Ah, I get your take on release cycles now. What is different is that at least one tech-savvy business has stated to skip vista altogether: intel.
I disagree on your calculations though; if a big business can save 5% of its IT budget while keeping the same productivity, it will probably do so. That 5% is a lot of money. If they do not, their competitors will.
Regarding the ad: GP was making the point that no ad that even hinted to an os with a linux kernel a year ago; every add had a windows logo on it. No windows logo anymore is a significant change, even though linux is not named in the Shouting Large Letters(tm) part of the ad.
Bollocks. Big businesses (like, say, Intel) run a 3-5 year upgrade cycle (closer to 5 these days), based around both hardware cycles (typically due to leasing arrangements) and software certification. The _earliest_ any intelligent person would expect Vista to start appearing in big business IT (outside of pilot programs, testing and CxO laptops) is the beginning of 2009, and more likely around the beginning of 2010.
I fail to see the logic in your statement. If every big business runs on a (let's simplify) 5 year upgrade cycle, one would expect n / 5 businesses to upgrade any given year when there are n businesses. Or did you mean to say that every big business is on the same upgrade schedule?
Those staying with XP are doing so because it is a known quantity.
Following that same logic, they would have never upgraded from 2000 to XP.
So 2009 will be the year of the Linux desktop ? Just like 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000 and 1999 were going to be ?
A funny remark, but you do not reply to GP's point.
Bollocks. Dell have been selling servers, workstations and desktops with Linux installed for *years*.
(...) if you're making a profit off their product it makes perfect sense to ask for more.
Ehm, no. In your logic a baker, butcher of supermarket should ask more for a loaf of bread when the person who buys it has a higher salary. Food is needed to have energy and that energy is used for higher income/profit.
Alas, even in places that have people with higher than average IQs, there always seems to be enough people who oversimplify things and look for groups to blame for something. Just like the AC sibling above this posting: "France capitulated in WWII, so all the french are cowards."
Since I am from The Netherlands and have lived here from the day I was pushed out of my mother womb, I find it both hilarious and disturbing how my score compares to US elected officials. Note that I did not study US history or anything related...
This is a program that goes through your Windows registry looking for things that aren't being used and deleting them. You have to be a little bit on the obsessive-compulsive side to care about cleaning up unused parts of your registry. So I'm starting to suspect that fretting about bloatware is more of a mental health problem than a software problem.
I hope it is needless to say I did not read on beyond this point.
"(...) Why is all this stuff here?!" It's a maddening question.
That is: until you realize that the question is irrelevant. You assume that there is a reason for all this stuff; I have yet to see any reason for this assumption to hold true. Until you can at least have a valid hypothesis, there is little use in following along that line of reasoning. If you ask me, that is.
As the poster above me already commented, there seems to be a connection between being bipolar and creativity. I do not know if you can watch BBC programs, but Stephen Fry (of "A Bit Of Fry And Laury (*)" comedy fame) is bipolar as well and highly creative (at times). He made a series of TV programs about it, talking to people with the same 'disorder'. I only saw one, but found it very fascinating.
If you have not seen it, I would certainly suggest getting your hands on it.
(*): That's Hugh Laury, who now plays dr. House in the US TV series "House".
Well, since something like the common cold has evaded us for so long, I guess it will take a long, long time before someone can stop all creativity in all humans. And before that really happens, some creative souls will probably find some way around it.
I am puzzled by your comment. Why is getting to know your inner workings 'dehumanizing'? I find it quite the opposite: we are by nature curious to know how things work, also how our own bodies work. Our brain is just one part of our bodies, a significant part, but still a part; why would we want to know how our hart works but not how our brain works?. Where would you draw the line in knowing how we function?
We are constantly being further reduced to mere chemicals.
No, we are not reduced in any way: we stay the same. The models that describe how we work are being refined so that we can treat diseases and improve on the quality of life. Knowledge about ourselves changes.
drugs now replace life experience and the freedom to choose anything for ourselves
Drug use is common throughout human history; using plants, herbs and mushrooms for instance to treat diseases, prevent pregnancy and enter different states of consciousness has been a part of human societies since the prehistory.
The Borg is a vision of future human beings.
Yes, so are (were?) The Jetsons. The Borg are an oversimplification of how we might develop; that vision was created to enjoy ourselves, just like stories about the boogieman and Nightmare on Elm St. Knowing how we work has nothing to do with enslavement. More the opposite, I reckon.
I very much enjoyed your reasoning. Thanks, it made a smile appear on my face; somehow I seem to be able to really feel the aesthetic beauty of good reasoning and a bit of pun (ready, set,...). Unfortunately your 'adversary' seems to think in a way I have seen before with people who are religious: since they have 'found God' and this God is omnipotent, the truth, absolute love, whatever, there is little else to do but freeze one's thinking in that area.
