I think the problem with Clippy was that he was ten years too early. If the little fellow was around today he wouldn't get nearly as much abuse. People are more used to the wizard idea now, and to being guided through tasks.
Back then the average user was (I suspect) more technically knowledgeable - the PC as appliance wasn't entrenched. So everybody felt a little insulted when Clippy stuck his nose in their work.
So yes, my mom liked Clippy. If you actually needed his help he was reasonably helpful.
"Never mind that they're killing their own product. Never mind that they're destroying a potential developer base. Never mind that some of the things being developed on said platform are incredibly innovative uses of the equipment."
They're not killing their product. They're just divesting themselves of a client base that costs them money. What good does it do them to sell these things at a loss to people who aren't going to buy games?
Perhaps they could sell a version at a higher cost that would permit alternative O/S installation, but then you've got the costs of maintaining two code bases...
The vast majority of their users are not affected by this decision in the slightest. To me this looks like a smart business decision. You might not like it, but they're making a video game console for profit. They aren't in the business of selling processing power at a loss.
"I agree with piracy in some respects, I think it's a great tool to get what you want while protesting some aspects such as DRMs, agressive pricing, inconvenience, etc..."
Wow, what a load of crap. I mean, really - that's an impressive stack of feces. How exactly is that a protest? Do you stand on the steps of Microsoft HQ with a bullhorn and announce you're pirating their product?
Of course not. You just steal it and convince yourself that you're doing some kind of good because you don't like the terms under which the product is offered to you. You're a thief, not a protester.
What terrific self-delusion you have. If you really wanted to protest you could switch to another O/S, some of which are, in fact, free of all those things you dislike about the product you're stealing. well, most of those things... if they really were inconvenient you would switch away from the MS products.
"They didn't use to be...and they can be DRMed again at the drop of a hat."
What does that have to do with anything? They can't suddenly re-DRM your old purchases. If Apple decides to reinstate DRM on iTunes then the people who use it can decide whether or not to continue using their service.
In other words, it's not some looming threat that'll suddenly turn your iTunes library into a DRM minefield.
"That's the day when I realized that a lot of people on slashdot use mod points to punish people they disagree with. It's so much more handy than discussing things."
I just got modded down as "off-topic" when my post was relevant. Somebody was just too stupid to realize that there's no "-1 disagree" for a reason.
"I'm kind of torn by this whole China/Google/Microsoft thing. While I'm not a fan of the Chinese government, who are we to say what they should and shouldn't allow? Would we want a Chinese company to come into our country and tell our government what to do? While I've seen a great deal of discussion about human rights surrounding these stories, I've seen precious little about sovereignty."
I'm big on the idea of moral relativism, and I believe that just because we value something it does NOT mean that another country should value it as well. In fact, a while back I went as far as to suggest that perhaps a country that doesn't have freedom of speech might not need to be "corrected" on the topic.
I was modded so far down that some sort of anti-troll filter kicked in and nobody at my work could post to slashdot for 30 days.
That's the day when I realized that a lot of people on slashdot use mod points to punish people they disagree with. It's so much more handy than discussing things.
Then again, maybe it was me. I see you're doing alright.
Usually there's a long chain that eventually causes an incident wherein Godwin's Law is invoked, rendering the argument pointless and concluded. You got that right out of the way. Good on you.
Clearly you WOULD bring up Nazis, so ignore my signature.
"The data, from the 2000 census, had already been made public on the agency's Internet site...But the Census Bureau director acknowledged at the meeting that by tabulating and handing over the data...the agency had undermined public trust..."
So let me get this straight. The data was publicly available, and the Bureau was getting in heat for... sorting it?
A six year old story about an eight year old NOTHING.
I routinely waste five minutes of time, but this block I particularly regret.
"Now we need someone to pipe up that if they used Agile Methodology when building the LHC, none of the design issues would have happened."
If they'd have used the Agile Methodology it'd be working, but the particles would travel at 60 miles per hour, and the collisions would be recorded by a police sketch artist. Improvements would be scheduled for a future sprint.
