advocate a governmental role in some industry or other.
Hint: that's because neither caricature is true.
And hey, let's be careful out there.
I suppose they would, but there's a serious difference between Alphae and x86-compatibles like the K7.
Assuming AMD is able to produce K7s in bulk, though, I don't see Intel's drops making that big a bite into AMD's sales, (at least not at the high end). I mean, there's still 90$ difference for the 500Mhz models and $170 for the 550Mhz.
'course, they didn't say enough about the respective prices on the lower-end chips to make a reasoned guess about how things will turn out there; I thought that's where AMD had hurt Intel's profits the most.
Yeah, apostrophecolon is a true parody (I especially like the acronym-ridden headline) while hassnot is just hte visuals. Moderators, add points to brennanw's post!
OK, and never mind the extra six or seven commas in the same sentence. I only had one cup of coffee when I wrote that =)
For one pedant point ... or probably not because I'll misspell his name: you're thinking of Amidou Diallo, not Abner Louima (who was beaten and sodomized with a broomstick by some of NYC's finest). And the jackbooted thugs in question (both times) were local dudes promoting Hizzoner Giuliani's politeness scheme.
Every time I hear people clamoring for law and order I think of how RG has done that job. So, mind you, did Ayatollahs Khomeini and, at least until recently, Khameini (again with the spellings; my apologies).
The point (and, like Ellen deG, I do have one) is that these examples are localized; I agree with the general sentiment that "law and order" regimes^h^h^h^h^h^h^h administrations generally have this kind of worry behind them, but the abuses usually seem to be localized (yes I have heard of Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the Freemen). When the issue is a national "fell-swoop" takeover by the nations' own sons and daughters, forget it, ain't gonna happen -- here I cite not only Waco, but other sagacious /.ers.
What worries me is the long, slow, corporate takeover. Forget jackboots, think pinstriped suits. Every morning, the news show I listen to breaks in with copious amounts of information about the stock market and large businesses. Social well-being seems to be equated to financial health, which seems for all intents and purposes to be measured by how much the top 1% of income earners make and how good they feel about the economy. But then, that makes this post redundant, and I don't want to be known as "Jeremiah," so I'll end it here.
What, Reagan was President? And he did stuff that should have had him impeached (or was criminally ignorant of same), and it didn't have to do with his member, and ..?
Man, and here I was thinking that had been a dream. Those Demmycrats sure have dropped the ball. Or they didn't have a wave of millennial hysteria to surf in on. Offtopic note: as Professor Gould over at Harvard has pointed, out, Dennis the Short, on whose calculations our calendar are based (yes, it parses right), got the big J's dates wrong and the popular millennial mark actually occurred in '96 or '97. Besides, we're nowhere near a millenium with the Jewish calendar.
Well, with Screaming Lord Sutch (sp?) dead, who should run the U.S. Monster Raving Loony party? Oh, yeah they've found him already, "W." =)
The story about people's fears about martial law was almost amusing. I mean, the people there were spinning scenarios and the author didn't really work to counterbalance that, unless mentioning the person reading the Roswell book was supposed to do that. I don't know anything about the organization that held the conference, but, geez ... I mean, how much credibility is added to the idea that "the big creep" might declare martial law by this story?
Sorry, you'd see mobilization of troops well before New Years Eve anyhow. Clamping down on the US is not a small operation -- even with all the weaponry at the disposal of the military, I'm sure the Michigan Militia will be able to save us all. Failing that, there's always Michael Moore as a backup.
But, 'tis almost the silly season ...
I wonder though, whether the computer world has changed enough from those days for this not to happen. IIRC, Osborne produced *the* "portable" computer, there really wasn't any serious competition to them (well, Compaq had its models, but they were pretty far behindin terms of sales and future technology weren't they?). The market for sub $1k (hell, sub $.5K) computers looks to be picking up (this is off the top of my head, so corrections with backing joyfully accepted), and AMD could easily sell any backlog of K6-2 and -3's it might have to keep in business until the K7 sales pick up.
I suppose that with Intel being the market leader and producing chips that aren't that much more expensive than AMD's offerings, things could actually be worse for AMD than they were for Osborne, too.
