"The past few months have been an amazing time for the SQL Server
team as we gear up for the start of the global launch wave on February 27....
... "To continue in this spirit of open communication, we want to
provide clarification on the roadmap for SQL Server 2008. Over the coming
months, customers and partners can look forward to significant product
milestones for SQL Server. Microsoft is excited to deliver a feature complete
CTP during the Heroes Happen Here launch wave and a release candidate (RC) in
Q2 calendar year 2008, with final Release to manufacturing (RTM) of SQL Server
2008 expected in Q3. Our goal is to deliver the highest quality product
possible and we simply want to use the time to meet the high bar that you, our
customers, expect.
"This does not in any way change our plans for the February 27
launch and we look forward to seeing many of you in Los Angeles and other
events around the world."
Do I understand correctly? There is a "global launch wave" of the new
SQL server version in Los Angeles on February 27, and people are traveling there
for that event. But Microsoft won't actually deliver the new SQL server until 7 months later, or maybe after that? What is a feature-complete "CTP"? There is a childish ceremony celebrating the fact that programmers at Microsoft actually delivered something, called "Heroes Happen Here"?
However, that's a Microsoft Marketing person being sneaky and dishonest and living in a world of Microsoft Marketing fantasy. "To continue in this spirit of open communication..." Hah!
That's not what I was talking about in my grandparent post. I was talking about something even more scary than that: Microsoft Marketing Zombies say things that are completely irrelevant, and no one listens to them anyway. They are the undead. But everyone pretends that they are actually alive.
Microsoft is at least not killing Iraqis and pretending that killing Iraqis will make them less violent.
I've met Microsoft Marketing employees, that's what I was talking about. I was just trying to describe what I saw. My sense of horror was stronger than I am able to put into words, however.
Suppose you had a job, but what you did in your job didn't actually benefit your company. And your company was adversarial toward its customers, as much as possible, so that, even if you did benefit your company, you would being doing harm in the world. How would you describe that?
If Microsoft Marketing was running an airline, it would be 100% safe! Zero
crashes. Because no Microsoft aircraft would work well enough even to taxi on
the runway.
Have you ever talked with Microsoft marketing people? Every day they
have to go to work and pretend that they are doing something positive for a
company that pretends to sell quality products. They pile fantasies on
fantasies. They live in a world of unreality.
Microsoft marketing people are far scarier than zombies. Zombies
have more respect from the universe; they were at one time at least allowed to
die.
Like zombies, MS marketing people also have no will of their own; they
are automotons of corporate speak, which is a language that no one
understands, including themselves. But they wander the earth undead, believing
that they are human, believing that they have jobs.
Okay, some of this may not be completely true. However, I'm not sure
what or how much.
I can understand why people want to see fiction they like. Everyone knows it's
fiction, and sometimes fiction can explore issues in a way that would be
difficult for a documentary.
However, I got tired of seeing fiction that tried to make me believe
things that could not be true due to the laws of physics, or due to other
aspects of reality. So, now I only watch or read non-fiction. Defending myself
from the deceptions and errors of fiction takes brain processing time, and I'd
rather use my brainpower to work on something else besides the ideas of a
writer who had little interest in reality when he was in school.
It bothers me that comedians can't operate without writers, that they
present their jokes as their own, but the jokes are actually written by
someone else.
Far worse, however, is the media writing that George W. Bush said
something when he was obviously only reading something someone else wrote. In
class you get disciplined if you present someone else's work as your own. If
you are president of the United States, that is considered acceptable.
"It [Microsoft] is not IBM, that reinvented itself."
I think IBM is a special case. Companies with offices in more than one
location need technical support, and few support agencies besides IBM have
offices in every populated area, including in other countries. In general, it
is very unattractive for companies to try to contract for support with more
than one support agency.
The people who contract with IBM are often not technically
knowledgeable enough to fully understand if they get bad service. So, it is
not that IBM does well, IBM just provides a recognized name for a service that
companies must have. As has often been said, "No one gets fired for
recommending IBM"; executives can avoid responsibility if they choose IBM and
that is later understood to be a bad choice.
Use Heise Security Offline-Update to patch any installation of Windows XP
with the latest service packs and security updates.
