Mod parent up! I was going to nominate most of the games he suggested.
In addition, a few other oldies but goodies would be Panzer General / Allied General (turn-based) and Masters of Orion (original and sequel). Once again, DOS-BOX is your friend.
I don't think that RTSes are valid selections given the lag between headmouse select/move... I get carpal tunnel from tank rushes in C&C Red Alert.
Not sure that I agree with you on this one... terms of use for Office would clearly dicate that it run on an MS Operating system (or OS/X). If you circumvent that requirement I think Microsoft is released of its obligations for support.
I'm fairly confident in saying that Wine is less stable than a native Windows OS, if only because Wine is the product of reverse engineering (where the developers lack the full view of how Windows operates).
Microsoft also prevents me from downloading WinXP updates with Firefox. Although I don't like it, they give me the tool (IE) for free so I'm ensured access. Both of these scenarios are certainly not user-friendly, but I would have difficulty calling it underhanded behaviour.
Given how insanely wealthy he is from 10^24 stock options over 2 decades, and his penchant for diabolical schemes that Machiavelli would be proud of, I'd suggest not publishing a direct challenge to him in an open forum...
Should he ever be inclined, he could buy your house, your neighbours' houses, the company you work for, plus the companies of all your friends/family, and ensure you never have shelter nor employment ever again. To add insult to injury he'd bury you in legal paperwork for specious reasons from now until the end of eternity. And it would cost him the equivalent of a rounding-error on a weekly paycheque (for him).
Let's hope this doesn't become so commonplace that the entire medium of blogs becomes suspect in the same way modern television news has.
You're joking, right? At least there is ~some~ sembalance of professionalism in televised journalism, whereas anyone and their dog can open up a blog.
Given the organised spin doctoring from both the Democrats and Republicans in the last election, I would have thought that blogs were already discredited as an effective communications medium. They work in some specific cases, especially if someone has a pre-existing reputation on which to provide credibility, but on the whole they're just another form of website (which anyone can publish).
If HP had maintained its marketshare, or (god forbid) improved its margins and profits she would be deified in the mainstream press.
Her performance as a CEO has been horrible and its a miracle she's lasted 6 years. Better CEOs have been fired for much less. A badly managed merger, disenfranchised employees, shrinking marketshare, and the lack of a single significant innovation in 6 years does not look good on a CV.
Her outsting was a result of her bad performance, not because she was a woman. I mourn the loss of HP as an innovative company, not Fiorina's options.
If you want to troll for misogyny in corporate america, look for a thread about treatment of Martha Stewart Living vs Enron execs...
Google has been very successful at using 'soft' marketing to establish their brand, especially early in their corporate history. Everyone KNOWS that gmail is ready for public launch, but having private invites gives it a cachet. Clever advertising for job postings gets it additional media coverage. Clever IPO process gets it additional media coverage. But sooner or later Google will have to compete in the 'real' marketing space -- traditional media, to reach a wider audience.
As for tech crowd dictating what's good and what isn't, lets think about this, shall we?
1. Beta vs VHS?
2. Original Mac vis IBM PC/XT/AT?
3. Wagons/Hatchbacks vs SUVs? (same storage capacity, better fuel economy)
4..ogg vs.mp3 or.wmv?
5. Extended warranties from Best Buy?!?!
Marketing is for the suckers...and that's where the money is.
The cancer that was Voyager metasized with the 'decontamination gel' from Enterprise episode one, briefly went into remission with the Xindi plot, but spread catastrophically to all other organs with the Nazi Space Aliens.
At the very least I don't blame Bakula. When you're given scripts that look like they originated in my lower intestine, there's only so much you can do with it.
Personal gun ownership to thwart an oppressive government is a quaint concept, but has no basis in fact.
Widespread availability of guns makes it easier for 'tyranny of the majority'. Misuse of guns by a majority in the pursuit of a socially accepted goal (e.g. "kill all the jewish businessmen!" or "lynch that black kid, he might have committed a crime") tends to be overlooked by the authorities.
The best way to measure the success of a democracy is how effectively it protects human rights, and typcially those most at risk are the 'weakest' members of the society.
If the newspaper prints your picture suggesting you are a child molester, and you are clearly not, you can sue the paper for libel. There is a legal recourse. In addition the newspaper's privileges under law as being a news organisation (e.g. protection of sources) would probably be voided if they were not acting responsibly. One argument eliminated...
