ITER is a project to build a bigger Tokamak nuclear fusion reactor.
Note that the 30 Tokamaks already in existence have never come close to
producing more energy than they consume. Also, if you have followed the
development of ITER, you may have noted a curious phenomenon. The ITER project
was sold on the basis of a much earlier delivery and much lower cost than
predicted today. Now the number of years of work till the first full test is
estimated to be the entire length of the scientist's careers. That's very
convenient for the scientists, and very inconvenient for the taxpayers who pay
every franc and mark.
"The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is
riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections."
and:
"Many of the magnets... have... lost their ability to operate at
high energies."
To me, both projects give the impression of mismanagement. For
example, "Electrical connections" are not at the forefront of technology. I'd
be interested in starting an independent review agency. No matter who does it,
there must be independent management reviews.
* Obviously you must take your hard drive out of your pocket when you go through security.
* Also, it is necessary to boot from a CD. I'd like to see more information about that. Is it possible to get normal Windows started when booting from a CD?
'And yeah I've heard the whole "just keep one copy around in case" argument and it does not hold water in a business. People have a lot of work to do and anything that slows them down, even if it is only by a few minutes, is unacceptable.'
That's our experience, also. The cost of changing is so high that companies will pay more or use inferior software.
A lot of the problem is not only with employee training, it is that training resources and employee time for training are inelastic. There is simply no arrangement that can be made that allows switching, other than hiring new employees.
However, if governments force standard file specifications the problem can be made to disappear.
Agreed. The system makes no sense. There are people for whom an old car is not
especially polluting, because they only drive it an average of 5 miles per
week. Possibly it is a second vehicle that they keep at a country house.
Perhaps they are usually outside the United States.
Giving away taxpayer money causes inflation. The inflation is not only
in the dollar generally, but also in the price of new cars. Those who focus on
the free taxpayer money they are getting may not realize that the dealer has
raised prices.
To me, the "Cash for Clunkers" program seems like government
corruption. General Motors failed because of consistent bad management, in which most of its cars were
rated poorly by Consumer Reports.
Now taxpayer money is being used to support bad management, and the
taxpayer money goes to support people who have enough money that buying a new
car is a goal, instead of finding a job, or getting through university.
The U.S. government has no money. In the entire history of the world,
it is the entity most deeply in debt.
I've discovered that U.S. citizens do not want to believe that their
government is corrupt. When they are presented with evidence of corruption,
most avoid awareness.
* If your laptop will be in the possession of someone else for a while, such as in airline baggage, take out the hard drive, wrap it with thin anti-static foam, and put it in your pocket.
Slashdot editors don't like their work, apparently.
These are better articles:
Mosquitoes against malaria?. Quote: 'In what AP describe as a "daring experiment" with "astounding" results, researchers found that ten people subjected to mosquito bites three times over three months whilst taking the drug chloroquine gained apparent immunity against malarial mosquito bites a month later.'
Effective Vaccine For Malaria Possible, Study Shows. Quote: "This unique method of immunization allowed the human immune system to direct its response to eliminating the P. falciparum parasite at the earlier, liver stage of its life cycle. (Chloroquine kills the parasite at the later blood stage.)"
That abstract says NOTHING about the effect of traces of poisons in
conventional food. It is ONLY concerned with nutritional differences:
"Objective: We sought to quantitatively assess the differences in reported
nutrient content between organically and conventionally produced
foodstuffs."
Also, the abstract says, "The analyses were restricted to the most
commonly reported nutrients."
The UK government article to which the Slashdot summary links says at the end, "Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority."
There is no claim that organic foods are more nutritious. Organic foods are intended to be free of poisons like insecticides.
The idea is not that eating foods with traces of insecticides and other poisons would cause immediate sickness. The idea has been that, over time, avoiding poisons would be good for health. Testing that theory would take many years.
This is a comment posted to this Los Angeles Times article, Organic food no more nutritious than conventionally grown, review finds: "I don't buy organic because I believe it has "extra" nutrients! I buy it because of the things it DOESN"T contain!!!
Look at all the food recalls just this year."
Another comment: "I have a friend who lives near several farms. He and his wife are both dying of cancer. The health department checked their well water and found it with high levels of farm pesticides. THAT is the cost of conventional farming in addition to the pesticide residue that you consume each time you eat conventionally grown produce."