OK, so I'm no market analyst.
Law, shmaw ;) Actually my point wasn't intended as a legal one (I mean, c'mon, do you really believe I think record industry execs ought to be thrown in jail for putting out dreck?), although I do find your point interesting.
But since you bring it up, you can also be thrown in jail if it turns out that the best way to make your stock goes up by directly killing innocent people or (more commonly) dumping dioxins into the town's water supply.
So the original point still stands: the fidelity owed to "the shareholders" (which, in practice, amounts to stock prices) is not absolute. I would also be quite happy to argue that the law, on this point, is an ass, or at least short-sighted. While there are no doubt good reasons for having a legal stick with which to beat miscreant managers, you would think that any law prescribing relentless pursuit of profits should be carefully crafted to prevent, oh, I dunno, crappy but profitable health-care management schemes (and whaddaya know, even the republicans agree with me on this one. I always knew they were at least minimally rational ...
Latest in my series of "Notes from a Peeved Canadian" =)
True enough as far as it goes,and not really in opposition to what I said. 'Course there ain't perfect information, but I think I gots pretty good information that these domain names (not the ones listed, anyhow) are really worth much (nyuk-nyuk-nyuk? I prefer IP addresses, thank you very much).
I don't think much of your example as an analogy to the case of domain names. The lottery ticket has a measurable worth that's well agreed-upon prior to the bidding. But for a commodity like a domain name, if it ain't something that already has a brand name or well-known idea behind it, AND no one's willing to pay you for it then it ain't worth squat, except (as other examples here have shown) maybe sentimental value. Most domain names that have recognition value other than the "instant" ones (barnes and noble's, e.g.) got that value through hard work (almost Lockean, when you think about it -- my plug for erudition).
As was pointed out in other posts, people don't find your site by typing in the name unless they're bored as stink. If it's the name of an existing company, NIS won't let you hold it for an extortionate price, and so it ain't worth nuffin' to no one, economic idealizations or not.
Oh come on! domain names, like anything else, are worth what people are willing to pay for them. Diamonds are valuable because deBeers keeps the supply line clogged, not because they're really scarce, and if people weren't willing to accept the stupid idea that an engagement ring should be a) bought at all and b) cost you at least two months salary (!!), diamonds wouldn't be worth much (apart from their industrial applications).
If nobody's willing to pay for them, they're worthless. These people have gotten the idea that the 'net and anything related to it is just a gold mine waiting to be tapped, and can't believe that you could do something related to it and not make a quick few million.
Man, the capacity for self-deception in some people is to be marvelled at.
My capacity for going on rants today is too ...
I suspect you already knew this, but (and I'm prolly talking out of my ass here, too, but I wouldn't be surprised to find my story is true).
Turn back the clock: there's a new technology, digital recording. Wow! Listen to that sound quality! Don't you want it? But wait, for quality like that, you've gotta pay! Be the first on your block with a CD-player. Oh, and you'll have to pay for the CDs too!
Fast-forward: the market bore the prices. People didn't complain (enough), the economy got better and people still bought it. Simple supply and demand.
Which is, of course, why DAT vanished: it would have made trading recordings that retained their original quality through repeated use -- unlike vinyl and cassettes -- more commonplace, cutting into potential profits. That, too, is why the industry thinks MP3 (not just illegal ones) must die.
I am in a mood. Feel free to ignore me.
Y'know, I've always thought they could avoid this problem by marketing less crappy music (i.e. less music that is crappy, and music that is less crappy).
And I've always pictured the record industry as run by seven 300 year old men who are still alive only because of a constant infusion of the blood of young virgins. Of course they're going to fight anything tooth and nail that cuts into their profits. "As everybody knows", the responsibility of the executives of a company are to its stockholders ... what a load of crap. Even if true, they have responsibilities to the public, and the endless assault on my ears of the crap that sells is a violation of that responsibility.
sorry, I do rant ...
Curmudgeonly yours, a_s
Nope. Just duly elected, hysterical officials who think that the state has an interest in preventing its citizens from expressing disagreement with their policies by burning a piece of cloth and 34 state legislatures willing to go along with them about that.
