Or maybe we should just mandate that CEOs can't make more than, say 1000 times what their lowest paid employee makes. If the lowest paid employee makes $20,000 a year, the CEO would be limited to twenty million a year.
I agree with most of your comment, but a 1000-to-one difference is still insane. IIRC, in the sixties, CEOs of large companies typically made no more than 60 times the average worker's salary. Aside from huge egos, insatiable greed, a lack of shame, and complete dishonesty and disregard for the law, what makes an American CEO worth 1000 workers who actually produce something?
He is the Don Quixote of the software world except he doesn't have half the attractiveness.
Quixotic is an apt description.
From the article: What has the son of a farmer, a devout Mormon, and the father of seven done to so swiftly earn the [most hated man in high tech] honor?
Now I'm sure I'll get 50+ posts of people telling me that I'm dumb, if I do x, y and z then I can get this, I just need to edit a file, I need to install this plugin, etc.etc. but the point is that I shouldn't need to post complaints to slashdot to get the answers, nor should i need to surf the web, use google or anything else.
If you believe in the Microsoft way, even though you know there are alternatives, then stay where you are and atrophy. Apparently, this is a new paradigm for you, but it was around long before Bill Gates became upset about software being free. C'mon, even if you buy a new car, it takes at least two days with the owner's manual to figure out how everything works. If you want something for nothing, go to the welfare department. Why is it that so many people getting an FOSS program believe it should hold their hands and wipe their noses? Whatever happened to common courtesy and saying thank you? How about the old saw, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth"?
If they don't even want to try them, then they shouldn't bitch about the spyware etc at all. They choose not to seriously look at alternatives. You can hardly blame MS for that.
MS should not be blamed for what? For providing a broken, worm and virus vector product in the first place? For marketing MS products as the only possible choice? For using their monopoly position to force web sites to work with IE even if it's broken? The thing I find hilarious is web sites that won't allow you access if you're not identified as IE because you don't have a "secure" browser.
It just isn't practical until developers stop creating IE only websites (Yahoo Avatar is a great example).
I feel that pain. If you read Dilbert and have seen Webmistress Ming, you know our web developer. She claims to be a software developer because she can use Frontpage. Whenever she updates a page, it becomes IE-only again. If you complain about it, she tells you to use Control-Shift-Click on the reload icon. If you tell management that an IT company's web site should work with more than one browser, the problem is grudgingly fixed, but the link to your project's page mysteriously no longer works (the page source shows the link is missing). It's the drones - you can't beat 'em because they've been assimilated.
IE works. I haven't had spyware in ages between my anti-virus program and occasionally running Ad-Aware.
This attitude seems pretty common, and I don't get it. Sure IE works - like junkies sharing a needle. Doesn't it bother you at all that your system's resources are being spent watching you and other programs to contain infections when the solution is to not allow infections in the first place? Then, you don't need an AV program constantly running or a spyware remover. There seems to be a real mental disconnect here.
And in any event, any bunch of geeks willing to name their product 'FireFox' deserve to be laughed at. Jesus, where'd you get that? A comic book? Oh, excuse me - a 'graphic novel'?
Where did MS get the name "Explorer"? Off of an upside down Ford with four blown tires?
When you call BofA, you get "hours" of prerecorder/touch tone crap. I have just about given up on BofA.
I gave up on B of A when they decided to become Bank of India but forgot to change their name. My local community bank has great customer service and gives back to the community by employing residents. That's where my business and money goes now.
Then again, this is British cooking that we're discussing.
During my two-week visit to my (partially) ancestral homeland, I saw the sun only for a few hours one day, and that was depressing. But the topper was discovering that the only condiments in a pricey London restaurant were salt and white pepper. Good lord, they bleach the pepper, and it tastes like it! No, we didn't order the mad cow - it was too expensive.
Fish and "chips" floating in malt vinegar is, um, interesting. The grease-soaked "fried toast" was a gastronomic wake-up call for the unaware. However, the Brits do take their cuisine very seriously. While staying in Ipswitch, the newspaper reported that a local Chinese restaurant had been fined for "serving Alsation". (That's serving as in putting on a plate, not serving as in waiting upon.)
. . . projectile will travel faster than a missile and be impossible to decoy/evade.
So the payload-borne, GPS-based guidance will be impossible to jam/spoof? That would be nice to believe, but I feel an international haXOr contest in the making. Activate the misguidance shields, Mr. Sulu!
FYI: The Longhorn API will support the old win32 API.
I'm certainly (no longer) an expert on things Microsoft, but there was this article on Slashdot linking to this article by someone who at least has a name I recognize. I don't believe everything I read on the Intarweb, and it's a long read, but the guy seems to be saying that Longhorn will break backwards compatability and says it at length. Got anything more authoritative?
