"Now how many people do you know that have never had an antibiotic, never had a vaccination,"
That's a strong and interesting point. I have to ask, though, did it really change our lifestyle more than the internet? In the space of 10 years, I've witnessed a very strong change in how we live our lives. (At least where I lived, I happily concede I don't have a strong global perspective, as such I'm open to reason.) Yes, the fight against disease is very important and has had an effect on our lives. But, from my limited views, it means less fear of getting sick. It seems pale in comparison to how much each individual networks to talk with others, and in how we get information. I mean, the very fact we're having this discussion on Slashdot. Who'd have expected that 10 years ago? Anybody outside a university?
Okay, I accept that. When we weren't dependent on providing our own means of food, it definitely changed our world. I have a quesiton about that, though: Isn't it fair to say that it's a natural evolution of our life-style as opposed to something sudden that impacted our lives? If so, and this is the real quesiton, would that bump it off the list?
I guess maybe not, but I figure it's worth mentioning that I was imagining sudden and unexpected. Maybe I needta tweak my views a bit.
"There have been dozens if not hundreds of things invented in the past 100 years that have changed lifestyles more than the internet."
Television is the only thing I see on that list that could qualify with your statement. Everything else, though significant, is not in the same league. There are a LOT of people on this planet that if you were to send them back 100 years in the past, the net would be the thing they most ache for. (Unless they had polio:P)
"If the price is the same... they're screwed. Apple's Ipod force is brand recognition... "... and an ill-informed implication that you need a Mac. This isn't necessarily a bad move for the masses.
"Your position is fine except that the company pushing to not pay this patent's due royalties is the same company agressively pushing for thousands of software patents annually for their own financial benefit. "
Wrong + Wrong == Right?
" Convincing everyone that Windows is the universal platform, when in fact it runs on fewer architectectures (one, mainly) than virtually any other OS around;"
I don't totally disagree with your post, but I am not a big fan of this particular aspect of it. Being the 'universal platform' isn't strictly limited to what architecture it can run on. You can write something for Windows 95 and it'll still work almost 10 years later on XP. I'd like to give Linux credit for that, but I've personally found myself having to go install new library files just to get Cinepaint running.
Additionally, Microsoft's market presence means that you can write something and have an instant audience in the 10s of millions. Since most PCs run Windows, it is a version of 'universal'. That's why the game library is so ridiculously huge on the PC.
Yes, it's a marketing definition of 'universal', but your own definition of it is far too narrow for a word that describes 'everything and everywhere'.
"After hearing a really bad midi version of "The Final Countdown" for a good 9 months, at full volume, having the majority of the people in proximity to him complain about it, he replaces it with some bullshit spewing out of William Shatner's mouth. Meanwhile, the rest of us leave our phones with the generic stock tones (polyphonic or not), and those that get calls often set their phones to just vibrate."
I had that problem where I used to work. Had a coworker that had his ringer up all the way in a Dilbertian cubicle environment. I politely informed him that it was annoying. His response was interesting. He didn't know how to turn it down. He handed me his phone to look at, and he was right, there wasn't an exposed inteface to play with the ring volume! Dead serious! I had to go find a manual for his phone to work out how to do it! I'm glad most phones aren't like that.
Anyway, I drifted off topic a bit. That little situation lasted a whopping 2 days from the first ring to the phone being put an accceptable level. All it took was a polite conversation. I'm not saying you didn't do that, but I do feel strongly that all it takes is to make a polite request instead of 'complaining'.
I use Cingular on the central coast of California. Just to be a nerd, I acquired a few sounds of the handlink from Quantum Leap, converted them into.MP3, uploaded them to my webserver (apache, but not specifically WAP), and went to that page via my phone to download and install them. (My phone doesn't have IR or Bluetooth, and I dun wanna pay $60 for a cable..) Worked fine.
"Will it run as well or be as well supported or will it be an inferior product as some ports have been?"
Don't get your expectations too high. Not like Linux/OSX represents a huge piece of the gaming pie, so to speak. I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion around here, but the PC-based Linux users out there who also really like playing games would have a much easier life if they got a copy of XP to dual boot with. The upside to this approach is that you would have instant access to a huge library of game demos to try out. Like the game? No prob. You have XP installed. You won't have to deal with worrying about Linux ports or support.
