MS spend six billion dollars on an OOPS and their previous year 1 billion dollar profit dives into a negative. That MIGHT work if MS was a small company but it isn't.
MS has always functioned by being able to make boneheaded business move after boneheaded business move because their Windows and Office arms pulled in so much cash they could just burn money and still make a profit at the end.
And this has now stopped. The six billion dollar acquisition is nothing for the OLD MS, they have wasted far more before without falling into a loss. What has changed?
Has MS been overloaded with to many loss making ventures OR have their cash cows stopped generating free cash to burn?
Oh MS isn't going to go bankrupt tomorrow or anytime soon but something has drastically changed in the tech landscape. Now it is Apple that has more cash then it knows what do with and MS that is going to have to start watching the bottom line.
Tech giants come and go (Atari) and some hang on in different forms (IBM). It is just that when it comes to history we tend to think that recent events are immune to it. Shocking prediction: It is not impossible for Apple to one day be reduced to an irrelevant company again.
The article is torture to read but the poor sap seems unable to grasp that the word fiction only means something is fictional. It doesn't mean fantasy, it doesn't mean sci-fi (these are in fact sub categories of fiction) and it most certainly does NOT mean good.
Even harlequin and 10 cents western novel is fiction. So are some of the greatest literary works. Fiction = fiction good or bad. And so, modern computer games have plenty of fiction. "Harry went to work", as long as I am not talking about a real Harry and even then it could be fiction if Harry didn't go to work.
And a sequel is just as much fiction as the original. Maybe he meant there isn't enough originality? What did he work on? A stealth action game? Yawn, been done to DEATH!
Overview
You are the once-trusted bodyguard of the Empress. Framed for her murder and driven by revenge, you must become an infamous assassin, known only by the disturbing mask that has become your calling card.
As you navigate a world torn apart by plague and oppressed by a government armed with strange new technologies, the truth behind your betrayal is as murky as the waters surrounding the city.
The choices you make will determine the fate of the world, but no matter what happens your old life is gone forever.
I get what he means. No originality whatsoever. It is a blessing the lead isn't suffering from amnesia. Let me guess, at one point you are captured and loose all your weapons?
Oh well, your own fault, you should have paid attention in school. Then a word processor wouldn't be considered your primary tool. Do you know what we call people for who a typewriters is the primary tool? A typist. Even the janitor gets more respect.
Your world view is to simple, just because someone has a brown skin, doesn't mean they can't be a Nazi. Holland was one of the most liberal nations on earth with its capital Amsterdam, gay capital of the world... attacks against gays have however changed that. Attacks committed by? No, not just Muslims. But a very high percentage of them. Right wing extremist have been working together with Muslim extremists. Oh, they are rare but they do happen.
And there is no rule the next Hitler can't be a Jew, gay, member of a trade union, female, brown or black or yellow. The biggest threat against freedom is that in promoting it, you give freedom to those who use it to enslave you. Ask the American Indians, if you can still find one, what happens if you welcome people with open arms without question. Ask why Christians still send out missionaries around the world but object when Muslims come into their churches to preach their fate.
The real world does not separate into black and white. You can't just guard against the white fat guy with a burning cross. Tyranny will come wrapped in a flag, carrying a bible and talking about freedom. Their freedom, not yours but good look you spotting that in time.
Your right "they" will keep coming until you are on their target list. But "they" are not restricted by race, color, religion or political system. Real freedom comes from fighting for the freedom of all while also fighting the freedom of all to restrict others. No, that doesn't make "sense", life generally doesn't. People who believe in absolute freedom often plain out refuse to discuss cases where this is clearly demonstrated to be unworkable. You want to support absolute freedom? Very well, I choose as my freedom to kill you, slowly. Stop me and you are denying me my freedom.
Bull? No, it fundementally shows complete and total freedom for all, does not work. The best we can hope for is some freedom, as long as it isn't to restrictive of the fredoom of others. After all, when I claim my freedom to kill you, I deny you your freedom to live. Why should my freedom overrule yours? Why should yours overrule mine? Because my freedom affects you to much but my non-freedom doesn't affect many others.
Complex eh? Yeah.
