The problem with Dell is that they appear to have a rather low R&D budget. So, by buying Dell, we are discouraging research.
I'll contend that; your final bill not only reflects R&D, but also company efficiency. By continuing to support companies that charge you more for the same value proposition, you're effectively subsidising their inefficiency.
To be honest, I did think the parent joke was funny. Just that, you don't want medical parlance to be contrary to common usage.
Re:Not Schizophrenia
on
ALICE vs. ALICE
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· Score: 5, Informative
I understand you're trying to joke, but let's get this clear: this is not schizophrenia. Roughly speaking, schizophrenia is when people hear and see things that aren't there. What you're talking about is MPD, Multiple Personality Disorder, the stuff that Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are made of.
I'm not sure what you're getting at, but if you're suggesting that Nokia phones allow emergency calls even when the keypad is locked, it might be a good idea to look at that stats once again.
I get POP access (can't get that with Hotmail) and Yahoo's filtering for spam beats the hell out of Hotmail (which I think was designed to collect spam).
Not to support the Evil One (tm) here, but you can check your Hotmail inbox in Outlook Express 6, for no added cost. The spam filter is no great shakes, but it's tolerable.
Also, don't most people get free email when they get internet access? I think only the people surfing from public libraries would find this an issue.
First, everyone, repeat after me:- Yahoo is not cancelling its free email service. It's not even restricting its existing customers, merely increasing the price of its value-added email services.
Second, you'll be surprised by the number of people who have no telephones, but constantly use email. Yes, all of them use (the free-as-in-beer flavors of) Hotmail, Yahoo and the ilk.
You're probably right; was quoting that off the head, remember reading about it in Time (the Asia-by-Rails edition I think). But the point still stands; there is no uniformity in international track gauge standards.
Why do you suppose the countries have the same railway gauge, the same electrical outlet voltage, the same basic design for telephones and kitchen sinks?
I actually thought you were sarcastic until I read till the end. Presuming you're a Brit, but surely,
... you've heard of that 110 V thing they have in US, as opposed to the 220V you have out there in Britain and most Commonwealth countries?
...seen that the rest of Europe (and indeed US) drives on the left?
... noticed that US uses NTSC while Europe uses PAL?
... you haven't travelled by train from Mongolia to Russia. Apparently, there's this border station where they lift the cars above the ground with cranes and manually compress the wheels to fit the narrower Russian gauge.
The whole business world is Western-oriented. English is the global language, global corporations stock is listed in Tokyo, New York and London. You can bet that if an Indian businessman and a Japanese sit down to do business, they'll do it in English.
I agree here with your thesis, but a small nitpick; English is definitely the global business language, but if my experience with my Chinese friends is any indication, Asian (ie Korean, Japanese and Chinese) users certainly seem to prefer an interface in their mother tongue rather than a generic English one, even if they read and write okay-ish English. So yes, Microsoft spends quite a lot on internationalisation, but no, this is despite English emerging as the de-facto business language for the world.
They aren't an American company any more than Sony is a Japanese country: they both take a global view.
Google is so much better, so why should Altavista survive in the long run?
While I agree with you on Google giving a much better service, I do believe there's a space for Altavista, Alltheweb and (hopefully) scores of other search engines as well. The reason is simple:- more than ads (television, pop-up or otherwise), it's search engines that uniquely determine how we browse the net. Sure, so far Google has *largely* been Good (tm), but that doesn't mean it will continue to be so. In particular, I'm concerned about the way results are arranged in Google (or any search engine); there's no accountability, nothing's open, there's only a vague comment about how The Algo gives PageRanks to each individual page. As we saw earlier, Google has taken results *without* publicly announcing that it's doing so.
Indeed, Alltheweb, in particular, sounds promising. It has more indexed documents with a faster "refresh cycle" than Google, a video, mp3, and a ftp search, and also says it can search through Flash movies. Of course, no way it can replace Google Groups, but all the same, it's definitely a viable alternative to Google. I believe we should welcome greater competition among search engines.
Free-market competition will help us avoid unduely relying on a single company. For Google's sake, I don't want it turn into a monopoly.