Heh. Cute. So I take it that's a no on actually understanding what I was saying? Why is it that when people want to be 'right' about something, they avoid anything that doesn't support their side of it? Willful ignorance is powerful today.
Sorry about the bad formatting of my previous post. Here it is again with the word-wrap turned off. I'll take a karma hit for it, so at least try to appreciate that I tried to present myself a little better:
"You made a claim (i.e. that Microsoft advertised 99.99999% uptime for their servers).
It was wrong. Someone pointed out it was wrong (including a short explanation)."
Actually, no, nobody challenged the comment that MS made a claim about uptime on their servers. Nobody said "MS never made any uptime claims!", nor did they say "MS never claimed 99.999 or 99.99999 percent uptime". So you are completely wrong, nice try, though.
Oh... wait... that isn't what you meant? But... but... but.. your post literally says that a comment that MS made an advertisement was disputed. How can I interpret that any other way? I'm out to prove you wrong here, so I'm going to go by the strict letter of what you said instead of reading into the spirit of what you meant because that's what's working in my favor!
"You made a mistake. It happens to all of us. My advice is to deal with it."
I didn't deny making a mistake. I've acknowledged it. However, if you're hot and bothered to reply to my comment here telling me all about how I was wrong about how I read your post, then you have to understand why I replied. You made a factually incorrect statement. However, the context of the conversation should have allowed me to understand what you really meant. Your only choice is to reply with a clarification, and since I was such a shithead in that comment, it wouldn't be unexpected if you replied with a heated response. Are you at fault for making a technical error that anybody with half a brain could have interpreted correctly anyway, and/or am I at fault for picking such a petty opportunity to impolitely point out that you were incorrect?
If your reply is something along the lines of how my case was different or whatever, don't expect me to pay any attention to it. I'm trying to express where I'm coming from here, not trying to make my case that the other guy is 100% at fault and I'm not. I know I fucked up. I made a mistake by saying 5 nines instead of 7 without specifying that I meant after the decimal point. That does not mean I deserved the responses I got. If a little professionalism had been shown here, I would have been happy to acknowledge the mistake and thank the guy for correcting me, but he just HAD to spin it like I have a sub-average IQ, and everybody else had to jump in and tell me how wrong I am even though the number of 9s in the the advert was completely inconsequential to what I was saying.
"You made a claim (i.e. that Microsoft advertised 99.99999% uptime for their servers).
It was wrong. Someone pointed out it was wrong (including a short explanation)."
Actually, no, nobody challenged the comment that MS made a claim about uptime on their servers.
Nobody said "MS never made any uptime claims!", nor did they say "MS never claimed 99.999 or
99.99999 percent uptime". So you are completely wrong, nice try, though.
Oh... wait... that isn't what you meant? But... but... but.. your post literally says that a
comment that MS made an advertisement was disputed. How can I interpret that any other way? I'm
out to prove you wrong here, so I'm going to go by the strict letter of what you said instead of
reading into the spirit of what you meant because that's what's working in my favor!
"You made a mistake. It happens to all of us. My advice is to deal with it."
I didn't deny making a mistake. I've acknowledged it. However, if you're hot and bothered to
reply to my comment here telling me all about how I was wrong about how I read your post, then you
have to understand why I replied. You made a factually incorrect statement. However, the context
of the conversation should have allowed me to understand what you really meant. Your only choice
is to reply with a clarification, and since I was such a shithead in that comment, it wouldn't be
unexpected if you replied with a heated response. Are you at fault for making a technical error that anybody with half a brain could have interpreted correctly anyway, and/or am I at fault for picking such a petty opportunity to impolitely point out that you were incorrect?
If your reply is something along the lines of how my case was different or whatever, don't expect me to pay any attention to it. I'm trying to express where I'm coming from here, not trying to make my case that the other guy is 100% at fault and I'm not. I know I fucked up. I made a mistake by saying 5 nines instead of 7 without specifying that I meant after the decimal point. That does not mean I deserved the responses I got. If a little professionalism had been shown here, I would have been happy to acknowledge the mistake and thank the guy for correcting me, but he just HAD to spin it like I have a sub-average IQ, and everybody else had to jump in and tell me how wrong I am even though the number of 9s in the the advert was completely inconsequential to what I was saying.