As for the witness protection program, some people (like me) do not think that providing government protection of one criminal (e.g. Sammy the Bull) to convinct another criminal is very effective, or in the interest of justice. At the very least we could debate this point.
All censorship is bad. Even censorship in the face of total war is bad...its just that war is worse, and its a lesser of two evils.
PS The "war" against terrorism is not a war in any legal, traditional, or historical sense.
Notice the fact that there's no scientific study conducted and no definitive examples cited? A whole article consisting only of medical conjecture based on qualitative experience. If I read an article with more 'might', 'maybe's, or 'theoretically's, I would have assumed it was a Rumsfeld press release.
Bad journalism, bad article, bad slashdot posting decision.
After a few attempts to compete in the generic card business (e.g. home pcs, requiring gaming performance) they've retreated into high-end productivity/business graphics segment. Their 2d rending is phenomenally crisp and they're quite popular with CAD and render farm setups where you want to look at multiple monitors at a time.
Unfortunately I think they're going to fail, based on economies of scale... you need the volume w/ low margins to maintain respectable manufacturing lines, and without them you're just a 3rd party integrator of other people's chips.
i like to compare them to Silicon Graphics in the unix industry. Sun ate Silicon Graphic's lunch mainly through time-to-market and low cost options. Matrox had their lunch eaten by Nvidia and ATI combined.
"Son?"
"Yes Dad?"
"I ran this MPAA tool on your computer. Looks like you've been downloading alot of movies illegally, and --"
"Dad, isn't this similar to the illegal satellite hookup you have?"
"Uh, yes but..."
"And does Mom know about those channels you watch late at night when she's asleep?"
"Uh, no but..."
"You can leave my allowance on my desk, and close the door on the way out..."
WinNT to W2003 resulted in a huge upswing in MS spending in the later half of last year for my company. I was hoping for a decent rationalisation of why were were using WinNT in some of these cases (e.g. DNS??? file/print servers???), but as usually business managers have their backs up against the wall (e.g. procrastinate on spending) and just want to pay their way out of a situation when they have no choice.
And if you have to upgrade the OS (which results in lots of application regression testing, which is labour and the most expensive cost of the whole process), you may as well replace the server which is probably 4-5 years old at this point. So the upswing in server sales for the last quarter or two I would attribute to this WinNT retirement. WinNT upgrade = license fees, + labour + h/w....ironically the catalyst is probably the least expensive component in the equation.
At least, that's how it played out at the bank I work at...
In some ways I see the X-Box and PS/2 (3?) eventually strengthening the possibility of a Mac in the home. I stick with a Wintel box for a few reasons, primarily though for backwards compatability between upgrades and for games.
File formats are fairly generic now, especially in the multimedia (e.g. digital video/pics) space. Games are still Mac's weak point... but if consoles get to the point of being the defacto platform, it eliminates a reason for a PC. I'd rather have a utility Mac for personal productivity than a mini ITX case.
if they can get RTSes, decent FPSers, and some turn based strategy (Europa Universalis! Civilisation!) onto the consoles in a serious way, it may be the best thing ever to happen to Apple.
I'll have to re-evaluate the mini's prices based on these changes, but unfortunately it doesn't compete favourably in the Canadian market place given the exchange rate. The 'base' mini was selling for $629 CAD ($749 for the decent model), and with the overpriced upgrades it was close to $1000. For $1000 in the Canadian marketplace I could buy a really solid Athlon 64 system w/ more memory, disk, and a better video card. The other 'gotcha' for migration is that apparently the non-standard keyboard & mouse subjects your to Apple markups. The $ exchange doesn't seem to hurt as much on generic PC components, especially in major urban centres (Vancouver, Toronto).
I'm really keen on this model and it looks like a great migration strategy, but its still in tough competition for the price point.
Yes and no. "No" because Woz and Jobs didn't design the CPU, or the memory chips, etc which is where the real hard engineering work occured. However they do deserve credit for building a PC out of generic parts and designing a basic system board. Of course, mail-order kits of that nature were available since the Altair, so their real success was a matter more of marketing than concept. Also, I'd argue that Jobs was the 'manager' and Woz was the engineer in this case.
Where did you get the money angle?!? I never once inferred that money or personal gain was a measurement of success. I suspect you have a preconceived notion that management = business ethics, which is confusing the issue.