Do you know the real reason Amsterdam used to be gay friendly? Not because Holland loved gays, just not enough people could be bothered restricting them. The overal feeling among the working class was "I don't like gays anymore then you do, but touch one of your gays and I will punch your lights out". Not very enlightened but a LOT better then modern bleeding hearts who excuse Muslim violence and the fear of teachers in school to teach about homosexuality or WW2 for fear of Muslim reactions because they are unable to realize that just because someone is a minority doesn't mean they can't be a nasty little shit.
Who fought? And who supported. While volunteers American soldiers flew bombers at great personal costs to disrupt the Nazi war machine, American made ball bearings came in via Sweden in large enough quantities to offset the damage to production. While Americans born in the US with Asian ancestors were rounded up and killed if they disobeyed, the open Nazi Ford was never even questioned and his heritage continues to this day.
Yes, America fought in WW2 against the nazi's but it was not exactly undivided in this and those who think those who wished the US to not aid the Allied forces were pacifists is gravely mistaking. It always amazes me when people come up with alternate histories were the US does not enter WW2, the far more likely alternate outcome would have been the US getting in on the Axis side. What after all is the difference between "keine juden" and "whites only" in spirit? Hell, IBM supplied the lists, Americans supplied the gas, the idea of going "east/west" for "lebensraum", of concentration camps (don't make the mistake of confusing concentration with extermination) (indian reservations). America was far from a natural ally for the Allied forces. Not that most of the allied nations were much better.
Don't forget how hated Roosevelts New Deal was and still is in certain quarters, quarters that have only gained in power.
Right wingers are like the Mafia, they are still fucking there! Want some proof? South Korea's whaling plans. WHY? They had given it up for decades, their economy doesn't need it and they have no depressed areas where people need any type of job. So why? Because some people who never let go of the past saw an opening. They were stopped, this time... but they will not go away, will try again and again and again.
The fight for freedom never ends, because evil never stops. Not the evil that rapes and pillages but the evil that excuses it as being cultural or just the way things are or ignores it as being a fundemental part of the good old days the evil wants to bring back.
See Romney's entire election campaign. They are not back, they have never gone away.
I heard about G4S when Have I Got News For You was still fresh, how many decades ago is that?
In Holland, there was/is a parliamentary inquiry into whether the efforts of privatization in the last decades has produced any positive results or at least any non-negative ones... they are still searching.
But AT THE SAME TIME, the CDA and VVD, Christian and capitalist filth, were advocating MORE of it, despite being able to name a single success or even a single non-disaster. Their solution to the mess the public rail network is in? MORE privatization.
It is often recognized that socialism and communism are ideologies, closely related to religion with believers who truly believe and refuse to take facts into account.
Here is a secret, capitalism is a religion as well and none come more blind.
You can delay the agenda but no matter what happens, no matter how big the disaster, the privatization will continue because without it, if it was recognized it did not work, capitalism would be as dead as communism.
The surprising thing about US politicians is not that they can be bought, but how cheaply this can be done. The movies have suitcases full, the average senator goes for a few thousand.
You have been saying this about every MS mobile release since the dark days of CE. Then 5 was supposed to be the savior, then 6, then 6.5 then 7 then 7.5, then 8 and no doubt 9 and 10 are already on your horizon as the version that will save you from damnation.
Let me guess, when Ballmer did the monkey dance, you were the one person in the world who was sexually aroused?
I have seen some delusional posts in my time but this one takes the biscuit. You don't deny any of the shortcomings, just come up with endless excuses or even downright admitting it is a huge failure and that is what you think of as a rebuttal.
With fans like you, what need has Windows 7 of enemies. You are supposed to damn things with faint praise, not by dragging them through the mud and stepping on their wind pipe.
Thanks for this amazing post, if I had even the slightest incline to perhaps one day try a MS phone, you have thoroughly killed it off. Oh I get, you are secretly an Apple fanboy and seek to discredit MS in disguise? Good job!
So, you have to absolutely conform to YOUR assumptions of what is normal or else you deserve to be assaulted?
Go and die and make the world a better place. What an elitist pig, deserve to be beaten up for daring to go to McDonalds. Well you deserve a whipping for a number in your nickname, couldn't think up an original one?
If you want to go into fantasy land. How would the asian tigers react to protectionist measures from the US? Maybe ban Apple from ALL purchases? Oops, Apple out of business because Asia is essential to the tech industry? Maybe block US sales? US on its knees because it suddenly notices that its military hardware is all based on Asian parts?
