The fact is, the average person does not think of philanthropy as a for-profit venture capital enterprise. Anyone who uses the word that way confuses many people.
You have turned Mark Shuttleworth's sensible idea into an offensive idea.
He is merely saying that Linux needs more work on the user interfaces, so that it can compete with Apple's well-designed products.
Users are sensible to demand that software make things easy for them. Why should every user do more work because programmers wanted to same themselves some work?
"Apart from this, numerous HP employees have been discussing this
subject within HP. People like myself and other individuals from the Software
branch have pointed out this is a wasteful approach. And judging by the brand
spanking new e-delivery option and certain other efforts within HP, I see that
this is actually worked on for SoftWare."
And:
"Probably the costs that are associated with a radical change of
this system are quite high, because it's likely that many changes need to be
made in databases, order systems, processes and procedures."
And:
"As said, I have seen indications this is being worked on, but one
has to remember we are a company the size of a small country, and that makes
it a little more difficult to maneuver than a one man company."
Wow! Isn't there some mid-level manager at HP who is willing to say, "Stop
sending single pieces of paper in boxes! Never do that again." ???
You made me realize the weakness of my grandparent comment. I thought
I was giving an accurate picture of the misery inside HP. But I forgot to
mention the most scary part of being a corporate drone: The drones don't
realize they are drones. Woooo-oooo-ooo.
The situation is even worse than that! (Similar to the late-night
Infomercials: But wait!! There's more!) At least, when it is only excess
packaging, it is possible to just put the cardboard in the recycle bin. The
real misery happens when drones become involved with technical details. I
remember a conversation with an HP representative about a model of HP laser
printer that costs about $1000. He told me, if I remember correctly, that it
was entirely reasonable that if that model printer needed routine maintenance,
the work could not be done locally, in our big city.
Nothing about this should give the impression that I think corporate
drones are a particularly bad problem at HP. I have had worse experiences with Microsoft and Intel representatives.
(But wait!! There's more!) It's even scarier when entire departments
become drones. I was on an Intel marketing email list. I got many emails
suggesting that I would be motivated to buy Intel processors by the fact that
Intel would give me a free bunny suit doll.
Hah! Are there people who don't
believe that Intel was using dolls to sell processors? Believe! It's not my photo; I just found it with a Google
search. I would never jump through the hoops necessary to get an Intel Bunny
Suit Doll.
How did the department at Intel scarily called "Marketing" first
arrive at the idea that making customers jump through hoops is doing something
good for the company?
Then, later, the entire idea that "Intel Marketing" should
do something good for Intel was completely abandoned. That happened years ago, so long
ago that no one who is there now can remember when Intel Marketing was good for the
company, or even cared about being good for the company.
Want a recent example?
The new Intel 45 nanometer processors, which are an extremely impressive engineering achievement, I think,
are called Centrino 2. Before they were "Core 2 Duo". Believe! (More Infomercial talk: That's not 1! Not 2!! But 3 uses of the concept two!!! The second person in the infomercial says, "John, that's Amazing!!!!")
You think that monster attacking Sigourney Weaver in the movie Alien was scary? "Intel Marketing" is even scarier than that. At least Sigourney Weaver realized she was being attacked by a monster. The really scary thing is when someone has become the monster, and doesn't realize it.
Maybe Intel top management thinks that Intel Marketing is
like prostate cancer. Sometimes, if a tumor isn't growing, it is considered better to let it
stay in the body.
Someone named John Robson commented on the story linked by the Slashdot story.
He said, "HP should be penalised for that."
No need to worry, John. HP is in a Slashdot story. There will be very
capable people, I think, who say to themselves, "Maybe I should apply for a
job at HP. Nah, maybe not."
The parent comment says, "My experience[s] with HP have been
increasingly disappointing. Recently..."
That's been our experience, too. HP seems to be getting a little
better, however, now that Carly
Fiorina has left. Before, it was REALLY ugly.
How does excessive packaging happen? It happens because people become
so unhappy working for a company that they slip into becoming robotic drones.
Nothing matters. They just try to get through each day. Illogical packaging is
only one of the many, many illogical things that happen every day. Those
people never go to hell, because if they arrive there, Satan says, "You've
suffered enough. You don't belong here."
Twitter is obviously very intelligent, but under-challenged. Give Twitter a challenging job so he has something to do besides be annoying on Slashdot!