This is off my head of course, but I remember reading somewhere that the Titanic disaster was, to use the article's term, pre-discovered, in 1898 by an American author. She wrote a book called "The Titan" (I think), which was about an 8000 ton ocean liner that was reputedly unsinkable, but crashed into an iceberg in its maiden voyage from England to New York. I believe it was meant to be a sort of commentary on the vanity of the ruling classes then.
It's interesting to note that "Titanic" the movie was released exactly 100 years later.
Mike Doyle, who runs tiny Eolas Technology Inc., which controls a patent that covers... the use of any algorithm that implements dynamic, bi-directional communications between an app embedded in a Web page and external application
To pun with your Subject line, no more MySQL for you.:-)
But that's not the point though. Obviosuly, not many here have either read the article, or even if they have, managed to understand it. Consider what Doyle says:-
"Everyone just assumes that MS will be able to merely write a check and make the whole thing go away", despite his "purely theoretical" and self-claimed "logical" arguments.
He wants the "power to exclude", a right he says patents provides.
And here's where it gets really interesting. He says, "The Web-OS concept, where the browser is the interface to all interactive apps on the client side, was always a killer idea. It still is. It lost momentum not because it wasn't economically or technically feasible, but because MS made it unlikely for anybody but them to make money on the Web-client side. Therefore, nobody could justify the necessary investment to take a really-serious shot at it."
So folks, a) is there anything called the WebOS and b)has MS bombed it into oblivion?
Microsoft has argued [wired.com] in the past that "Internet Explorer" was a generic term and hence can't be trademarked, while at the same time arguing [com.com] that "Windows" is not generic and hence can be trademarked.
While I agree you haven't said that Microsoft as has successfully argued that "Internet Explorer" was generic, it's important to consider all facts of the case. To quote from the link you've provided:-
Microsoft settled an embarrassing trademark lawsuit on Wednesday, agreeing to pay US$5 million for the right to continue calling its Web browser software 'Internet Explorer'...[the litigant],... a British immigrant, will not see any of the settlement money, which will go to lawyers and other creditors."
Guy didn't have the dough and jumped at the first bailout. Not the same thing as getting a positive legal ruling on the name of its products, which is what you seemed to imply.
The ZDNET article is interesting, not because MS has tried arguing that a) Windows is a trademark and b) Lindows is too similar to 'Windows', but because it claims,
"They're not the type to sue at the drop of a hat," he said, concluding that there appears to be solid ground for the Lindows complaint.
We all know Microsoft is Evil (tm), and yes, as we saw earlier, it's difficult for individuals and small companies to stand up to prolonged legal action. But the strategy is probably not by filing "a 1000 lawsuits in a 100 different jurisdictions against Eolas". Your own citations say that MS is not a litigous company.
You have other extremes too. Some people want to make it easy for lynx users, result, sites look good only in lynx! This is going too much over the board. IMHO a good site should have valid HTML, and simple valid javascript. Also a site map is a must. I really hate those sites with lots of clutter. Looking for info is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Perhaps if they put some good search engine on the front page. As far as that is concerned even/. is horrible. The search engine can take some serious work. Otherwise I just love it, its simple, has never crashed my browser and dosent take too much time to load.
First off, HTML's primary use is to tag info; it's not a display language, there's no way you can control display in all computers/browsers. The idea here is using CSS; you'd want to seperate design from content.
Second, most intra-website-search engines simply suck. I recommend Google; you type your keywords and "site:yourwebsite.com". It works, unless the info you want is behind passwords etc.
Is it possible to say that poorly designed websites reflect a certain apathy on the web designer's part? Surely (the argument goes), if designers didn't care enough about the design, they wouldn't have cared enough about the info they provide.
Now, that's a statement that wouldn't apply to me. I use Opera 6.05 to navigate, so I get more than my usual share of poor design (bad html, javascript, MS-proprietary tags etc). However, personally I don't care; my focus has always been on finding the info I want, for which I use the excellent the find-in-page and the google search buttons that Opera provides.
Bottomline: It's probably not poor navigation per se, but a bad impression on the viewer.
cool, a spacecraft with a fiat engine!.... why is focus on italy; e.g., quote "the italian problem"?