Pure fantasy of course, but so is yours I am afraid, these things don't happen in real life because Apple is a very small player in the real men's world and Apple would most certainly NOT be told by anyone that if they were to try such a move, things wouldn't go very bad for them. Or do YOU really think the powers that be want a real trade war? Don't think for a second that the trade wars you read about are real. They are just very carefully negotiated deals to give each side some headlines while neither side is really hurt. If this wasn't the case, those trade disputes wouldn't drag on for decade after decade.
The whole issue is that agile isn't. Isn't what? AGILE! That word causes customers/managers to think flexible meaning "I don't have to plan anymore, I can get what I want, when I want it".
In reality Agile is extremely rigid. There is nothing in the method to deal with issues that crop up NOW and have to be fixed YESTERDAY. Instead, the manager/customer now has to plan ahead for what he wants, get it approved for inclusion in a sprint and then wait for that sprint to be finished. That could take DAYS if not weeks!
Not that a sprint itself has to take that long but before YOUR new wish is included in the next sprint might mean you have to wait your turn.
Agile needs a lot of discipline and commitment across the entire production line, from customers to managers to developers. But if you got discipline and commitment, ANY methodology will work. And if you don't. None will.
Dysfunctional companies are dysfunctional regardless of the label they put on their method for screwing up.
Agile is particularly bad since it doesn't enforce any fixes. It is often introduced as the solution itself, go Agile and all the unrealistic planning and louse development and under staffing will just fix itself.
Say you got a 200kg sattelite you want in orbit. How do you get it to launch on a normal rocket? Not alone for sure, it may be the same kilo price but those rockets are not going to go up for just you. Which means you got to fit yourself around the schedules and requirements of others. Want an odd orbit? Sorry, our rocket ain't going there.
Sending cargo by ocean vessel is insanely cheap. Pity if you got a parcel to be delivered to Switzerland. The right vehicle, at the right cost.
Lets just assume for a second that a self-made billionaire knows more about making money then all of slashdot put together.
You must be one of those kiddies who shit their pants at the thought of violating a EULA or live in corporate USA. But for normal people in the free world, you are free to do anything to any bit on your computer.
EULA's cannot take away fundemental rights and I have the right to remix, video/music and data anyway I want. FOR MYSELF! As long as I do not redistribute copyright material YOU FUCKING MORON, copyright laws are not applicable.
And this guy is NOT distributing copyrighted material that does not belong to him, he is merely distributing the tool to allow others to modify theirs. So unless you were stupid enough to elect politicians who voted for the DMCA and other such bought laws, there is NOTHING illegal about any of this.
If you had a brain and did not just suck corporate dick you would know that the modding scene does this kind of thing routinely AND with encouragement. Create a new map using copyrighted resources? Go right ahead. As long as you only distribute the new map, not the textures and other resources from the game (which shouldn't be needed because the person downloading the map already has them from his own game).
Oh and it has been proven by the court that software licenses do not work as your diseased mind think it does. You can sell on software. When I buy software, I am free to modify it in any way I want. Good luck trying to enforce anything else in the free world. It would actually be rather nice if it was the other way around. Then software companies would also have to accept 100% liability for anything their software does on MY hardware. After all, it is THEIR property right?
Take Bill Gates dick out of your mouth long enough to get some fresh air and see if you can get that peanut in your head to think some independent thoughts.
The US claims to be the home of the free but it really isn't. But it has put the burden of censorship and control on private companies. Take sex, US TV has very little of it. Not because of any laws by the state, that would be censorship. But all the networks censor themselves instead... or... well... they don't want to find out what else, so they censor themselves far more then a state owned broadcaster like the BBC does. The BBC has nudity in family comedies. Unthinkable in the US. State censorship means supervision and control by the public. Private censorship means nobody ultimately is accountable.
In soviet russia, you are not allowed to say anything or the KGB will kill you.
In capitalist russia, you can say whatever you want, just nobody will print it or broadcast it. It is far more effective. Dead people become martyrs. Unpublished people are just nobodies.
It is an old trick of capatilist. You are free to protest but if you do, no mortage and job for you. It ain't government repression if the government isn't doing it.
Think about the app-store and iTunes and Amazon. They have censored material from you but it ain't "real" censorship because they ain't the state. Just an amazing coincedence that the powers that be and the private mega corps have the same ideas about what you should and should not be able to see, hear and think.