"We could compare to Netware, Lantastic and other solutions that were displaced by the Windows Server solutions though..."
What would that accomplish? The post was comparing Windows then to Windows now. Windows then wasn't networked at all, so why do we care about server anything?
I admit to feeling a little stupid because I'm not getting your point, but others clearly do (+4 insightful).
"Software should gain new features with each version. The addditional functionality of the OS should be a given over the years. I'll give you that they aren't jacking the price of the Home version given the price in 1985, but have you seen their Enterprise Server pricing model?
You're right. So we should compare the pricing to the Enterprise Server Edition of Windows in 1985. Oh, wait... that's a non-existent product.
You can only compare the pricing of the home version since that's the only version remotely comparable.
"Left field: My operating system is Free, if everyone saw that obvious value and weren't tied to existing applications and data they'd all jump ship immediately and by doing so would also immediately raise my operating system's quality of code to amazing levels: just because of the weight of bug reports and new blood of code."
I don't particularly care to contribute to the raising of your O/S's code quality. There are a couple of companies that already have working, polished products. I'll buy one of those. Being free isn't enough. It has to be free AND desirable. It's worth it to me to pay for something I like.
"A simple demo game written on a Fedora system runs perfectly on [other Linux operating systems], but nobody paid for a press conference."
"Unless the game was developed using the Allegro library. Distributions that switched to PulseAudio broke sound in Allegro games because PulseAudio does not like unsigned 16-bit PCM."
Am I the only one who totally had a "tried to game on linux" flashback when I read this?
"I just had to pay $1300 in out-of-pocket expenses for my daughter to get a single stitch (emergency room visit because it was after hours). And the doctor was on the fence as to whether nor not she needed one. Had I known it was going to cost me $1300, I would have used a band-aid."
Maybe the reason the health care system is overburdened is because some people bring their kid to the freaking emergency room for a single stitch.
"There is a considerable difference between fucking around on a home installation and actually making production servers...There is a considerable difference between "Linux on the desktop" and "Linux in the server room".
Well of course there is. But we were't talking about which one is stable, which one has heritage... we were talking about which one is "easier". I was arguing from the desktop side, to be sure, but even on the server side I'd maintain MS products are "easier". The registry, which you shouldn't even have to touch anymore, seems obtuse until you start looking at some of the horrendous conf files scattered across the linux file system.
"And hacking into the registry isn't complicated?... But in general, anyone who thinks Microsoft's offerings are really that much easier than *nix must have horseshoes up his ass."
Well, I've been using Windows since forever, and linux since early slackware. I counted recently, and I've been through 12 distros at different times over the last 15 years or so. Most recently it was Ubuntu about 18 months ago. I've also spent the last 10 years working in Solaris on SPARC for part of my work.
I'm as technical as they come, but the last three years I've made a registry modification exactly once, to fine-tune some tcp/ip settings.
In my experience Microsoft's offerings are all easier than *nix ones. My linux installs never last. Something stupid always pisses me off eventually and I ditch them. I have a hard drive in my system that's ready for the next attempt - it's just unallocated space at the moment. At some point I'll get around to distribution 13 (which I will avoid installing on a Friday), but I'm willing to bet four months later I'll be wiping it once again.
This last Ubuntu trial started off stupid. In order to have my dual-monitor settings actually persist through a reboot I had to run the monitor configuration control panel as root. That kind of idiocy holds back linux.
"As a taxpayer, I want nothing more than to see our health systems improve and run more efficiently. I am not foolish enough to say all our problems would be solved overnight by changing away from Microsoft's infrastructure, but I am convinced that if we took less than half the money we spend on licensing Microsoft's software alone and invested that in training users for an open source system, we would be far better off in the long run."
Sure. Take your decision right to your boss, just like that. And he'll say, "Exactly how did you arrive at your estimate of 'less than half', what's your measuring criteria for 'far better off', how long is 'the long run', and what training makes this magically appear?"
At that point you'll probably stammer something like, "Open source good - Microsoft bad! Nerd SMASH!" and then your boss gets to push the button that opens the trap door beneath you.