I gave examples of physical things that would be recognised as an achievement. The Hoover dam was a tremendous engineering feat for its day. The Space Shuttle, though now considered an albatross, is still an innovative design that advanced our concept of space travel and resulted in many, many advancements in electronics, synthetic materials, aviation, etc.
My point was I'd rather be able to say, at the end of the day, that I helped BUILD something that is meaningful and important to someone, or a group of people, or a nation, or mankind. And all of these engineering marvels or successes required the efforts of a large number of people...people need order to be effective, which requires leadership. Hence my argument that management skills are critical to realising greatness.
Face it -- all of the 'great' scientific and engineering miracles of our time came from project managers. Hoover Dam, the Space Shuttle, The Chunnel, the Personal Computer (C64, Mac, IBM PC, take your pick) etc, etc. -- engineers leading and managing...engineers.
If you want to focus on the pure math or physical sciences then yeah sure, stay a 'geek'. Me, I'd rather have the skills necessary to achieve true greatness and success. "Management" is no more evil or insidious than "fluid dynamics".
Mod parent up. Sun is ~heavily~ leaning on Solaris on x86 with Solaris 10, which is a 180 degree turn from less than a year ago. At one point, Sun wouldn't even publically commit to releasing future versions of Solaris on Intel.
Why is Sun taking this position? My view is that its a desperate act to attempt to thwart Linux in the low end market from gradually eating up their higher Solaris offerings.
IBM has embraced Linux. IBM will happily offer you a flavour of unix -- AIX or Linux -- on all of their RISC-architected platforms. Sun however, offers 'open source Solaris' without defining what open source means, and supposedly supports Linux but I've ~never~ heard a Sun rep volunteer a Linux offering, even when asked.
Sun's position to demand that IBM support their OS -- which hasn't even been released yet! -- is egomanical.
Slashdot Mirror
what horrible abortion am I going to not watch next?...
Speaking of reality shows...
Mod parent up! I was going to nominate most of the games he suggested.
In addition, a few other oldies but goodies would be Panzer General / Allied General (turn-based) and Masters of Orion (original and sequel). Once again, DOS-BOX is your friend.
I don't think that RTSes are valid selections given the lag between headmouse select/move... I get carpal tunnel from tank rushes in C&C Red Alert.
Not sure that I agree with you on this one... terms of use for Office would clearly dicate that it run on an MS Operating system (or OS/X). If you circumvent that requirement I think Microsoft is released of its obligations for support.
I'm fairly confident in saying that Wine is less stable than a native Windows OS, if only because Wine is the product of reverse engineering (where the developers lack the full view of how Windows operates).
Microsoft also prevents me from downloading WinXP updates with Firefox. Although I don't like it, they give me the tool (IE) for free so I'm ensured access. Both of these scenarios are certainly not user-friendly, but I would have difficulty calling it underhanded behaviour.
Bite me, Eisner.
Given how insanely wealthy he is from 10^24 stock options over 2 decades, and his penchant for diabolical schemes that Machiavelli would be proud of, I'd suggest not publishing a direct challenge to him in an open forum...
Should he ever be inclined, he could buy your house, your neighbours' houses, the company you work for, plus the companies of all your friends/family, and ensure you never have shelter nor employment ever again. To add insult to injury he'd bury you in legal paperwork for specious reasons from now until the end of eternity. And it would cost him the equivalent of a rounding-error on a weekly paycheque (for him).
Let's hope this doesn't become so commonplace that the entire medium of blogs becomes suspect in the same way modern television news has.
You're joking, right? At least there is ~some~ sembalance of professionalism in televised journalism, whereas anyone and their dog can open up a blog.
Given the organised spin doctoring from both the Democrats and Republicans in the last election, I would have thought that blogs were already discredited as an effective communications medium. They work in some specific cases, especially if someone has a pre-existing reputation on which to provide credibility, but on the whole they're just another form of website (which anyone can publish).
Follow up...
Does Microsoft consider open standards, intended to facilitate interoperability, to be beneficial or detrimental to overall system security?
e.g. Closed vs open product development models.
Best wishes to Carly, and hope she doesn't blow it with the next company she runs.
Am I the only person who's read the rumours that Carly is (was?) on a short list for the next Homeland Security Director?
I read this somewhere, thought it was preposterous, but now the fact that she 'quit'...hmmm..
If HP had maintained its marketshare, or (god forbid) improved its margins and profits she would be deified in the mainstream press.
