'This acquisition advances our (business intelligence) strategy and our ability to deliver performance management applications to customers,' Jeff Raikes, Microsoft business division president, said in a statement.
Translates to: 'And.. Oh yeah, I'm going to be filthy rich!'
...what some people will do to get their broadband - but I understand it. I wasn't here at the school 3 days before I was hanging out a 3rd story window running CAT 5 to my apartment.
On another note, I wonder what you do to ground this sort of thing. I mean, we can get some pretty strong lightning here. How do you keep lightning from destroying your computer/wireless equipment in this case?
Honest concern for the children is one thing, melodramatic statements made to sway the weak minded (or inattentive) is another. The reality of the situation is that we have heavier kids than ever now - half-starved waifs are the kind of thing you'd think we'd be seeing out there. Well, statistically we're not.
As for your 'considering who we have in office now..." comment: get fucking real. CONGRESS approved the UA deal as much as the president did - and guess what? There was PLENTY of Dem support for it as well (HINT: Unions). Of course, I saw nothing of that in the Slate article. Wonder why? Couldn't be their obvious minority view liberal slant, could it? Nahhh... Just keep in mind that yours is the minority view my friend - that's why we have a Rep congress and president. Do me a favor and don't change your tack - keep vilifying Bush and trying to convince the majority that voted them in that they're idiots - it's making lots of friends and working wonders for the election cycles.
The Boeing article depends on your point of view. If you feel it is in our national interest to have our own aircraft industry that is cutting edge and provide military aircraft we can count on, then yes, gov't support is necessary. There is simply no way Boeing (or any other aircraft company) could do the kind of R&D they do without that support anymore than Airbus has with their recent aircraft. By referring to this article you make it sound like the Bush administration somehow invented this concept of gov't and private industry scratching a common itch. Uh, it's been done for years and in this particular industry the rewards to the general public have more than justified the cost.
Again, why is it evil for Boeing to take what they've learned in military orders and apply it to commercial applications? The work still had to be done for the military, one way or the other. Why does it make some sort of 'sense' to you to throw all of that knowledge away? Or is it that your obvious socialist agenda somehow demands that companies be punished for being too 'kapitalistic' and working directly with our military?
By the way, I think you'll find an equal number of Dems supporting Boeing, if for no other reason than the unions that work for them.
"Cutting the rate of increase to a point below the rate of inflation is a decrease in actual spending power of that budget. This is not "playing with words", this is the truth."
Ah yes, the elusive 'truth'.
I KNEW someone was going to take that bait... Ok, I'll buy in too.
At a time when Republicans actually gave a shit about cutting spending (as opposed to now), cuts were made across the board - approved by our esteemed President Clinton. ALL agencies were biting the bullet back then but what was worse than that was the irresponsible hysterics from the Lefties in response to cuts in their favorite programs like school lunch.
There were some GREAT lines like these: "They're starving the CHILDREN!" and "What about the CHILDREN?!" How Feinstein and Boxer continue to get reelected befuddles me, you'd think their screeching alone would be enough for most voter's heads to explode. I'd like to think that most of us out East just shake our heads in disbelief, but then there's Massachusetts to consider...
Nevertheless, keep in mind that previous increases under the (D) Congress were well over inflationary figures because they had been grandfathered in due to higher inflation in the past (remember the Carter years?) - especially in programs like school lunch. In short, they got less because they got more before. It's not so much 'them that got, get', it's more like, 'them that got, got fair'. In any case, their overreaction was a quite melodramic and little more than hot soundbites for the press. This is especially true in light of the obesity stats of our 'starving children', but I digress. In *most* cases, spending was held to inflationary levels - and no more.
But you tell me what's likely to resonate more with the public: "They're STARVING the CHILDREN!" or a page and a half dedicated to calmly and fully explaining the situation. Once again, hysterics won the day and the nasty-wasty greedy Republicans were again villified by the liberal press. If there's any major difference between Republicans then and now, it's that they've learned how to spin as well as the Dems.
As I recall, a certain president Clinton took pride in the fact that the budget was balanced during his administration. Balanced no doubt on the backs of the working poor and the children, right? Goddamn Republicans again! Go Clinton, go!