Over time, I eventually stopped playing my PS1 games, and traded them in.
All of them?! That's sad. You didn't have any favorites that made them keepers? I still have a couple dozen PS1 games like the MediEvil-s, Tomb Raider-s, the original Medal of Honor games, etc. I've replayed them a few times already, and I think I'll still be interested in playing them every once in a while. And it's not likely you'll get another chance to buy them later. Look at Ico, probably one of the best PS2 games - if you don't have a copy, too bad.
actually it just has one small microsoft logo on the bottom. In huge letters it says "Essential Facts about Windows and Linux"
Hmm. Sounds very similar to their 2-DVD magazine insert about essential windows for UNIX users. It helpfully explains how Windows 2003 is easier to administer than a UNIX/Linux server - well, yeah for a Windoze admin trained to do nothing but Windows. There was something about the security advantages too, but I figured I'd probably trigger a trojan if I clicked on it, so I didn't go there.
My hands might be slightly 'moulded' to the Playstation controller due to hundreds of hours of play time . ..
"Hundreds of hours?" Hundreds?! Get back to work. I only surf Slashdot after my thumb cramps up from mashing the "X" button (which no longer has any visible marking thanks to Playstation and its pressure-sensitive buttons). Piker.
Even though ms hasn't said anything about this yet, why would they make such a big change in the architecture when they're trying to gain market share? Doesn't sound like it would make business sense.
From what I've read, the Longhorn API will also break compatibility with all existing Windows programs (not that it makes much difference to me). Either someone at MS has become a visionary and I'll be hugely surprised, or they have begun a meltdown in a frantic search for ever more revenue. Time will tell.
After my PlayStation broke, I was very grateful for the backwards compatibility.
I think that's an important point to remember in the discussion. The people who would have been most interested in PS2 backwards compatibility already owned a Playstation, so it was a non-issue. My old Playstation still works when I want to replay MediEvil or Tomb Raider III. Being the lame gamer that I am, I found the PS2's backwards compatibility didn't extend to the PS Gameshark, which made it less useful. Of course, Gameshark in general has jumped the shark, but that's another story.
Unfortunately, whether or not a company has morals is a moot point if they're finacially bankrupt.
I suppose you enjoy listening to yourself talk. Mandrake is no longer in bankruptcy. Do I need to list a bunch of major companies that have gone through bankruptcy for you? The public perception of a company's morals can have a significant "impact" on its future. Take Worldcom for example.
Good people who actually have real impact on society: Larry Flynt, Howard Stern, Michael Moore. . . . A 60 person company on the verge of bankruptcy can't have very much impact on much of anything.
Let's see. There was a two-person company in a garage run by fellows named Hewlett and Packard. There was a two-person business run by two kids named Jobs and Wozniak. There was a guy who didn't even have a company, named Ghandi. Your definition of "impact" seems somewhat limited and your heros somewhat shallow.
I couldn't agree more. The largest, most profitable, arguably most successful company in history should definitely follow the shining example set by a bankrupt startup.
That would be better than having Mandrake follow the example of the morally bankrupt "arguably most successful company in history". Some things are more important than money, but I don't expect you to believe that.
And by pulling themselves out of bankruptcy you mean by begging for donations from their "fanbase", or zealots, or followers, disciples, etc..
What pushed your hot button on this topic? You can make yourself feel superior by calling Linux users zealots and disciples if you want, but it won't change the tide. The fact is that Mandrake offered privileges to those users willing to pay for them. We get first access to downloads and discounts on the commercial (yes, commercial) packages as well as other perks you could see by visiting the Mandrakeclub site (but you won't).
Even if Mandrake didn't offer the perks, I'd still support them with donations because I like the easily-installed distro, and, annualized, it's far less than I'd have to pay M$ for their inferior product. It is in my best interests to keep Mandrake in business because they have a product I want. Seems like a pretty normal business model to me. No doubt you think all those MS "disciples" who paid through the nose for Licensing 6.0 and received no upgrades got a good deal.
I thought the principle of Open Source was anyone can use it however the hell they please.
Then you haven't read the GPL. That is why Mandrake has several versions. Some contain non-OSS material, while the download version is strictly OSS. They follow the rules. What's your point - or gripe?
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he helped himself closer to godhood by having 7 children, actually.
At the expense of his wives, poor women.
Or maybe we should just mandate that CEOs can't make more than, say 1000 times what their lowest paid employee makes. If the lowest paid employee makes $20,000 a year, the CEO would be limited to twenty million a year.