You can mix and match them. For example, this random article I found with a Google search says: 'The processor specifications for the Pioneer DreamBook Style 9008 speak for themselves: "Intel Core 2 Duo Centrino 2 processors (45nm Penryn CPU, Montevina Platform)." '
Maybe they "speak for themselves", but I can't hear them.
I like "Core 2 Duo Centrino 2". Not one, not two, but THREE uses of the concept 2 in five words. Awesome!
Okay, I will try some Intel-speak myself: "Ibex Peak Core 2 Duo Centrino 2 with Lynnfield and Core 2 Quad with Havendale are together known as Summitlake". How did I do? I have no idea.
Does Intel take the position that it doesn't matter how disfunctional Intel marketing is, because you have to buy from them?
Quote from the Slashdot summary: "Asus claims to have run its new boards
with engineering samples of the Core i5-750 at a 77 percent overclock,
boosting speeds from 2.66 GHz to 4.7 GHz."
Translation: "Intel's fastest processors are not fast enough. Intel's
processors are so slow that even a 77% increase in speed is worth sacrificing
stability and risking hardware failure."
Question: Is Intel deliberately creating confusion when the company
uses the concept of 2 multiple times, as in "Core 2 Duo"? Or, is Intel
marketing unaware they are creating confusion? Wikipedia quote: "There is also some
confusion with Core 2 Duo and Centrino Duo."
Firstly, I really don't see how the solid state lasers using frequency doubling are "fake" lasers.
From the Slashdot summary: "And if you were wondering how green lasers pointers are already produced, it is a hack that involved doubling the frequency of an infrared laser. The new true green laser diodes..."
The intention is not to say they are fake lasers. The former green solid-state laser devices aren't just laser diodes; they are diodes plus another complicated structure. The new green laser devices are true diode lasers.
Corrections to the Ars article:
"Ever wonder why projector systems and televisions don't use laser illumination?"
More important error, and my guess about the correct information: "For instance, blue laser diodes use a gallium nitride system, and figuring out how to get indium nitride to mix through the gallium nitride evenly turned out to be quite difficult."
Full Text PDF of the Applied Physics Express scientific paper. (Free)
YES. But I'm guessing this is not the whole story:
But now 4chan's founder, Moot, has admitted the whole thing was kind of his fault.
"For the past three weeks, 4chan has been under a constant DDoS attack," Moot wrote in an afternoon update. "We were able to filter this specific type of attack in a fashion that was more or less transparent to the end user.... Unfortunately, as an unintended consequence of the method used, some Internet users received errant traffic from one of our network switches. A handful happened to be AT&T customers."
The issue was reported on Reddit.com 16 hours ago. At no time, apparently, was access to img.4chan.org slow. Also, at present the IP address 207.126.64.181 connects directly to 4chan.org, as it should.
So, AT&T, is not blocking img.4chan.org, the company is only blocking some of its users. Check 4chan status. Quote: "UPDATE: Some coverage on TechCrunch, Digg, reddit, and Google News. Also, note that AT&T has yet to contact us."
That makes sense. However, it is only one thought deep. Carry the analysis to the next level: What is Microsoft doing that causes many people to dislike the company, and is so intense that some people become irrational?
Remember, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia became irrational, also, during a famous anti-trust case against Microsoft. He violated "... the Code of Conduct for US Judges.[13]".
Why did a United States District Court Judge become irrational? Perhaps because of numerous continued abuses by Microsoft. Some examples, drawn from the Wikipedia article:
"In the videotaped demonstration of what Microsoft vice president James Allchin's stated to be a seamless segment filmed on one PC, the plaintiff noticed that some icons mysteriously disappear and reappear on the PC's desktop, suggesting that the effects might have been falsified.[6]"
Another example: "Brad Chase, a Microsoft vice president, verified the government's tape and conceded that Microsoft's own tape was falsified.[8]"
Another example: "When the judge ordered Microsoft to offer a version of Windows which did not include Internet Explorer, Microsoft responded that the company would offer manufacturers a choice: one version of Windows that was obsolete, or another that did not work properly."