Now back to the subject at hand - the RIAA/MPAA screaming and crying about piracy and lost revenue. It's all for the press - these people continue to be profitable even as they DRM us to death and work like machines to take away what little fair use we have left. I think the analogy of 90's lib Dems is probably on target - it's a stunt designed to get press, only I'd feel more sorry for our fat children than either of these monopolistic organizations...
Uhmm.. I was just pointing out the fact that the general public is becoming more accepting of cameras because of their cheap ability to 'catch someone in the act'. I didn't say I condone the gov't putting cameras in your house.
Don't know what you were reading into my post but it's clearly quite wrong.
...until there are cameras EVERYWHERE... Sorta like in the U.K. now, what is it - four cameras for every citizen? Sad, really but look at it this way: Has anyone ever done something to your car or your property while you were sleeping? Didn't you want to know who the bastard was that did it? See, it's CHEAP enough now to set up camera spying and expense was the only real reason it hasn't been done before.
Now there's Office Regular Light and Office Maxi Pro with Wings(tm) for those heavy flow days...
What a way to split up a product line! Whose going to be able to follow whose got what version? As if.DOC wasn't a poor enough 'standard' to begin with! I think the future of OpenOffice is assured with this kind of stupidity.
"Seriously, this shit has got to stop. Maybe satelite radio is where it's at..."...Where you once again indirectly help support the RIAA by listening to licensed music. Same thing for movies - soundtracks are also licensed. Go to a retail establishment where they play music - same thing there. There are any number of other ways the RIAA licenses their music.
The RIAA will not die, even if NO ONE buys a CD from this day forward. Their licensing will keep them alive as long as they can keep extending copyright laws...
But the problem is that the major media conglomerates essentially OWN everything. All the media attention is almost universally on themselves. Take the music industry for example. How many consumers know that non-RIAA or even free music exists? Were it not for word of mouth I suspect NO ONE would.
Between unreasonable copyright restrictions/extensions (what's the rule now - copyrights are forever -1 year?), hardware-based encryption, and distribution control, the vast majority of people are pretty much the industry's bitch.
Why they always gotta make it a fight?
on
The Great HDCP Fiasco
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The content providers, hardware and software people, everyone involved would have a lot more to gain if they'd simply make things easier for people. These kinds of roadblocks will only frustrate the average consumer more. For the rest of us, they'll be bittorrent or something else.
The 'fair use' doctrine really needs to be looked at more closely.
MAC OS X is certainly not the only platform with increased requirements. About the time of the 200-300 MHz processor, the Windows OS of your average computer only used up 30 or so megabytes. Have you looked at the average computer TODAY at boot up?
See, not only do we have to run an anti-virus program in the background (with a HUGE list of viruses to compare against), but not we also appear to need anti-spyware and firewall programs as well. Then you have the additional overhead of things like 'Active Desktop' and, yeah, all of a sudden your 300 MHz AMD K-6 makes Word 'run slow'. Sure, it's not Word's fault, but the platform it's running on is bogged down by all this crap.
No doubt businesses will eventually spring for better GFX if there's a business 'need' for it. Need is in quotes because to me, it's been questionable what 'need' most businesses have for say, sound cards and speakers.
Compaq led the charge in the 90's with 'Business Audio' - basically a sound card with a single speaker built into the chassis. But the 'shame' of multimedia has come a long way since then in most corporations. It's ok for your computer to have speakers and optical mice now. It's ok to expect not to have to squint at a 14" VGA monitor anymore. And no doubt, businesses will come to expect Vista to work optimally with their new hardware.
Given the state of some of the newer onboard video chipsets, I'd say it won't be an option soon anyway. Thank God for economies of scale, huh?
...He'd have the IT guy's head for allowing Solitare in the first place. If it's that mission critical not to have games in the office, it should be the job of the IT head to insure that only authorized apps get installed.
I'm sorry, but this simply has to be said. This guy was the same scumbag who vowed to step down after his last term and then broke his promise to do so. He has NUMEROUS other ethics problems to include his campaign finances all of which were things being covered up by his staff (for obvious reasons).
I know I'm looking for a flame war here by saying this but... As much as you Mass. Libs don't understand how Bush was reelected by the Red States, I'm at a loss to see how you could continue to support someone like this (or Ted Kennedy for that matter). They are simply embarrassments to your state.