An email like that probably didn't come about spontaneously.
"I no longer want to see comments promoting other Operating Systems". Sounds like somebody wouldn't shut up. I would suspect that some open-source fans in the organization just couldn't let it go when their pet project's architects chose Microsoft products for delivery.
There's a fine line between promoting and being a big old pain in the ass.
"And the only reason I can think of why someone would want the date sync'd or the game made non-working due to changed system date was because of some form of DRM."
You haven't thought of a reason, or an explanation. You've got a boogey-man you'd like to blame something new on, even though you have no basis for it, and you've concluded that it must be true because you can't think of anything else. You could equally conclude that it's a failure in the flux capacitor, since nothing else makes sense.
+5 Insightful just ain't what it used to be. You can get it by using the reasoning of a five year old.
"And I say that the mere fact that you have to start a buisness at all just to make something useful is a barrier... Barriers to entry don't have to be insurmountable to be barriers..."
If you consider that a barrier... well... it's about as much a barrier as is the need for you to put on pants in the morning. Since nothing stops you from completing that task, and it's neither expensive nor time-consuming, I have to conclude that you're talking out your ass on this one.
"If you subscribe to such a mailing list, then what you're getting from them isn't spam (because you asked for it). Only other, uninvited e-mail is spam.
Also, I don't know what network you're on. Spam I get is mostly for the famous blue pills & co, fake watches, and the occassional silly 419 / phishing attempt or "get your degree now!" bullshit. Porn spam? What on earth are you talking about?"
If your email gets on their radar (a mailing list would work) you'll suddenly start receiving a whole lot of email from all sorts of people and sites who want to sell you porn. Isn't that porn spam?
Slashdot Mirror
I think the problem with Clippy was that he was ten years too early. If the little fellow was around today he wouldn't get nearly as much abuse. People are more used to the wizard idea now, and to being guided through tasks.
Back then the average user was (I suspect) more technically knowledgeable - the PC as appliance wasn't entrenched. So everybody felt a little insulted when Clippy stuck his nose in their work.
So yes, my mom liked Clippy. If you actually needed his help he was reasonably helpful.
"Never mind that they're killing their own product. Never mind that they're destroying a potential developer base. Never mind that some of the things being developed on said platform are incredibly innovative uses of the equipment."
They're not killing their product. They're just divesting themselves of a client base that costs them money. What good does it do them to sell these things at a loss to people who aren't going to buy games?
Perhaps they could sell a version at a higher cost that would permit alternative O/S installation, but then you've got the costs of maintaining two code bases...
The vast majority of their users are not affected by this decision in the slightest. To me this looks like a smart business decision. You might not like it, but they're making a video game console for profit. They aren't in the business of selling processing power at a loss.
"I agree with piracy in some respects, I think it's a great tool to get what you want while protesting some aspects such as DRMs, agressive pricing, inconvenience, etc..."
Wow, what a load of crap. I mean, really - that's an impressive stack of feces. How exactly is that a protest? Do you stand on the steps of Microsoft HQ with a bullhorn and announce you're pirating their product?
Of course not. You just steal it and convince yourself that you're doing some kind of good because you don't like the terms under which the product is offered to you. You're a thief, not a protester.
What terrific self-delusion you have. If you really wanted to protest you could switch to another O/S, some of which are, in fact, free of all those things you dislike about the product you're stealing. well, most of those things... if they really were inconvenient you would switch away from the MS products.
Grow a pair and own up to your thievery.
"They didn't use to be...and they can be DRMed again at the drop of a hat."
What does that have to do with anything? They can't suddenly re-DRM your old purchases. If Apple decides to reinstate DRM on iTunes then the people who use it can decide whether or not to continue using their service.
In other words, it's not some looming threat that'll suddenly turn your iTunes library into a DRM minefield.
Everybody I know would click through that bad boy without a moment's hesitation.
"That's the day when I realized that a lot of people on slashdot use mod points to punish people they disagree with. It's so much more handy than discussing things."