There are many, many, many examples of Microsoft being abusive during that trial, and before and after.
This is a fact: When presented with repeated abuses, some people will be pushed beyond their ability to be rational, and will become irrational. Mr. Torvalds apparently did not carry his analysis deeply enough to realize that a common social effect will not be lessened by him speaking in an overly simplified manner, a manner that considers the results, but ignores the stimulus.
What is the effect of Mr. Torvalds apparently giving the subject a shallow analysis? As I said, I think the effect is to publicize dislike of Microsoft, not to stop it.
Very unfortunately, it seems to me that Mr. Torvalds also again established himself as socially shallow, and therefore again made it more difficult for him to lead. I am very sympathetic to his position, in which it is extraordinarily difficult for him to do all that is required of him. But Mr. Torvalds made his life more difficult by his statements, and the world should not want that, because the world needs his leadership.
Will Microsoft, because of continued abuses, once again succeed in overloading and partly neutralizing someone who is interested in counteracting those abuses, and providing the world an alternative?
To me, Linus' statement does not seem to be
about free software. It seems to be about social consciousness.
I admire Mr. Torvald's leadership of the Linux kernel, but he is not
someone I would go to for social wisdom. I'm not sure what his
intention was in saying that Microsoft hatred is a disease. It's not
really hatred, it is dislike, and dislike of Microsoft is becoming
widespread. Even the New York Times expresses dislike for Microsoft in
the title of this February 13, 2009 article: Will Clippy Be a Greeter at Microsoft's New Stores?
The actual effect is the opposite of what Mr. Torvalds is overtly
saying. The actual social effect is something like, "The dislike of
Microsoft is becoming so widespread and intense that it is like an
epidemic." Mr. Torvalds is publicizing Microsoft "hatred", not stopping
it.
Dislike of Microsoft is not new. Pam Edstrom's daughter, Jennifer Edstrom, wrote the 1998 book, Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, with a former Microsoft manager. Quote from the first Amazon review in the list of reviews: "The
authors are evidently very anti-Microsoft, yet at the same time their
stories come across not so much as how stupid Microsoft is, but how
mismanaged and lucky Gates & Company have been, which is closer to
the truth than many people think." Pam Edstrom is a former Microsoft employee, and one of the founders of Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft's public relations agency.
Who would you believe about the subject of dislike of Microsoft, a
former Microsoft manager who wrote a book about the subject, or Linus
Torvalds? Perhaps Mr. Torvalds just doesn't have sufficient experience,
or sufficient awareness of the experience of other people. There is a
cure for that. He could install a few Microsoft Windows computers and
maintain them.
The New York Times covered this story on February 13, 2009: Will Clippy Be a Greeter at Microsoft's New Stores?. One way to know that Microsoft is not doing well is to realize that the New York Times has joined the Microsoft bashers. Perhaps the amateur bashers will upgrade their skills now that the professionals have moved in.
I admire Linus Torvald's leadership, but in saying Microsoft hatred is a Disease, he seems to be more and more alone. It's not really hatred, it is dislike, and dislike of Microsoft is becoming widespread. I'm not sure what Torvald's intention was in saying that, but of course the actual social effect is the opposite of what he is overtly saying. The actual effect is something like, "The dislike of Microsoft is becoming so widespread and intense that it is like an epidemic."
Microsoft hired this man to be the head of retail sales: Microsoft Appoints David Porter as Corporate Vice President of Retail Stores. Note in the upper right hand corner of that article, under "Press Resources", that Waggener Edstrom is still Microsoft's public relations agency. That's interesting, since Pam Edstrom's daughter, Jennifer Edstrom, wrote Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, published in 1998, with a former Microsoft manager. Quote from the first Amazon review in the list of reviews: "The authors are evidently very anti-Microsoft, yet at the same time their stories come across not so much as how stupid Microsoft is, but how mismanaged and lucky Gates & Company have been, which is closer to the truth than many people think."
What do you think of Microsoft's new vice-president? Looking at his photo, is he the kind of person who can make retail stores that people admire? He doesn't know how to tie his tie. Can he make stores look good?