" It's just like with 'old' music. "There is so much crap right now, music in the 60s/70s/80s/whatever_period was so much better". No it wasn't, there was just as much crap around then as there is now, only the good songs 'stuck' and are still being played."...are still being played... In TODAY'S 'songs'. God, how many remakes must we old fogies endure?!!
MAKING QUICKTIME PRO FREE with every new Mac??! Son of a bitch if I don't spend $2400 on a new Macbook Pro only to be nickel and dimed for $30 later! You know, they update Quicktime enough that even if they gave away QT 7 with a new Mac, most users would probably opt for QT 8 when it arrives. And I can certainly see making PC users pay for it.
To me, this is the single most glaring thing about OS X on a new Mac. "Oh yeah you get iLife, iDVD, iEverything Else but if you want to watch a Quicktime movie... Oh, you gotta buy that. Simply STUPID.
The above post is absolutely true. Optional components are largely ignored by 3rd party manufacturers. Until an Xbox 360 actually SHIPS with an HD-DVD included, the software support will likely be very light indeed.
Yep, it's true. Apple's entry into Intelland means more marketshare for Apple, less for Dell. It also means that Intel won't be held as hostage to Dell's threats of switching to AMD - those marketing dollars could just as happily go to Apple you know:
Ding! Da da da daa! "Think different.." and all that.
And Apple isn't merely content with selling computers, they seem to want to be the next Sony - another space Dell has tried to enter (unsuccessfully).
So, yeah, I think they have reason to fear Apple - and who knows? Maybe we'll actually see some sort of collaboration between the two. Remember, in this business - ANYTHING is possible.
I'd ever seen to describe the rouge/rogue issue was where someone did a 'Rouge Squadron' photoshop of a Gamecube game. The Xwing pilot on the front cover clearly had two blushing cheeks.:)
Slashdot Mirror
At least the Borg are honest:
'This acquisition advances our (business intelligence) strategy and our ability to deliver performance management applications to customers,' Jeff Raikes, Microsoft business division president, said in a statement.
Translates to: 'And.. Oh yeah, I'm going to be filthy rich!'
...outsource yourself! See the world, earn big dollars tax free!
Or something...
...You'd think after the Cylon's infiltration of the Caprica global network that someone would have taken this a little more seriously.
...it would not surprise me to learn that it's some sort of new tax.
...what some people will do to get their broadband - but I understand it. I wasn't here at the school 3 days before I was hanging out a 3rd story window running CAT 5 to my apartment.
On another note, I wonder what you do to ground this sort of thing. I mean, we can get some pretty strong lightning here. How do you keep lightning from destroying your computer/wireless equipment in this case?
'Some of the people want to query about democracy, but most of them just want to know about their pop stars.'
:)
Sooo... They're like your average American then?
Honest concern for the children is one thing, melodramatic statements made to sway the weak minded (or inattentive) is another. The reality of the situation is that we have heavier kids than ever now - half-starved waifs are the kind of thing you'd think we'd be seeing out there. Well, statistically we're not.
As for your 'considering who we have in office now..." comment: get fucking real. CONGRESS approved the UA deal as much as the president did - and guess what? There was PLENTY of Dem support for it as well (HINT: Unions). Of course, I saw nothing of that in the Slate article. Wonder why? Couldn't be their obvious minority view liberal slant, could it? Nahhh... Just keep in mind that yours is the minority view my friend - that's why we have a Rep congress and president. Do me a favor and don't change your tack - keep vilifying Bush and trying to convince the majority that voted them in that they're idiots - it's making lots of friends and working wonders for the election cycles.
The Boeing article depends on your point of view. If you feel it is in our national interest to have our own aircraft industry that is cutting edge and provide military aircraft we can count on, then yes, gov't support is necessary. There is simply no way Boeing (or any other aircraft company) could do the kind of R&D they do without that support anymore than Airbus has with their recent aircraft. By referring to this article you make it sound like the Bush administration somehow invented this concept of gov't and private industry scratching a common itch. Uh, it's been done for years and in this particular industry the rewards to the general public have more than justified the cost.