Why? Heise Offline-Update handles everything. It comes
from a reputable company that makes money selling other security services;
they have a strong incentive to do it right. To make the CD or DVD, it
downloads all the patches from Microsoft's servers, and makes an.ISO file
which you burn to a CD or DVD. To use Heise Offline-Update, you insert the
CD or DVD, start the program, and let it run.
Shortcomings of Heise Offline-Update? 1) It does only security
updates. 2) The web site is mostly in German, although there is an older
English explanation.
Why not the others? 1) Autopatcher and others were much more
amateurish. Autopatcher is now back with a scheme like Heise Offline-Update,
but that is after months of experimentation. The volunteers at Autopatcher
don't seem to have the resources necessary. See the Autopatcher
downloads page which says "This page will be back very soon:)" (2008-02-12). Before, Autopatcher provided patches directly from their servers; Microsoft stopped that, due to security risks, it said. But Microsoft did not provide its own solution.
Problems with Slashdot: 1) Bad stories create bad discussions. Slashdot editors apparently don't know much about Microsoft Windows. Almost all Slashdot readers have to deal with Windows, even if only to help family and neighbors. Sloppy stories that have not been researched waste reader's time. 2) Lots of readers comment when they don't have much to say.
That said, Slashdot is by far the best web site I know for computer-oriented news.
Problems with Microsoft: What Microsoft offers is not complete, so volunteers try to help. In my opinion, Microsoft is often extremely adversarial toward its customers.
It has been more than 3 years since Microsoft issued a Service Pack for Windows XP; that has wasted the time of hundreds of thousands because Windows XP is so unstable and buggy and malware-prone that it often needs re-loading. Often malware replaces a system file, and the only way to recover is to re-load the operating system. Re-loading Windows XP preserves all the programs and settings; however, the latest Windows XP CD from Microsoft has only Windows XP Service Pack 2; there have been hundreds of megabytes of updates since then, making updating over a dial-up connection extremely slow.
Microsoft does have a system for updating, but the system requires the very expensive Windows Server 2003, which requires a network and at least one other computer. Obviously requiring all that creates problems in helping someone with his or her home computer, or with a cash register computer in a small store, for example.
More problems with Microsoft -- Windows Update often fails. Amazingly, Microsoft is unable to deliver an updating system that works reliably. I just worked on a friend's computer, for example, and running Windows Update gives a long numerical error message with no help for fixing the error.
There have been many, many different kinds of problems with Windows
Update. See, for example, Microsoft's Windows Update Discussion Group.
I guess that millions of hours are lost every year because of Microsoft's sloppy programming. Bill Gates deserves his title, Chief of Grief, although soon the chair-throwing, bad-mouthing Steve Ballmer will be the Chief, apparently. (The
From the blog published by Sfgate: "In all, Nina Reiser was about $30,000
in debt, he said."
More testimony:
"She seemed honest, right?" Du Bois asked.
"She definitely seemed honest, yes," Erwin said.
"You had the impression she was an honest person?" Du Bois asked.
"Yes," Erwin said.
"She exuded honesty?" Du Bois pressed as a juror in the front row appeared
to have a bemused smile.
"Yes," Erwin said.
And this seems interesting, from the Wired blog:
"The Reiser couple's young son, now 8 years old, had told local
child protective services officials and testified before a different judge
during a 2006 preliminary hearing that he did see his mother drive away after
his mother left him and his little sister for the Labor Day weekend. Before
the jury, he did not testify he saw his mother leave the house."
This too:
"But on Wednesday, the scientist testified on cross examination
that errors she made meant it was unclear whether there was two sources of
blood -- meaning it could be the wife's or the husband's -- or blood from both
of them. She testified she was not '100 percent certain' whose blood was on
the pillar.
"It's an important distinction. There are two pieces of forensic
evidence linking the husband to allegedly killing his wife. The other forensic
evidence is a sleeping bag cover found in the defendant's car stained with the
woman's blood. The rest of the evidence is circumstantial, including the
husband's front passenger seat vanishing."
"We spent the next 8 hours going over things and trying to get these ditsy
two to actually think."
Most people are not consistently able to be logical. Even judges often
give me the impression that they are lucky not to be programmers. They are
sometimes so unable to be logical that they would not be able to debug their
programs.