"Windows 3.11 was the first usable version of Windows"
I agree. The versions of Windows earlier than 3.1 were terrible. They
had limited, buggy font support and often crashed. My experience with Windows
1.0 and 2.0 was that they were just toys. It was reported in the book Barbarians Led by Bill Gates that the early versions were
made only to kill Go Corporation. To me they seemed at the time to be
pointless products. It is a very unhappy realization that Microsoft wasted my
time because it was trying to stop the success of another company.
That book was also very helpful because it explains why the Windows
API is so disorganized.
I think it is not an answer to abusiveness that someone else is
abusive, also.
It appears to me, and apparently to many people, that Microsoft
deliberately releases unfinished software. It was reported that many people
inside Microsoft were extremely opposed to releasing Microsoft Windows Vista
when they did.
Wal-Mart has a laptop for $298.00 that would be acceptable for most
people who check email and write letters. Three GB of memory, 15.4 inches, 160
GB Hard Drive, but I get the impression its just abusive advertising;
apparently they won't have many. More and more, however, Apple's prices look
huge.
I'm very interested in the sociology of business management. Once a
company gets a negative reputation, it becomes difficult to hire the best
people. That tends to push a company in the direction of further degradation.
A profitable business scheme for Microsoft is calling an update to a product
by an entirely new name.
Another profitable scheme is charging the full price for an upgrade,
as though it is a totally new product.
My understanding is that releasing versions of products that aren't
finished is also profitable for Microsoft, because then most customers buy new
versions immediately. Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows ME, and DOS 3.0 are
three examples I think of immediately.
Slashdot Mirror
The phrase, "pay every franc and mark", should obviously have been "pay every euro".
Background: There are two enormous Physics projects, ITER and the Large Hadron Collider.
... have ... lost their ability to operate at
high energies."
ITER is a project to build a bigger Tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. Note that the 30 Tokamaks already in existence have never come close to producing more energy than they consume. Also, if you have followed the development of ITER, you may have noted a curious phenomenon. The ITER project was sold on the basis of a much earlier delivery and much lower cost than predicted today. Now the number of years of work till the first full test is estimated to be the entire length of the scientist's careers. That's very convenient for the scientists, and very inconvenient for the taxpayers who pay every franc and mark.
Consider these paragraphs from the New York Times article referenced by the Slashdot summary, Giant Particle Collider Struggles:
"The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections."
and:
"Many of the magnets
To me, both projects give the impression of mismanagement. For example, "Electrical connections" are not at the forefront of technology. I'd be interested in starting an independent review agency. No matter who does it, there must be independent management reviews.
* Obviously you must take your hard drive out of your pocket when you go through security.
* Also, it is necessary to boot from a CD. I'd like to see more information about that. Is it possible to get normal Windows started when booting from a CD?
'And yeah I've heard the whole "just keep one copy around in case" argument and it does not hold water in a business. People have a lot of work to do and anything that slows them down, even if it is only by a few minutes, is unacceptable.'
That's our experience, also. The cost of changing is so high that companies will pay more or use inferior software.
A lot of the problem is not only with employee training, it is that training resources and employee time for training are inelastic. There is simply no arrangement that can be made that allows switching, other than hiring new employees.
However, if governments force standard file specifications the problem can be made to disappear.
"These then become part of a searchable database."
There should be a law that agencies enter this information themselves.
More information that gives a view of U.S. car manufacturing, and the U.S. government in general:
G.M.'s Road From Prosperity to Crisis
The U.S. government bought 60% of G.M., a company with $172.81 billion in debt and $82.29 billion in assets.
Death and Taxes poster.
Agreed. The system makes no sense. There are people for whom an old car is not especially polluting, because they only drive it an average of 5 miles per week. Possibly it is a second vehicle that they keep at a country house. Perhaps they are usually outside the United States.
Giving away taxpayer money causes inflation. The inflation is not only in the dollar generally, but also in the price of new cars. Those who focus on the free taxpayer money they are getting may not realize that the dealer has raised prices.
To me, the "Cash for Clunkers" program seems like government corruption. General Motors failed because of consistent bad management, in which most of its cars were rated poorly by Consumer Reports.
Now taxpayer money is being used to support bad management, and the taxpayer money goes to support people who have enough money that buying a new car is a goal, instead of finding a job, or getting through university.