Again, why is it evil for Boeing to take what they've learned in military orders and apply it to commercial applications? The work still had to be done for the military, one way or the other. Why does it make some sort of 'sense' to you to throw all of that knowledge away? Or is it that your obvious socialist agenda somehow demands that companies be punished for being too 'kapitalistic' and working directly with our military?
By the way, I think you'll find an equal number of Dems supporting Boeing, if for no other reason than the unions that work for them.
"Cutting the rate of increase to a point below the rate of inflation is a decrease in actual spending power of that budget. This is not "playing with words", this is the truth."
Ah yes, the elusive 'truth'.
I KNEW someone was going to take that bait... Ok, I'll buy in too.
At a time when Republicans actually gave a shit about cutting spending (as opposed to now), cuts were made across the board - approved by our esteemed President Clinton. ALL agencies were biting the bullet back then but what was worse than that was the irresponsible hysterics from the Lefties in response to cuts in their favorite programs like school lunch.
There were some GREAT lines like these: "They're starving the CHILDREN!" and "What about the CHILDREN?!" How Feinstein and Boxer continue to get reelected befuddles me, you'd think their screeching alone would be enough for most voter's heads to explode. I'd like to think that most of us out East just shake our heads in disbelief, but then there's Massachusetts to consider...
Nevertheless, keep in mind that previous increases under the (D) Congress were well over inflationary figures because they had been grandfathered in due to higher inflation in the past (remember the Carter years?) - especially in programs like school lunch. In short, they got less because they got more before. It's not so much 'them that got, get', it's more like, 'them that got, got fair'. In any case, their overreaction was a quite melodramic and little more than hot soundbites for the press. This is especially true in light of the obesity stats of our 'starving children', but I digress. In *most* cases, spending was held to inflationary levels - and no more.
But you tell me what's likely to resonate more with the public: "They're STARVING the CHILDREN!" or a page and a half dedicated to calmly and fully explaining the situation. Once again, hysterics won the day and the nasty-wasty greedy Republicans were again villified by the liberal press. If there's any major difference between Republicans then and now, it's that they've learned how to spin as well as the Dems.
As I recall, a certain president Clinton took pride in the fact that the budget was balanced during his administration. Balanced no doubt on the backs of the working poor and the children, right? Goddamn Republicans again! Go Clinton, go!
Now back to the subject at hand - the RIAA/MPAA screaming and crying about piracy and lost revenue. It's all for the press - these people continue to be profitable even as they DRM us to death and work like machines to take away what little fair use we have left. I think the analogy of 90's lib Dems is probably on target - it's a stunt designed to get press, only I'd feel more sorry for our fat children than either of these monopolistic organizations...
Uhmm.. I was just pointing out the fact that the general public is becoming more accepting of cameras because of their cheap ability to 'catch someone in the act'. I didn't say I condone the gov't putting cameras in your house.
Don't know what you were reading into my post but it's clearly quite wrong.
...until there are cameras EVERYWHERE... Sorta like in the U.K. now, what is it - four cameras for every citizen? Sad, really but look at it this way: Has anyone ever done something to your car or your property while you were sleeping? Didn't you want to know who the bastard was that did it? See, it's CHEAP enough now to set up camera spying and expense was the only real reason it hasn't been done before.
"but shouldn't they be barred from competition for this sort of thing?"
Yes... And beaten severely too!
(I'll help!)
Now there's Office Regular Light and Office Maxi Pro with Wings(tm) for those heavy flow days...
.DOC wasn't a poor enough 'standard' to begin with! I think the future of OpenOffice is assured with this kind of stupidity.
What a way to split up a product line! Whose going to be able to follow whose got what version? As if
"Seriously, this shit has got to stop. Maybe satelite radio is where it's at..." ...Where you once again indirectly help support the RIAA by listening to licensed music. Same thing for movies - soundtracks are also licensed. Go to a retail establishment where they play music - same thing there. There are any number of other ways the RIAA licenses their music.
The RIAA will not die, even if NO ONE buys a CD from this day forward. Their licensing will keep them alive as long as they can keep extending copyright laws...
But the problem is that the major media conglomerates essentially OWN everything. All the media attention is almost universally on themselves. Take the music industry for example. How many consumers know that non-RIAA or even free music exists? Were it not for word of mouth I suspect NO ONE would.