States often hold cases in local city neighborhoods so that it can be
comfortable for people to observe. For example, I watched a state supreme
court case in an auditorium at a local junior college in which a man was being
tried for doing something that was illegal when he did it, became legal later
so that he was allowed to go without punishment, and later was made illegal
again. The prosecutor was like an attack dog; he gave the impression he wanted
to convict anyone for anything.
The state supreme court judges seemed sleepy; they seemed willing to
put in an amount of energy that was comfortable for them, not the amount of
energy necessary to make the right thing happen.
To serve in government, there should be comprehensive tests of
ability to be logical. Maybe no one should be allowed to be a lawyer except if
he or she wrote a complicated program and debugged it.
We live in a culture that is absolutely dependent on careful logic.
However, people who are logical aren't respected. Our culture is also
absolutely dependent on understanding of technology, but people who understand
technology are called disrespectful terms: "geeks" and "nerds".
The amount of money available to corrupt the local governments and the
federal government in the United States is huge. Millions are available to
elect those who are intellectually lazy or easily influenced to be corrupt,
judges included. In my state, some judges are elected; the money to create
recognition of their names apparently comes from those who want corruption.
Read your state laws. They were written by people who were elected for
their popularity, not for their ability to be logical, leaving numerous
opportunities for corruption. Laws often (usually?) have numerous logical
shortcomings, such as edge cases which often happen but are not considered by
the law. A programmer who didn't handle exceptions would be fired; people like
George W. Bush, who has apparently never shown any willingness or ability to
be carefully analytical, are re-elected.
Another part of the problem is that lawyers make far more money if the
law is confusing and illogical.
It was much worse than that. Netware was so quirky that Novell was
charging thousands of dollars to get certified to work with it. The real
customers were computer consultants, not technically knowledgeable end users,
and Novell apparently wanted the income and often raised the cost of
certification.
Once it was installed, Novell Netware worked well and reliably.
(Unlike Microsoft Windows, for example, which seems to be deliberately
sloppily coded so that customers will want to "upgrade".)
Eric Schmidt became CEO of Novell in 1997. The Wikipedia article says, "by 1999
Novell had lost its dominant market position".
Another quote: "Microsoft's GUI was also more popular and more
modern-seeming than the character-based Novell interfaces." Unbelievably,
Novell didn't update its interface after the world began using GUIs.
I have seen no evidence whatsoever that Eric Schmidt is a particularly
good executive. Certainly while he was CEO of Novell I saw no evidence of any
improvement in Novell's backward business practices. However, there are many
people far more knowledgeable about Novell at that time than I.
Interesting quote: "Schmidt is one of the few people who have
become billionaires (USD) based on stock options received as an employee in a
corporation of which neither he nor a relative was the founder."
"Both companies [Sun and Novell] pretty much lost out whenever they took on Microsoft".
I thought you were going to say, "... when they took on Eric Schmidt". Novell was at the top of the network software market. Through a lot of foolish moves, like buying Word Perfect for $1.1 billion, if I remember correctly, in 1994, Novell became "Who is Novell?"
I don't have any idea how much Eric Schmidt was responsible for the downfall of Novell. He became CEO of Novell in 1997. By 1999, "Novell had lost its dominant market position".
At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across
the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: "Fucking Eric
Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it
before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google."....
Thereafter, Mr. Ballmer resumed trying to persuade me to stay... Among
other things, Mr. Ballmer told me that "Google's not a real company. It's a
house of cards."
Quoted from legal papers in a court case brought by Microsoft.
It's possible to learn a lot by examining the world around you. For example, what am I bid for this half-eaten, moldy burrito? I am accepting no offers below $40.
Microsoft has proven, over many years, that it does not know how to run a search engine. Buying Yahoo will not magically make Microsoft smarter, especially since Yahoo has proven, over many years, that...
A: If you are male, and go to Brazil (and Thailand), you will begin to realize
that all your life in the U.S. you have been treated badly by women.
It's reasonably easy, for me anyway, to find women in the U.S. who are
personally very interesting and are responsible. They are often valuable
employees, for example. It is difficult to find a woman in the U.S. who I
would consider marriageable. My women friends say the men in the U.S. are just
as bad, and I have every reason to believe they are right, but haven't done as
much personal investigation of men, of course.
