That's a bit of a narrow perception, don'tcha think? Not trying to be insulting or inflammatory here, but you are oversimplifying a rather complex situation.
"If you can't leave your stupid wireless equipped laptop for enough time to enjoy an evening at the park...."
Why do people always assume that's why there's a demand for wireless internet? Why don't people assume that one wants a wireless net connection at a baseball game to look up player stats? Why don't they assume that they want the access for after the game, or even before it? Why is the picture always put in everybody's head that somebody's going to lug their laptop to a game, have it sit on their lap running, and play Quake or on it during the game? That's the most non-sensical assumption one could make!
"This is about the slow, gentle, comfortable erosion of American values--not the God, family, and apple pie values of tradition, but independence, community, and the common good values of the human spirit."
Please don't assume my values are reflected by some PHB out there.
" Well, think about it. How cost effective is it to provide WiFi access to a site that is used, at best, a few hours a week?"
You may not be aware of this, but PGE park is *in* downtown Portland. There's a lot of foot traffic around it, plus a few small businesses and apartments. It's not too far from a dorm, though it's probably out of range of the stadium.
A node there would (potentially) mean people nearby could get on the net. I agree with you, though, I doubt it'd be used a whole lot.
"Well I looked at it and assumed that the guy got tounge cancer the normal way... abuse of tobacco products. Sorry I have a hard time feeling sorry for self inflicted wounds."
I might agree with you if not for the addictiveness of tobacco products.
"(Imagine the interviews: "I wanna thank all the doctorth and nurtheth who performed thith thuccethful thurgery.)"
Anybody else read this and think that the story submitter picked a bad time to make a joke? The dude had cancer, it's not like he lost his tongue in a way that'd earn him a Darwin Award Honorable Mention. Making fun of him for that was tasteless, no pun intended.
"Also, regarding price-fixing, stores have sales on games fairly often. If they never did, then the fixing issue may come into play more."
I'd be surprised if price-fixing was the issue. Game companies aren't exactly rolling in money made from ludicrous profits. There may be pressures to keep the price that high, but that probably has more to do with company survival than anything.
"Now, you may not have troubles doing this, but there are plenty of non-technical users out there that will. "
Is that pretty much the reason? So it provides an uninstall path too?
I can see that. Little surprised I got modded as overrated, though. Then again, I come from the Windows world. Installing apps = bigger registry. Bigger registry = slower Windows. Slower Windows = reinstall once a year. Those of us that'd like to put that reinstall off like apps that don't touch the registry, even to install.
Oh, to answer my own question, I chewed on this a bit myself and came up with an embarrasingly simple answer: file extensions. A lot of apps have some sort of project file to open. For that to work, you need to set up it's unique extension to run that particular app.
... but why do installs need to happen in a lot of cases? I mean, there are some situations that it's a no-brainer. But why can't a large majority of apps out there just run straight out of what directory they are in?
As I mentioned in the subject, I'm a little naieve here. The concept of 'installing' software has always baffled me. I think I'm just missing an important bit of info here.
"If you're really that stupid, please just shoot yourself in the head."
Grow up.
"Netscape navigator worked fine in Win3.1, and Mac-OS 6 or whatever it was at that point. "
Netscape was a seperate purchase. Nor does it satisfy all of what I was saying. The Newton had all the stuff a Palm Pilot does, yet it barely got it's name in the history books.
"In fact, Microsoft didn't bet on the internet with windows 95. It shipped with its own, at the time, proprietary network MSN, which sucked ass. In order to develop 'sites' for it you had to pay thousands to MS in order to get Microsoft 'blackbird' software to create them "
Really? Then how come my computer that came at the original launch of Windows 95 was ready to be set up on a local ISP?
"Or you could just not buy a lexmark printer. Let the market descide, don't legislate to death."
The big problem with this argument is that corps are getting bigger and bigger. There's gotta be restraints on them here and there to prevent them from stifling progress in any given area of development.
I do half-agree with you, though. Here's the thing: If everybody does what Lexmark's been doing, what's to stop people from just buying laser printers? If something desperately needs to be in color, either ppl will use digital means (e-mail, pocket/tabletPCs, etc) or they'll run down to Kinko's. I personally have already decided on the Kinko's bit. Sure, per page the color copies/prints might be expensive, but I'd have to buy a lot of them to equal one cartridge of ink.