I agree with most of your comment, but a 1000-to-one difference is still insane. IIRC, in the sixties, CEOs of large companies typically made no more than 60 times the average worker's salary. Aside from huge egos, insatiable greed, a lack of shame, and complete dishonesty and disregard for the law, what makes an American CEO worth 1000 workers who actually produce something?
He is the Don Quixote of the software world except he doesn't have half the attractiveness.
Quixotic is an apt description.
From the article: What has the son of a farmer, a devout Mormon, and the father of seven done to so swiftly earn the [most hated man in high tech] honor?
This guy just doesn't know when to quit.
Now I'm sure I'll get 50+ posts of people telling me that I'm dumb, if I do x, y and z then I can get this, I just need to edit a file, I need to install this plugin, etc.etc. but the point is that I shouldn't need to post complaints to slashdot to get the answers, nor should i need to surf the web, use google or anything else.
If you believe in the Microsoft way, even though you know there are alternatives, then stay where you are and atrophy. Apparently, this is a new paradigm for you, but it was around long before Bill Gates became upset about software being free. C'mon, even if you buy a new car, it takes at least two days with the owner's manual to figure out how everything works. If you want something for nothing, go to the welfare department. Why is it that so many people getting an FOSS program believe it should hold their hands and wipe their noses? Whatever happened to common courtesy and saying thank you? How about the old saw, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth"?
If they don't even want to try them, then they shouldn't bitch about the spyware etc at all. They choose not to seriously look at alternatives. You can hardly blame MS for that.
MS should not be blamed for what? For providing a broken, worm and virus vector product in the first place? For marketing MS products as the only possible choice? For using their monopoly position to force web sites to work with IE even if it's broken? The thing I find hilarious is web sites that won't allow you access if you're not identified as IE because you don't have a "secure" browser.
It just isn't practical until developers stop creating IE only websites (Yahoo Avatar is a great example).
I feel that pain. If you read Dilbert and have seen Webmistress Ming, you know our web developer. She claims to be a software developer because she can use Frontpage. Whenever she updates a page, it becomes IE-only again. If you complain about it, she tells you to use Control-Shift-Click on the reload icon. If you tell management that an IT company's web site should work with more than one browser, the problem is grudgingly fixed, but the link to your project's page mysteriously no longer works (the page source shows the link is missing). It's the drones - you can't beat 'em because they've been assimilated.
It sounds like Windows wasn't listening when you told it where you wanted to go today. :) Ready for a change yet?
IE works. I haven't had spyware in ages between my anti-virus program and occasionally running Ad-Aware.
This attitude seems pretty common, and I don't get it. Sure IE works - like junkies sharing a needle. Doesn't it bother you at all that your system's resources are being spent watching you and other programs to contain infections when the solution is to not allow infections in the first place? Then, you don't need an AV program constantly running or a spyware remover. There seems to be a real mental disconnect here.
And in any event, any bunch of geeks willing to name their product 'FireFox' deserve to be laughed at. Jesus, where'd you get that? A comic book? Oh, excuse me - a 'graphic novel'?
Where did MS get the name "Explorer"? Off of an upside down Ford with four blown tires?
When you call BofA, you get "hours" of prerecorder/touch tone crap. I have just about given up on BofA.
I gave up on B of A when they decided to become Bank of India but forgot to change their name. My local community bank has great customer service and gives back to the community by employing residents. That's where my business and money goes now.
You should really be asking, "What the hell is Spotted Dick?"
Thanks for the picture (and the allusion). I'm thankful my last meal was several hours ago.
Then again, this is British cooking that we're discussing.
During my two-week visit to my (partially) ancestral homeland, I saw the sun only for a few hours one day, and that was depressing. But the topper was discovering that the only condiments in a pricey London restaurant were salt and white pepper. Good lord, they bleach the pepper, and it tastes like it! No, we didn't order the mad cow - it was too expensive.
Fish and "chips" floating in malt vinegar is, um, interesting. The grease-soaked "fried toast" was a gastronomic wake-up call for the unaware. However, the Brits do take their cuisine very seriously. While staying in Ipswitch, the newspaper reported that a local Chinese restaurant had been fined for "serving Alsation". (That's serving as in putting on a plate, not serving as in waiting upon.)
You are American, right?
I don't know about him, but I am, and I want to know what this Brit-centric article is doing on Slashdot. (Hey, turnabout is fair play. :)
. . . projectile will travel faster than a missile and be impossible to decoy/evade.
So the payload-borne, GPS-based guidance will be impossible to jam/spoof? That would be nice to believe, but I feel an international haXOr contest in the making. Activate the misguidance shields, Mr. Sulu!
FYI: The Longhorn API will support the old win32 API.
