"a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace, and free trade."
I am sure you have seen that quote before..
Just wondering how would this policy fit into realities in Gulf region.
Say, Hussein takes over whole region ( which he was very capable of doing) and then jacks up gas prices 6 times ?
Do we just sit and pay or do we do anything about it ?
"sacrify a lot of lives for out wealth, day to day, year to year"
That is one way of thinking...
However, do you truly believe that drug companies and scientists who get up every morning and work hard to come up with these new drugs are evil ?
Do you believe that our ability to develop advanced drugs is directly related to slavery and death rates of people in 3rd world countries ?
In other words, if it weren't for us and our riches, would these poor people have better lives ?
Re:this is neither healthy nor a sign of life
on
Loki Goes Postal
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· Score: 1
"Their harddrive was too small to fit any windows applications on, as commercial software and drivers are bloated. "
I am not claiming that Linux is not usable or anything, just that , at this point, Windows is much better OS for most of people.
BTW.
Sorry, but I refuse to believe that running X is less resource intensive than running Win32 OS (Win 95 etc)
It has been my experience that on the same hardware Windows consistently outperforms Linux as far as GUI responsiveness and overall feel of graphical environment is concerned.
Re:this is neither healthy nor a sign of life
on
Loki Goes Postal
·
· Score: 1
Please read my post again and perhaps you will understand that issue is precisely what I responded to.
"People won't switch because they are stuck trying to read other peoples documents encoded in MicroShaft's proprietary lock-in file format."
Hell, there are very viable and working commercial toolkits allowing 3rd programs to read MS Office files.
"People won't switch because hardware manufacturers won't release drivers for other platforms because MicroShaft has a monopoly so why should they."
Whose fault is that ?
"People won't switch because they have no choice when buying consumer grade, pre-built computers in all major retail outlets."
They do. There are Apple computers available.
Furthermore, selling Linux based systems is not very viable business idea as recent problems with VA Linux demonstrated.
As I said, people do not want other stuff.
Everyone is talking about them but am yet to see an example of these hidden APIs used in MS Office.
There are things that MS Office can do which other products won't get away with ( like introducing new common controls DLLs) but it is far cry from using hidden APIs.
"This would be a perfect opportunity for the average consumer to realize that Microsoft isn't the only source for computing"
Sure they can. It is not like stores selling Apple stuff are being prosecuted or singled out by MS war machine.
Hell, I have custom modified motherboard with 2 additional fans in addition to standard Athlon-certified sink-fan and this sucked still runs at 56c ( Athlon 1.1)
Yeah, but it did die on me ( actually motherboard fan power connector died) and it fried new Athlon 1.0 Ghz ( it was about 6 months ago.)
Shit like that happens and it would be nice if Athlons sensed that and disabled itself automatically.
Yeah, we should have let Hussein keep Kuwait and hope that wouldn't go any further.
This war was unwinnable and as such it was not worth fighting.
Frankly, since most of new wars are unwinnable why don't we just dismantle our military and start praying... maybe that will work.
Yep, we should just stop this humanitarian bullshit, since it doesn't work anyway, and do what they did. Just blow the whole place up and don't worry about casualties.
"cooperation, caring and
compassion are more powerful than brute-force and
power-plays."
I understand you here but you have to realize that some people will ruthlessly take advantage of any sort of weakness on our end.
Are you advocating that we should dismantle our armies and simply pray to God that no one will be evil enough to take advantage of our lack of options ?
It is either them or us.
We had no choice left but to annihilate these people wherever we can find them.
It was them who raised the stakes that high on September 11th.
PS.
Remember we are not talking about nuking civilian populations , just isolated based deep in the country.
"I have no solution, but I know that violence is not the answer."
If you have no solution then you cannot claim that violence is not an answer.
Anyway, history shows that violence often brought relatively lasting peace ( World War 2)
Yeah, they are not supposed to take care of Afghans, are they ?
