$100 PCs might be possible, but they won't stop piracy. What you need is $20 copies of MS Office 97 Pro. At that price, everyone would pay for it.
I think it's silly that Ballmer's argument is basically "The reason everyone in the third world is stealing *our* stuff is that *their* stuff is too expensive."
Do you know if either this filtration system or the Australian one removes salt? If it does, you could just run sea water through this thing just as easy as sewer water. You 've got plenty of that around somewhere and it should minimize the yuck factor, shouldn't it?
Obligatory W.C. Fields:
"Water? Never touch the stuff. Fish function in it."
We have a legitimate democracy now, or at least a legitimate democratic republic. Every citizen has the right to choose their own level of participation, and nothing is preventing them from voting, supporting candidates or running for office themselves. Voting, like education, is hard -- it requires discipline and commitment. Those who aren't willing to take that responsibility have decided for themselves that they have nothing constructive to add, so as far as I am concerned, the republic is better off without them.
I would like you to consider the alternative possibility that the overwhelming majority of the apathetic are that way not because they feel alienated from "the system", but because things are actually going OK for them -- i.e., they aren't feeling enough pain in their lives to pay attention and become invested.
I guess Ballmer expects that being able to get the PC hardware for $100 instead of $500 means that customers would then be willing to pay $300 or so for a licensed copy of Windows, right?
Wrong. I'm willing to bet that a significant number of people willing to run an unlicensed copy of Windows on one $500 PC are willing to run *five* unlicensed copies of Windows unlicensed on *five* $100 PCs.
He should be focused on making his software cheaper.
Does anyone know how much money went to Imigration and Naturalization Services (INS) to improve border security?
Keep reading, it gerts worse....
on
Hip-e All-In-One PC
·
· Score: 3, Informative
What's worse than a woefully underpowered and overpriced PC bent on granting you a "lifestyle"? Getting your friends on board with you for all the real-life fun and excitement that comes with a MULTI-LEVEL VIRAL MARKETING PYRAMID SCHEME!
Ok, that might be a little harsh, but cash rewards for talking your friends into joining your 'squad'? Stupid -- especially when it's only ten lousy bucks on a system that's worth about $800 and sells for $1700.
I use that spelling more in the sense of definitions 2 and 3 -- it's not so much sarcastic as I just think JeffK teh funny (and, you know, people being lemmings and all...)
For that, I am truly sorry.
On the other hand, thank you for not pointing out my egregious *unintentional* misspellings of both "congress" and "calculators".
Just like cell phones and calcculators, having the Intarweb in schools is a mistake. How is anyone supposed to learn anything with all those distractions? Don't even bring up the dress code, or rather the lack of one.;)
The company's press statements demonstrate a wanton disregard for the rules of pluralization, so the other companies' representatives voted to sanction the editor for his mistake.
Wow, a whole page on how to trick your friends into looking at ads. Good luck getting them to read you emails ever again! (Of course, it sounds like nobody over 16 plays this game, so the target audience is probably pretty gullible.)
Does anyone else find the site design rather.... pedestrian? I mean, it actually says "Home Page" at the top in big blue letters, for cryin' out loud! I'm not saying there's any intent, there, but it's conspicuous; almost like it was thrown together to look *intentionally* unprofessional, or at least uncommercial.
Did anyone else pick up on that or think anything of it or am I just hallucinating again?
Oh, yeah, great point about being able to run the GDI tool anytime - I completely forgot about the frustration around that! Last week, when I was running down that all this stuff, it occurred to me, too, that I might just want to run that thing in the future. So, after looking in the docs on MS's web site and finding nothing, I turned to Google and it turns out MS *DOES* have a version you can run whenever you want. You can get to it by starting here.
Good luck finding that page linked from the standard docs, though. I had to Google for "standalone gdi tool" or some such to find out it was even available. It's like Microsoft's own web site managers just doesn't get that whole "linking documents" thing. They create zillions of useless links and no actual information. Stupid, stupid, stupid. (obTongueInCheek: They might want to think about getting this whole 'linking' issue straightened out before trying to take on Google's search engine.:)
Interesting. So, are the current Gecko browsers vulnerable, too, or can we assume that this patch has been maintained through to current versions? Has anyone done any testing?
I spent about 45 minutes reading docs at MSDN/MSKB trying to find an explicit statement that IE6SP1 on Win98 is vulnerable, and I swear that they don't actually state that fact (explicitly) anywhere! I eventually was able to read between the lines and conclude that Win98 isn't vulnerable, but Win98 + IE6 is, so you should run Windows Update to DL the patch.
Am I certain? No. Like I said, it's very difficult to find answers to very simple questions in their docs sometimes. I especially hate reading their security bulletins because it's like they were written by very technical lawyers who are trying to maintain the illusion of releasing information without actually doing so. As often as is possible, I try wait a day or two for the DHS CERT to issue their bulletins because they do a slightly better job of relaying useful information.
I would further argue that there never have been unbiased news sources - just fewer sources from which to to choose, logically leading to more discrete stratification of opinion in years gone by.
