I think this has more to do with Max Weber's ideas around the rationalization of everything in modernity. The idea that anything is stated, refined, and routinized into a bureaucratic function. At that point, because it's bureaucratic, it also is measurable - and hence incredibly rational.
The problem, if it really is a problem, goes deeper than "business", I'd argue.
I boycott shopping at Amazon.com in the same manner that I do for brick and mortar shopping at Walmart. Give the small guys your business and help maintain a strong U.S. economy.
At what point does one stop shopping at the "small guys" because they've become a "big guy"? Where does small end and big begin?
The problem with this sentiment is twofold:
You penalize successful business. Become too succesful and I won't shop at your store anymore! (You probably don't do that with airlines - get too safe and I won't fly with you anymore!).
There's no way to know when someone goes from small to big. So the whole question is subjective. And any attempt at boycotting Walmart is obviously not working - the company is getting larger, not smaller.
There's plenty of Windows (and Linux) software, much of it open-source and/or freeware, that I find to be extremely useful and practical. I don't give a damn whether or not it's pretty to look at.
I don't think the article is attacking the usefulness or the practicality of the software as much as its innovativeness. The Windows platform does not breed innovation - either in hardware or software. Windows is more historical than future-oriented because it has to be compatible with what people currently use. The sticker price on critical Windows applications are too much to not make the next OS backwards compatible with them. Hence, every version of Windows looks more and more like Windows. And the new ideas in Longhorn and IE 7? Yeah, two - three years after Apple.
Why? It can't. How innovative is Windows XP if the games I played on Windows Me, which also worked on Windows 98, also run on Windows XP?
Innovation is change - change in how we do things and how we build the tools we do things with. The Windows platform does not change, except in an increase in resource demands. If the tools don't change, the art doesn't change.
"Embracing open standards is fine, but to do so at the expense of proprietary standards is stupid. More broadly, you can't afford to be idealistic in this industry; you have to be practical.em>
No kidding! Just how useful has ftp, http, and smtp been? We'd be much better off with proprietary standards!
Apple was so enamored with absolute pure, minimalist design that some designers may argue that ergonomics were compromised.
How in the world can anyone claim this?
I can perform the following actions with one hand holding the iPod and my thumb controlling it:
Turn on/off
Select a playlist/composer/performer
Adjust volume
Read notes
View my calendar
Fast forward/rewind/pause
And that's compromising ergonomics? The iPod probably makes the fewest ergonomic assumptions than any other product I own/have owned.
Well, alright, it assumes you are a homo sapien with at least one opposable thumb on one hand. But even with that assumption anyone belonging to the homo genus can use the iPod.
Looks an awful lot like Safari, too. Must really suck working for a company that releasese stuff that is much later and much like other organizations - like Apple and Mozilla.
Slashdot runs one more article about the genious of this stupid paid-for, closed source browser
That is so stooooooopid it always seems to be either a step ahead of the competition (this is a perfect example) or releases fewer security updates faster than the competition (fewer because it's already a step ahead).
Time to move on, do it gracefully, help your employees move on...
Maybe that's what they're doing now? "Closing up shop, as you call it, is just stupid if they can reinvent who they are and evolve.
Ford made cars that were overtaken by technological advances in automobile design. They didn't "close up shop" - they evolved and improved their product (I drive a Jeep, so that's an assumption).
The best way around that is to rent two or three days in advance of anticipating when you want it. With the concept of a queue and no limit on the length of time the DVD can be in your possession (in the case of Netflix), you're all set.
One can imagine the server peak for Netflix is probably Monday and Tuesday for those planning for the weekend.
Though it is funny to live less than one mile from a Netflix warehouse and know I could walk over there, pick it up, and return it before the DVD reached my house. Kind of defeats the business model of Netflix, though.
You do that now but what if you could enter your search term in an RSS Aggregator and have that do your work for you? Search results returned now are static - an ongoing search engine that fed results to you via RSS is much more useful.
The web is too dynamic to not benefit from ongoing search technology. The only real difference is using RSS to regularly disperse information that is new or changed since the last distribution.
That doesn't really wash. First, I doubt we have access to anyone who would have 'been in the know' regarding the state of Japanese senior government officials during tha time.