What I expect from my government is to protect my ass and if it means that other people will suffer so be it.
Do you truly believe that you can survive just by being nice and civilized and hope that others will follow your example?
Don't you think that what happened on September 11 was enough to scare the hell out of most people without G.W Bush "making anything up" ?
I mean it is not like this is made up story , it really happened and 5000+ are dead.
There is no need to stir up fears in this country, people are already afraid.
There are alternatives and MS is not forcing you or millions of others into using their software.
Most people find MS products superior for their needs ( they really do) and won't even switch to free alternative.
I hope you do realize that if US was as ruthless as these terrorist were in NYC, there would be nothing and no one left alive in places like Afghanistan.
"Firstly, and most easily quantified, is the cost people pay for the operating system. "
Overall, it is still cheaper than systems from its biggest competitor Apple.
"Such things as the DR-DOS debacle, or the incompatibility of 'standard' Microsoft file formats, or even the apropriation of file name extensions have put pressure on consumers to go the whole Microsoft way."
Hmm... and Unix world with its widespread competition and no single dominating vendor is such a beautiful picture of compatible standards and things smoothly working across different vendors.
"This has had an indirect effect on consumers through lack of options and alternatives. The situation with OS/2 springs to mind."
If a company bigger than MS is unable to market their OS then maybe, just maybe their OS wasn't as good as MS offering (as far as consumers were concerned.)
"Mix that with the stability problems that have plagued many Windows versions, the lack of emphasis on security and so on, and it's a nightmare from a support point of view."
Do something about it, don't buy their OS and switch to Unix or Linux.You have that freedom.
We need what amounts to forced action to make companies switch to "cheaper and better OS"
Is it really that better or cheaper when you have to force people into using it ?
Slashdot Mirror
"The status quo wouln't be the status quo if it changed."
Ever considered the fact that people might actually like the status quo ?
"a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace, and free trade."
..
I am sure you have seen that quote before
Just wondering how would this policy fit into realities in Gulf region.
Say, Hussein takes over whole region ( which he was very capable of doing) and then jacks up gas prices 6 times ?
Do we just sit and pay or do we do anything about it ?
"sacrify a lot of lives for out wealth, day to day, year to year"
...
That is one way of thinking
However, do you truly believe that drug companies and scientists who get up every morning and work hard to come up with these new drugs are evil ?
Do you believe that our ability to develop advanced drugs is directly related to slavery and death rates of people in 3rd world countries ?
In other words, if it weren't for us and our riches, would these poor people have better lives ?
"Their harddrive was too small to fit any windows applications on, as commercial software and drivers are bloated. "
I am not claiming that Linux is not usable or anything, just that , at this point, Windows is much better OS for most of people.
BTW.
Sorry, but I refuse to believe that running X is less resource intensive than running Win32 OS (Win 95 etc)
It has been my experience that on the same hardware Windows consistently outperforms Linux as far as GUI responsiveness and overall feel of graphical environment is concerned.
Please read my post again and perhaps you will understand that issue is precisely what I responded to.
"People won't switch because they are stuck trying to read other peoples documents encoded in MicroShaft's proprietary lock-in file format."
Hell, there are very viable and working commercial toolkits allowing 3rd programs to read MS Office files.
"People won't switch because hardware manufacturers won't release drivers for other platforms because MicroShaft has a monopoly so why should they."
Whose fault is that ?
"People won't switch because they have no choice when buying consumer grade, pre-built computers in all major retail outlets."
They do. There are Apple computers available.
Furthermore, selling Linux based systems is not very viable business idea as recent problems with VA Linux demonstrated.
As I said, people do not want other stuff.
Everyone is talking about them but am yet to see an example of these hidden APIs used in MS Office.
There are things that MS Office can do which other products won't get away with ( like introducing new common controls DLLs) but it is far cry from using hidden APIs.
"This would be a perfect opportunity for the average consumer to realize that Microsoft isn't the only source for computing"
Sure they can. It is not like stores selling Apple stuff are being prosecuted or singled out by MS war machine.