If the market goes to one extreme, somebody'll come along and create equlibrium. So long as the mega-corps can't squash them, then things should work out. Problem is, keeping the mega-corps under control. In this case, legislation could potentially be the answer.
"Not true. Plenty of operating systems could do all that."
In the PC arena? Name one? (Not fishing for a rebuttal, but rather genuinely curious.) Amiga comes to mind, too bad it wasn't built from PC parts.
"Other operating systems were more advanced than Windows even."
No argument there. The strength of Windows was its ease of use. (not to mention it ran on a variety of hardware.) Pity Apple didn't open up a bit.
"You just didn't know about them because you had no exposure to them because of...guess who...Bill Gates and his monopoly."
He didn't have a monopoly back when this all started. That came after Win95 became popular.
"That's a pretty big supposition."
I'm not the only one who's made that supposition. Despite popular belief, a lot of things were done right. Not to mention that Apple is pretty much the only player who had any idea how to make a machine usable for the masses.
"Microsoft bet big on the internet AFTER it was already popular. They were playing catch-up."
Wrong. The internet couldn't possibly have been popular without lots (i.e. millions) of people turning it into something interesting. The Win3.1, OS/2 (why'd you even mention that? heh), and Mac audience playing around on the net was not enough to do that. Sorry.
"Yes, Microsoft more or less obliterated the competition, through a mixture of legal and illegal means. It doesn't mean they started the boom of the 90s. They rode it."
Computers evolved from being tools to becoming a source of entertainment. Not only did the internet help with this, but the processors had become poweful enough to do things like play video. CD-ROMS stored enough information to make that viable. The missing piece was an OS to tie it all together, simple enough for anybody to use. Windows 95 was the choice. That's it. There's no arguing it. Yeah, it was unstable and buggy etc, but it still made a computer worth having.
PCs would have gone *nowhere* without Windows 95. Simple as that. OS2 was a perpetual source of disappointment, and nobody else was up to the task of making an OS+GUI that could compete with Apple. MS couldn't possibly have ever attained a monopoly if the market hadn't decided that they were providing what it wanted. MS would have dominated even if they did it 100% legally. (Pity they didn't, really.)
I'm not what you'd call a pro-MS person. This isn't a "I love MS and you should too" defense. It's a rebuttal from somebody who sat around while it happened, and had to report on it for his programming class at the time.
MS did not invent the internet. MS did not invent Multimedia. It did, however, make for a computer that didn't scare people. That was vitally important for acceptance of PCs. Acceptance of PCs made for a rather large community to build the internet into what it is today.
"Windows 95 also explains the huge uptick in sales of Sun, Cisco, IBM, etc. hardware. Windows 95 also explains the wide availability of the internet."
Yes, and yes.
"It *was* a big, huge coincidence that Windows95 arrived at the same time."
Nope. The internet was there. It was a haven for geeks. The popularity of Windows made the internet a household term. The net was around long before Windows. Windows 95 made it popular. Argue with me all you want, the fact remains that Microsoft bet rather heavily on the internet and won.
"Microsoft did not "bring computers to the masses," "Enable the tech boom," etc. Take of the Rose-Colored Glasses."
You're right. It's just a big huge coincidence that the PC boom happened round about the time that Windows 95 came out. It couldn't possibly be that Microsoft had created an OS + GUI that ran on commodity PC hardware. No no, MS put a gun to millions of people's heads and made them buy PCs that happened to have Windows on them.
Slashdot Mirror
"Your can't-do attitude is probably also the reason you're a 35 year old virgin living in your parents' basement."
It's not a 'cant-do' attitude, it's a "Don't throw your energy into something futile" attitude. What he's really saying is "find a better solution."
That's a bit of a narrow perception, don'tcha think? Not trying to be insulting or inflammatory here, but you are oversimplifying a rather complex situation.
"If you can't leave your stupid wireless equipped laptop for enough time to enjoy an evening at the park...."
Why do people always assume that's why there's a demand for wireless internet? Why don't people assume that one wants a wireless net connection at a baseball game to look up player stats? Why don't they assume that they want the access for after the game, or even before it? Why is the picture always put in everybody's head that somebody's going to lug their laptop to a game, have it sit on their lap running, and play Quake or on it during the game? That's the most non-sensical assumption one could make!