I'm certainly (no longer) an expert on things Microsoft, but there was this article on Slashdot linking to this article by someone who at least has a name I recognize. I don't believe everything I read on the Intarweb, and it's a long read, but the guy seems to be saying that Longhorn will break backwards compatability and says it at length. Got anything more authoritative?
Over time, I eventually stopped playing my PS1 games, and traded them in.
All of them?! That's sad. You didn't have any favorites that made them keepers? I still have a couple dozen PS1 games like the MediEvil-s, Tomb Raider-s, the original Medal of Honor games, etc. I've replayed them a few times already, and I think I'll still be interested in playing them every once in a while. And it's not likely you'll get another chance to buy them later. Look at Ico, probably one of the best PS2 games - if you don't have a copy, too bad.
actually it just has one small microsoft logo on the bottom. In huge letters it says "Essential Facts about Windows and Linux"
Hmm. Sounds very similar to their 2-DVD magazine insert about essential windows for UNIX users. It helpfully explains how Windows 2003 is easier to administer than a UNIX/Linux server - well, yeah for a Windoze admin trained to do nothing but Windows. There was something about the security advantages too, but I figured I'd probably trigger a trojan if I clicked on it, so I didn't go there.
My hands might be slightly 'moulded' to the Playstation controller due to hundreds of hours of play time . . .
"Hundreds of hours?" Hundreds?! Get back to work. I only surf Slashdot after my thumb cramps up from mashing the "X" button (which no longer has any visible marking thanks to Playstation and its pressure-sensitive buttons). Piker.
Even though ms hasn't said anything about this yet, why would they make such a big change in the architecture when they're trying to gain market share? Doesn't sound like it would make business sense.
From what I've read, the Longhorn API will also break compatibility with all existing Windows programs (not that it makes much difference to me). Either someone at MS has become a visionary and I'll be hugely surprised, or they have begun a meltdown in a frantic search for ever more revenue. Time will tell.
After my PlayStation broke, I was very grateful for the backwards compatibility.
I think that's an important point to remember in the discussion. The people who would have been most interested in PS2 backwards compatibility already owned a Playstation, so it was a non-issue. My old Playstation still works when I want to replay MediEvil or Tomb Raider III. Being the lame gamer that I am, I found the PS2's backwards compatibility didn't extend to the PS Gameshark, which made it less useful. Of course, Gameshark in general has jumped the shark, but that's another story.
I was enjoying your rants, but the part about Windows "protecting the user" cracked me up. You really deserve a +Funny for that one. :)
Unfortunately, whether or not a company has morals is a moot point if they're finacially bankrupt.
I suppose you enjoy listening to yourself talk. Mandrake is no longer in bankruptcy. Do I need to list a bunch of major companies that have gone through bankruptcy for you? The public perception of a company's morals can have a significant "impact" on its future. Take Worldcom for example.
Good people who actually have real impact on society: Larry Flynt, Howard Stern, Michael Moore. . . . A 60 person company on the verge of bankruptcy can't have very much impact on much of anything.
Let's see. There was a two-person company in a garage run by fellows named Hewlett and Packard. There was a two-person business run by two kids named Jobs and Wozniak. There was a guy who didn't even have a company, named Ghandi. Your definition of "impact" seems somewhat limited and your heros somewhat shallow.
I couldn't agree more. The largest, most profitable, arguably most successful company in history should definitely follow the shining example set by a bankrupt startup.
That would be better than having Mandrake follow the example of the morally bankrupt "arguably most successful company in history". Some things are more important than money, but I don't expect you to believe that.
And by pulling themselves out of bankruptcy you mean by begging for donations from their "fanbase", or zealots, or followers, disciples, etc..
What pushed your hot button on this topic? You can make yourself feel superior by calling Linux users zealots and disciples if you want, but it won't change the tide. The fact is that Mandrake offered privileges to those users willing to pay for them. We get first access to downloads and discounts on the commercial (yes, commercial) packages as well as other perks you could see by visiting the Mandrakeclub site (but you won't).
Even if Mandrake didn't offer the perks, I'd still support them with donations because I like the easily-installed distro, and, annualized, it's far less than I'd have to pay M$ for their inferior product. It is in my best interests to keep Mandrake in business because they have a product I want. Seems like a pretty normal business model to me. No doubt you think all those MS "disciples" who paid through the nose for Licensing 6.0 and received no upgrades got a good deal.
I thought the principle of Open Source was anyone can use it however the hell they please.
Then you haven't read the GPL. That is why Mandrake has several versions. Some contain non-OSS material, while the download version is strictly OSS. They follow the rules. What's your point - or gripe?