I suppose it is true that it is hard to tell the difference between male and female for the more senior slashdot users:P Oh wait, mine is actually lower... SHIT!
Can people really be this pig ignorant about what recycling entails?
Recycling is NOT dumping it in a landfill, burning it OR bringing it to a recycling center. It is about removing materials requiring special handling and separating a product into distinct materials so those materials can be re-used.
For metal, this is easy. You can simply take a complete car, grind it up, melt and scoop all the bits non-metal. You have fully recycled the metal... but still, burning all that plastic, battery acid, glass is a bit nasty.
You COULD use a magnet to separate the metal from the rest but not all metals are magnetic and this will STILL leave you with a mess of non-metal that would take a legion to sort by hand.
So, how do you REALLY recycle a car? You take it apart. You remove the plastic bumper and put it on the pile with other plastic parts that you know are the same type of plastic because it is stamped on the part. Same types of plastics can be for better recycled then a pile of all sorts combined. This goes so far that for instance plastic bottles can be shredded and just melted into new ones. Failed bottles at production go right back into the process.
Once you separated all the different materials, you can re-use them or dispose of them in a safe manner. But the separation must be relatively easy OR the costs just sky-rocket. Taking of a bumper is easy especially if you don't have to care about damage. Separating two bonded plates, not so much.
A prime example of this is in electricity cables. Copper is expensive enough to make recycling worth while but separating it from the plastic surrounding it, is near impossible. What is done instead in many places is that the plastic is burned off. A very polluting process and not the idea behind recycling at all.
Now Apples devices are hard to take apart. If a screen can't be screwed open, the screen can't be separated from the shell, meaning it has to be shredded instead. You can still reclaim some materials but not as easily as with a screw driver.
The above poster seems to think that recycling means re-using working parts or re-selling the entire device. This is a FORM of recycling but NOT what this article is about. In the end, after re-selling the device will either end up in a landfill, be dumped OR be taken apart. The first two are wasteful, the second becomes more costly when the separate materials are harder to separate. Apple has basically said, we don't give a fuck about the environment and try to hide it by saying they are better but in areas nobody measures. Well, I am a better sportsman then anyone at the Olympics, just not in any Olympic sport.
But no, he wasn't asking for a confirmation of a bug, he thanked me for making his inventory larger. He asked nicely so I answered but still thought, "silly".
And yes, it slightly varies but lets face it, the chances this user was running under Wine/Linux or or OSX are roughly zero.
A new MMO has launched, The Secret World. In the game you have an inventory WINDOW. In help one player asked how you could resize it... hint, it is a window. SAME WAY YOU DO IT IN EVERY OS!
You have to wonder how that person even manages to turn on a computer.
But people like this are not "stupid" in that they don't know things, they just lack or are to lazy to put two and two together. "If I have seen furthest, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants".
These people stand on the ground. They can't link experiences from the past into the present. That user I mentioned might well have resized windows on windows but he couldn't make the connection that the inventory window looks and behaves as a window too. Lazyness comes into it since a non-lazy person would have tried something. For instance, dealing with chat windows. Right-click to change settings. How lazy do you got to be to not be able to even TRY that before asking?
A quest button is on the right, if clicked you can select a different quest to track. Yet people ask how to do that because it doesn't occur to them to simply try some stuff.
Manuals, message of the day are useless for these people.
The person from the article probably did see some video of metal in a microwave. Probably knows it is not an oven. Knows that plastic melts and just didn't put it together. For every person who pulls a radio apart to see how it looks inside, there is another person who never "learns" the power icon because it never occurs to them that there might be a reason for that image on the button.
When you do design, you sadly got to take these people into account.
Another example? Well, if one user was on slashdot, they would ask how you can preview a post. Clothes in the cash shop have preview button right there in your face and she couldn't see it and bitched they should have included a preview option. A button labelled preview and you miss it. Those people would microwave a phone to dry it.
Slashdot Mirror
Not so sweet dreams.
MS spend six billion dollars on an OOPS and their previous year 1 billion dollar profit dives into a negative. That MIGHT work if MS was a small company but it isn't.
MS has always functioned by being able to make boneheaded business move after boneheaded business move because their Windows and Office arms pulled in so much cash they could just burn money and still make a profit at the end.
And this has now stopped. The six billion dollar acquisition is nothing for the OLD MS, they have wasted far more before without falling into a loss. What has changed?