There is nothing beyond the absolute. Therefor, he feels/thinks he is right and you are only trying to bring him from that. In christian terms, you are the devil for him. And that archetypical picture brings up more feelings, making it impossible to make him see he is wrong in your world and the broader world of people who know there is no absolute truth (*), so one should never stop thinking, working and discovering.
Lately I have come to think of alternative forms of life. Memes can be seen as a form of life, they survive and adapt, but use our collective intellects as feeding grounds. The only way these theistic memes can survive is by becoming less and less relevant. Just like science told us that Thor is not responsible for lightning, other sciences have since Galileo/Copernicus/Kepler have pushed religion back by explaining more and more of the world around us. So there is less and less room for these memes to survive. Because of cognitive dissonance in human beings, this will probably mean that you are likely to see this type of discussion again.
And, so I hope, will I.;-)
Sorry, I had this bubble of communication drift appearing.
(*) If there happens to be an absolute truth, we are very, very, very likely not able to understand it, so there is no absolute truth for us. That is the source of my 'knowing'.
I must add that, au contraire the 2004 election, I have failed to see stories about the CEO of a large voting machines producing company (Diebold), stating he would do everything in his power to deliver a certain state to a certain candidate.
There have also been far viewer stories on fairly large groups of people that were suddenly unable to vote for some reason.
And with regards to your last statement: now I suddenly realise why I prefer living in The Netherlands. We do not rely either on the government or the individial; we rely on co-operation between all. Both a safety net for the less fortunate as well as enough room for the individual to excel.
From my point of view, both you, gp and most of the others who replied to your post are wrong in reasoning. Please do not take this as a judgement, because it is not. That line of reasoning comes from being 'indoctrinated' with the idea that the US are a democratic country, and because of the meaning of that word (from demos and kratos if memory serves) the people must be in control.
This is far from the truth. On presidential elections, one can choose between 2 people. 2. In the former USSR they also had elections. You could choose between 1 person most of the time.
Why this is bad? What if you are against abortion, but pro gay marriage? What if do not want to let go on your right to bear arms, but are agains the death penalty? What if you want the war in Iraq to end as soon as possible, but... fill in the gaps. There is no clear line between 2 groups where you belong in either one or the other. That is why you cannot state what you did: that x% 'want this' and 100-x% 'want the other thing'.
The US is not a democratic country. There are 2 parties that, because of the winner-takes-all system, will never divide to more correctly reflect the feelings in the populace, because that would leave the other party as default winner. Compare this to the system we have in The Netherlands, where there is even a political party for the rights of animals (one seat in 'house of commons'). When elections comes, there are at least 3 mayor parties I can choose from, and if I choose another, my vote will certainly not be irrelevant as in the US, where your vote for someone from the democratic party is simply irrelevant.
The US has never been a 'united' country. The divisions between groups is just not clear because of the political system.
Silly me, did not see that. Not to lessen my mistake, but the/. interface is a bit lacking in making it more clear that a message has been posted in reply to another message that is outside of one's viewing threshold. A +5 -> B -1 -> C +5 makes it look like C has been posted in reply to A...
It is your brain: it is wired to find anything moving interesting and therefor your eyes feel 'drawn' to it. I always ask for a television to be turned off when I want to engage in a proper conversation, else it would be too distracting. A cat playing with something has the same distracting effect on me.
This focus-on-movement could be evolutionary be explained because a) you might eat what moves; b) it might eat you; c) it might be an interesting sex partner (in which case you might eat it and/or it might eat you).
So maybe we're seeing why the dinosaurs died out. They were too sensitive to environment change.
Not likely. Dinosaurs roamed the earth for over 160 million years. It is illogical to assume that no significant climate change took place over that long a period.
I am afraid that you still not see my point: there is nothing you can do with a registry that you cannot do with a filesystem and config files.
Except look at an entry and immediately know the data type, and be able to make quick changes using that knowledge. Even from the command line. And for any program.
If the data type is binary, forget your quick changes. Command line & any program? sed/etc/whatever/conf.
You refuse to see the point. Continuing this conversation for me is pointless. Have a nice day.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, I get your take on release cycles now. What is different is that at least one tech-savvy business has stated to skip vista altogether: intel.
I disagree on your calculations though; if a big business can save 5% of its IT budget while keeping the same productivity, it will probably do so. That 5% is a lot of money. If they do not, their competitors will.
Regarding the ad: GP was making the point that no ad that even hinted to an os with a linux kernel a year ago; every add had a windows logo on it. No windows logo anymore is a significant change, even though linux is not named in the Shouting Large Letters(tm) part of the ad.