And the bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while nuclear, didn't kill as many people as the fire bombing. In many instances, (see Bradley, Flyboys, for some great references) we warned people we were going to burn their city with napalm dropped from B-52s.
And what "certain terms" were there? They get to finish off the last Chinese person alive? They force just one more island to stand between them and our troops?
It's probably the Zip Code +4 for the Holy Grail's final resting place. The Romans, so I've been told, were fairly smart folks and I'd be surprised if the The Republic didn't have the idea of Zip Codes.
And with as fast as their Empire expanded they probably realized they needed four extra letters, what with the Goths moving in and all. (Not unlike the expansive nature of the American Empire under G.W. Bush, who may need to move towards "Zip + 5" after we add Afghanistan and Iraq to our growing list of suburbs).
Of course, they based their Zip Code on what was to become the U.S. system, so the letters "DOUOS" are the first five letters of the zip. The "V" is probably a weathered hypen, and the "AVVM" are the last four digits.
ROTFLMAO. Wow, that's good. I could hook up a nice pulley from the second floor, and anchor it to the side-yard. Wheel the dryer out (on squeaky rollers attached the the ropes), dry the clothes, then wheel it back in at the end of the day.
I'm sure what will get them really angry, though, is for me to leave the ropes hanging from the window instead of pulling them in, with the dryer.
Interesting - Austrailia must not have HOAs (Home Owners Associations) similar to those in the U.S.? My HOA policy is fairly forgiving on that piece: I can use a clothesline but it has to be a 'temporary' one that is taken down after it's use.
Maybe I'll run a long extension cord from our laundry on the second floor of our house and put my dryer in the yard. Nothing in the HOA rules state running appliances can't be used in the yard!
That way I can dry my clothes outside in the sunshine and still thumb my nose at the Kyoto Protocol. American Green;-)
In effect, the patent system is being used as a mechanism for established companies (with cash flow) to lock out small players. A horribly anti-competitive system!
Maybe in some cases - but in another sense it preserves the competitive environment by enforcing the need for innovation (not like MS innovation, were a product is bought and repackaged). Consider the unique features of the iPod's user interface:
The iPod is incredibly intuitive and the copyright, I would assert, is applied to a new domain: controling a device with only one hand (usual Mac usability applied to a new device). All iPod functions - including the music controls but also backlight, calendar, and games, can be done with the unit in the palm of one hand using the same hand's thumb (or presumably other digit). Like the telephone. Unlike most other devices, unless they're phone based.
The obvious standard you're referring to is the uniqueness of the iPod's look and feel, control, and functionality. An entire U.I. driven with the action of one thumb on the hand holding it.
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I think this has more to do with Max Weber's ideas around the rationalization of everything in modernity. The idea that anything is stated, refined, and routinized into a bureaucratic function. At that point, because it's bureaucratic, it also is measurable - and hence incredibly rational.
The problem, if it really is a problem, goes deeper than "business", I'd argue.
I boycott shopping at Amazon.com in the same manner that I do for brick and mortar shopping at Walmart. Give the small guys your business and help maintain a strong U.S. economy.
At what point does one stop shopping at the "small guys" because they've become a "big guy"? Where does small end and big begin?
The problem with this sentiment is twofold:
It would suck if the comet belonged to a super powerful race of beings - say the was their pet. The only name left on the plaque was yours...
There's plenty of Windows (and Linux) software, much of it open-source and/or freeware, that I find to be extremely useful and practical. I don't give a damn whether or not it's pretty to look at.
I don't think the article is attacking the usefulness or the practicality of the software as much as its innovativeness. The Windows platform does not breed innovation - either in hardware or software. Windows is more historical than future-oriented because it has to be compatible with what people currently use. The sticker price on critical Windows applications are too much to not make the next OS backwards compatible with them. Hence, every version of Windows looks more and more like Windows. And the new ideas in Longhorn and IE 7? Yeah, two - three years after Apple.
Why? It can't. How innovative is Windows XP if the games I played on Windows Me, which also worked on Windows 98, also run on Windows XP?
Innovation is change - change in how we do things and how we build the tools we do things with. The Windows platform does not change, except in an increase in resource demands. If the tools don't change, the art doesn't change.
eom
Like most developed countries there is a declining birthrate. The situation is made worse by several things:
"Worse?" I'd say that makes the situation better.