However, he should not be moderated down when he makes very sensible comments. If Intel is making money because of anti-competitive prices, then Intel should be sued by the EU, as the story says.
The biggest reason why AMD and Nvidia are near year-to-date lows is because of competition expected from new GPU products from Intel.
Sheesh. Not off topic. Mod parent up. The first post reflects the disrespect
that technically knowledgeable people generally feel.
But, "AOLSoftHooMSN" is not a sufficiently euphonious name for the combined company of Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft. I
suggest Yaolsoft, as in Yaaaoooowwwwlllsoft.
Microsoft is also bidding to take
over the Catholic Church, as part of Steve Ballmer's (unlikely) scheme to
go to heaven.
In more interesting news, I used "euphonious" in a sentence for the
first time.
Actually, it is not stupid. It is deliberate U.S. government corruption. The corrupters didn't want people to be able to understand easily the cost of something per unit of volume or weight.
Or Yahoo, who paid Terry Semel $528 million dollars for working 6 years, then fired him because he didn't know anything about technology, and other reasons.
Yes, people at Yahoo can count, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are smarter, in my opinion.
Or U.S. taxpayers who have paid to kill between 650,000 to 1 million Iraqis, more than Iraqis than Saddam Hussein killed, with almost no protest. Who is counting? Apparently not U.S. taxpayers, although it is generally understood that they know how to count.
If knowledge of numbers doesn't make a person smart, does not knowing numbers make a person dumb?
There is a serious need to question what is intelligent and what is educated.
Quote from the story: "They could learn, but it's not useful in their culture, so they've never picked it up."
The English language has no word for some Amazon insects. English speakers could learn, but it's not useful in their cultures.
Two tests: Give the Amazon natives sufficient food and water and safety from other people, and see how long they can comfortably survive in lands where English is spoken.
Then give native English speakers sufficient food and water and safety from other people, and see how long they can comfortably survive in the Amazon region.
Someone named Kim Strassel posted her opinion on WSJ?
The East Valley Tribune?
They seem to re-cycle the same nonsense. Certainly Nancy Pelosi, who seems to have no technical knowledge whatsoever, may have said something she shouldn't. But there is no reason to believe that anyone is planning a sweeping change of the rules, and there is no reason to believe that anyone wants that.
The PDF of the letter mentioned in the Slashdot story talks about rules that seem reasonable, and seem to be close to the rules corporate America follows.
Fraud Alert: The Slashdot story seems to be without support elsewhere. It may be a paid Slashvertisement.
Also, if you read the PDF of the letter mentioned, it is about technical limitations of U.S. government support for internet access. The rules proposed seem very sensible. The letter says NOTHING about Nancy Pelosi.
I don't know. The problem is that almost every story about the subject is, like this one, full of enthusiasm but also full of mistakes. I haven't done a fundamental analysis.
There is considerable energy loss when transmitting electricity, especially since it is usually transmitted over long distances.
Fraud Alert: This is just a technically ignorant person's blog post. He wrote an attention-grabbing headline, and the Slashdot editor apparently didn't read the entire story.
Even the writer, Jaymi Heimbuch, doesn't believe the heading. Quote: "While car models may be able to run on fuels other than gasoline or diesel, we have yet to find a method of both running and producing vehicles entirely free of fossil fuels. I'm waiting for a mainstream car line that creates renewable fuel, clean-running vehicles out of 100% recycled materials in plants run on 100% renewable, clean power... Will I even be alive when that finally happens? I have hope."
Electric cars are NOT "clean power". The electricity generation plant uses coal or oil or nuclear fuel, and those are as dirty as before.
Quote from the article: "You do have to make sure that proper auditing is done, otherwise you're trusting the software and the scanner. A lot of states do very poor auditing, if at all."
He says, in the next sentence: "Yeah, I'm much more optimistic than I was a few years ago."
That doesn't make sense. The system is broken, he says, and then he says he is "optimistic". Is optimism the right word for a system that is not working, even after all these years? Should we be optimistic when a broken system is less obviously broken?
It's interesting to me that you revealed perhaps THE MOST AGGRESSIVE activity of Microsoft, and you apparently don't realize it.
You said, "They are not being coerced in any way, and many choose to pirate their software, or even go for FOSS (pirating MS products is by far the more popular choice)."