The U.S. government has no money. In the entire history of the world, it is the entity most deeply in debt.
I've discovered that U.S. citizens do not want to believe that their government is corrupt. When they are presented with evidence of corruption, most avoid awareness.
* If your laptop will be in the possession of someone else for a while, such as in airline baggage, take out the hard drive, wrap it with thin anti-static foam, and put it in your pocket.
Slashdot editors don't like their work, apparently.
These are better articles:
Mosquitoes against malaria?. Quote: 'In what AP describe as a "daring experiment" with "astounding" results, researchers found that ten people subjected to mosquito bites three times over three months whilst taking the drug chloroquine gained apparent immunity against malarial mosquito bites a month later.'
Effective Vaccine For Malaria Possible, Study Shows. Quote: "This unique method of immunization allowed the human immune system to direct its response to eliminating the P. falciparum parasite at the earlier, liver stage of its life cycle. (Chloroquine kills the parasite at the later blood stage.)"
The Slashdot summary says, "UK's FSA Finds No Health Benefits To Organic Food".
That's wrong in two ways. It was the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine that did this study: Nutritional quality of organic foods: a systematic review.
That abstract says NOTHING about the effect of traces of poisons in conventional food. It is ONLY concerned with nutritional differences: "Objective: We sought to quantitatively assess the differences in reported nutrient content between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs."
Also, the abstract says, "The analyses were restricted to the most commonly reported nutrients."
The UK government article to which the Slashdot summary links says at the end, "Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority."
There is no claim that organic foods are more nutritious. Organic foods are intended to be free of poisons like insecticides.
The idea is not that eating foods with traces of insecticides and other poisons would cause immediate sickness. The idea has been that, over time, avoiding poisons would be good for health. Testing that theory would take many years.
This is a comment posted to this Los Angeles Times article, Organic food no more nutritious than conventionally grown, review finds: "I don't buy organic because I believe it has "extra" nutrients! I buy it because of the things it DOESN"T contain!!! Look at all the food recalls just this year."
Another comment: "I have a friend who lives near several farms. He and his wife are both dying of cancer. The health department checked their well water and found it with high levels of farm pesticides. THAT is the cost of conventional farming in addition to the pesticide residue that you consume each time you eat conventionally grown produce."
Note that everyone is expected to know about the "P55" already. It is assumed that no explanation is needed.
Here is a fairly typical article: Intel P55 Ibex Peak Chipset Features.
Intel marketing words:
Ibex Peak
P55 Express
Lynnfield
Havendale
Penryn
Montevina
Cantiga
Core 2 Duo
Centrino 2
You can mix and match them. For example, this random article I found with a Google search says: 'The processor specifications for the Pioneer DreamBook Style 9008 speak for themselves: "Intel Core 2 Duo Centrino 2 processors (45nm Penryn CPU, Montevina Platform)." '
Maybe they "speak for themselves", but I can't hear them.
I like "Core 2 Duo Centrino 2". Not one, not two, but THREE uses of the concept 2 in five words. Awesome!
Okay, I will try some Intel-speak myself: "Ibex Peak Core 2 Duo Centrino 2 with Lynnfield and Core 2 Quad with Havendale are together known as Summitlake". How did I do? I have no idea.
Does Intel take the position that it doesn't matter how disfunctional Intel marketing is, because you have to buy from them?
Quote from the Slashdot summary: "Asus claims to have run its new boards with engineering samples of the Core i5-750 at a 77 percent overclock, boosting speeds from 2.66 GHz to 4.7 GHz."
Translation: "Intel's fastest processors are not fast enough. Intel's processors are so slow that even a 77% increase in speed is worth sacrificing stability and risking hardware failure."
Oh well, things will be better when we get the 22 nanometer parts.
Question: Is Intel deliberately creating confusion when the company uses the concept of 2 multiple times, as in "Core 2 Duo"? Or, is Intel marketing unaware they are creating confusion? Wikipedia quote: "There is also some confusion with Core 2 Duo and Centrino Duo."
That's weird. I just downloaded another copy. No charge. I certainly don't have a subscription.
Another topic: White text on a black background is difficult to read. And another: How would Lyx be for documents with no formulas?
