The lack of backwards compatability is a death blow seeing as there are no "must have" features to drive people to buy the new system. I know many people who have acquired huge libraries of 360 games, and they're not going to want a machine that can't play them.
Given the backwards compatability of the Windows software stack for gaming, I'm absolutely baffled as to why they couldn't implement backwards compatability for the 360 in a trivial fashion.
Ah well. Looks like Windows 8 all over again. And Vista. And SE.
One company I worked for not only didn't provide coffee and drinks, they didn't provide coffee machines or drink dispenser machines. Even worse, they forbid coffee machines at the desk.
Not because of power supply issues, no.
Because they gave the cafeteria company an exclusive contract to supply beverages to the entire staff.
So instead of having coffee clubs like I did at most places I worked over the years, I was expected to pay nearly $2 for a sixteen ounce shitty cafeteria coffee. And I wasn't supposed to have them any time except 10, 12, and 2.
It's a terrific idea, particularly if you have to go to a gun shop to register a new set of prints in order to force you to register the transfer of the weapon on a second-hand sale. After all, if it's easy to change the prints, it's still easy to steal and use the weapon.
I do hope that when Bell is required to pay back the money they stole for non-existent services that they're required to pay interest and adjust for inflation...:P
Using the command line tools does not make you "L33t". It does not make you "cool".
Using archaic tools for modern jobs is just flat out asinine. You didn't grow up with those tools -- those tools are from my university days. And I'm 49, not 24.
Stop fooling yourself that you're special and use the right tool for the job instead of being stubborn.
You're actively regressing when you stick with a text mode browser in the modern world. You aren't "old school" -- you're stubborn. Old school would be sticking with what you learned to start with, not specifically choosing something from the late '70s or early '80s to work with.
I really could give a rat's fat patoot which is the "default" browser as long as I can choose the one I want. It's not like Windows where there are applications tying into the browser framework, or where you must use the default browser to download updates.
I wouldn't call Saturn a failure. While they never achieved huge market shares, they did keep a rather large number of dealerships busy despite the fact that the dealerships weren't allowed to negotiate on pricing.
I was quite happy with my Saturn LW300 wagon, save for one huge glaring problem: The heating system would freeze up in cold and windy weather. And that was, apparently, not a problem isolated to that one model.
I wonder whether Tesla negotiates on a per-unit basis like a local dealer does, or whether they follow the old Saturn model of one price for everybody. If the latter, what does the middle man really add to the bargain?
Especially seeing as Tesla has to send out technicians to do any repairs, or have the vehicle shipped back to the factory for repairs.
Besides, don't most of the "exotic" small-hand-build car lines sell directly?
Haven't you seen the pictures of featherless chickens on crackbook with the claim that KFC can't call it chicken any more because it's grown in a vat?:P
I was diagnosed as bi-polar about 6-7 years ago after suffering a serious manic episode with full scale hallucinations. While it was not the first time this had happened to me, it was "the final straw" that led to me being diagnosed.
Since then I've been on Resperidone to control the manic phases, and Effexor to limit the depressive phases. I've had no hallucinations, breakdowns, suicidal thoughts, or any other problems since being put on the medication, except when I've run out of medication, thinking "Maybe I don't need it any more."
But the return of symptoms after 2-3 weeks without medication has me convinced that the diagnosis is valid and the medication effective.
There is nothing like business experience on a development team. The knowledge about the arcane workings and interactions of the company and it's departments and sometimes even individual staff members, all of whom are part of the "big picture" of a real system. There is far more to coding than slinging code, and it's not until new developers have been kicked in the 'nads a few times by company "gotchas" that they realize this fact.
And some arrogant little snots never learn that fact, and end up job hopping all the time because no place is "challenging" enough for their "elite coding skills."
Agism in the IT industry has a lot more to do with companies not wanting to pay for experience than it does with any genuine lack of skills on the part of the older population. I know many people who transformed their careers from "low level" tech roles to full scale programmers.
One of the best programmers/Oracle admins I know didn't start working with computers until he was 43, and was then given the opportunity to learn on the job -- and learn he did! Keith knows more about Oracle and it's guts than anyone else I've ever met. He even has a handful of machines set up at home that he used to learn RAC configuration before going ahead with doing so for the business systems he was administering. (All old/used boxes, but it was the configuration experience he wanted, not a high performance home cluster.)
Against my advice, my parents bought a Windows 8 machine so I've had a fair bit of chance to play with it and to hear from a couple of "typical" computer users what their experience with Windows 8 is like.