Between unreasonable copyright restrictions/extensions (what's the rule now - copyrights are forever -1 year?), hardware-based encryption, and distribution control, the vast majority of people are pretty much the industry's bitch.
The content providers, hardware and software people, everyone involved would have a lot more to gain if they'd simply make things easier for people. These kinds of roadblocks will only frustrate the average consumer more. For the rest of us, they'll be bittorrent or something else.
The 'fair use' doctrine really needs to be looked at more closely.
...you don't have time to get all 'emo'. We may have made ourselves richer but happier...? Not necessarily.
MAC OS X is certainly not the only platform with increased requirements. About the time of the 200-300 MHz processor, the Windows OS of your average computer only used up 30 or so megabytes. Have you looked at the average computer TODAY at boot up?
See, not only do we have to run an anti-virus program in the background (with a HUGE list of viruses to compare against), but not we also appear to need anti-spyware and firewall programs as well. Then you have the additional overhead of things like 'Active Desktop' and, yeah, all of a sudden your 300 MHz AMD K-6 makes Word 'run slow'. Sure, it's not Word's fault, but the platform it's running on is bogged down by all this crap.
No doubt businesses will eventually spring for better GFX if there's a business 'need' for it. Need is in quotes because to me, it's been questionable what 'need' most businesses have for say, sound cards and speakers.
Compaq led the charge in the 90's with 'Business Audio' - basically a sound card with a single speaker built into the chassis. But the 'shame' of multimedia has come a long way since then in most corporations. It's ok for your computer to have speakers and optical mice now. It's ok to expect not to have to squint at a 14" VGA monitor anymore. And no doubt, businesses will come to expect Vista to work optimally with their new hardware.
Given the state of some of the newer onboard video chipsets, I'd say it won't be an option soon anyway. Thank God for economies of scale, huh?
...He'd have the IT guy's head for allowing Solitare in the first place. If it's that mission critical not to have games in the office, it should be the job of the IT head to insure that only authorized apps get installed.
I'm sorry, but this simply has to be said. This guy was the same scumbag who vowed to step down after his last term and then broke his promise to do so. He has NUMEROUS other ethics problems to include his campaign finances all of which were things being covered up by his staff (for obvious reasons).
I know I'm looking for a flame war here by saying this but... As much as you Mass. Libs don't understand how Bush was reelected by the Red States, I'm at a loss to see how you could continue to support someone like this (or Ted Kennedy for that matter). They are simply embarrassments to your state.
" ...are still being played... In TODAY'S 'songs'. God, how many remakes must we old fogies endure?!!
It's just like with 'old' music. "There is so much crap right now, music in the 60s/70s/80s/whatever_period was so much better". No it wasn't, there was just as much crap around then as there is now, only the good songs 'stuck' and are still being played."
How about:
MAKING QUICKTIME PRO FREE with every new Mac??! Son of a bitch if I don't spend $2400 on a new Macbook Pro only to be nickel and dimed for $30 later! You know, they update Quicktime enough that even if they gave away QT 7 with a new Mac, most users would probably opt for QT 8 when it arrives. And I can certainly see making PC users pay for it.
To me, this is the single most glaring thing about OS X on a new Mac. "Oh yeah you get iLife, iDVD, iEverything Else but if you want to watch a Quicktime movie... Oh, you gotta buy that. Simply STUPID.
The above post is absolutely true. Optional components are largely ignored by 3rd party manufacturers. Until an Xbox 360 actually SHIPS with an HD-DVD included, the software support will likely be very light indeed.
Yep, it's true. Apple's entry into Intelland means more marketshare for Apple, less for Dell. It also means that Intel won't be held as hostage to Dell's threats of switching to AMD - those marketing dollars could just as happily go to Apple you know:
Ding! Da da da daa! "Think different.." and all that.
And Apple isn't merely content with selling computers, they seem to want to be the next Sony - another space Dell has tried to enter (unsuccessfully).
So, yeah, I think they have reason to fear Apple - and who knows? Maybe we'll actually see some sort of collaboration between the two. Remember, in this business - ANYTHING is possible.
I'd ever seen to describe the rouge/rogue issue was where someone did a 'Rouge Squadron' photoshop of a Gamecube game. The Xwing pilot on the front cover clearly had two blushing cheeks. :)