In my opinion and experience, that is one of the primary methods Microsoft has used to ruin the business of competitors: Microsoft encourages and allows piracy.
That's been happening since the days of the DOS operating system. At one time, Microsoft had made it impossible to buy DOS legally unless a system builder was very large, so smaller companies could not compete. Instead, in my area there were six legitimate distributors of pirated DOS. I also knew one national distributor of pirated DOS. I called Microsoft's legal department and complained intensely. That apparently forced Microsoft to take one of the distributors to court (I was a witness in the trial), and to tell the others to stop pirating.
But Microsoft continued its policy of not selling DOS to smaller customers. That meant that a smaller company could be shut down at any time by a complaint from Microsoft's legal department.
Much later, when I tried to report retailers selling pirated copies of Microsoft Office, I found that it was no longer possible to be connected to the Microsoft legal department by telephone. There were company procedures that prevented that.
"... why is this story different?" Maybe it's not different.
Why is it that Roland Piquepaille stories always seem to include some place to send money? In this case the place is called
the "American Friends of Tel Aviv University". Why only Americans? Why not
Europeans, too, or anyone who has money?
Quote: "Your gift may help develop the computer science and
engineering solutions that are the backbone of Israel's defense
technology." As in 4 million Jews in Israel getting into gun battles with
1.3 billion Muslims?
If I think of ways that Jews can be peaceful, doesn't that make me
more Jewish than those who think of ways to be violent? If I help Jews live in
peace in the world, aren't I morally more a member of the Jewish tribe than
those who think of ways for Jews to be adversarial? Even though I have no
genetic, political, or religious connection to the Jewish culture, don't my
caring ideas make me more truly Jewish than those who call themselves Jews,
but whose minds are filled with violence?
Slashdot Mirror
The fact is, the average person does not think of philanthropy as a for-profit venture capital enterprise. Anyone who uses the word that way confuses many people.
If for-profit enterprises can be philanthropy, then the Google.com search engine is philanthropy, also, since it certainly benefits humankind.
Link: Google.org About Us. Quote: "But we can also invest in for-profit endeavors..."
Slashdot editors often post confused stories.
"Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org..."
Google.org is both profit and non-profit.
You have turned Mark Shuttleworth's sensible idea into an offensive idea.
He is merely saying that Linux needs more work on the user interfaces, so that it can compete with Apple's well-designed products.
Users are sensible to demand that software make things easy for them. Why should every user do more work because programmers wanted to same themselves some work?
During the time Carly Fiorina was CEO of HP, we learned through painful experience not to try to buy products from HP.
You said,
"Apart from this, numerous HP employees have been discussing this subject within HP. People like myself and other individuals from the Software branch have pointed out this is a wasteful approach. And judging by the brand spanking new e-delivery option and certain other efforts within HP, I see that this is actually worked on for SoftWare."
And:
"Probably the costs that are associated with a radical change of this system are quite high, because it's likely that many changes need to be made in databases, order systems, processes and procedures."
And:
"As said, I have seen indications this is being worked on, but one has to remember we are a company the size of a small country, and that makes it a little more difficult to maneuver than a one man company."
Wow! Isn't there some mid-level manager at HP who is willing to say, "Stop sending single pieces of paper in boxes! Never do that again." ???
You made me realize the weakness of my grandparent comment. I thought I was giving an accurate picture of the misery inside HP. But I forgot to mention the most scary part of being a corporate drone: The drones don't realize they are drones. Woooo-oooo-ooo.
The situation is even worse than that! (Similar to the late-night Infomercials: But wait!! There's more!) At least, when it is only excess packaging, it is possible to just put the cardboard in the recycle bin. The real misery happens when drones become involved with technical details. I remember a conversation with an HP representative about a model of HP laser printer that costs about $1000. He told me, if I remember correctly, that it was entirely reasonable that if that model printer needed routine maintenance, the work could not be done locally, in our big city.
Nothing about this should give the impression that I think corporate drones are a particularly bad problem at HP. I have had worse experiences with Microsoft and Intel representatives.
(But wait!! There's more!) It's even scarier when entire departments become drones. I was on an Intel marketing email list. I got many emails suggesting that I would be motivated to buy Intel processors by the fact that Intel would give me a free bunny suit doll.