"The entire point of your original post was that the number they claimed in their advertising was inaccurate. You then attributed a number to them that is very different than the one they claimed"
Not quite. Again, a little common sense or a simple question would have clarified that really quickly. You didn't know if I meant '5 nines after the decimal point' or if I meant 'a total of 5 nines'. I know you don't know this because I wasn't clear in my original post. The difference didn't matter, but yet we're in this stupid debate anyway.
"I wasn't being disingenuous or trying to show off my intelligence by pointing out a factual error in your original post."
If you had simply stated the difference, maybe. That isn't what you did. Here's what 'pointing a factual error' looks like:
"I'm not sure you meant to do this, but when you said '5-nines', that would typically be described like this: 99.999. If you had said 7 nines, it would have been more accurate."
Only, that's not what you said. This is what you said:
"Great, but the percentage you gave is actually seven nines. Five is two less than that. Good try though."
5 is 2 less than that? Good try, though? Didn't it occur to you that your post would have sounded condescending?
Yeah, I overreacted. I made an error. I never disputed either of those. Please consider, though, how you sounded and think about how it might encourage a reaction like that.
"It was not a large or important mistake so launching an involved rant to cover up a minor mistake is really rather childish."
Yep, you're right, except for one little point: I didn't write that to cover up my mistake. I wrote that to point out his. I have not denied making a mistake. The problem I do have is everybody wants to rub my nose in it, probably because I wasn't portraying MS in a good light. It's petty and stupid, and yes I wasn't the better man in it. I don't really care. For some reason, dropping down into 'overly-ignorant-mode' is some form of debate format that, surprisingly, is used to impress us with how smart one is. It's irritating.
"This isn't a "common sense" issue and it's not about how "interpret" your post."
Bullshit. I wasn't specific enough, so you filled in the blank, and tried to negate my entire post with it. That's very clearly a matter of interpretation.
"Great, but the percentage you gave is actually seven nines."
I count 5 after the decimal point. I guess I have to be really really really really exact ('Exact' meaning I have to spell out every detail as to avoid confusion caused by lack of common sense)about the phrasing of every single sentence I write ('phrasing' meaning I had better not leave any possibility for mis-interpretation open) every single time I post something on Slashdot (using only numbers, letters, and punctuation because images aren't allowed) or nobody (by nobody I mean there isn't a single person reading Slashdot, there may be others that don't read Slashdot that would be exempt from my generalization) be able to interpret it. ('it' meaning every single time I post using letters, numbers, and punctuation.) Otherwise ('otherwise' meaning 'in every single case that isn't included by the terms defined earlier in this post) nobody ('nobody' meaning of every single person reading this post, exactly 0 of them would be exempt from the following generalization)
There. Now my post should be perfectly clear to those who are common sense impaired.
Slashdot Mirror
"Now how many people do you know that have never had an antibiotic, never had a vaccination,"
That's a strong and interesting point. I have to ask, though, did it really change our lifestyle more than the internet? In the space of 10 years, I've witnessed a very strong change in how we live our lives. (At least where I lived, I happily concede I don't have a strong global perspective, as such I'm open to reason.) Yes, the fight against disease is very important and has had an effect on our lives. But, from my limited views, it means less fear of getting sick. It seems pale in comparison to how much each individual networks to talk with others, and in how we get information. I mean, the very fact we're having this discussion on Slashdot. Who'd have expected that 10 years ago? Anybody outside a university?
Okay, I accept that. When we weren't dependent on providing our own means of food, it definitely changed our world. I have a quesiton about that, though: Isn't it fair to say that it's a natural evolution of our life-style as opposed to something sudden that impacted our lives? If so, and this is the real quesiton, would that bump it off the list?
I guess maybe not, but I figure it's worth mentioning that I was imagining sudden and unexpected. Maybe I needta tweak my views a bit.
"Imagine a bewolf cluster of annoying slashdot readers who always post "imagine a bewolf cluster of " every time a story is run."
Actually, that was the very LAST beowulf joke sent to us from the future via one of these computers. Don't you know anything about temporal mechanics?
"There have been dozens if not hundreds of things invented in the past 100 years that have changed lifestyles more than the internet."
:P)
Television is the only thing I see on that list that could qualify with your statement. Everything else, though significant, is not in the same league. There are a LOT of people on this planet that if you were to send them back 100 years in the past, the net would be the thing they most ache for. (Unless they had polio
"Funny, my girlfriend agrees! "
Let us know when she lets ya try it!
