It allows your employees to bargain collectively for what is best for them.
You'd think that would be how it worked. But it doesn't. It allows the UNION to bargain in THEIR best interest, not the employees'.
I used to work for Western Union as a part time phone operator/agent during the summer to help pay for college. The union required all employees to pay dues to them. Doesn't matter if you're a member or not, you had to pay dues.
The union also actively worked to REDUCE the pay for part time employees, and eliminate part time positions. Pay for my job, and my position. Using money I was required to pay them.
So you'll forgive me if I don't share your utopian vision where Unions are in control of the workforce, and not employers.
I'll work off the assumption there has to be some financial and or control related gain to this or they wouldn't do
How is this for your financial incentive: Not getting sued 5 years from now because some nutjob managed to get a patent granted for some basic RSS functionality. (see Eolas vs Microsoft)
The whole point of the save system is to give the player a real sense of tension/fear while wandering around a mall full of zombies. It's a damn survival horror game for friggin sakes. How would that effect be imparted on a player if they could save every two seconds?
And what video game DOESN'T involve doing the same thing over and over again? In mario you jump on top of bad guys over and over again. In quake you shoot people over and over again. In dead rising, you kill zombies over and over again. Sheesh.
Apparently it doesn't work as flawlessly as you think, because it takes me 5 minutes to find the friggin response I'm trying to read. If I could find an option to turn the damn thing off I'd use it.
Ah, I wasn't considering the constant connection case; though I don't think this is meant to prevent a machine already on your network from staying connected, rather it is intended to keep new machines from connecting if they're not up to date.
Malware xyz comes out. It knows abc is the "current" version of windows.
A patch for windows comes out to close the hole malware xyz exploits, and now the current version of windows is abc1.
How does xyz know the "current" version has changed? This check occurs while retreiving a dhcp address; the machine has no net access!
So, the machine continues to report abc is the current version, because it doesn't know any better. Reporting abc9999 won't do the trick either, as it would be an easy way to validate that your machine has malware xyz (because abc9999 doesn't exist).
Malware can't bypass this feature because it doesn't have enough information available to correctly fool the dhcp server.
They maintain a local whitelist of "sites that definately aren't phishing sites". However, I believe they update that via some sort of background mechanism in IE and not via WU.
Information without context can be confusing sometimes.;)
I haven't had much of a chance to look very deeply into it so far, though it concerns me that they consider certain classes of functions "optional". The ability for "application specific" functions also taints the specification, reducing portability of documents. (someone could be completely complaint with the specification and produce a formula that nobody else could correctly display) *sigh*
If you can't represent your "new" feature within the syntax/scope of the "required" features, you can't use the standard to encode that feature. End of story. Nobody else can consume your feature. You just lost the benefit of the standard for that feature.
If I want to write an ODF spreadsheet with formulas in fields, and I want to do so in a manner the rest of the world is guaranteed to understand, I can't. I can certainly try to use a scheme someone else has come up with, or I can do my own thing and make other applications figure out what it is I did, but there is no guarantee that any other application will be able to read my formula; in fact, you can pretty much be guaranteed that some other compliant application out there will NOT read the formula correctly.
If you want to add "new" functionality, you release a new version of the standard. You shouldn't leave functionality ambiguous and figure it out later.
Was that intended to counter my point, or agree with it? Because if you're intending to counter it, posting a link to a draft spec external to ODF kind of has the opposite effect...
Bear in mind that I'm just trying to point out reasoning for the disparity in specification sizes, not that I'm advocating one standard over the other.
Standards, by definitions, are stifling. That's the whole point. You are restricting the featureset a complying application has available.
Not defining needed items in a standard isn't "enabling", it is stifling. Standards enable interopability; either you stay within the bounds and only do what the standard allows, or you go out of bounds and lose interopability.
For starters, it defines syntax for spreadsheet formulas... (and once you realize that something that basic is missing from the ODF specification, you should start to understand the large disparity between the sizes of the specifications).
Word composed mail is not sent in the Word format. If it did, Slashdot would collapse under the weight of people falling over themselves to complain about it...
Believe me, if Walmart could, they would. Walmart has no leverage on car manufacturers. Universal, on the other hand, does have leverage over companies who sell music.
Fortunately, Joel doesn't meet the hiring standards bar. His solution to the shutdown menu problem is to eliminate the user's ability to turn the computer off. I'm sure laptop users would just LOVE that feature...
This conversation is like talking to a brick wall.
Be mad at the media industry and Congress. Get the legislation fixed. Don't go apeshit at some poor fool walking in front of a buggy waving a red flag.
Slashdot Mirror
You can even turn it into a bit of a game ... see how far you can travel without touching the brake.
A few other beneficial side effects:
* better gas mileage
* less stress
* less wear and tear on your brakes
CAT and Boeing also take a paid week off around Christmas.
It allows your employees to bargain collectively for what is best for them.
You'd think that would be how it worked. But it doesn't. It allows the UNION to bargain in THEIR best interest, not the employees'.
I used to work for Western Union as a part time phone operator/agent during the summer to help pay for college. The union required all employees to pay dues to them. Doesn't matter if you're a member or not, you had to pay dues.