Her performance as a CEO has been horrible and its a miracle she's lasted 6 years. Better CEOs have been fired for much less. A badly managed merger, disenfranchised employees, shrinking marketshare, and the lack of a single significant innovation in 6 years does not look good on a CV.
Her outsting was a result of her bad performance, not because she was a woman. I mourn the loss of HP as an innovative company, not Fiorina's options.
If you want to troll for misogyny in corporate america, look for a thread about treatment of Martha Stewart Living vs Enron execs...
Google has been very successful at using 'soft' marketing to establish their brand, especially early in their corporate history. Everyone KNOWS that gmail is ready for public launch, but having private invites gives it a cachet. Clever advertising for job postings gets it additional media coverage. Clever IPO process gets it additional media coverage. But sooner or later Google will have to compete in the 'real' marketing space -- traditional media, to reach a wider audience.
.ogg vs .mp3 or .wmv?
As for tech crowd dictating what's good and what isn't, lets think about this, shall we?
1. Beta vs VHS?
2. Original Mac vis IBM PC/XT/AT?
3. Wagons/Hatchbacks vs SUVs? (same storage capacity, better fuel economy)
4.
5. Extended warranties from Best Buy?!?!
Marketing is for the suckers...and that's where the money is.
The cancer that was Voyager metasized with the 'decontamination gel' from Enterprise episode one, briefly went into remission with the Xindi plot, but spread catastrophically to all other organs with the Nazi Space Aliens.
At the very least I don't blame Bakula. When you're given scripts that look like they originated in my lower intestine, there's only so much you can do with it.
Personal gun ownership to thwart an oppressive government is a quaint concept, but has no basis in fact.
Widespread availability of guns makes it easier for 'tyranny of the majority'. Misuse of guns by a majority in the pursuit of a socially accepted goal (e.g. "kill all the jewish businessmen!" or "lynch that black kid, he might have committed a crime") tends to be overlooked by the authorities.
The best way to measure the success of a democracy is how effectively it protects human rights, and typcially those most at risk are the 'weakest' members of the society.
If the newspaper prints your picture suggesting you are a child molester, and you are clearly not, you can sue the paper for libel. There is a legal recourse. In addition the newspaper's privileges under law as being a news organisation (e.g. protection of sources) would probably be voided if they were not acting responsibly. One argument eliminated...
As for the witness protection program, some people (like me) do not think that providing government protection of one criminal (e.g. Sammy the Bull) to convinct another criminal is very effective, or in the interest of justice. At the very least we could debate this point.
All censorship is bad. Even censorship in the face of total war is bad...its just that war is worse, and its a lesser of two evils.
PS The "war" against terrorism is not a war in any legal, traditional, or historical sense.
Notice the fact that there's no scientific study conducted and no definitive examples cited? A whole article consisting only of medical conjecture based on qualitative experience. If I read an article with more 'might', 'maybe's, or 'theoretically's, I would have assumed it was a Rumsfeld press release.
Bad journalism, bad article, bad slashdot posting decision.
After a few attempts to compete in the generic card business (e.g. home pcs, requiring gaming performance) they've retreated into high-end productivity/business graphics segment. Their 2d rending is phenomenally crisp and they're quite popular with CAD and render farm setups where you want to look at multiple monitors at a time.
Unfortunately I think they're going to fail, based on economies of scale... you need the volume w/ low margins to maintain respectable manufacturing lines, and without them you're just a 3rd party integrator of other people's chips.
i like to compare them to Silicon Graphics in the unix industry. Sun ate Silicon Graphic's lunch mainly through time-to-market and low cost options. Matrox had their lunch eaten by Nvidia and ATI combined.
It depends how many people are in the shower with her.... /half-joking, half-serious
(REALITY - ALTERNATE VERSION)
"Son?"
"Yes Dad?"
"I ran this MPAA tool on your computer. Looks like you've been downloading alot of movies illegally, and --"
"Dad, isn't this similar to the illegal satellite hookup you have?"
"Uh, yes but..."
"And does Mom know about those channels you watch late at night when she's asleep?"
"Uh, no but..."
"You can leave my allowance on my desk, and close the door on the way out..."
WinNT to W2003 resulted in a huge upswing in MS spending in the later half of last year for my company. I was hoping for a decent rationalisation of why were were using WinNT in some of these cases (e.g. DNS??? file/print servers???), but as usually business managers have their backs up against the wall (e.g. procrastinate on spending) and just want to pay their way out of a situation when they have no choice.