Everyone who has used that machine *hates* the start screen. While one would think you can "fit more" than with the start menu, in practice what you have is the ability to show or hide the sub-menus as groups of icons. Once you tell it to show stuff you actually *want* (like Games), the start screen rapidly becomes 2-3 physical screens wide. So now not only do you have to drag your mouse all over the place to reach the icons/tiles, you have to scroll the screen/menu to reach them.
My Dad is particularly frustrated with Windows 8. As far as he's concerned, nothing works right except Firefox, and even that ticks him off because he has to scroll all the way over to the right on the start screen to find it's icon.
My Mom is ticked off with the Metro interface on her card games. The "click top and drag down" metaphor for shutting down applets is not intuitive, and without a touch screen, it's also difficult to use. Mom has always had difficulty with "click and hold" aspects of applications because of her arthritis. Most of the time she just gives up because she can't hold the mouse button down long enough to drag it to the bottom of the screen.
Personally what I hate is that there is no actual "windowing" of Metro apps. Everything is full screen. I haven't worked with full screen apps since the days of the 80x24 green screen terminal. I need to be able to access multiple applications at the same time. And the flash from work screen/desktop to start menu literally gives me a headache (I get migraines regularly, and eye strain from this type of interface aggravates them -- I despise Gnome 3 for the exact same reason.)
When companies talk about multi-million dollar costs, it's because they've got a number of systems tied together with data feeds, batch processing, and other interactions between their systems. You can't typically upgrade one piece of the pie without upgrading the whole pie.
Regardless of how much of the pie gets upgraded, all the interaction points have to be regression tested, and sometimes recoded or reworked to work with the new software.
That's not an excuse for failing to continually invest in those upgrades, but many companies have put it off for so long that they're now facing an insurmountably complex (and thereby expensive) task.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean, really. 386 is their standard build? Not 64 bit?
Let me know when they catch up with the century.
Switching CPU architectures? I missed that.
The lack of backwards compatability is a death blow seeing as there are no "must have" features to drive people to buy the new system. I know many people who have acquired huge libraries of 360 games, and they're not going to want a machine that can't play them.
Given the backwards compatability of the Windows software stack for gaming, I'm absolutely baffled as to why they couldn't implement backwards compatability for the 360 in a trivial fashion.
Ah well. Looks like Windows 8 all over again. And Vista. And SE.
All rolled into one massive FAIL.
One company I worked for not only didn't provide coffee and drinks, they didn't provide coffee machines or drink dispenser machines. Even worse, they forbid coffee machines at the desk.
Not because of power supply issues, no.
Because they gave the cafeteria company an exclusive contract to supply beverages to the entire staff.
So instead of having coffee clubs like I did at most places I worked over the years, I was expected to pay nearly $2 for a sixteen ounce shitty cafeteria coffee. And I wasn't supposed to have them any time except 10, 12, and 2.
I quit.
It's a terrific idea, particularly if you have to go to a gun shop to register a new set of prints in order to force you to register the transfer of the weapon on a second-hand sale. After all, if it's easy to change the prints, it's still easy to steal and use the weapon.
I do hope that when Bell is required to pay back the money they stole for non-existent services that they're required to pay interest and adjust for inflation... :P
I just went with the LTS server edition and downloaded/installed the desktop I wanted rather than futzing with Unity at all.
Let me rephrase that:
Using the command line tools does not make you "L33t". It does not make you "cool".
Using archaic tools for modern jobs is just flat out asinine. You didn't grow up with those tools -- those tools are from my university days. And I'm 49, not 24.
Stop fooling yourself that you're special and use the right tool for the job instead of being stubborn.
You're actively regressing when you stick with a text mode browser in the modern world. You aren't "old school" -- you're stubborn. Old school would be sticking with what you learned to start with, not specifically choosing something from the late '70s or early '80s to work with.
Your big problem is you need to grow up.
I really could give a rat's fat patoot which is the "default" browser as long as I can choose the one I want. It's not like Windows where there are applications tying into the browser framework, or where you must use the default browser to download updates.
Still, that's nearly a 10% hit to MicroSoft's wallet.
Not a bad impact, all things considered.
So I can eat. If I use a rifle, it's because I want food. Not the rack of antlers or horns. Not to hit a paper target. But to eat. (And eat well!)
I agree that target shooting is fun, but hunting serves one purpose in my mind: to acquire food.
They'll make their money off the back end servers.
I wouldn't call Saturn a failure. While they never achieved huge market shares, they did keep a rather large number of dealerships busy despite the fact that the dealerships weren't allowed to negotiate on pricing.