Hah! Are there people who don't believe that Intel was using dolls to sell processors? Believe! It's not my photo; I just found it with a Google search. I would never jump through the hoops necessary to get an Intel Bunny Suit Doll.
How did the department at Intel scarily called "Marketing" first arrive at the idea that making customers jump through hoops is doing something good for the company?
Then, later, the entire idea that "Intel Marketing" should do something good for Intel was completely abandoned. That happened years ago, so long ago that no one who is there now can remember when Intel Marketing was good for the company, or even cared about being good for the company.
Want a recent example? The new Intel 45 nanometer processors, which are an extremely impressive engineering achievement, I think, are called Centrino 2. Before they were "Core 2 Duo". Believe! (More Infomercial talk: That's not 1! Not 2!! But 3 uses of the concept two!!! The second person in the infomercial says, "John, that's Amazing!!!!")
You think that monster attacking Sigourney Weaver in the movie Alien was scary? "Intel Marketing" is even scarier than that. At least Sigourney Weaver realized she was being attacked by a monster. The really scary thing is when someone has become the monster, and doesn't realize it.
Maybe Intel top management thinks that Intel Marketing is like prostate cancer. Sometimes, if a tumor isn't growing, it is considered better to let it stay in the body.
Someone named John Robson commented on the story linked by the Slashdot story. He said, "HP should be penalised for that."
No need to worry, John. HP is in a Slashdot story. There will be very capable people, I think, who say to themselves, "Maybe I should apply for a job at HP. Nah, maybe not."
The parent comment says, "My experience[s] with HP have been increasingly disappointing. Recently..."
That's been our experience, too. HP seems to be getting a little better, however, now that Carly Fiorina has left. Before, it was REALLY ugly.
How does excessive packaging happen? It happens because people become so unhappy working for a company that they slip into becoming robotic drones. Nothing matters. They just try to get through each day. Illogical packaging is only one of the many, many illogical things that happen every day. Those people never go to hell, because if they arrive there, Satan says, "You've suffered enough. You don't belong here."
That's why I say, help the man find himself a job, so he can use his intelligence for a good purpose.
Instead of complaining, help solve the sociological and psychological problem. *grin*
Twitter is obviously very intelligent, but under-challenged. Give Twitter a challenging job so he has something to do besides be annoying on Slashdot!
However, he should not be moderated down when he makes very sensible comments. If Intel is making money because of anti-competitive prices, then Intel should be sued by the EU, as the story says.
The biggest reason why AMD and Nvidia are near year-to-date lows is because of competition expected from new GPU products from Intel.
Sheesh. Not off topic. Mod parent up. The first post reflects the disrespect that technically knowledgeable people generally feel.
But, "AOLSoftHooMSN" is not a sufficiently euphonious name for the combined company of Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft. I suggest Yaolsoft, as in Yaaaoooowwwwlllsoft.
Microsoft is also bidding to take over the Catholic Church, as part of Steve Ballmer's (unlikely) scheme to go to heaven.
In more interesting news, I used "euphonious" in a sentence for the first time.
Actually, it is not stupid. It is deliberate U.S. government corruption. The corrupters didn't want people to be able to understand easily the cost of something per unit of volume or weight.
Or Yahoo, who paid Terry Semel $528 million dollars for working 6 years, then fired him because he didn't know anything about technology, and other reasons.
Yes, people at Yahoo can count, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are smarter, in my opinion.
Or U.S. taxpayers who have paid to kill between 650,000 to 1 million Iraqis, more than Iraqis than Saddam Hussein killed, with almost no protest. Who is counting? Apparently not U.S. taxpayers, although it is generally understood that they know how to count.
If knowledge of numbers doesn't make a person smart, does not knowing numbers make a person dumb?
There is a serious need to question what is intelligent and what is educated.
The parent commenter should get some sort of prize. His comment indicates that if there are enough people someone will know the answer.
Quote from the story: "They could learn, but it's not useful in their culture, so they've never picked it up."
The English language has no word for some Amazon insects. English speakers could learn, but it's not useful in their cultures.
Two tests: Give the Amazon natives sufficient food and water and safety from other people, and see how long they can comfortably survive in lands where English is spoken.
Then give native English speakers sufficient food and water and safety from other people, and see how long they can comfortably survive in the Amazon region.
Someone named Kim Strassel posted her opinion on WSJ?