And if you have to upgrade the OS (which results in lots of application regression testing, which is labour and the most expensive cost of the whole process), you may as well replace the server which is probably 4-5 years old at this point. So the upswing in server sales for the last quarter or two I would attribute to this WinNT retirement. WinNT upgrade = license fees, + labour + h/w....ironically the catalyst is probably the least expensive component in the equation.
At least, that's how it played out at the bank I work at...
Apparently if you stop George Clooney in the street and tell him you paid to see Batman and Robin, he'll give you an apology and give you $10 back.
It must be true since i read it in Wikipedia...
Its true....computer design is so homo-sapien centric. 4 digits plus opposable thumbs? Arthropoda are such an undertargeted demographic...
In some ways I see the X-Box and PS/2 (3?) eventually strengthening the possibility of a Mac in the home. I stick with a Wintel box for a few reasons, primarily though for backwards compatability between upgrades and for games.
... but if consoles get to the point of being the defacto platform, it eliminates a reason for a PC. I'd rather have a utility Mac for personal productivity than a mini ITX case.
File formats are fairly generic now, especially in the multimedia (e.g. digital video/pics) space. Games are still Mac's weak point
if they can get RTSes, decent FPSers, and some turn based strategy (Europa Universalis! Civilisation!) onto the consoles in a serious way, it may be the best thing ever to happen to Apple.
I'll have to re-evaluate the mini's prices based on these changes, but unfortunately it doesn't compete favourably in the Canadian market place given the exchange rate. The 'base' mini was selling for $629 CAD ($749 for the decent model), and with the overpriced upgrades it was close to $1000. For $1000 in the Canadian marketplace I could buy a really solid Athlon 64 system w/ more memory, disk, and a better video card. The other 'gotcha' for migration is that apparently the non-standard keyboard & mouse subjects your to Apple markups. The $ exchange doesn't seem to hurt as much on generic PC components, especially in major urban centres (Vancouver, Toronto).
I'm really keen on this model and it looks like a great migration strategy, but its still in tough competition for the price point.
Yes and no. "No" because Woz and Jobs didn't design the CPU, or the memory chips, etc which is where the real hard engineering work occured. However they do deserve credit for building a PC out of generic parts and designing a basic system board. Of course, mail-order kits of that nature were available since the Altair, so their real success was a matter more of marketing than concept. Also, I'd argue that Jobs was the 'manager' and Woz was the engineer in this case.
Where did you get the money angle?!? I never once inferred that money or personal gain was a measurement of success. I suspect you have a preconceived notion that management = business ethics, which is confusing the issue.
I gave examples of physical things that would be recognised as an achievement. The Hoover dam was a tremendous engineering feat for its day. The Space Shuttle, though now considered an albatross, is still an innovative design that advanced our concept of space travel and resulted in many, many advancements in electronics, synthetic materials, aviation, etc.
My point was I'd rather be able to say, at the end of the day, that I helped BUILD something that is meaningful and important to someone, or a group of people, or a nation, or mankind. And all of these engineering marvels or successes required the efforts of a large number of people...people need order to be effective, which requires leadership. Hence my argument that management skills are critical to realising greatness.
Face it -- all of the 'great' scientific and engineering miracles of our time came from project managers. Hoover Dam, the Space Shuttle, The Chunnel, the Personal Computer (C64, Mac, IBM PC, take your pick) etc, etc. -- engineers leading and managing...engineers.
If you want to focus on the pure math or physical sciences then yeah sure, stay a 'geek'. Me, I'd rather have the skills necessary to achieve true greatness and success. "Management" is no more evil or insidious than "fluid dynamics".
Mod parent up. Sun is ~heavily~ leaning on Solaris on x86 with Solaris 10, which is a 180 degree turn from less than a year ago. At one point, Sun wouldn't even publically commit to releasing future versions of Solaris on Intel.
Why is Sun taking this position? My view is that its a desperate act to attempt to thwart Linux in the low end market from gradually eating up their higher Solaris offerings.
IBM has embraced Linux. IBM will happily offer you a flavour of unix -- AIX or Linux -- on all of their RISC-architected platforms. Sun however, offers 'open source Solaris' without defining what open source means, and supposedly supports Linux but I've ~never~ heard a Sun rep volunteer a Linux offering, even when asked.
Sun's position to demand that IBM support their OS -- which hasn't even been released yet! -- is egomanical.