I just got modded down as "off-topic" when my post was relevant. Somebody was just too stupid to realize that there's no "-1 disagree" for a reason.
"I'm kind of torn by this whole China/Google/Microsoft thing. While I'm not a fan of the Chinese government, who are we to say what they should and shouldn't allow? Would we want a Chinese company to come into our country and tell our government what to do? While I've seen a great deal of discussion about human rights surrounding these stories, I've seen precious little about sovereignty."
I'm big on the idea of moral relativism, and I believe that just because we value something it does NOT mean that another country should value it as well. In fact, a while back I went as far as to suggest that perhaps a country that doesn't have freedom of speech might not need to be "corrected" on the topic.
I was modded so far down that some sort of anti-troll filter kicked in and nobody at my work could post to slashdot for 30 days.
That's the day when I realized that a lot of people on slashdot use mod points to punish people they disagree with. It's so much more handy than discussing things.
Then again, maybe it was me. I see you're doing alright.
Usually there's a long chain that eventually causes an incident wherein Godwin's Law is invoked, rendering the argument pointless and concluded. You got that right out of the way. Good on you.
Clearly you WOULD bring up Nazis, so ignore my signature.
Ice cream causes skin cancer. I know this because in places where they eat more ice cream they have higher rates of skin cancer.
It's blatantly obvious, and I KNOW I can count on you to back me up on that. Power to the insightful, brother!
"But the thing about America is that we FIX problems when we realize that we made a mistake."
Go on. Say that with a straight face.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/4-11-3/24168.html
"The data, from the 2000 census, had already been made public on the agency's Internet site...But the Census Bureau director acknowledged at the meeting that by tabulating and handing over the data...the agency had undermined public trust..."
So let me get this straight. The data was publicly available, and the Bureau was getting in heat for... sorting it?
A six year old story about an eight year old NOTHING.
I routinely waste five minutes of time, but this block I particularly regret.
"Now we need someone to pipe up that if they used Agile Methodology when building the LHC, none of the design issues would have happened."
If they'd have used the Agile Methodology it'd be working, but the particles would travel at 60 miles per hour, and the collisions would be recorded by a police sketch artist. Improvements would be scheduled for a future sprint.
"We could compare to Netware, Lantastic and other solutions that were displaced by the Windows Server solutions though..."
What would that accomplish? The post was comparing Windows then to Windows now. Windows then wasn't networked at all, so why do we care about server anything?
I admit to feeling a little stupid because I'm not getting your point, but others clearly do (+4 insightful).
"Software should gain new features with each version. The addditional functionality of the OS should be a given over the years. I'll give you that they aren't jacking the price of the Home version given the price in 1985, but have you seen their Enterprise Server pricing model?
You're right. So we should compare the pricing to the Enterprise Server Edition of Windows in 1985. Oh, wait... that's a non-existent product.
You can only compare the pricing of the home version since that's the only version remotely comparable.
"Left field: My operating system is Free, if everyone saw that obvious value and weren't tied to existing applications and data they'd all jump ship immediately and by doing so would also immediately raise my operating system's quality of code to amazing levels: just because of the weight of bug reports and new blood of code."
I don't particularly care to contribute to the raising of your O/S's code quality. There are a couple of companies that already have working, polished products. I'll buy one of those. Being free isn't enough. It has to be free AND desirable. It's worth it to me to pay for something I like.
"A simple demo game written on a Fedora system runs perfectly on [other Linux operating systems], but nobody paid for a press conference."
"Unless the game was developed using the Allegro library. Distributions that switched to PulseAudio broke sound in Allegro games because PulseAudio does not like unsigned 16-bit PCM."
Am I the only one who totally had a "tried to game on linux" flashback when I read this?
"I just had to pay $1300 in out-of-pocket expenses for my daughter to get a single stitch (emergency room visit because it was after hours). And the doctor was on the fence as to whether nor not she needed one. Had I known it was going to cost me $1300, I would have used a band-aid."
Maybe the reason the health care system is overburdened is because some people bring their kid to the freaking emergency room for a single stitch.
