You don't have to feel embarassed by what anyone says or does. OTOH, if you feel you are part of a community that you feel proud about, I think you might wish the jackass who makes a fool out of himself advocating your community would just shut the f*ck up. I'm not too up on folks who build up a fan base around whiteout fluid, but its quite obvious there are communities like that for the Mac, for Linux, for emacs, for C++, for the iPod, whatever.
Delineating a community based on computer use is almost as stupid.
I agree, but it doesn't change the fact that this does happen. Which just returns us to my original point that the assinine comments directed at this guy are indeed stupid and he shouldn't be faulted for posting them for all to see.
What difference does it make whether the "hate mail" was personally delivered to him? The comments are clearly about him. And, further, they are pathetic and should be embarassing to anyone who considers themselves a member of the Mac community. It doesn't even matter that he cherry-picked the comments. The lameness of the comments amply illustrate his earlier point that some members of the Mac community are rabid, fanboi zealots who leave logic at home when making hardware/software decisions. The many, many other Mac community members who are intelligent and can actually think for themselves should be disgusted by these types.
This is an inappropriate problem for government to try to solve -- i.e. the lack of debate in some public discourses. Consider this from a non-electronic media point of view. I get my permit/permission/whatever to stand at the town square and vent my mind for an hour. To apply this law consistently, the town would be required to provide the same venue for someone wanting to make a rebuttal, if they feel they have been slandered. Now most towns will do this, but to do it so that the same audience hears both sides, they would need to publish the pending corner diatribe and solicit rebuttals. That would probably require a pre-screening of my speech, which I could then not deviate from significantly w/o tramping on someone's new-found rights. Imagine MLK giving his "I have a dream" speech and it having to be followed immediately by a tirade from the KKK about how he got it all wrong (defending the white man, for instance). I am not arguing that debate is not good, but nothing in the process guarantees that any debate will occur.
If the town square scenario isn't convincing, how about any venue in which, say, a nobel prize winner is invited to speak and that person goes on a long discourse about how humans are damaging the earth, that the fault is with the evil oil companies, big business, automobiles, Bush, whatever. To be consistent, whoever he lambasts should have a right to respond at the same venue. Ideally, that might be great, but perhaps the folks hosting the talk cannot afford (in time and money) to provide for this reply and provide the original guest with sufficient time to present his ideas.
Some comedians are really just thinly-vieled political commentators (Carlan, Gallhager, for instance). At times, very funny, at others, more sobering and thought-provoking than anything else. Should they have to provide for a rebuttal?
The bottom line is, you can't mandate debate. There is no way to ensure it will actually happen. More than likely, you are going to get two pontificating positions, with no real give and take or exchange of ideas.
Some will say this law doesn't apply to the forums I described. I say that is invalid because you should be guided by principles and there is no particular reason to control electronic or print media over in-person, vocal media.
No, they are not all like that. I have flown American Airlines a few times on international trips in business class and that is a very comfortable trip. Seats recline (not flat, but pretty far back), footrest come up, can't even touch the seat in front of me when buckled in (I'm 6', btw). Lots of arm & shoulder room. Decent food and, sometimes, a personal video player. I think international business class is better than domestic first class. I got to fly international first class once. It was certainly very comfortable, but business class is actually pretty close to it. Main difference is in first class, the seats reclined all the way flat -- made it pretty easy to sleep.
The lights and heat automatically fine-tune to your preference the moment you cross the threshold. A screen on the wall in the foyer reads your email aloud as you hang your coat. [...] "Suspicious Minds" greets you in full-home surround sound.
Then the wife comes home.
The lights and heat promptly switch to her preference, her email preempts yours and attempts to be heard above her choice for full-home surround entertainment...
As of today's date they are still coding on the JBoss porject..
There servered their consulting contracts JBoss group only..
People really should master the skil of reading sometime soon..
Indeed. And their spelling, too, while they're at it.
So, if Apple takes a poorly executed and unpopular idea and packages and markets it into a success (iTunes Music Store comes to mind), then yes, it is technically innovating since it is popularizing the product/service as if for the first time. The Beatles didn't invent Rock N' Roll, but they sure innovated.