The East Valley Tribune?
They seem to re-cycle the same nonsense. Certainly Nancy Pelosi, who seems to have no technical knowledge whatsoever, may have said something she shouldn't. But there is no reason to believe that anyone is planning a sweeping change of the rules, and there is no reason to believe that anyone wants that.
The PDF of the letter mentioned in the Slashdot story talks about rules that seem reasonable, and seem to be close to the rules corporate America follows.
Fraud Alert: The Slashdot story seems to be without support elsewhere. It may be a paid Slashvertisement.
Also, if you read the PDF of the letter mentioned, it is about technical limitations of U.S. government support for internet access. The rules proposed seem very sensible. The letter says NOTHING about Nancy Pelosi.
Kodak Specs
Kodak News Release
I don't know. The problem is that almost every story about the subject is, like this one, full of enthusiasm but also full of mistakes. I haven't done a fundamental analysis.
There is considerable energy loss when transmitting electricity, especially since it is usually transmitted over long distances.
Also, the link to HCCI in the story is broken. Use the one here instead.
The discussion about HCCI is written by someone named named Benjamin Jones. He obviously does not have much technical understanding.
It's NOT true.
... Will I even be alive when that finally happens? I have hope."
Fraud Alert: This is just a technically ignorant person's blog post. He wrote an attention-grabbing headline, and the Slashdot editor apparently didn't read the entire story.
Even the writer, Jaymi Heimbuch, doesn't believe the heading. Quote: "While car models may be able to run on fuels other than gasoline or diesel, we have yet to find a method of both running and producing vehicles entirely free of fossil fuels. I'm waiting for a mainstream car line that creates renewable fuel, clean-running vehicles out of 100% recycled materials in plants run on 100% renewable, clean power
Electric cars are NOT "clean power". The electricity generation plant uses coal or oil or nuclear fuel, and those are as dirty as before.
Quote from the article: "You do have to make sure that proper auditing is done, otherwise you're trusting the software and the scanner. A lot of states do very poor auditing, if at all."
He says, in the next sentence: "Yeah, I'm much more optimistic than I was a few years ago."
That doesn't make sense. The system is broken, he says, and then he says he is "optimistic". Is optimism the right word for a system that is not working, even after all these years? Should we be optimistic when a broken system is less obviously broken?
It's interesting to me that you revealed perhaps THE MOST AGGRESSIVE activity of Microsoft, and you apparently don't realize it.
You said, "They are not being coerced in any way, and many choose to pirate their software, or even go for FOSS (pirating MS products is by far the more popular choice)."
In my opinion and experience, that is one of the primary methods Microsoft has used to ruin the business of competitors: Microsoft encourages and allows piracy.
That's been happening since the days of the DOS operating system. At one time, Microsoft had made it impossible to buy DOS legally unless a system builder was very large, so smaller companies could not compete. Instead, in my area there were six legitimate distributors of pirated DOS. I also knew one national distributor of pirated DOS. I called Microsoft's legal department and complained intensely. That apparently forced Microsoft to take one of the distributors to court (I was a witness in the trial), and to tell the others to stop pirating.
But Microsoft continued its policy of not selling DOS to smaller customers. That meant that a smaller company could be shut down at any time by a complaint from Microsoft's legal department.
Much later, when I tried to report retailers selling pirated copies of Microsoft Office, I found that it was no longer possible to be connected to the Microsoft legal department by telephone. There were company procedures that prevented that.
"... why is this story different?" Maybe it's not different.
Why is it that Roland Piquepaille stories always seem to include some place to send money? In this case the place is called the "American Friends of Tel Aviv University". Why only Americans? Why not Europeans, too, or anyone who has money?
Quote: "Your gift may help develop the computer science and engineering solutions that are the backbone of Israel's defense technology." As in 4 million Jews in Israel getting into gun battles with 1.3 billion Muslims?
If I think of ways that Jews can be peaceful, doesn't that make me more Jewish than those who think of ways to be violent? If I help Jews live in peace in the world, aren't I morally more a member of the Jewish tribe than those who think of ways for Jews to be adversarial? Even though I have no genetic, political, or religious connection to the Jewish culture, don't my caring ideas make me more truly Jewish than those who call themselves Jews, but whose minds are filled with violence?
Doesn't sound like that at all. All instances of "better" are, by definition, better.