In Brazil, you will find many women who should marry someone, even if
they are not right to marry you.
But, take your time. It takes a lot of effort to build a
marriage-quality relationship.
Women from the Thai culture in Thailand (not from the Chinese culture)
are often also quite gentle with men. Although I have met Thai women I thought
were marriageable in both Thailand and the U.S., in general they are too
childish. Also, there are huge cultural differences.
Marrying someone from another culture, even the Brazilian culture,
requires extra effort and insight and willingness to define and learn the best
elements of your own culture and the other person's.
If all of this is outside your experience, you may be helped by
remembering the song "One Night in Bangkok". The song is about a true story.
One year the World Chess Championships were held in Bangkok. Some of the chess
players went out at night. The women were so nice to them that some of them
fell in love immediately. I have known European and American men in Thailand
who did that.
I saw the aftermath of instant love in Bangkok happen with my own
eyes, standing on the corner on Patpong road about 20 years ago. A western
woman was trying to get control again over the man she came with, after he had
seen how nice the Thai women could be, even though the women he had seen were
prostitutes, and therefore tended to be far less interesting than more moral
women.
Those who don't like what I've said here can express their own
theories about why there is a social breakdown in the United States. (Dollar
falling in value, highest percentage of population in prison, and so on and
on.)
Title of the article: "Male brains wired for video game obsession"
That is VERY offensive. Men in the U.S. are the targets of an extreme
amount of hostility. I'm guessing that the person who wrote that headline knew
that being hostile toward men is in fashion, and wrote it to get attention for
the advertisements.
Quote: "These gender differences in the brain may help explain why
males are more attracted to, and more likely to become hooked on video games
than females," he said.
Fraud: He has not shown any gender differences in the brain. He
has shown that, at the time, those particular subjects were using their brains
differently.
The article does imply something useful about brains, however. The
fact that Slashdot editors wanted us to see it may be an indication that the
editors are not in touch with reality. Maybe that's because the editors spent
so much time playing games rather than trying to relate to reality.
If you want to experience a society where men aren't hated, go to
Brazil. However, don't fall in love with the first woman you meet, like many
of my acquaintances.
Yes, I could write a better statement. However, that would not reflect the truth of the social disfunction at Microsoft as well as the Microsoft statement.
They sell so many copies because they have a virtual monopoly. They have arranged, by possibly illegal means, that every hardware seller must include a copy of their operating system. Microsoft was already convicted of that once.
Quote: "We don't know why cancer cells decide to move away
from their primary site to other parts in the body."
Someone thinking carefully expresses thoughts carefully. A
careful-thinking person would never say "decide to", because that
communicates the idea that the cancer cells are thinking.
So, maybe you are right. Maybe it's just fraud masquerading as science, sneaky marketing, not a breakthrough. Maybe they are just trying to sell their own brand of transparent fish.
"They have to save face and spout brain-dead corporate marketing nonsense."
I'm sure glad that not MY job, spouting brain-dead corporate marketing nonsense.
Do you think horror movies are scary? I never have. If a filmmaker wanted to make a really scary movie, he or she would make a movie about corporate robots whose entire lives involve turning some crank, pretending that what they do is important, most of them not even realizing they have reduced themselves to sub-human drones.
Quote from the article:... a Microsoft spokesperson in the US told Computerworld: "We're aware of it, but are listening first and foremost to feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs. That's what informed our decision to extend the availability of XP initially, and what will continue to guide us."
So much of what comes from Microsoft seems depersonalized, as though employees just go through the motions, realizing that nothing they do will change the basic nature of the fundamental failures in the company.
Slashdot Mirror
The people may give you free help with your nVidia laptop video drivers: LaptopVideo2Go
Worked for me. I found a driver for an old Toshiba laptop that runs my 24 inch monitor at 90 degree (vertical) rotation.
That's funny.
...
He is making jokes about this Microsoft web page: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Roadmap Clarification. That web page is the finest, the very finest baloney artistry:
"The past few months have been an amazing time for the SQL Server team as we gear up for the start of the global launch wave on February 27.