So I gather Microsoft deserves credit for innovation in the GUI-based OS department then? And in the Internet Browser market? After all, both are really just repackaged ideas we have all seen before, but they certainly have popularized these products judging by their success/market dominance.
On the music front, there are a heck of a lot of old blues musicians that many early rock & roll stars were inspired by. Those early guys were the real innovators, although they rarely achieved mainstream recognition or anything like success.
I'm not convinced success/popularity has much to do with the concept of "innovate."
I suspect that most of those who naysay her looks would be singing a different tune if they met her In Real Life (TM) and she actually seemed attracted to them.
I expect most would be unable to stop slobbering over themselves.
So we start with a thread about the Chinese establishing a moon base by 2012 and wind up with a
political screed condemning the US as a terrorist nation being moderated up to +5, Insightful?
Moderators, the parent is off-topic. Please re-read the guidelines.
(yeah, and my little rant here is also off-topic to the thread -- how oh so meta-ironical)
Actually, in a way, increased support effort does represent an increased cost to them. Like most companies, Intuit forecasts their expected revenue, costs, & profits. The support side is certainly a cost to them and they do control that cost by deciding how many to keep on staff to deal with support issues. But, they also use metrics to measure how effective their support is vs. how effective they want it to be. If we tie up their support staff for longer than expected times, their support rate will be below their targetted levels. If their qualitative assessment of customer happiness shows they are not as happy as they want, they will change things. So, our efforts don't literally add costs today, but they do impact their decisions about future costs to bear. If they believe a certain level of support is required to maintain the PR they desire, they will increase staff if current trends indicate it is necessary. Or, they will make some other change to keep customer happiness up and costs under control like, say, dropping their DRM approach.
Is anyone else a bit dissappointed that the focus on games seems to be the rendering engine and the color depth and frame rates.
Yes, I am, to a certain degree. While I really love the improved realism these powerful rendering engines give us, I wish someone of Carmack's talent level would dedicate themselves to perfecting an equally capable AI-engine. Civilization (and its sequels), to use your example, was lots of fun but grew pretty boring once you saw how simple and predictable the AI was (or saw the degree to which it had to cheat to be competitive). Online gaming is one obvious answer but, while that is certainly a blast, it is sometimes nice to play against the machine.
Maybe you're actually a Libertarian? I see no reason to believe that Republican or Democrat politicians consistently support our basic Constitutional rights.
It takes years until documents are unclassifed, interviews can be done, military personnel retire, etc. and then a few more years for a good writer to digest it and put it into a good book.
VHS was not better than BetaMax. Sony simply did not want to share. Hence, VHS was more widely accepted because everyone could buy a VHS player, and not a very pricy BetaMax player.
Hence, VHS was better than BetaMax -- the entire point of the article. VHS brough the appropriate level of technology to solve the problem to the most people at the most acceptable price. It is a combination of qualities, technical merit being just one, that determine what product has the most utility (i.e. best bang for the buck).
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't that a typical problem among geeks...and a contributiong reason for why they don't have girlfriends?
I agree, but it doesn't change the fact that this does happen. Which just returns us to my original point that the assinine comments directed at this guy are indeed stupid and he shouldn't be faulted for posting them for all to see.
What difference does it make whether the "hate mail" was personally delivered to him? The comments are clearly about him. And, further, they are pathetic and should be embarassing to anyone who considers themselves a member of the Mac community. It doesn't even matter that he cherry-picked the comments. The lameness of the comments amply illustrate his earlier point that some members of the Mac community are rabid, fanboi zealots who leave logic at home when making hardware/software decisions. The many, many other Mac community members who are intelligent and can actually think for themselves should be disgusted by these types.
Yeah, but why be so selective? Why is this a good idea in principle? The media type should not influence this determination.
If the town square scenario isn't convincing, how about any venue in which, say, a nobel prize winner is invited to speak and that person goes on a long discourse about how humans are damaging the earth, that the fault is with the evil oil companies, big business, automobiles, Bush, whatever. To be consistent, whoever he lambasts should have a right to respond at the same venue. Ideally, that might be great, but perhaps the folks hosting the talk cannot afford (in time and money) to provide for this reply and provide the original guest with sufficient time to present his ideas.