What are the odds that the political landscape Google is surveying actually is more conservative than OJR thinks? If they detected a difference between the sites which use human editors and the Google aggregators which do not, what are they really measuring here - the biases of the Google algorithms or the biases of the other human editors? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Google only knows what it finds.
Just a hunch, but I bet these guys are still trying to figger out why Fox News is so dang-ole popular.
I think Keyes is right about this mostly. Besides if the media weren't spending all their time trying to manufacture news via polls, maybe the'yd have a few extra minutes to check some facts or locate confirming sources of information.
They (the media) are forgetting how to do the one thing that really separates them as a legitimate news source from the tabloids and bloggers, and I think the introduction of manufactured news sources like political polls are partly to blame.
This might sound like a stretch, but trust me - it's all just bullstuff out of my pet peeve file. Do with it what you will.
I can't stand it when people describe servers/networks/hardware as "rock solid". Simply hearing someone use the words sends up a little red flag in my head to watch out for two things:
1) The server/network/etc... (or others like it) have been problematic.
2) It's working now, but the tech/engineer/whatever doesn't really know what was wrong with it, but you are afraid to admit it because you don't take criticism well.
Have you ever heard anyone describe a radio as "rock solid"? No, you haven't. Why? Because that kind of hyperbole is unnecessary with radios.
It's like marketing people who refer to everything as 'product' instead of what it really is, as though abstracting the "product" of professional baseball away from being a game makes it easier to sell tickets to fans.
Personally, I don't think lawyers are the problem. Nobody has removed more humanity from my "life experience" that the marketroids. I wish them ALL into the cornfield!
About 10 or 15 years ago, some dude named John Zogby surmised that the standard political telephone polls we skewed toward the left because their methodologies involved making the calls during the day, when older Americans -- who tended to be more conservative -- were more likely to be preoccupied with activities like working, shopping and running errands. He started company to prove he was right. Here's his bio.
Slashdot Mirror
$100 PCs might be possible, but they won't stop piracy. What you need is $20 copies of MS Office 97 Pro. At that price, everyone would pay for it.
I think it's silly that Ballmer's argument is basically "The reason everyone in the third world is stealing *our* stuff is that *their* stuff is too expensive."
Do you know if either this filtration system or the Australian one removes salt? If it does, you could just run sea water through this thing just as easy as sewer water. You 've got plenty of that around somewhere and it should minimize the yuck factor, shouldn't it?
Obligatory W.C. Fields:
"Water? Never touch the stuff. Fish function in it."
We have a legitimate democracy now, or at least a legitimate democratic republic. Every citizen has the right to choose their own level of participation, and nothing is preventing them from voting, supporting candidates or running for office themselves. Voting, like education, is hard -- it requires discipline and commitment. Those who aren't willing to take that responsibility have decided for themselves that they have nothing constructive to add, so as far as I am concerned, the republic is better off without them.
I would like you to consider the alternative possibility that the overwhelming majority of the apathetic are that way not because they feel alienated from "the system", but because things are actually going OK for them -- i.e., they aren't feeling enough pain in their lives to pay attention and become invested.
I guess Ballmer expects that being able to get the PC hardware for $100 instead of $500 means that customers would then be willing to pay $300 or so for a licensed copy of Windows, right?
Wrong. I'm willing to bet that a significant number of people willing to run an unlicensed copy of Windows on one $500 PC are willing to run *five* unlicensed copies of Windows unlicensed on *five* $100 PCs.
He should be focused on making his software cheaper.
Answering my own question, DHS *is* the INS
.
Never mind.
I thought we were already doing this.
How many ricers went out and bought TRD and NISMO stickers for their Hyundai's because of Gran Turismo?
Does anyone know how much money went to Imigration and Naturalization Services (INS) to improve border security?
What's worse than a woefully underpowered and overpriced PC bent on granting you a "lifestyle"? Getting your friends on board with you for all the real-life fun and excitement that comes with a MULTI-LEVEL VIRAL MARKETING PYRAMID SCHEME!
Ok, that might be a little harsh, but cash rewards for talking your friends into joining your 'squad'? Stupid -- especially when it's only ten lousy bucks on a system that's worth about $800 and sells for $1700.
For what it's worth, Ubuntu actually disables the root account by default so you have to sudo everything.
(I'm sure other distros do that too, but Ubuntu stands out in my mind because I had to wrestle with it unexpectedly over the weekend.)
Take a look at the files and programs it indexes at http://desktop.google.com:
;)
Outlook / Outlook Express
Word
Excel
PowerPoint
Internet Explorer
AOL Instant Messenger
Text
It's all MS software only except for AIM and text files.
I'm relieved that I'll finally know exactly where all my text files are.
Cool. What I don't get is why it was scored an offtopic troll. I'm just agreein' with Cliff Stoll.
I use that spelling more in the sense of definitions 2 and 3 -- it's not so much sarcastic as I just think JeffK teh funny (and, you know, people being lemmings and all...)