I was quite happy with my Saturn LW300 wagon, save for one huge glaring problem: The heating system would freeze up in cold and windy weather. And that was, apparently, not a problem isolated to that one model.
I wonder whether Tesla negotiates on a per-unit basis like a local dealer does, or whether they follow the old Saturn model of one price for everybody. If the latter, what does the middle man really add to the bargain?
Especially seeing as Tesla has to send out technicians to do any repairs, or have the vehicle shipped back to the factory for repairs.
Besides, don't most of the "exotic" small-hand-build car lines sell directly?
You Americans are the only country in the world that pretends outrageous "campaign contributions" aren't bribery.
Modded down? For what? Making a joke?
This place ain't what she used tur be...
Haven't you seen the pictures of featherless chickens on crackbook with the claim that KFC can't call it chicken any more because it's grown in a vat? :P
I was diagnosed as bi-polar about 6-7 years ago after suffering a serious manic episode with full scale hallucinations. While it was not the first time this had happened to me, it was "the final straw" that led to me being diagnosed.
Since then I've been on Resperidone to control the manic phases, and Effexor to limit the depressive phases. I've had no hallucinations, breakdowns, suicidal thoughts, or any other problems since being put on the medication, except when I've run out of medication, thinking "Maybe I don't need it any more."
But the return of symptoms after 2-3 weeks without medication has me convinced that the diagnosis is valid and the medication effective.
This.
And also...
There is nothing like business experience on a development team. The knowledge about the arcane workings and interactions of the company and it's departments and sometimes even individual staff members, all of whom are part of the "big picture" of a real system. There is far more to coding than slinging code, and it's not until new developers have been kicked in the 'nads a few times by company "gotchas" that they realize this fact.
And some arrogant little snots never learn that fact, and end up job hopping all the time because no place is "challenging" enough for their "elite coding skills."
Maybe not the companies, but yes, their lawyers are going to have a dick-waving contest.
Thorium molten salt reactors are much safer in the short and long term.
Agism in the IT industry has a lot more to do with companies not wanting to pay for experience than it does with any genuine lack of skills on the part of the older population. I know many people who transformed their careers from "low level" tech roles to full scale programmers.
One of the best programmers/Oracle admins I know didn't start working with computers until he was 43, and was then given the opportunity to learn on the job -- and learn he did! Keith knows more about Oracle and it's guts than anyone else I've ever met. He even has a handful of machines set up at home that he used to learn RAC configuration before going ahead with doing so for the business systems he was administering. (All old/used boxes, but it was the configuration experience he wanted, not a high performance home cluster.)
Against my advice, my parents bought a Windows 8 machine so I've had a fair bit of chance to play with it and to hear from a couple of "typical" computer users what their experience with Windows 8 is like.
Everyone who has used that machine *hates* the start screen. While one would think you can "fit more" than with the start menu, in practice what you have is the ability to show or hide the sub-menus as groups of icons. Once you tell it to show stuff you actually *want* (like Games), the start screen rapidly becomes 2-3 physical screens wide. So now not only do you have to drag your mouse all over the place to reach the icons/tiles, you have to scroll the screen/menu to reach them.
My Dad is particularly frustrated with Windows 8. As far as he's concerned, nothing works right except Firefox, and even that ticks him off because he has to scroll all the way over to the right on the start screen to find it's icon.
My Mom is ticked off with the Metro interface on her card games. The "click top and drag down" metaphor for shutting down applets is not intuitive, and without a touch screen, it's also difficult to use. Mom has always had difficulty with "click and hold" aspects of applications because of her arthritis. Most of the time she just gives up because she can't hold the mouse button down long enough to drag it to the bottom of the screen.
Personally what I hate is that there is no actual "windowing" of Metro apps. Everything is full screen. I haven't worked with full screen apps since the days of the 80x24 green screen terminal. I need to be able to access multiple applications at the same time. And the flash from work screen/desktop to start menu literally gives me a headache (I get migraines regularly, and eye strain from this type of interface aggravates them -- I despise Gnome 3 for the exact same reason.)
Windows 8: Epic FAIL!
When companies talk about multi-million dollar costs, it's because they've got a number of systems tied together with data feeds, batch processing, and other interactions between their systems. You can't typically upgrade one piece of the pie without upgrading the whole pie.
Regardless of how much of the pie gets upgraded, all the interaction points have to be regression tested, and sometimes recoded or reworked to work with the new software.
That's not an excuse for failing to continually invest in those upgrades, but many companies have put it off for so long that they're now facing an insurmountably complex (and thereby expensive) task.