Some comedians are really just thinly-vieled political commentators (Carlan, Gallhager, for instance). At times, very funny, at others, more sobering and thought-provoking than anything else. Should they have to provide for a rebuttal?
The bottom line is, you can't mandate debate. There is no way to ensure it will actually happen. More than likely, you are going to get two pontificating positions, with no real give and take or exchange of ideas.
Some will say this law doesn't apply to the forums I described. I say that is invalid because you should be guided by principles and there is no particular reason to control electronic or print media over in-person, vocal media.
No, they are not all like that. I have flown American Airlines a few times on international trips in business class and that is a very comfortable trip. Seats recline (not flat, but pretty far back), footrest come up, can't even touch the seat in front of me when buckled in (I'm 6', btw). Lots of arm & shoulder room. Decent food and, sometimes, a personal video player. I think international business class is better than domestic first class. I got to fly international first class once. It was certainly very comfortable, but business class is actually pretty close to it. Main difference is in first class, the seats reclined all the way flat -- made it pretty easy to sleep.
Actually, I think he meant "You're".
Of course!
Then the wife comes home.
The lights and heat promptly switch to her preference, her email preempts yours and attempts to be heard above her choice for full-home surround entertainment...
Indeed. And their spelling, too, while they're at it.
So I gather Microsoft deserves credit for innovation in the GUI-based OS department then? And in the Internet Browser market? After all, both are really just repackaged ideas we have all seen before, but they certainly have popularized these products judging by their success/market dominance.
On the music front, there are a heck of a lot of old blues musicians that many early rock & roll stars were inspired by. Those early guys were the real innovators, although they rarely achieved mainstream recognition or anything like success.
I'm not convinced success/popularity has much to do with the concept of "innovate."
I expect most would be unable to stop slobbering over themselves.
Yeah, it's missing some, uh, buttons...
Moderators, the parent is off-topic. Please re-read the guidelines.
(yeah, and my little rant here is also off-topic to the thread -- how oh so meta-ironical)
Actually, in a way, increased support effort does represent an increased cost to them. Like most companies, Intuit forecasts their expected revenue, costs, & profits. The support side is certainly a cost to them and they do control that cost by deciding how many to keep on staff to deal with support issues. But, they also use metrics to measure how effective their support is vs. how effective they want it to be. If we tie up their support staff for longer than expected times, their support rate will be below their targetted levels. If their qualitative assessment of customer happiness shows they are not as happy as they want, they will change things. So, our efforts don't literally add costs today, but they do impact their decisions about future costs to bear. If they believe a certain level of support is required to maintain the PR they desire, they will increase staff if current trends indicate it is necessary. Or, they will make some other change to keep customer happiness up and costs under control like, say, dropping their DRM approach.
Yes, I am, to a certain degree. While I really love the improved realism these powerful rendering engines give us, I wish someone of Carmack's talent level would dedicate themselves to perfecting an equally capable AI-engine. Civilization (and its sequels), to use your example, was lots of fun but grew pretty boring once you saw how simple and predictable the AI was (or saw the degree to which it had to cheat to be competitive). Online gaming is one obvious answer but, while that is certainly a blast, it is sometimes nice to play against the machine.
Maybe you're actually a Libertarian? I see no reason to believe that Republican or Democrat politicians consistently support our basic Constitutional rights.
Shokanaw. Isn't that somewhere in Michigan?
I'm looking forward to the movie!
True, but his point was rhetorical. Whether diamonds are scarce or not, I think we know what he meant...
Anyone know? If not now, possibly with Quicken 2004? This is the first time I've ever considered using MS Money. Damn.
But if software is free, then nobody owns it, right?
Hence, VHS was better than BetaMax -- the entire point of the article. VHS brough the appropriate level of technology to solve the problem to the most people at the most acceptable price. It is a combination of qualities, technical merit being just one, that determine what product has the most utility (i.e. best bang for the buck).