... "To continue in this spirit of open communication, we want to provide clarification on the roadmap for SQL Server 2008. Over the coming months, customers and partners can look forward to significant product milestones for SQL Server. Microsoft is excited to deliver a feature complete CTP during the Heroes Happen Here launch wave and a release candidate (RC) in Q2 calendar year 2008, with final Release to manufacturing (RTM) of SQL Server 2008 expected in Q3. Our goal is to deliver the highest quality product possible and we simply want to use the time to meet the high bar that you, our customers, expect.
"This does not in any way change our plans for the February 27 launch and we look forward to seeing many of you in Los Angeles and other events around the world."
Do I understand correctly? There is a "global launch wave" of the new SQL server version in Los Angeles on February 27, and people are traveling there for that event. But Microsoft won't actually deliver the new SQL server until 7 months later, or maybe after that? What is a feature-complete "CTP"? There is a childish ceremony celebrating the fact that programmers at Microsoft actually delivered something, called "Heroes Happen Here"?
However, that's a Microsoft Marketing person being sneaky and dishonest and living in a world of Microsoft Marketing fantasy. "To continue in this spirit of open communication..." Hah!
That's not what I was talking about in my grandparent post. I was talking about something even more scary than that: Microsoft Marketing Zombies say things that are completely irrelevant, and no one listens to them anyway. They are the undead. But everyone pretends that they are actually alive.
Microsoft is at least not killing Iraqis and pretending that killing Iraqis will make them less violent.
I've met Microsoft Marketing employees, that's what I was talking about. I was just trying to describe what I saw. My sense of horror was stronger than I am able to put into words, however.
Suppose you had a job, but what you did in your job didn't actually benefit your company. And your company was adversarial toward its customers, as much as possible, so that, even if you did benefit your company, you would being doing harm in the world. How would you describe that?
If Microsoft Marketing was running an airline, it would be 100% safe! Zero crashes. Because no Microsoft aircraft would work well enough even to taxi on the runway.
Have you ever talked with Microsoft marketing people? Every day they have to go to work and pretend that they are doing something positive for a company that pretends to sell quality products. They pile fantasies on fantasies. They live in a world of unreality.
Microsoft marketing people are far scarier than zombies. Zombies have more respect from the universe; they were at one time at least allowed to die.
Like zombies, MS marketing people also have no will of their own; they are automotons of corporate speak, which is a language that no one understands, including themselves. But they wander the earth undead, believing that they are human, believing that they have jobs.
Okay, some of this may not be completely true. However, I'm not sure what or how much.
"... make it easy for citizens to submit comments or complaints online."
Those comments are always ignored, apparently.
Wow, you are right: ABC News: No Joke, Leno Can't Write Own Punchlines [Story HTML Title]
How can they keep a career comedian from joking?
Suppose he said something and people laughed. Could he claim that he didn't mean it as a joke?
Also, it should be said that, with few exceptions, Jay Leno has not been funny for at least a decade. I'm not the only one who thinks that: "Leno's long-standing dominance of the ratings must rank as one of the world's inexplicable cultural tragedies."
Maybe people want to see comedy on TV so badly that they are willing to pretend what the comedians say is funny.
I can understand why people want to see fiction they like. Everyone knows it's fiction, and sometimes fiction can explore issues in a way that would be difficult for a documentary.
However, I got tired of seeing fiction that tried to make me believe things that could not be true due to the laws of physics, or due to other aspects of reality. So, now I only watch or read non-fiction. Defending myself from the deceptions and errors of fiction takes brain processing time, and I'd rather use my brainpower to work on something else besides the ideas of a writer who had little interest in reality when he was in school.
It bothers me that comedians can't operate without writers, that they present their jokes as their own, but the jokes are actually written by someone else.
Far worse, however, is the media writing that George W. Bush said something when he was obviously only reading something someone else wrote. In class you get disciplined if you present someone else's work as your own. If you are president of the United States, that is considered acceptable.
"It [Microsoft] is not IBM, that reinvented itself."
I think IBM is a special case. Companies with offices in more than one location need technical support, and few support agencies besides IBM have offices in every populated area, including in other countries. In general, it is very unattractive for companies to try to contract for support with more than one support agency.
The people who contract with IBM are often not technically knowledgeable enough to fully understand if they get bad service. So, it is not that IBM does well, IBM just provides a recognized name for a service that companies must have. As has often been said, "No one gets fired for recommending IBM"; executives can avoid responsibility if they choose IBM and that is later understood to be a bad choice.