Has MS been overloaded with to many loss making ventures OR have their cash cows stopped generating free cash to burn?
Oh MS isn't going to go bankrupt tomorrow or anytime soon but something has drastically changed in the tech landscape. Now it is Apple that has more cash then it knows what do with and MS that is going to have to start watching the bottom line.
Tech giants come and go (Atari) and some hang on in different forms (IBM). It is just that when it comes to history we tend to think that recent events are immune to it. Shocking prediction: It is not impossible for Apple to one day be reduced to an irrelevant company again.
Who says anything about making money? Guess AC doesn't know what market share means.
and thats why you need to have a good pair of pliers and a decent sharp bladed boxcutter to deal with such things
Bit harsh, I manage to deal with kids quite well with just a hammer.
The article is torture to read but the poor sap seems unable to grasp that the word fiction only means something is fictional. It doesn't mean fantasy, it doesn't mean sci-fi (these are in fact sub categories of fiction) and it most certainly does NOT mean good.
Even harlequin and 10 cents western novel is fiction. So are some of the greatest literary works. Fiction = fiction good or bad. And so, modern computer games have plenty of fiction. "Harry went to work", as long as I am not talking about a real Harry and even then it could be fiction if Harry didn't go to work.
And a sequel is just as much fiction as the original. Maybe he meant there isn't enough originality? What did he work on? A stealth action game? Yawn, been done to DEATH!
Overview
You are the once-trusted bodyguard of the Empress. Framed for her murder and driven by revenge, you must become an infamous assassin, known only by the disturbing mask that has become your calling card.
As you navigate a world torn apart by plague and oppressed by a government armed with strange new technologies, the truth behind your betrayal is as murky as the waters surrounding the city.
The choices you make will determine the fate of the world, but no matter what happens your old life is gone forever.
I get what he means. No originality whatsoever. It is a blessing the lead isn't suffering from amnesia. Let me guess, at one point you are captured and loose all your weapons?
Oh well, your own fault, you should have paid attention in school. Then a word processor wouldn't be considered your primary tool. Do you know what we call people for who a typewriters is the primary tool? A typist. Even the janitor gets more respect.
Your world view is to simple, just because someone has a brown skin, doesn't mean they can't be a Nazi. Holland was one of the most liberal nations on earth with its capital Amsterdam, gay capital of the world... attacks against gays have however changed that. Attacks committed by? No, not just Muslims. But a very high percentage of them. Right wing extremist have been working together with Muslim extremists. Oh, they are rare but they do happen.
And there is no rule the next Hitler can't be a Jew, gay, member of a trade union, female, brown or black or yellow. The biggest threat against freedom is that in promoting it, you give freedom to those who use it to enslave you. Ask the American Indians, if you can still find one, what happens if you welcome people with open arms without question. Ask why Christians still send out missionaries around the world but object when Muslims come into their churches to preach their fate.
The real world does not separate into black and white. You can't just guard against the white fat guy with a burning cross. Tyranny will come wrapped in a flag, carrying a bible and talking about freedom. Their freedom, not yours but good look you spotting that in time.
Your right "they" will keep coming until you are on their target list. But "they" are not restricted by race, color, religion or political system. Real freedom comes from fighting for the freedom of all while also fighting the freedom of all to restrict others. No, that doesn't make "sense", life generally doesn't. People who believe in absolute freedom often plain out refuse to discuss cases where this is clearly demonstrated to be unworkable. You want to support absolute freedom? Very well, I choose as my freedom to kill you, slowly. Stop me and you are denying me my freedom.
Bull? No, it fundementally shows complete and total freedom for all, does not work. The best we can hope for is some freedom, as long as it isn't to restrictive of the fredoom of others. After all, when I claim my freedom to kill you, I deny you your freedom to live. Why should my freedom overrule yours? Why should yours overrule mine? Because my freedom affects you to much but my non-freedom doesn't affect many others.
Complex eh? Yeah.
Do you know the real reason Amsterdam used to be gay friendly? Not because Holland loved gays, just not enough people could be bothered restricting them. The overal feeling among the working class was "I don't like gays anymore then you do, but touch one of your gays and I will punch your lights out". Not very enlightened but a LOT better then modern bleeding hearts who excuse Muslim violence and the fear of teachers in school to teach about homosexuality or WW2 for fear of Muslim reactions because they are unable to realize that just because someone is a minority doesn't mean they can't be a nasty little shit.