Sorry, it's a current rant of mine.
Oh yeah, and for the "hacker/cracker" thing. Here is the cost of others' "confusion": you can't go around calling yourself a 'hacker' in non-geek settings and expect not to have to explain what you mean. There are better things with which to occupy your time than worrying about this. People who write for the more mainstream (non-geek-centric) media have to be understood in 500 words or less, and they can't spend some of those precious words in EVERY ARTICLE IN WHICH THE WORD APPEARS ('hacker' has a popular history, as you of course know; one can't undo it in a single piece) to salve the wounded feelings of the (relatively) few who are offended by this.
Note, ladeez n' gennulmin, that 'cracker' also has a pejorative use that has nothing to do with computers...
Methinks you doth assume too much ;)
Man, the number of people who still appear to think it's about MS's success rather than their success at the expense of others and with -- the evidence seems clear enough -- malice of forethought toward anybody else who even thinks about trying to make a buck or two off of software is getting me down. Read the papers, mon petit chat, and see *how* MS got where they are, with ample warning (see: Standard Oil, IBM) that sooner or later the DOJ could come down on them.
good civics lesson, keebler.
Uhh, this article lacked the touch of Swift, if indeed it was truly meant as satire in the first place. I wasn't entirely sure this was meant as satire at all (remember, it is posted on a not-just-for-geeks site, and comes from the MS universe).
It seemed to me that Shuman's point was to blame "the consumer" for bloated software, without much of a sense that he might be joking. I mean there's the crack about SWAT teams, but a lot of the stuff he mentioned about win versions supporting legacy apps rang true (disclaimer: not being a serious coder, I don't know enough technical details to know whether it's really true that support for legacy code is responsible). I'm not asking for a "wink" tag in there, but lemme tell ya, he could have done more exaggeration if his aim was satire.
Pun intended?
? They got where they are using legally questionable tactics ?
I'd say that the recent editions are more like the Linux of baseball: without any really big superstars (yeah, they're all good, but not like a Bonds or a McGwire) they had a near-record breaking year and won the World Series through hard work and teamwork.
If you want a Microsoft of baseball, check out the departed Florida Marlins championship team. They won through superior spending power.
from someone who's a hockey fan, anyhow
We hate Microsoft now, not IBM.
This isn't particularly responsive; the original question (which seemed honest enough, so I don't understand why you sound so peeved) concerned why the open-source community is now happier with IBM than MS, when they're both large corporations.
The answer is that open-source advocates aren't, contrary to what is sometimes suggested, inherently anti-corporate. There are better and worse corporations, and IBM appears to be headed in the right direction. IBM has shucked their monopolistic tendencies, having produced a fine OS (OS/2) that was crushed by today's bad boys and their marketing. SO IBM now hates MS too (bonus!). Recently, they have also done a number of things that indicate they're embracing the open-source ideology and have lent support to Linux. MS has produced FUD and offered a little open-source lip-service, which suggests they think we're all idiots.
In other words, IBM seems to have changed its ways, while MS still doesn't get it. Besides, whoever's heading IBM these days isn't the richest man in the world through selling crappy software from the market position he leveraged illegally =)
You mean the ones that think Gates invented BASIC and DOS, right? =) I can see it:
I guess Young felt that BusinessWeek's readers need to hear that sort of stuff.
I also found the part about the place that has 100 boxes deployed without a service contract interesting. This is what happens when you have competent IS staff, I guess.
... and a stable OS. This makes me wonder if part of MS's strategy is to make buggy OSs so they can clean up on support and ... hmmm ... training support staff. That's one of the things that's bugging me these days when I go to B&N or Borders and see a wall or two of MCSE training books , most of which come from Microsoft Press. There's a racket for ya.
As long as Linux' technical success doesn't get in the way of people making money off it (and wouldn't that be ironic!), I suppose that Linux advocates should be mentioning that place as an example of what software CAN be ...
Pedantic note: NC.
Agreed, and g&*%amnit I wish more people did too.
But notice the focus of the article was on the IT manager's perspective: the costs of support may outweigh the usefulness to the company of having them around, and that, I suspect, is likely true.