Actually, I don't care if they use Fiat or Vespa, as long as they don't use their legendary charm and steal Venus... oh wait, Michelangelo already beat us to it.
But to answer your question, yes this thing of one team member not contributing as much as everyone else happens in all teams, whether they're intra-company, inter-state or international.
In fact, this phenomenon is so common that the equivalent "good guy" response, complaining about non-working team-mates, is also equally common.
Aren't we sending people there?!? If we're so close, then wouldn't this be an opertune time to take the next step in human exploration of space?
I believe our reluctance to go to Mars is proof of NASA being filled with geeks.
I mean, when was it last that a self-respecting geek stepped out of his geekroom?
Please to meet you, Mr OS2. I'm sure you find better as a human rather than an OS trying to compete with Microsoft. I like your self-flagellating philosophy, something that/.tters might as well learn.
I seem to be getting the remnants of the website and it's pointing to twomirrors. Obviously, the original website is having problems catering to slash-traffic, so it's best if you go to the other two sites instead.
As for additions, there seem to be a funky looking clock and a program list on the side. Nice addition, if you ask me, getting sick of the Start button myself...
Slashdot Mirror
I'll contend that; your final bill not only reflects R&D, but also company efficiency. By continuing to support companies that charge you more for the same value proposition, you're effectively subsidising their inefficiency.
Works both ways! :-)
Ah. My mom always says, "Son, back up your assertions with citations".
Now I realise why. Even Google agrees with you.
To be honest, I did think the parent joke was funny. Just that, you don't want medical parlance to be contrary to common usage.
I understand you're trying to joke, but let's get this clear: this is not schizophrenia. Roughly speaking, schizophrenia is when people hear and see things that aren't there. What you're talking about is MPD, Multiple Personality Disorder, the stuff that Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are made of.
Obviously, you're a newbie. The operating word out here is moderation; wait till the Good Guys (tm) come out with their mod points drawn. ;-)
I'm not sure what you're getting at, but if you're suggesting that Nokia phones allow emergency calls even when the keypad is locked, it might be a good idea to look at that stats once again.
Something tells me you'll get a lot more calls.
Not to support the Evil One (tm) here, but you can check your Hotmail inbox in Outlook Express 6, for no added cost. The spam filter is no great shakes, but it's tolerable.
First, everyone, repeat after me:- Yahoo is not cancelling its free email service. It's not even restricting its existing customers, merely increasing the price of its value-added email services.
Second, you'll be surprised by the number of people who have no telephones, but constantly use email. Yes, all of them use (the free-as-in-beer flavors of) Hotmail, Yahoo and the ilk.
You're probably right; was quoting that off the head, remember reading about it in Time (the Asia-by-Rails edition I think). But the point still stands; there is no uniformity in international track gauge standards.
I actually thought you were sarcastic until I read till the end. Presuming you're a Brit, but surely,
I agree here with your thesis, but a small nitpick; English is definitely the global business language, but if my experience with my Chinese friends is any indication, Asian (ie Korean, Japanese and Chinese) users certainly seem to prefer an interface in their mother tongue rather than a generic English one, even if they read and write okay-ish English. So yes, Microsoft spends quite a lot on internationalisation, but no, this is despite English emerging as the de-facto business language for the world.
Interesting typo. ;-)
I don't about you, but I certainly wouldn't want to mail her...
Blatant karma-whoring, but since you've asked for it, here you go.
Nothing to it methinks, except for being a blatant attempt at positive Indian PR.
Have you tried Google's Advanced Search?
While I agree with you on Google giving a much better service, I do believe there's a space for Altavista, Alltheweb and (hopefully) scores of other search engines as well. The reason is simple:- more than ads (television, pop-up or otherwise), it's search engines that uniquely determine how we browse the net. Sure, so far Google has *largely* been Good (tm), but that doesn't mean it will continue to be so. In particular, I'm concerned about the way results are arranged in Google (or any search engine); there's no accountability, nothing's open, there's only a vague comment about how The Algo gives PageRanks to each individual page. As we saw earlier, Google has taken results *without* publicly announcing that it's doing so.