Who fought? And who supported. While volunteers American soldiers flew bombers at great personal costs to disrupt the Nazi war machine, American made ball bearings came in via Sweden in large enough quantities to offset the damage to production. While Americans born in the US with Asian ancestors were rounded up and killed if they disobeyed, the open Nazi Ford was never even questioned and his heritage continues to this day.
Yes, America fought in WW2 against the nazi's but it was not exactly undivided in this and those who think those who wished the US to not aid the Allied forces were pacifists is gravely mistaking. It always amazes me when people come up with alternate histories were the US does not enter WW2, the far more likely alternate outcome would have been the US getting in on the Axis side. What after all is the difference between "keine juden" and "whites only" in spirit? Hell, IBM supplied the lists, Americans supplied the gas, the idea of going "east/west" for "lebensraum", of concentration camps (don't make the mistake of confusing concentration with extermination) (indian reservations). America was far from a natural ally for the Allied forces. Not that most of the allied nations were much better.
Don't forget how hated Roosevelts New Deal was and still is in certain quarters, quarters that have only gained in power.
Right wingers are like the Mafia, they are still fucking there! Want some proof? South Korea's whaling plans. WHY? They had given it up for decades, their economy doesn't need it and they have no depressed areas where people need any type of job. So why? Because some people who never let go of the past saw an opening. They were stopped, this time... but they will not go away, will try again and again and again.
The fight for freedom never ends, because evil never stops. Not the evil that rapes and pillages but the evil that excuses it as being cultural or just the way things are or ignores it as being a fundemental part of the good old days the evil wants to bring back.
See Romney's entire election campaign. They are not back, they have never gone away.
I heard about G4S when Have I Got News For You was still fresh, how many decades ago is that?
In Holland, there was/is a parliamentary inquiry into whether the efforts of privatization in the last decades has produced any positive results or at least any non-negative ones... they are still searching.
But AT THE SAME TIME, the CDA and VVD, Christian and capitalist filth, were advocating MORE of it, despite being able to name a single success or even a single non-disaster. Their solution to the mess the public rail network is in? MORE privatization.
It is often recognized that socialism and communism are ideologies, closely related to religion with believers who truly believe and refuse to take facts into account.
Here is a secret, capitalism is a religion as well and none come more blind.
You can delay the agenda but no matter what happens, no matter how big the disaster, the privatization will continue because without it, if it was recognized it did not work, capitalism would be as dead as communism.
And the difference between the two is?
The surprising thing about US politicians is not that they can be bought, but how cheaply this can be done. The movies have suitcases full, the average senator goes for a few thousand.
You have been saying this about every MS mobile release since the dark days of CE. Then 5 was supposed to be the savior, then 6, then 6.5 then 7 then 7.5, then 8 and no doubt 9 and 10 are already on your horizon as the version that will save you from damnation.
Let me guess, when Ballmer did the monkey dance, you were the one person in the world who was sexually aroused?
I have seen some delusional posts in my time but this one takes the biscuit. You don't deny any of the shortcomings, just come up with endless excuses or even downright admitting it is a huge failure and that is what you think of as a rebuttal.
With fans like you, what need has Windows 7 of enemies. You are supposed to damn things with faint praise, not by dragging them through the mud and stepping on their wind pipe.
Thanks for this amazing post, if I had even the slightest incline to perhaps one day try a MS phone, you have thoroughly killed it off. Oh I get, you are secretly an Apple fanboy and seek to discredit MS in disguise? Good job!
Because neither MS or Nokia did the smartphone earlier then Apple did.
Come on, how much of Jobs cock do you have to swallow to be that blind of basic history?
Apple was not first to the market, it is in fact one of the last. Only Android and Meego (or whatever it is called now) are newer.
A clue might be in the 7 behind Windows Phone 7.
So, you have to absolutely conform to YOUR assumptions of what is normal or else you deserve to be assaulted?
Go and die and make the world a better place. What an elitist pig, deserve to be beaten up for daring to go to McDonalds. Well you deserve a whipping for a number in your nickname, couldn't think up an original one?
Very patriotic of them to choose to design their balloons to look like the flag of the greatest country on earth. The Dutch people salute them!
Lucky for them the winds weren't severe of them to give tribute to the French as well.