Use Heise Security Offline-Update to patch any installation of Windows XP with the latest service packs and security updates.
.ISO file
which you burn to a CD or DVD. To use Heise Offline-Update, you insert the
CD or DVD, start the program, and let it run.
:)" (2008-02-12). Before, Autopatcher provided patches directly from their servers; Microsoft stopped that, due to security risks, it said. But Microsoft did not provide its own solution.
Why? Heise Offline-Update handles everything. It comes from a reputable company that makes money selling other security services; they have a strong incentive to do it right. To make the CD or DVD, it downloads all the patches from Microsoft's servers, and makes an
Shortcomings of Heise Offline-Update? 1) It does only security updates. 2) The web site is mostly in German, although there is an older English explanation.
Why not the others? 1) Autopatcher and others were much more amateurish. Autopatcher is now back with a scheme like Heise Offline-Update, but that is after months of experimentation. The volunteers at Autopatcher don't seem to have the resources necessary. See the Autopatcher downloads page which says "This page will be back very soon
Problems with Slashdot: 1) Bad stories create bad discussions. Slashdot editors apparently don't know much about Microsoft Windows. Almost all Slashdot readers have to deal with Windows, even if only to help family and neighbors. Sloppy stories that have not been researched waste reader's time. 2) Lots of readers comment when they don't have much to say.
That said, Slashdot is by far the best web site I know for computer-oriented news.
Problems with Microsoft: What Microsoft offers is not complete, so volunteers try to help. In my opinion, Microsoft is often extremely adversarial toward its customers.
It has been more than 3 years since Microsoft issued a Service Pack for Windows XP; that has wasted the time of hundreds of thousands because Windows XP is so unstable and buggy and malware-prone that it often needs re-loading. Often malware replaces a system file, and the only way to recover is to re-load the operating system. Re-loading Windows XP preserves all the programs and settings; however, the latest Windows XP CD from Microsoft has only Windows XP Service Pack 2; there have been hundreds of megabytes of updates since then, making updating over a dial-up connection extremely slow.
Microsoft does have a system for updating, but the system requires the very expensive Windows Server 2003, which requires a network and at least one other computer. Obviously requiring all that creates problems in helping someone with his or her home computer, or with a cash register computer in a small store, for example.
More problems with Microsoft -- Windows Update often fails. Amazingly, Microsoft is unable to deliver an updating system that works reliably. I just worked on a friend's computer, for example, and running Windows Update gives a long numerical error message with no help for fixing the error.
There have been many, many different kinds of problems with Windows Update. See, for example, Microsoft's Windows Update Discussion Group.
I guess that millions of hours are lost every year because of Microsoft's sloppy programming. Bill Gates deserves his title, Chief of Grief, although soon the chair-throwing, bad-mouthing Steve Ballmer will be the Chief, apparently. (The
From the blog published by Sfgate: "In all, Nina Reiser was about $30,000 in debt, he said."
More testimony:
"She seemed honest, right?" Du Bois asked.
"She definitely seemed honest, yes," Erwin said.
"You had the impression she was an honest person?" Du Bois asked.
"Yes," Erwin said.
"She exuded honesty?" Du Bois pressed as a juror in the front row appeared to have a bemused smile.
"Yes," Erwin said.
And this seems interesting, from the Wired blog:
"The Reiser couple's young son, now 8 years old, had told local child protective services officials and testified before a different judge during a 2006 preliminary hearing that he did see his mother drive away after his mother left him and his little sister for the Labor Day weekend. Before the jury, he did not testify he saw his mother leave the house."
This too:
"But on Wednesday, the scientist testified on cross examination that errors she made meant it was unclear whether there was two sources of blood -- meaning it could be the wife's or the husband's -- or blood from both of them. She testified she was not '100 percent certain' whose blood was on the pillar.
"It's an important distinction. There are two pieces of forensic evidence linking the husband to allegedly killing his wife. The other forensic evidence is a sleeping bag cover found in the defendant's car stained with the woman's blood. The rest of the evidence is circumstantial, including the husband's front passenger seat vanishing."