Indeed, Alltheweb, in particular, sounds promising. It has more indexed documents with a faster "refresh cycle" than Google, a video, mp3, and a ftp search, and also says it can search through Flash movies. Of course, no way it can replace Google Groups, but all the same, it's definitely a viable alternative to Google. I believe we should welcome greater competition among search engines.
Free-market competition will help us avoid unduely relying on a single company. For Google's sake, I don't want it turn into a monopoly.
This is off my head of course, but I remember reading somewhere that the Titanic disaster was, to use the article's term, pre-discovered, in 1898 by an American author. She wrote a book called "The Titan" (I think), which was about an 8000 ton ocean liner that was reputedly unsinkable, but crashed into an iceberg in its maiden voyage from England to New York. I believe it was meant to be a sort of commentary on the vanity of the ruling classes then.
It's interesting to note that "Titanic" the movie was released exactly 100 years later.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the web invented in 1989, years after Usenet, ftp, email and other elements of the Internet became popular?
From the Cringley article:
To pun with your Subject line, no more MySQL for you. :-)
But that's not the point though. Obviosuly, not many here have either read the article, or even if they have, managed to understand it. Consider what Doyle says:-
So folks, a) is there anything called the WebOS and b)has MS bombed it into oblivion?
While I agree you haven't said that Microsoft as has successfully argued that "Internet Explorer" was generic, it's important to consider all facts of the case. To quote from the link you've provided:-
Guy didn't have the dough and jumped at the first bailout. Not the same thing as getting a positive legal ruling on the name of its products, which is what you seemed to imply.
The ZDNET article is interesting, not because MS has tried arguing that a) Windows is a trademark and b) Lindows is too similar to 'Windows', but because it claims,
We all know Microsoft is Evil (tm), and yes, as we saw earlier, it's difficult for individuals and small companies to stand up to prolonged legal action. But the strategy is probably not by filing "a 1000 lawsuits in a 100 different jurisdictions against Eolas". Your own citations say that MS is not a litigous company.
First off, HTML's primary use is to tag info; it's not a display language, there's no way you can control display in all computers/browsers. The idea here is using CSS; you'd want to seperate design from content.
Second, most intra-website-search engines simply suck. I recommend Google; you type your keywords and "site:yourwebsite.com". It works, unless the info you want is behind passwords etc.
Here's an alternative thesis.
Is it possible to say that poorly designed websites reflect a certain apathy on the web designer's part? Surely (the argument goes), if designers didn't care enough about the design, they wouldn't have cared enough about the info they provide.
Now, that's a statement that wouldn't apply to me. I use Opera 6.05 to navigate, so I get more than my usual share of poor design (bad html, javascript, MS-proprietary tags etc). However, personally I don't care; my focus has always been on finding the info I want, for which I use the excellent the find-in-page and the google search buttons that Opera provides.
Bottomline: It's probably not poor navigation per se, but a bad impression on the viewer.
Actually, I don't care if they use Fiat or Vespa, as long as they don't use their legendary charm and steal Venus... oh wait, Michelangelo already beat us to it.
But to answer your question, yes this thing of one team member not contributing as much as everyone else happens in all teams, whether they're intra-company, inter-state or international.
In fact, this phenomenon is so common that the equivalent "good guy" response, complaining about non-working team-mates, is also equally common.
I believe our reluctance to go to Mars is proof of NASA being filled with geeks. I mean, when was it last that a self-respecting geek stepped out of his geekroom?
... but not in a high school where they teach spelling and grammar?
Not to troll, but this is really getting irritating folks; please, please PLEASE check your posts before posting!
Please to meet you, Mr OS2. I'm sure you find better as a human rather than an OS trying to compete with Microsoft. I like your self-flagellating philosophy, something that /.tters might as well learn.
Tell me, was the competition *that* hard?
Addition: Icrontic has yanked the screenshots off on Microsoft's request. My wishes to the good folks at tech-critic, let's see how long you last.
I seem to be getting the remnants of the website and it's pointing to two mirrors. Obviously, the original website is having problems catering to slash-traffic, so it's best if you go to the other two sites instead.
As for additions, there seem to be a funky looking clock and a program list on the side. Nice addition, if you ask me, getting sick of the Start button myself...