If you want to go into fantasy land. How would the asian tigers react to protectionist measures from the US? Maybe ban Apple from ALL purchases? Oops, Apple out of business because Asia is essential to the tech industry? Maybe block US sales? US on its knees because it suddenly notices that its military hardware is all based on Asian parts?
Pure fantasy of course, but so is yours I am afraid, these things don't happen in real life because Apple is a very small player in the real men's world and Apple would most certainly NOT be told by anyone that if they were to try such a move, things wouldn't go very bad for them. Or do YOU really think the powers that be want a real trade war? Don't think for a second that the trade wars you read about are real. They are just very carefully negotiated deals to give each side some headlines while neither side is really hurt. If this wasn't the case, those trade disputes wouldn't drag on for decade after decade.
The whole issue is that agile isn't. Isn't what? AGILE! That word causes customers/managers to think flexible meaning "I don't have to plan anymore, I can get what I want, when I want it".
In reality Agile is extremely rigid. There is nothing in the method to deal with issues that crop up NOW and have to be fixed YESTERDAY. Instead, the manager/customer now has to plan ahead for what he wants, get it approved for inclusion in a sprint and then wait for that sprint to be finished. That could take DAYS if not weeks!
Not that a sprint itself has to take that long but before YOUR new wish is included in the next sprint might mean you have to wait your turn.
Agile needs a lot of discipline and commitment across the entire production line, from customers to managers to developers. But if you got discipline and commitment, ANY methodology will work. And if you don't. None will.
Dysfunctional companies are dysfunctional regardless of the label they put on their method for screwing up.
Agile is particularly bad since it doesn't enforce any fixes. It is often introduced as the solution itself, go Agile and all the unrealistic planning and louse development and under staffing will just fix itself.
I dream of such customers, usually when one is screaming "I NEEDED THAT YESTERDAY".
Say you got a 200kg sattelite you want in orbit. How do you get it to launch on a normal rocket? Not alone for sure, it may be the same kilo price but those rockets are not going to go up for just you. Which means you got to fit yourself around the schedules and requirements of others. Want an odd orbit? Sorry, our rocket ain't going there.
Sending cargo by ocean vessel is insanely cheap. Pity if you got a parcel to be delivered to Switzerland. The right vehicle, at the right cost.
Lets just assume for a second that a self-made billionaire knows more about making money then all of slashdot put together.
You must be one of those kiddies who shit their pants at the thought of violating a EULA or live in corporate USA. But for normal people in the free world, you are free to do anything to any bit on your computer.
EULA's cannot take away fundemental rights and I have the right to remix, video/music and data anyway I want. FOR MYSELF! As long as I do not redistribute copyright material YOU FUCKING MORON, copyright laws are not applicable.
And this guy is NOT distributing copyrighted material that does not belong to him, he is merely distributing the tool to allow others to modify theirs. So unless you were stupid enough to elect politicians who voted for the DMCA and other such bought laws, there is NOTHING illegal about any of this.
If you had a brain and did not just suck corporate dick you would know that the modding scene does this kind of thing routinely AND with encouragement. Create a new map using copyrighted resources? Go right ahead. As long as you only distribute the new map, not the textures and other resources from the game (which shouldn't be needed because the person downloading the map already has them from his own game).
Oh and it has been proven by the court that software licenses do not work as your diseased mind think it does. You can sell on software. When I buy software, I am free to modify it in any way I want. Good luck trying to enforce anything else in the free world. It would actually be rather nice if it was the other way around. Then software companies would also have to accept 100% liability for anything their software does on MY hardware. After all, it is THEIR property right?
Take Bill Gates dick out of your mouth long enough to get some fresh air and see if you can get that peanut in your head to think some independent thoughts.
The US claims to be the home of the free but it really isn't. But it has put the burden of censorship and control on private companies. Take sex, US TV has very little of it. Not because of any laws by the state, that would be censorship. But all the networks censor themselves instead... or... well... they don't want to find out what else, so they censor themselves far more then a state owned broadcaster like the BBC does. The BBC has nudity in family comedies. Unthinkable in the US. State censorship means supervision and control by the public. Private censorship means nobody ultimately is accountable.
In soviet russia, you are not allowed to say anything or the KGB will kill you.
In capitalist russia, you can say whatever you want, just nobody will print it or broadcast it. It is far more effective. Dead people become martyrs. Unpublished people are just nobodies.