Hell, I have custom modified motherboard with 2 additional fans in addition to standard Athlon-certified sink-fan and this sucked still runs at 56c ( Athlon 1.1)
Yeah, but it did die on me ( actually motherboard fan power connector died) and it fried new Athlon 1.0 Ghz ( it was about 6 months ago.)
Shit like that happens and it would be nice if Athlons sensed that and disabled itself automatically.
Yeah, we should have let Hussein keep Kuwait and hope that wouldn't go any further. ... maybe that will work.
This war was unwinnable and as such it was not worth fighting.
Frankly, since most of new wars are unwinnable why don't we just dismantle our military and start praying
Yep, we should just stop this humanitarian bullshit, since it doesn't work anyway, and do what they did. Just blow the whole place up and don't worry about casualties.
"cooperation, caring and
compassion are more powerful than brute-force and
power-plays."
I wonder if that would work for Jews during WW2 ?
You ass wasn't hit so, of course, it is easy to moralize and give advice.
What would you do if bunch of lunatics leveled Toronto ?
... and you are giving your money left and right.
I understand you here but you have to realize that some people will ruthlessly take advantage of any sort of weakness on our end.
Are you advocating that we should dismantle our armies and simply pray to God that no one will be evil enough to take advantage of our lack of options ?
It is either them or us.
We had no choice left but to annihilate these people wherever we can find them.
It was them who raised the stakes that high on September 11th.
PS.
Remember we are not talking about nuking civilian populations , just isolated based deep in the country.
Sure we are but this is something that cannot be avoided at this point.
Do you have any other ideas here ?
"I have no solution, but I know that violence is not the answer."
If you have no solution then you cannot claim that violence is not an answer.
Anyway, history shows that violence often brought relatively lasting peace ( World War 2)
Yeah, they are not supposed to take care of Afghans, are they ?
What I expect from my government is to protect my ass and if it means that other people will suffer so be it.
Do you truly believe that you can survive just by being nice and civilized and hope that others will follow your example?
We are killing innocent people, that is a fact. ...
Now, how would you accomplish our goal without causing damage?
Please enlighten us
PS.
Do you know of any example of heavy use of force that did not result in "collateral damage" ?
Don't you think that what happened on September 11 was enough to scare the hell out of most people without G.W Bush "making anything up" ?
I mean it is not like this is made up story , it really happened and 5000+ are dead.
There is no need to stir up fears in this country, people are already afraid.
There are alternatives and MS is not forcing you or millions of others into using their software.
Most people find MS products superior for their needs ( they really do) and won't even switch to free alternative.
What would you do ?
Ask Bin Laden and his buddies to stop and hope they listen ?
I hope you do realize that if US was as ruthless as these terrorist were in NYC, there would be nothing and no one left alive in places like Afghanistan.
"Firstly, and most easily quantified, is the cost people pay for the operating system. "
... and Unix world with its widespread competition and no single dominating vendor is such a beautiful picture of compatible standards and things smoothly working across different vendors.
Overall, it is still cheaper than systems from its biggest competitor Apple.
"Such things as the DR-DOS debacle, or the incompatibility of 'standard' Microsoft file formats, or even the apropriation of file name extensions have put pressure on consumers to go the whole Microsoft way."
Hmm
"This has had an indirect effect on consumers through lack of options and alternatives. The situation with OS/2 springs to mind."
If a company bigger than MS is unable to market their OS then maybe, just maybe their OS wasn't as good as MS offering (as far as consumers were concerned.)
"Mix that with the stability problems that have plagued many Windows versions, the lack of emphasis on security and so on, and it's a nightmare from a support point of view."
Do something about it, don't buy their OS and switch to Unix or Linux.You have that freedom.
That is brilliant, pumpkin.
We need what amounts to forced action to make companies switch to "cheaper and better OS"
Is it really that better or cheaper when you have to force people into using it ?