"Hans Reiser killed his wife..." See this comment from on old Slashdot story: "My personal opinion is that she is not in Russia."
"We spent the next 8 hours going over things and trying to get these ditsy two to actually think."
Most people are not consistently able to be logical. Even judges often give me the impression that they are lucky not to be programmers. They are sometimes so unable to be logical that they would not be able to debug their programs.
States often hold cases in local city neighborhoods so that it can be comfortable for people to observe. For example, I watched a state supreme court case in an auditorium at a local junior college in which a man was being tried for doing something that was illegal when he did it, became legal later so that he was allowed to go without punishment, and later was made illegal again. The prosecutor was like an attack dog; he gave the impression he wanted to convict anyone for anything.
The state supreme court judges seemed sleepy; they seemed willing to put in an amount of energy that was comfortable for them, not the amount of energy necessary to make the right thing happen.
To serve in government, there should be comprehensive tests of ability to be logical. Maybe no one should be allowed to be a lawyer except if he or she wrote a complicated program and debugged it.
We live in a culture that is absolutely dependent on careful logic. However, people who are logical aren't respected. Our culture is also absolutely dependent on understanding of technology, but people who understand technology are called disrespectful terms: "geeks" and "nerds".
The amount of money available to corrupt the local governments and the federal government in the United States is huge. Millions are available to elect those who are intellectually lazy or easily influenced to be corrupt, judges included. In my state, some judges are elected; the money to create recognition of their names apparently comes from those who want corruption.
Read your state laws. They were written by people who were elected for their popularity, not for their ability to be logical, leaving numerous opportunities for corruption. Laws often (usually?) have numerous logical shortcomings, such as edge cases which often happen but are not considered by the law. A programmer who didn't handle exceptions would be fired; people like George W. Bush, who has apparently never shown any willingness or ability to be carefully analytical, are re-elected.
Another part of the problem is that lawyers make far more money if the law is confusing and illogical.
Novell Netware wasn't, quote, "very intuitive".
It was much worse than that. Netware was so quirky that Novell was charging thousands of dollars to get certified to work with it. The real customers were computer consultants, not technically knowledgeable end users, and Novell apparently wanted the income and often raised the cost of certification.
Once it was installed, Novell Netware worked well and reliably. (Unlike Microsoft Windows, for example, which seems to be deliberately sloppily coded so that customers will want to "upgrade".)
Eric Schmidt became CEO of Novell in 1997. The Wikipedia article says, "by 1999 Novell had lost its dominant market position".
Another quote: "Microsoft's GUI was also more popular and more modern-seeming than the character-based Novell interfaces." Unbelievably, Novell didn't update its interface after the world began using GUIs.
I have seen no evidence whatsoever that Eric Schmidt is a particularly good executive. Certainly while he was CEO of Novell I saw no evidence of any improvement in Novell's backward business practices. However, there are many people far more knowledgeable about Novell at that time than I.
Interesting quote: "Schmidt is one of the few people who have become billionaires (USD) based on stock options received as an employee in a corporation of which neither he nor a relative was the founder."
"The cost to civilisation is incalculable, ..."
I notice that people don't deal with abuse very well. They minimize and ignore and excuse abuse.
"Both companies [Sun and Novell] pretty much lost out whenever they took on Microsoft".
I thought you were going to say, "... when they took on Eric Schmidt". Novell was at the top of the network software market. Through a lot of foolish moves, like buying Word Perfect for $1.1 billion, if I remember correctly, in 1994, Novell became "Who is Novell?"
I don't have any idea how much Eric Schmidt was responsible for the downfall of Novell. He became CEO of Novell in 1997. By 1999, "Novell had lost its dominant market position".
There may be some Slashdot readers who don't know the story about the chair: Ballmer Throws A Chair At "F*ing Google".
....
Quotes:
At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: "Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google."
Thereafter, Mr. Ballmer resumed trying to persuade me to stay... Among other things, Mr. Ballmer told me that "Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards."
Quoted from legal papers in a court case brought by Microsoft.
"The offer was $31 in cash OR 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock."
Yes but, as I understand it, Microsoft's offer of real money was only up to half of the total.
It's possible to learn a lot by examining the world around you. For example, what am I bid for this half-eaten, moldy burrito? I am accepting no offers below $40.