For that, I am truly sorry.
On the other hand, thank you for not pointing out my egregious *unintentional* misspellings of both "congress" and "calculators".
Just like cell phones and calcculators, having the Intarweb in schools is a mistake. How is anyone supposed to learn anything with all those distractions? Don't even bring up the dress code, or rather the lack of one.
Come out with your hands up!
One company,
two companies.
The company's press statements demonstrate a wanton disregard for the rules of pluralization, so the other companies' representatives voted to sanction the editor for his mistake.
Thank you.
Carry on.
Wow, a whole page on how to trick your friends into looking at ads. Good luck getting them to read you emails ever again! (Of course, it sounds like nobody over 16 plays this game, so the target audience is probably pretty gullible.)
Does anyone else find the site design rather.... pedestrian? I mean, it actually says "Home Page" at the top in big blue letters, for cryin' out loud! I'm not saying there's any intent, there, but it's conspicuous; almost like it was thrown together to look *intentionally* unprofessional, or at least uncommercial.
Did anyone else pick up on that or think anything of it or am I just hallucinating again?
Oh, yeah, great point about being able to run the GDI tool anytime - I completely forgot about the frustration around that! Last week, when I was running down that all this stuff, it occurred to me, too, that I might just want to run that thing in the future. So, after looking in the docs on MS's web site and finding nothing, I turned to Google and it turns out MS *DOES* have a version you can run whenever you want. You can get to it by starting here.
Good luck finding that page linked from the standard docs, though. I had to Google for "standalone gdi tool" or some such to find out it was even available. It's like Microsoft's own web site managers just doesn't get that whole "linking documents" thing. They create zillions of useless links and no actual information. Stupid, stupid, stupid. (obTongueInCheek: They might want to think about getting this whole 'linking' issue straightened out before trying to take on Google's search engine.
Interesting. So, are the current Gecko browsers vulnerable, too, or can we assume that this patch has been maintained through to current versions? Has anyone done any testing?
I spent about 45 minutes reading docs at MSDN/MSKB trying to find an explicit statement that IE6SP1 on Win98 is vulnerable, and I swear that they don't actually state that fact (explicitly) anywhere! I eventually was able to read between the lines and conclude that Win98 isn't vulnerable, but Win98 + IE6 is, so you should run Windows Update to DL the patch.
Am I certain? No. Like I said, it's very difficult to find answers to very simple questions in their docs sometimes. I especially hate reading their security bulletins because it's like they were written by very technical lawyers who are trying to maintain the illusion of releasing information without actually doing so. As often as is possible, I try wait a day or two for the DHS CERT to issue their bulletins because they do a slightly better job of relaying useful information.
I would further argue that there never have been unbiased news sources - just fewer sources from which to to choose, logically leading to more discrete stratification of opinion in years gone by.
What are the odds that the political landscape Google is surveying actually is more conservative than OJR thinks? If they detected a difference between the sites which use human editors and the Google aggregators which do not, what are they really measuring here - the biases of the Google algorithms or the biases of the other human editors? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Google only knows what it finds.
Just a hunch, but I bet these guys are still trying to figger out why Fox News is so dang-ole popular.
Too bad for the slashdotting - it sounds cool, but this would be gone anyway as soon as the Department of Homeland Security hears about it.
I can hear Tom Ridge now.... "NASA.... DID..... **WHAT**?!?!!!!?!?!!?!"
I think Keyes is right about this mostly. Besides if the media weren't spending all their time trying to manufacture news via polls, maybe the'yd have a few extra minutes to check some facts or locate confirming sources of information.
They (the media) are forgetting how to do the one thing that really separates them as a legitimate news source from the tabloids and bloggers, and I think the introduction of manufactured news sources like political polls are partly to blame.
This might sound like a stretch, but trust me - it's all just bullstuff out of my pet peeve file. Do with it what you will.
I can't stand it when people describe servers/networks/hardware as "rock solid". Simply hearing someone use the words sends up a little red flag in my head to watch out for two things:
1) The server/network/etc... (or others like it) have been problematic.
2) It's working now, but the tech/engineer/whatever doesn't really know what was wrong with it, but you are afraid to admit it because you don't take criticism well.
Have you ever heard anyone describe a radio as "rock solid"? No, you haven't. Why? Because that kind of hyperbole is unnecessary with radios.
It's like marketing people who refer to everything as 'product' instead of what it really is, as though abstracting the "product" of professional baseball away from being a game makes it easier to sell tickets to fans.
Personally, I don't think lawyers are the problem. Nobody has removed more humanity from my "life experience" that the marketroids. I wish them ALL into the cornfield!
HA-HA!
What comes around goes around, I guess.
About 10 or 15 years ago, some dude named John Zogby surmised that the standard political telephone polls we skewed toward the left because their methodologies involved making the calls during the day, when older Americans -- who tended to be more conservative -- were more likely to be preoccupied with activities like working, shopping and running errands. He started company to prove he was right. Here's his bio.