"Nice math there. It's 35. "
It's a dupe, duh!
"I swear most slashdot readers must either be 15, or never have sex. Once someone uses the word lubricants, everyone gets giddy... "
Giddy? Nah. I see a bunch of people trying to be a comedian, though.
"If the price is the same... they're screwed. Apple's Ipod force is brand recognition... " ... and an ill-informed implication that you need a Mac. This isn't necessarily a bad move for the masses.
"why change em? "
Cos my villagers researched ARMOR!
"Your position is fine except that the company pushing to not pay this patent's due royalties is the same company agressively pushing for thousands of software patents annually for their own financial benefit. "
Wrong + Wrong == Right?
" Convincing everyone that Windows is the universal platform, when in fact it runs on fewer architectectures (one, mainly) than virtually any other OS around;"
I don't totally disagree with your post, but I am not a big fan of this particular aspect of it. Being the 'universal platform' isn't strictly limited to what architecture it can run on. You can write something for Windows 95 and it'll still work almost 10 years later on XP. I'd like to give Linux credit for that, but I've personally found myself having to go install new library files just to get Cinepaint running.
Additionally, Microsoft's market presence means that you can write something and have an instant audience in the 10s of millions. Since most PCs run Windows, it is a version of 'universal'. That's why the game library is so ridiculously huge on the PC.
Yes, it's a marketing definition of 'universal', but your own definition of it is far too narrow for a word that describes 'everything and everywhere'.
"Software patents are censorship."
Now there's a cheap way to earn an insightful mod!
"After hearing a really bad midi version of "The Final Countdown" for a good 9 months, at full volume, having the majority of the people in proximity to him complain about it, he replaces it with some bullshit spewing out of William Shatner's mouth. Meanwhile, the rest of us leave our phones with the generic stock tones (polyphonic or not), and those that get calls often set their phones to just vibrate."
I had that problem where I used to work. Had a coworker that had his ringer up all the way in a Dilbertian cubicle environment. I politely informed him that it was annoying. His response was interesting. He didn't know how to turn it down. He handed me his phone to look at, and he was right, there wasn't an exposed inteface to play with the ring volume! Dead serious! I had to go find a manual for his phone to work out how to do it! I'm glad most phones aren't like that.
Anyway, I drifted off topic a bit. That little situation lasted a whopping 2 days from the first ring to the phone being put an accceptable level. All it took was a polite conversation. I'm not saying you didn't do that, but I do feel strongly that all it takes is to make a polite request instead of 'complaining'.
"I'm not sure where the other carriers stand."
.MP3, uploaded them to my webserver (apache, but not specifically WAP), and went to that page via my phone to download and install them. (My phone doesn't have IR or Bluetooth, and I dun wanna pay $60 for a cable..) Worked fine.
I use Cingular on the central coast of California. Just to be a nerd, I acquired a few sounds of the handlink from Quantum Leap, converted them into
"Will it run as well or be as well supported or will it be an inferior product as some ports have been?"
Don't get your expectations too high. Not like Linux/OSX represents a huge piece of the gaming pie, so to speak. I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion around here, but the PC-based Linux users out there who also really like playing games would have a much easier life if they got a copy of XP to dual boot with. The upside to this approach is that you would have instant access to a huge library of game demos to try out. Like the game? No prob. You have XP installed. You won't have to deal with worrying about Linux ports or support.
Guess not. Good day.
"Then again it might not be so bad...."
Pff. That's my best excuse for not reading the f'n article.
I've never seen anybody win an argument with "you're such a retard!"
"You're a jerk 99.999% of the time."
Heh. Cute. So I take it that's a no on actually understanding what I was saying? Why is it that when people want to be 'right' about something, they avoid anything that doesn't support their side of it? Willful ignorance is powerful today.
"Um, ok. I get it now. You're a bit of a jerk. Loud and clear."
You're right. I'm a jerk. So?
How about getting back on topic?
"You made a claim (i.e. that Microsoft advertised 99.99999% uptime for their servers).
It was wrong. Someone pointed out it was wrong (including a short explanation)."
Actually, no, nobody challenged the comment that MS made a claim about uptime on their servers.
Nobody said "MS never made any uptime claims!", nor did they say "MS never claimed 99.999 or
99.99999 percent uptime". So you are completely wrong, nice try, though.