"This is about the slow, gentle, comfortable erosion of American values--not the God, family, and apple pie values of tradition, but independence, community, and the common good values of the human spirit."
Please don't assume my values are reflected by some PHB out there.
" Well, think about it. How cost effective is it to provide WiFi access to a site that is used, at best, a few hours a week?"
You may not be aware of this, but PGE park is *in* downtown Portland. There's a lot of foot traffic around it, plus a few small businesses and apartments. It's not too far from a dorm, though it's probably out of range of the stadium.
A node there would (potentially) mean people nearby could get on the net. I agree with you, though, I doubt it'd be used a whole lot.
"If 60 people at a ballgame are surfing on laptops..." ... then at least 59 people are having fun at a baseball game.
"Well I looked at it and assumed that the guy got tounge cancer the normal way... abuse of tobacco products. Sorry I have a hard time feeling sorry for self inflicted wounds."
I might agree with you if not for the addictiveness of tobacco products.
"(Imagine the interviews: "I wanna thank all the doctorth and nurtheth who performed thith thuccethful thurgery.)"
Anybody else read this and think that the story submitter picked a bad time to make a joke? The dude had cancer, it's not like he lost his tongue in a way that'd earn him a Darwin Award Honorable Mention. Making fun of him for that was tasteless, no pun intended.
... I was just thinking about what a big attractive target my office mate's ass can be.
"Also, regarding price-fixing, stores have sales on games fairly often. If they never did, then the fixing issue may come into play more."
I'd be surprised if price-fixing was the issue. Game companies aren't exactly rolling in money made from ludicrous profits. There may be pressures to keep the price that high, but that probably has more to do with company survival than anything.
"Now, you may not have troubles doing this, but there are plenty of non-technical users out there that will. "
Is that pretty much the reason? So it provides an uninstall path too?
I can see that. Little surprised I got modded as overrated, though. Then again, I come from the Windows world. Installing apps = bigger registry. Bigger registry = slower Windows. Slower Windows = reinstall once a year. Those of us that'd like to put that reinstall off like apps that don't touch the registry, even to install.
Oh, to answer my own question, I chewed on this a bit myself and came up with an embarrasingly simple answer: file extensions. A lot of apps have some sort of project file to open. For that to work, you need to set up it's unique extension to run that particular app.
... but why do installs need to happen in a lot of cases? I mean, there are some situations that it's a no-brainer. But why can't a large majority of apps out there just run straight out of what directory they are in?
As I mentioned in the subject, I'm a little naieve here. The concept of 'installing' software has always baffled me. I think I'm just missing an important bit of info here.
They just got back the last bit of data before the antenna was jammed. They picked up the faint outline of.... a Winnebago.
"Yup, troll troll troll..."
Well, given that nobody can accept the idea that MS actually did some good for the industry, then in a sense you're right.
Fortunately for you, the definition of troll doesn't include the word 'truth'.
"If you're really that stupid, please just shoot yourself in the head."
Grow up.
"Netscape navigator worked fine in Win3.1, and Mac-OS 6 or whatever it was at that point. "
Netscape was a seperate purchase. Nor does it satisfy all of what I was saying. The Newton had all the stuff a Palm Pilot does, yet it barely got it's name in the history books.
"In fact, Microsoft didn't bet on the internet with windows 95. It shipped with its own, at the time, proprietary network MSN, which sucked ass. In order to develop 'sites' for it you had to pay thousands to MS in order to get Microsoft 'blackbird' software to create them "
Really? Then how come my computer that came at the original launch of Windows 95 was ready to be set up on a local ISP?
"Or you could just not buy a lexmark printer. Let the market descide, don't legislate to death."
The big problem with this argument is that corps are getting bigger and bigger. There's gotta be restraints on them here and there to prevent them from stifling progress in any given area of development.
I do half-agree with you, though. Here's the thing: If everybody does what Lexmark's been doing, what's to stop people from just buying laser printers? If something desperately needs to be in color, either ppl will use digital means (e-mail, pocket/tabletPCs, etc) or they'll run down to Kinko's. I personally have already decided on the Kinko's bit. Sure, per page the color copies/prints might be expensive, but I'd have to buy a lot of them to equal one cartridge of ink.