Bollocks. Big businesses (like, say, Intel) run a 3-5 year upgrade cycle (closer to 5 these days), based around both hardware cycles (typically due to leasing arrangements) and software certification. The _earliest_ any intelligent person would expect Vista to start appearing in big business IT (outside of pilot programs, testing and CxO laptops) is the beginning of 2009, and more likely around the beginning of 2010.
I fail to see the logic in your statement. If every big business runs on a (let's simplify) 5 year upgrade cycle, one would expect n / 5 businesses to upgrade any given year when there are n businesses. Or did you mean to say that every big business is on the same upgrade schedule?
Those staying with XP are doing so because it is a known quantity.
Following that same logic, they would have never upgraded from 2000 to XP.
So 2009 will be the year of the Linux desktop ? Just like 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000 and 1999 were going to be ?
A funny remark, but you do not reply to GP's point.
Bollocks. Dell have been selling servers, workstations and desktops with Linux installed for *years*.
With ads in a national newspaper?
(...) if you're making a profit off their product it makes perfect sense to ask for more.
Ehm, no. In your logic a baker, butcher of supermarket should ask more for a loaf of bread when the person who buys it has a higher salary. Food is needed to have energy and that energy is used for higher income/profit.
N00b! That should be dial voice "+1-555-1212" -ntwk verizon -prot cdma2000 -ssh-version 2 -a -l -q -9 -b -k -K 14 -x
Alas, even in places that have people with higher than average IQs, there always seems to be enough people who oversimplify things and look for groups to blame for something. Just like the AC sibling above this posting: "France capitulated in WWII, so all the french are cowards."
Sad, but real.
- Techno: Air
I am sorry, but I like Air as well as techno, but Air certainly ain't techno. Some seem to agree.
(...) what people can do easily (...)
So I guess we should just legalise printing counterfeit money, then?
Do you mean to say you have found a way to easily print money?
The currency I use (Euro) has very specific ways to prevent me from being able to copy banknotes.
You answered 28 out of 33 correctly -- 84.85 %
Since I am from The Netherlands and have lived here from the day I was pushed out of my mother womb, I find it both hilarious and disturbing how my score compares to US elected officials. Note that I did not study US history or anything related...
This is a program that goes through your Windows registry looking for things that aren't being used and deleting them. You have to be a little bit on the obsessive-compulsive side to care about cleaning up unused parts of your registry. So I'm starting to suspect that fretting about bloatware is more of a mental health problem than a software problem.
I hope it is needless to say I did not read on beyond this point.
"(...) Why is all this stuff here?!" It's a maddening question.
That is: until you realize that the question is irrelevant. You assume that there is a reason for all this stuff; I have yet to see any reason for this assumption to hold true. Until you can at least have a valid hypothesis, there is little use in following along that line of reasoning. If you ask me, that is.
As the poster above me already commented, there seems to be a connection between being bipolar and creativity. I do not know if you can watch BBC programs, but Stephen Fry (of "A Bit Of Fry And Laury (*)" comedy fame) is bipolar as well and highly creative (at times). He made a series of TV programs about it, talking to people with the same 'disorder'. I only saw one, but found it very fascinating.
If you have not seen it, I would certainly suggest getting your hands on it.
(*): That's Hugh Laury, who now plays dr. House in the US TV series "House".
Well, since something like the common cold has evaded us for so long, I guess it will take a long, long time before someone can stop all creativity in all humans. And before that really happens, some creative souls will probably find some way around it.
We are constantly being further reduced to mere chemicals.
No, we are not reduced in any way: we stay the same. The models that describe how we work are being refined so that we can treat diseases and improve on the quality of life. Knowledge about ourselves changes.
drugs now replace life experience and the freedom to choose anything for ourselves
Drug use is common throughout human history; using plants, herbs and mushrooms for instance to treat diseases, prevent pregnancy and enter different states of consciousness has been a part of human societies since the prehistory.
The Borg is a vision of future human beings.
Yes, so are (were?) The Jetsons. The Borg are an oversimplification of how we might develop; that vision was created to enjoy ourselves, just like stories about the boogieman and Nightmare on Elm St. Knowing how we work has nothing to do with enslavement. More the opposite, I reckon.
I very much enjoyed your reasoning. Thanks, it made a smile appear on my face; somehow I seem to be able to really feel the aesthetic beauty of good reasoning and a bit of pun (ready, set, ...). Unfortunately your 'adversary' seems to think in a way I have seen before with people who are religious: since they have 'found God' and this God is omnipotent, the truth, absolute love, whatever, there is little else to do but freeze one's thinking in that area.