Oh... wait... that isn't what you meant? But... but... but.. your post literally says that a
comment that MS made an advertisement was disputed. How can I interpret that any other way? I'm
out to prove you wrong here, so I'm going to go by the strict letter of what you said instead of
reading into the spirit of what you meant because that's what's working in my favor!
"You made a mistake. It happens to all of us. My advice is to deal with it."
I didn't deny making a mistake. I've acknowledged it. However, if you're hot and bothered to
reply to my comment here telling me all about how I was wrong about how I read your post, then you
have to understand why I replied. You made a factually incorrect statement. However, the context
of the conversation should have allowed me to understand what you really meant. Your only choice
is to reply with a clarification, and since I was such a shithead in that comment, it wouldn't be
unexpected if you replied with a heated response. Are you at fault for making a technical error that anybody with half a brain could have interpreted correctly anyway, and/or am I at fault for picking such a petty opportunity to impolitely point out that you were incorrect?
If your reply is something along the lines of how my case was different or whatever, don't expect me to pay any attention to it. I'm trying to express where I'm coming from here, not trying to make my case that the other guy is 100% at fault and I'm not. I know I fucked up. I made a mistake by saying 5 nines instead of 7 without specifying that I meant after the decimal point. That does not mean I deserved the responses I got. If a little professionalism had been shown here, I would have been happy to acknowledge the mistake and thank the guy for correcting me, but he just HAD to spin it like I have a sub-average IQ, and everybody else had to jump in and tell me how wrong I am even though the number of 9s in the the advert was completely inconsequential to what I was saying.
"The entire point of your original post was that the number they claimed in their advertising was inaccurate. You then attributed a number to them that is very different than the one they claimed"
Not quite. Again, a little common sense or a simple question would have clarified that really quickly. You didn't know if I meant '5 nines after the decimal point' or if I meant 'a total of 5 nines'. I know you don't know this because I wasn't clear in my original post. The difference didn't matter, but yet we're in this stupid debate anyway.
"I wasn't being disingenuous or trying to show off my intelligence by pointing out a factual error in your original post."
If you had simply stated the difference, maybe. That isn't what you did. Here's what 'pointing a factual error' looks like:
"I'm not sure you meant to do this, but when you said '5-nines', that would typically be described like this: 99.999. If you had said 7 nines, it would have been more accurate."
Only, that's not what you said. This is what you said:
"Great, but the percentage you gave is actually seven nines. Five is two less than that. Good try though."
5 is 2 less than that? Good try, though? Didn't it occur to you that your post would have sounded condescending?
Yeah, I overreacted. I made an error. I never disputed either of those. Please consider, though, how you sounded and think about how it might encourage a reaction like that.
"It was not a large or important mistake so launching an involved rant to cover up a minor mistake is really rather childish."
Yep, you're right, except for one little point: I didn't write that to cover up my mistake. I wrote that to point out his. I have not denied making a mistake. The problem I do have is everybody wants to rub my nose in it, probably because I wasn't portraying MS in a good light. It's petty and stupid, and yes I wasn't the better man in it. I don't really care. For some reason, dropping down into 'overly-ignorant-mode' is some form of debate format that, surprisingly, is used to impress us with how smart one is. It's irritating.
"This isn't a "common sense" issue and it's not about how "interpret" your post."
Bullshit. I wasn't specific enough, so you filled in the blank, and tried to negate my entire post with it. That's very clearly a matter of interpretation.
"Technically I wasn't being pedantic."
"Great, but the percentage you gave is actually seven nines."
I count 5 after the decimal point. I guess I have to be really really really really exact ('Exact' meaning I have to spell out every detail as to avoid confusion caused by lack of common sense)about the phrasing of every single sentence I write ('phrasing' meaning I had better not leave any possibility for mis-interpretation open) every single time I post something on Slashdot (using only numbers, letters, and punctuation because images aren't allowed) or nobody (by nobody I mean there isn't a single person reading Slashdot, there may be others that don't read Slashdot that would be exempt from my generalization) be able to interpret it. ('it' meaning every single time I post using letters, numbers, and punctuation.) Otherwise ('otherwise' meaning 'in every single case that isn't included by the terms defined earlier in this post) nobody ('nobody' meaning of every single person reading this post, exactly 0 of them would be exempt from the following generalization)
There. Now my post should be perfectly clear to those who are common sense impaired.