If the market goes to one extreme, somebody'll come along and create equlibrium. So long as the mega-corps can't squash them, then things should work out. Problem is, keeping the mega-corps under control. In this case, legislation could potentially be the answer.
"Not true. Plenty of operating systems could do all that."
In the PC arena? Name one? (Not fishing for a rebuttal, but rather genuinely curious.) Amiga comes to mind, too bad it wasn't built from PC parts.
"Other operating systems were more advanced than Windows even."
No argument there. The strength of Windows was its ease of use. (not to mention it ran on a variety of hardware.) Pity Apple didn't open up a bit.
"You just didn't know about them because you had no exposure to them because of...guess who...Bill Gates and his monopoly."
He didn't have a monopoly back when this all started. That came after Win95 became popular.
"That's a pretty big supposition."
I'm not the only one who's made that supposition. Despite popular belief, a lot of things were done right. Not to mention that Apple is pretty much the only player who had any idea how to make a machine usable for the masses.
"Microsoft bet big on the internet AFTER it was already popular. They were playing catch-up."
Wrong. The internet couldn't possibly have been popular without lots (i.e. millions) of people turning it into something interesting. The Win3.1, OS/2 (why'd you even mention that? heh), and Mac audience playing around on the net was not enough to do that. Sorry.
"Yes, Microsoft more or less obliterated the competition, through a mixture of legal and illegal means. It doesn't mean they started the boom of the 90s. They rode it."
Computers evolved from being tools to becoming a source of entertainment. Not only did the internet help with this, but the processors had become poweful enough to do things like play video. CD-ROMS stored enough information to make that viable. The missing piece was an OS to tie it all together, simple enough for anybody to use. Windows 95 was the choice. That's it. There's no arguing it. Yeah, it was unstable and buggy etc, but it still made a computer worth having.
PCs would have gone *nowhere* without Windows 95. Simple as that. OS2 was a perpetual source of disappointment, and nobody else was up to the task of making an OS+GUI that could compete with Apple.
MS couldn't possibly have ever attained a monopoly if the market hadn't decided that they were providing what it wanted. MS would have dominated even if they did it 100% legally. (Pity they didn't, really.)
I'm not what you'd call a pro-MS person. This isn't a "I love MS and you should too" defense. It's a rebuttal from somebody who sat around while it happened, and had to report on it for his programming class at the time.
MS did not invent the internet. MS did not invent Multimedia. It did, however, make for a computer that didn't scare people. That was vitally important for acceptance of PCs. Acceptance of PCs made for a rather large community to build the internet into what it is today.
"Windows 95 also explains the huge uptick in sales of Sun, Cisco, IBM, etc. hardware. Windows 95 also explains the wide availability of the internet."
Yes, and yes.
"It *was* a big, huge coincidence that Windows95 arrived at the same time."
Nope. The internet was there. It was a haven for geeks. The popularity of Windows made the internet a household term. The net was around long before Windows. Windows 95 made it popular. Argue with me all you want, the fact remains that Microsoft bet rather heavily on the internet and won.
"So, where's the TROFF operating system?"
And in a moment only Pavlov could come to grips with, everybody simultaneously snorted.
"Microsoft did not "bring computers to the masses," "Enable the tech boom," etc. Take of the Rose-Colored Glasses."
You're right. It's just a big huge coincidence that the PC boom happened round about the time that Windows 95 came out. It couldn't possibly be that Microsoft had created an OS + GUI that ran on commodity PC hardware. No no, MS put a gun to millions of people's heads and made them buy PCs that happened to have Windows on them.
"make the TCP/IP jokes stop, please! "
No no no, everybody make your jokes about IP, freely!
*Shrug*
I honestly don't think we're going to see eye to eye on that. Call it a draw?
I think we'z all clear now. :) Thanks for puttin up with me. Wish I'd been a little nicer.
" are using laughter recognition software to track and automatically log staff onto the computer nearest to them"
.WAV file from Revenge of the Nerds!
Breaking in to a slashdotter's computer'd be easy. Just download a
*here's hoping the mods are in good humor today*