;-)
There is nothing beyond the absolute. Therefor, he feels/thinks he is right and you are only trying to bring him from that. In christian terms, you are the devil for him. And that archetypical picture brings up more feelings, making it impossible to make him see he is wrong in your world and the broader world of people who know there is no absolute truth (*), so one should never stop thinking, working and discovering.
Lately I have come to think of alternative forms of life. Memes can be seen as a form of life, they survive and adapt, but use our collective intellects as feeding grounds. The only way these theistic memes can survive is by becoming less and less relevant. Just like science told us that Thor is not responsible for lightning, other sciences have since Galileo/Copernicus/Kepler have pushed religion back by explaining more and more of the world around us. So there is less and less room for these memes to survive. Because of cognitive dissonance in human beings, this will probably mean that you are likely to see this type of discussion again.
And, so I hope, will I.
Sorry, I had this bubble of communication drift appearing.
(*) If there happens to be an absolute truth, we are very, very, very likely not able to understand it, so there is no absolute truth for us. That is the source of my 'knowing'.
I must add that, au contraire the 2004 election, I have failed to see stories about the CEO of a large voting machines producing company (Diebold), stating he would do everything in his power to deliver a certain state to a certain candidate.
There have also been far viewer stories on fairly large groups of people that were suddenly unable to vote for some reason.
And with regards to your last statement: now I suddenly realise why I prefer living in The Netherlands. We do not rely either on the government or the individial; we rely on co-operation between all. Both a safety net for the less fortunate as well as enough room for the individual to excel.
From my point of view, both you, gp and most of the others who replied to your post are wrong in reasoning. Please do not take this as a judgement, because it is not. That line of reasoning comes from being 'indoctrinated' with the idea that the US are a democratic country, and because of the meaning of that word (from demos and kratos if memory serves) the people must be in control.
... fill in the gaps. There is no clear line between 2 groups where you belong in either one or the other. That is why you cannot state what you did: that x% 'want this' and 100-x% 'want the other thing'.
This is far from the truth. On presidential elections, one can choose between 2 people. 2. In the former USSR they also had elections. You could choose between 1 person most of the time.
Why this is bad? What if you are against abortion, but pro gay marriage? What if do not want to let go on your right to bear arms, but are agains the death penalty? What if you want the war in Iraq to end as soon as possible, but
The US is not a democratic country. There are 2 parties that, because of the winner-takes-all system, will never divide to more correctly reflect the feelings in the populace, because that would leave the other party as default winner. Compare this to the system we have in The Netherlands, where there is even a political party for the rights of animals (one seat in 'house of commons'). When elections comes, there are at least 3 mayor parties I can choose from, and if I choose another, my vote will certainly not be irrelevant as in the US, where your vote for someone from the democratic party is simply irrelevant.
The US has never been a 'united' country. The divisions between groups is just not clear because of the political system.
Well, since you ask: no. I do get sick of Microsofts behaviour, but not of its critics.
Yup, see http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1019807&cid=25659415.
Silly me, did not see that. Not to lessen my mistake, but the /. interface is a bit lacking in making it more clear that a message has been posted in reply to another message that is outside of one's viewing threshold. A +5 -> B -1 -> C +5 makes it look like C has been posted in reply to A...
If he has got his messages (http://slashdot.org/help) set up to send an email when someone replies, the checking would be trivial.
Needless to say that I do agree on the message you relay.
Would that mean you need to make sure that there are loads of mirrors and aim for one of those?
It is your brain: it is wired to find anything moving interesting and therefor your eyes feel 'drawn' to it. I always ask for a television to be turned off when I want to engage in a proper conversation, else it would be too distracting. A cat playing with something has the same distracting effect on me.
This focus-on-movement could be evolutionary be explained because a) you might eat what moves; b) it might eat you; c) it might be an interesting sex partner (in which case you might eat it and/or it might eat you).
Think of it this way: I am an apartment complex and I have an agreement to mow my neighbor's lawn and in exchange he shovels my sidewalk.
Hmmm, couldn't you just use a car-analogy?
So maybe we're seeing why the dinosaurs died out. They were too sensitive to environment change.
Not likely. Dinosaurs roamed the earth for over 160 million years. It is illogical to assume that no significant climate change took place over that long a period.
I am afraid that you still not see my point: there is nothing you can do with a registry that you cannot do with a filesystem and config files.
Except look at an entry and immediately know the data type, and be able to make quick changes using that knowledge. Even from the command line. And for any program.
If the data type is binary, forget your quick changes. Command line & any program? sed /etc/whatever/conf.
You refuse to see the point. Continuing this conversation for me is pointless. Have a nice day.