Microsoft has proven, over many years, that it does not know how to run a search engine. Buying Yahoo will not magically make Microsoft smarter, especially since Yahoo has proven, over many years, that...
A: If you are male, and go to Brazil (and Thailand), you will begin to realize that all your life in the U.S. you have been treated badly by women.
It's reasonably easy, for me anyway, to find women in the U.S. who are personally very interesting and are responsible. They are often valuable employees, for example. It is difficult to find a woman in the U.S. who I would consider marriageable. My women friends say the men in the U.S. are just as bad, and I have every reason to believe they are right, but haven't done as much personal investigation of men, of course.
In Brazil, you will find many women who should marry someone, even if they are not right to marry you.
But, take your time. It takes a lot of effort to build a marriage-quality relationship.
Women from the Thai culture in Thailand (not from the Chinese culture) are often also quite gentle with men. Although I have met Thai women I thought were marriageable in both Thailand and the U.S., in general they are too childish. Also, there are huge cultural differences.
Marrying someone from another culture, even the Brazilian culture, requires extra effort and insight and willingness to define and learn the best elements of your own culture and the other person's.
If all of this is outside your experience, you may be helped by remembering the song "One Night in Bangkok". The song is about a true story. One year the World Chess Championships were held in Bangkok. Some of the chess players went out at night. The women were so nice to them that some of them fell in love immediately. I have known European and American men in Thailand who did that.
I saw the aftermath of instant love in Bangkok happen with my own eyes, standing on the corner on Patpong road about 20 years ago. A western woman was trying to get control again over the man she came with, after he had seen how nice the Thai women could be, even though the women he had seen were prostitutes, and therefore tended to be far less interesting than more moral women.
Those who don't like what I've said here can express their own theories about why there is a social breakdown in the United States. (Dollar falling in value, highest percentage of population in prison, and so on and on.)
Title of the article: "Male brains wired for video game obsession"
That is VERY offensive. Men in the U.S. are the targets of an extreme amount of hostility. I'm guessing that the person who wrote that headline knew that being hostile toward men is in fashion, and wrote it to get attention for the advertisements.
Quote: "These gender differences in the brain may help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become hooked on video games than females," he said.
Fraud: He has not shown any gender differences in the brain. He has shown that, at the time, those particular subjects were using their brains differently.
The article does imply something useful about brains, however. The fact that Slashdot editors wanted us to see it may be an indication that the editors are not in touch with reality. Maybe that's because the editors spent so much time playing games rather than trying to relate to reality.
If you want to experience a society where men aren't hated, go to Brazil. However, don't fall in love with the first woman you meet, like many of my acquaintances.
Yes, I could write a better statement. However, that would not reflect the truth of the social disfunction at Microsoft as well as the Microsoft statement.
They sell so many copies because they have a virtual monopoly. They have arranged, by possibly illegal means, that every hardware seller must include a copy of their operating system. Microsoft was already convicted of that once.
Quote: "We don't know why cancer cells decide to move away from their primary site to other parts in the body."
Someone thinking carefully expresses thoughts carefully. A careful-thinking person would never say "decide to", because that communicates the idea that the cancer cells are thinking.
So, maybe you are right. Maybe it's just fraud masquerading as science, sneaky marketing, not a breakthrough. Maybe they are just trying to sell their own brand of transparent fish.
Many Microsoft employees seem to function as an incubator of innovations for contributions to the value chain.
"They have to save face and spout brain-dead corporate marketing nonsense."
I'm sure glad that not MY job, spouting brain-dead corporate marketing nonsense.
Do you think horror movies are scary? I never have. If a filmmaker wanted to make a really scary movie, he or she would make a movie about corporate robots whose entire lives involve turning some crank, pretending that what they do is important, most of them not even realizing they have reduced themselves to sub-human drones.
Quote from the article: ... a Microsoft spokesperson in the US told Computerworld: "We're aware of it, but are listening first and foremost to feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs. That's what informed our decision to extend the availability of XP initially, and what will continue to guide us."
So much of what comes from Microsoft seems depersonalized, as though employees just go through the motions, realizing that nothing they do will change the basic nature of the fundamental failures in the company.
Incompetence hangs in the air like the cold stench of death.