From the Slashdot summary: "And if you were wondering how green lasers pointers are already produced, it is a hack that involved doubling the frequency of an infrared laser. The new true green laser diodes..."
The intention is not to say they are fake lasers. The former green solid-state laser devices aren't just laser diodes; they are diodes plus another complicated structure. The new green laser devices are true diode lasers.
Corrections to the Ars article:
"Ever wonder why projector systems and televisions don't use laser illumination?"
More important error, and my guess about the correct information: "For instance, blue laser diodes use a gallium nitride system, and figuring out how to get indium nitride to mix through the gallium nitride evenly turned out to be quite difficult."
Full Text PDF of the Applied Physics Express scientific paper. (Free)
YES. But I'm guessing this is not the whole story:
... Unfortunately, as an unintended consequence of the method used, some Internet users received errant traffic from one of our network switches. A handful happened to be AT&T customers."
But now 4chan's founder, Moot, has admitted the whole thing was kind of his fault.
"For the past three weeks, 4chan has been under a constant DDoS attack," Moot wrote in an afternoon update. "We were able to filter this specific type of attack in a fashion that was more or less transparent to the end user.
Is it possible this is just another 4chan prank?
The issue was reported on Reddit.com 16 hours ago. At no time, apparently, was access to img.4chan.org slow. Also, at present the IP address 207.126.64.181 connects directly to 4chan.org, as it should.
So, AT&T, is not blocking img.4chan.org, the company is only blocking some of its users. Check 4chan status. Quote: "UPDATE: Some coverage on TechCrunch, Digg, reddit, and Google News. Also, note that AT&T has yet to contact us."
Are you saying that it is impossible to think clearly about why some people are irrational?
"... foaming irrational hatred..."
That makes sense. However, it is only one thought deep. Carry the analysis to the next level: What is Microsoft doing that causes many people to dislike the company, and is so intense that some people become irrational?
Remember, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia became irrational, also, during a famous anti-trust case against Microsoft. He violated "... the Code of Conduct for US Judges.[13]".
Why did a United States District Court Judge become irrational? Perhaps because of numerous continued abuses by Microsoft. Some examples, drawn from the Wikipedia article:
"In the videotaped demonstration of what Microsoft vice president James Allchin's stated to be a seamless segment filmed on one PC, the plaintiff noticed that some icons mysteriously disappear and reappear on the PC's desktop, suggesting that the effects might have been falsified.[6]"
Another example: "Brad Chase, a Microsoft vice president, verified the government's tape and conceded that Microsoft's own tape was falsified.[8]"
Another example: "When the judge ordered Microsoft to offer a version of Windows which did not include Internet Explorer, Microsoft responded that the company would offer manufacturers a choice: one version of Windows that was obsolete, or another that did not work properly."
There are many, many, many examples of Microsoft being abusive during that trial, and before and after.
This is a fact: When presented with repeated abuses, some people will be pushed beyond their ability to be rational, and will become irrational. Mr. Torvalds apparently did not carry his analysis deeply enough to realize that a common social effect will not be lessened by him speaking in an overly simplified manner, a manner that considers the results, but ignores the stimulus.
What is the effect of Mr. Torvalds apparently giving the subject a shallow analysis? As I said, I think the effect is to publicize dislike of Microsoft, not to stop it.
Very unfortunately, it seems to me that Mr. Torvalds also again established himself as socially shallow, and therefore again made it more difficult for him to lead. I am very sympathetic to his position, in which it is extraordinarily difficult for him to do all that is required of him. But Mr. Torvalds made his life more difficult by his statements, and the world should not want that, because the world needs his leadership.
Will Microsoft, because of continued abuses, once again succeed in overloading and partly neutralizing someone who is interested in counteracting those abuses, and providing the world an alternative?
To me, Linus' statement does not seem to be about free software. It seems to be about social consciousness.
I admire Mr. Torvald's leadership of the Linux kernel, but he is not someone I would go to for social wisdom. I'm not sure what his intention was in saying that Microsoft hatred is a disease. It's not really hatred, it is dislike, and dislike of Microsoft is becoming widespread. Even the New York Times expresses dislike for Microsoft in the title of this February 13, 2009 article: Will Clippy Be a Greeter at Microsoft's New Stores?