It is an old trick of capatilist. You are free to protest but if you do, no mortage and job for you. It ain't government repression if the government isn't doing it.
Think about the app-store and iTunes and Amazon. They have censored material from you but it ain't "real" censorship because they ain't the state. Just an amazing coincedence that the powers that be and the private mega corps have the same ideas about what you should and should not be able to see, hear and think.
Now go and consume like a good little free slave.
I suppose it is true that it is hard to tell the difference between male and female for the more senior slashdot users :P Oh wait, mine is actually lower... SHIT!
Can people really be this pig ignorant about what recycling entails?
Recycling is NOT dumping it in a landfill, burning it OR bringing it to a recycling center. It is about removing materials requiring special handling and separating a product into distinct materials so those materials can be re-used.
For metal, this is easy. You can simply take a complete car, grind it up, melt and scoop all the bits non-metal. You have fully recycled the metal... but still, burning all that plastic, battery acid, glass is a bit nasty.
You COULD use a magnet to separate the metal from the rest but not all metals are magnetic and this will STILL leave you with a mess of non-metal that would take a legion to sort by hand.
So, how do you REALLY recycle a car? You take it apart. You remove the plastic bumper and put it on the pile with other plastic parts that you know are the same type of plastic because it is stamped on the part. Same types of plastics can be for better recycled then a pile of all sorts combined. This goes so far that for instance plastic bottles can be shredded and just melted into new ones. Failed bottles at production go right back into the process.
Once you separated all the different materials, you can re-use them or dispose of them in a safe manner. But the separation must be relatively easy OR the costs just sky-rocket. Taking of a bumper is easy especially if you don't have to care about damage. Separating two bonded plates, not so much.
A prime example of this is in electricity cables. Copper is expensive enough to make recycling worth while but separating it from the plastic surrounding it, is near impossible. What is done instead in many places is that the plastic is burned off. A very polluting process and not the idea behind recycling at all.
Now Apples devices are hard to take apart. If a screen can't be screwed open, the screen can't be separated from the shell, meaning it has to be shredded instead. You can still reclaim some materials but not as easily as with a screw driver.
The above poster seems to think that recycling means re-using working parts or re-selling the entire device. This is a FORM of recycling but NOT what this article is about. In the end, after re-selling the device will either end up in a landfill, be dumped OR be taken apart. The first two are wasteful, the second becomes more costly when the separate materials are harder to separate. Apple has basically said, we don't give a fuck about the environment and try to hide it by saying they are better but in areas nobody measures. Well, I am a better sportsman then anyone at the Olympics, just not in any Olympic sport.
But no, he wasn't asking for a confirmation of a bug, he thanked me for making his inventory larger. He asked nicely so I answered but still thought, "silly".
And yes, it slightly varies but lets face it, the chances this user was running under Wine/Linux or or OSX are roughly zero.
A new MMO has launched, The Secret World. In the game you have an inventory WINDOW. In help one player asked how you could resize it... hint, it is a window. SAME WAY YOU DO IT IN EVERY OS!
You have to wonder how that person even manages to turn on a computer.
But people like this are not "stupid" in that they don't know things, they just lack or are to lazy to put two and two together. "If I have seen furthest, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants".
These people stand on the ground. They can't link experiences from the past into the present. That user I mentioned might well have resized windows on windows but he couldn't make the connection that the inventory window looks and behaves as a window too. Lazyness comes into it since a non-lazy person would have tried something. For instance, dealing with chat windows. Right-click to change settings. How lazy do you got to be to not be able to even TRY that before asking?
A quest button is on the right, if clicked you can select a different quest to track. Yet people ask how to do that because it doesn't occur to them to simply try some stuff.
Manuals, message of the day are useless for these people.
The person from the article probably did see some video of metal in a microwave. Probably knows it is not an oven. Knows that plastic melts and just didn't put it together. For every person who pulls a radio apart to see how it looks inside, there is another person who never "learns" the power icon because it never occurs to them that there might be a reason for that image on the button.
When you do design, you sadly got to take these people into account.
Another example? Well, if one user was on slashdot, they would ask how you can preview a post. Clothes in the cash shop have preview button right there in your face and she couldn't see it and bitched they should have included a preview option. A button labelled preview and you miss it. Those people would microwave a phone to dry it.