"There is a considerable difference between fucking around on a home installation and actually making production servers...There is a considerable difference between "Linux on the desktop" and "Linux in the server room".
Well of course there is. But we were't talking about which one is stable, which one has heritage... we were talking about which one is "easier". I was arguing from the desktop side, to be sure, but even on the server side I'd maintain MS products are "easier". The registry, which you shouldn't even have to touch anymore, seems obtuse until you start looking at some of the horrendous conf files scattered across the linux file system.
"And hacking into the registry isn't complicated?... But in general, anyone who thinks Microsoft's offerings are really that much easier than *nix must have horseshoes up his ass."
Well, I've been using Windows since forever, and linux since early slackware. I counted recently, and I've been through 12 distros at different times over the last 15 years or so. Most recently it was Ubuntu about 18 months ago. I've also spent the last 10 years working in Solaris on SPARC for part of my work.
I'm as technical as they come, but the last three years I've made a registry modification exactly once, to fine-tune some tcp/ip settings.
In my experience Microsoft's offerings are all easier than *nix ones. My linux installs never last. Something stupid always pisses me off eventually and I ditch them. I have a hard drive in my system that's ready for the next attempt - it's just unallocated space at the moment. At some point I'll get around to distribution 13 (which I will avoid installing on a Friday), but I'm willing to bet four months later I'll be wiping it once again.
This last Ubuntu trial started off stupid. In order to have my dual-monitor settings actually persist through a reboot I had to run the monitor configuration control panel as root. That kind of idiocy holds back linux.
"As a taxpayer, I want nothing more than to see our health systems improve and run more efficiently. I am not foolish enough to say all our problems would be solved overnight by changing away from Microsoft's infrastructure, but I am convinced that if we took less than half the money we spend on licensing Microsoft's software alone and invested that in training users for an open source system, we would be far better off in the long run."
Sure. Take your decision right to your boss, just like that. And he'll say, "Exactly how did you arrive at your estimate of 'less than half', what's your measuring criteria for 'far better off', how long is 'the long run', and what training makes this magically appear?"
At that point you'll probably stammer something like, "Open source good - Microsoft bad! Nerd SMASH!" and then your boss gets to push the button that opens the trap door beneath you.
An email like that probably didn't come about spontaneously.
"I no longer want to see comments promoting other Operating Systems". Sounds like somebody wouldn't shut up. I would suspect that some open-source fans in the organization just couldn't let it go when their pet project's architects chose Microsoft products for delivery.
There's a fine line between promoting and being a big old pain in the ass.
"And the only reason I can think of why someone would want the date sync'd or the game made non-working due to changed system date was because of some form of DRM."
You haven't thought of a reason, or an explanation. You've got a boogey-man you'd like to blame something new on, even though you have no basis for it, and you've concluded that it must be true because you can't think of anything else. You could equally conclude that it's a failure in the flux capacitor, since nothing else makes sense.
+5 Insightful just ain't what it used to be. You can get it by using the reasoning of a five year old.
"And I say that the mere fact that you have to start a buisness at all just to make something useful is a barrier... Barriers to entry don't have to be insurmountable to be barriers..."
If you consider that a barrier... well... it's about as much a barrier as is the need for you to put on pants in the morning. Since nothing stops you from completing that task, and it's neither expensive nor time-consuming, I have to conclude that you're talking out your ass on this one.
"...but I imagine... probably has something to do with... they appear to..."
That's just awesome. You got +5 informative explaining how Microsoft mighht be guilty of unknown shenanigans.
Slashdot's just plain broken.
"If you subscribe to such a mailing list, then what you're getting from them isn't spam (because you asked for it). Only other, uninvited e-mail is spam. Also, I don't know what network you're on. Spam I get is mostly for the famous blue pills & co, fake watches, and the occassional silly 419 / phishing attempt or "get your degree now!" bullshit. Porn spam? What on earth are you talking about?"
If your email gets on their radar (a mailing list would work) you'll suddenly start receiving a whole lot of email from all sorts of people and sites who want to sell you porn. Isn't that porn spam?