The actual effect is the opposite of what Mr. Torvalds is overtly saying. The actual social effect is something like, "The dislike of Microsoft is becoming so widespread and intense that it is like an epidemic." Mr. Torvalds is publicizing Microsoft "hatred", not stopping it.
Dislike of Microsoft is not new. Pam Edstrom's daughter, Jennifer Edstrom, wrote the 1998 book, Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, with a former Microsoft manager. Quote from the first Amazon review in the list of reviews: "The authors are evidently very anti-Microsoft, yet at the same time their stories come across not so much as how stupid Microsoft is, but how mismanaged and lucky Gates & Company have been, which is closer to the truth than many people think." Pam Edstrom is a former Microsoft employee, and one of the founders of Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft's public relations agency.
Who would you believe about the subject of dislike of Microsoft, a former Microsoft manager who wrote a book about the subject, or Linus Torvalds? Perhaps Mr. Torvalds just doesn't have sufficient experience, or sufficient awareness of the experience of other people. There is a cure for that. He could install a few Microsoft Windows computers and maintain them.
The New York Times covered this story on February 13, 2009: Will Clippy Be a Greeter at Microsoft's New Stores?. One way to know that Microsoft is not doing well is to realize that the New York Times has joined the Microsoft bashers. Perhaps the amateur bashers will upgrade their skills now that the professionals have moved in.
I admire Linus Torvald's leadership, but in saying Microsoft hatred is a Disease, he seems to be more and more alone. It's not really hatred, it is dislike, and dislike of Microsoft is becoming widespread. I'm not sure what Torvald's intention was in saying that, but of course the actual social effect is the opposite of what he is overtly saying. The actual effect is something like, "The dislike of Microsoft is becoming so widespread and intense that it is like an epidemic."
Microsoft hired this man to be the head of retail sales: Microsoft Appoints David Porter as Corporate Vice President of Retail Stores. Note in the upper right hand corner of that article, under "Press Resources", that Waggener Edstrom is still Microsoft's public relations agency. That's interesting, since Pam Edstrom's daughter, Jennifer Edstrom, wrote Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, published in 1998, with a former Microsoft manager. Quote from the first Amazon review in the list of reviews: "The authors are evidently very anti-Microsoft, yet at the same time their stories come across not so much as how stupid Microsoft is, but how mismanaged and lucky Gates & Company have been, which is closer to the truth than many people think."
What do you think of Microsoft's new vice-president? Looking at his photo, is he the kind of person who can make retail stores that people admire? He doesn't know how to tie his tie. Can he make stores look good?
My understanding is that video, Microsoft iPod parody, was made by Microsoft employees who were annoyed at the way Microsoft operates.
"Windows 3.11 was the first usable version of Windows"
I agree. The versions of Windows earlier than 3.1 were terrible. They had limited, buggy font support and often crashed. My experience with Windows 1.0 and 2.0 was that they were just toys. It was reported in the book Barbarians Led by Bill Gates that the early versions were made only to kill Go Corporation. To me they seemed at the time to be pointless products. It is a very unhappy realization that Microsoft wasted my time because it was trying to stop the success of another company.
That book was also very helpful because it explains why the Windows API is so disorganized.
I think it is not an answer to abusiveness that someone else is abusive, also.
It appears to me, and apparently to many people, that Microsoft deliberately releases unfinished software. It was reported that many people inside Microsoft were extremely opposed to releasing Microsoft Windows Vista when they did.
Wal-Mart has a laptop for $298.00 that would be acceptable for most people who check email and write letters. Three GB of memory, 15.4 inches, 160 GB Hard Drive, but I get the impression its just abusive advertising; apparently they won't have many. More and more, however, Apple's prices look huge.
I'm very interested in the sociology of business management. Once a company gets a negative reputation, it becomes difficult to hire the best people. That tends to push a company in the direction of further degradation.
A profitable business scheme for Microsoft is calling an update to a product by an entirely new name.
Another profitable scheme is charging the full price for an upgrade, as though it is a totally new product.
My understanding is that releasing versions of products that aren't finished is also profitable for Microsoft, because then most customers buy new versions immediately. Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows ME, and DOS 3.0 are three examples I think of immediately.