The union also actively worked to REDUCE the pay for part time employees, and eliminate part time positions. Pay for my job, and my position. Using money I was required to pay them.
So you'll forgive me if I don't share your utopian vision where Unions are in control of the workforce, and not employers.
I'll work off the assumption there has to be some financial and or control related gain to this or they wouldn't do
How is this for your financial incentive: Not getting sued 5 years from now because some nutjob managed to get a patent granted for some basic RSS functionality. (see Eolas vs Microsoft)
Why are developers pandering to this group? I suspect because these games are easy to crank out and don't require nearly as much creativity.
Why? Maybe because the games friggin sell like crazy? If you don't want so many shooters on the market, get everyone to stop buying them.
The whole point of the save system is to give the player a real sense of tension/fear while wandering around a mall full of zombies. It's a damn survival horror game for friggin sakes. How would that effect be imparted on a player if they could save every two seconds?
And what video game DOESN'T involve doing the same thing over and over again? In mario you jump on top of bad guys over and over again. In quake you shoot people over and over again. In dead rising, you kill zombies over and over again. Sheesh.
Apparently it doesn't work as flawlessly as you think, because it takes me 5 minutes to find the friggin response I'm trying to read. If I could find an option to turn the damn thing off I'd use it.
No, it is annoying as hell, especially when senders copy the previous mail in the reply.
Ah, I wasn't considering the constant connection case; though I don't think this is meant to prevent a machine already on your network from staying connected, rather it is intended to keep new machines from connecting if they're not up to date.
How can you poll the offsite server if your machine doesn't have an IP address?
Think about what you propose for a minute.
Malware xyz comes out. It knows abc is the "current" version of windows.
A patch for windows comes out to close the hole malware xyz exploits, and now the current version of windows is abc1.
How does xyz know the "current" version has changed? This check occurs while retreiving a dhcp address; the machine has no net access!
So, the machine continues to report abc is the current version, because it doesn't know any better. Reporting abc9999 won't do the trick either, as it would be an easy way to validate that your machine has malware xyz (because abc9999 doesn't exist).
Malware can't bypass this feature because it doesn't have enough information available to correctly fool the dhcp server.
They maintain a local whitelist of "sites that definately aren't phishing sites". However, I believe they update that via some sort of background mechanism in IE and not via WU.
Why rewrite code that isn't broken?
Information without context can be confusing sometimes. ;)
I haven't had much of a chance to look very deeply into it so far, though it concerns me that they consider certain classes of functions "optional". The ability for "application specific" functions also taints the specification, reducing portability of documents. (someone could be completely complaint with the specification and produce a formula that nobody else could correctly display) *sigh*
If you can't represent your "new" feature within the syntax/scope of the "required" features, you can't use the standard to encode that feature. End of story. Nobody else can consume your feature. You just lost the benefit of the standard for that feature.
If I want to write an ODF spreadsheet with formulas in fields, and I want to do so in a manner the rest of the world is guaranteed to understand, I can't. I can certainly try to use a scheme someone else has come up with, or I can do my own thing and make other applications figure out what it is I did, but there is no guarantee that any other application will be able to read my formula; in fact, you can pretty much be guaranteed that some other compliant application out there will NOT read the formula correctly.
If you want to add "new" functionality, you release a new version of the standard. You shouldn't leave functionality ambiguous and figure it out later.
Was that intended to counter my point, or agree with it? Because if you're intending to counter it, posting a link to a draft spec external to ODF kind of has the opposite effect...
Bear in mind that I'm just trying to point out reasoning for the disparity in specification sizes, not that I'm advocating one standard over the other.
Standards, by definitions, are stifling. That's the whole point. You are restricting the featureset a complying application has available.
Not defining needed items in a standard isn't "enabling", it is stifling. Standards enable interopability; either you stay within the bounds and only do what the standard allows, or you go out of bounds and lose interopability.
For starters, it defines syntax for spreadsheet formulas ... (and once you realize that something that basic is missing from the ODF specification, you should start to understand the large disparity between the sizes of the specifications).
It is certainly possible. And I guarantee you you'd see tons of people accusing them of attempting such an act if they switched to ODF tomorrow.
Word composed mail is not sent in the Word format. If it did, Slashdot would collapse under the weight of people falling over themselves to complain about it ...
Honestly, Microsoft didn't have much negotiating leverage.
What happens if Microsoft says no? Their store is missing a lot of music people want to buy, and as a result nobody buys their product.
What happens to Universal if Microsoft says no and Universal pulls the plug? Nothing; everyone keeps using their iPods.
It shouldn't take much imagination to see how the "deal" went down. (queue Steve Ballmer throwing chairs)
Believe me, if Walmart could, they would. Walmart has no leverage on car manufacturers. Universal, on the other hand, does have leverage over companies who sell music.
Your arguement might have merit if he was the sole member of the committee. A committee is the judicial equivelent of a jury.
Fortunately, Joel doesn't meet the hiring standards bar. His solution to the shutdown menu problem is to eliminate the user's ability to turn the computer off. I'm sure laptop users would just LOVE that feature...
This conversation is like talking to a brick wall.
Be mad at the media industry and Congress. Get the legislation fixed. Don't go apeshit at some poor fool walking in front of a buggy waving a red flag.