Here in Colorado, USA, we're getting a new coal fired electrical plant. Stick with proven technology, we always say.
I would give it seven days before an Automator script appears to do exactly that!
"Embracing open standards is fine, but to do so at the expense of proprietary standards is stupid. More broadly, you can't afford to be idealistic in this industry; you have to be practical.em>
No kidding! Just how useful has ftp, http, and smtp been? We'd be much better off with proprietary standards!
Apple was so enamored with absolute pure, minimalist design that some designers may argue that ergonomics were compromised.
How in the world can anyone claim this?
I can perform the following actions with one hand holding the iPod and my thumb controlling it:
And that's compromising ergonomics? The iPod probably makes the fewest ergonomic assumptions than any other product I own/have owned.
Well, alright, it assumes you are a homo sapien with at least one opposable thumb on one hand. But even with that assumption anyone belonging to the homo genus can use the iPod.
Unless your some fucking looser nerd or fag who wacks off to that sort of thing.
Oh, but those photos of big house in the 'burbs with a low 6.9% APR are so prime!
Looks an awful lot like Safari, too. Must really suck working for a company that releasese stuff that is much later and much like other organizations - like Apple and Mozilla.
Slashdot runs one more article about the genious of this stupid paid-for, closed source browser
That is so stooooooopid it always seems to be either a step ahead of the competition (this is a perfect example) or releases fewer security updates faster than the competition (fewer because it's already a step ahead).
No, but you'd be mighty upset you had to call yourself "Frank" because if you called yourself "Opera" few would talk to you.
Maybe that's what they're doing now? "Closing up shop, as you call it, is just stupid if they can reinvent who they are and evolve.
Ford made cars that were overtaken by technological advances in automobile design. They didn't "close up shop" - they evolved and improved their product (I drive a Jeep, so that's an assumption).
The best way around that is to rent two or three days in advance of anticipating when you want it. With the concept of a queue and no limit on the length of time the DVD can be in your possession (in the case of Netflix), you're all set.
One can imagine the server peak for Netflix is probably Monday and Tuesday for those planning for the weekend.
Though it is funny to live less than one mile from a Netflix warehouse and know I could walk over there, pick it up, and return it before the DVD reached my house. Kind of defeats the business model of Netflix, though.
You do that now but what if you could enter your search term in an RSS Aggregator and have that do your work for you? Search results returned now are static - an ongoing search engine that fed results to you via RSS is much more useful.
The web is too dynamic to not benefit from ongoing search technology. The only real difference is using RSS to regularly disperse information that is new or changed since the last distribution.
That doesn't really wash. First, I doubt we have access to anyone who would have 'been in the know' regarding the state of Japanese senior government officials during tha time. And the bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while nuclear, didn't kill as many people as the fire bombing. In many instances, (see Bradley, Flyboys, for some great references) we warned people we were going to burn their city with napalm dropped from B-52s. And what "certain terms" were there? They get to finish off the last Chinese person alive? They force just one more island to stand between them and our troops?
Yeah, but what if the Penguin has an appearance in this film? That's kinda close to Linux, so it would be a moral wash, no?
(Most likely in Europe given the culture of sex in the U.S.) does their adopted off-spring grow up to be an Engineer with a nurse fetish?
It's probably the Zip Code +4 for the Holy Grail's final resting place. The Romans, so I've been told, were fairly smart folks and I'd be surprised if the The Republic didn't have the idea of Zip Codes.
And with as fast as their Empire expanded they probably realized they needed four extra letters, what with the Goths moving in and all. (Not unlike the expansive nature of the American Empire under G.W. Bush, who may need to move towards "Zip + 5" after we add Afghanistan and Iraq to our growing list of suburbs).
Of course, they based their Zip Code on what was to become the U.S. system, so the letters "DOUOS" are the first five letters of the zip. The "V" is probably a weathered hypen, and the "AVVM" are the last four digits.
ROTFLMAO. Wow, that's good. I could hook up a nice pulley from the second floor, and anchor it to the side-yard. Wheel the dryer out (on squeaky rollers attached the the ropes), dry the clothes, then wheel it back in at the end of the day.
I'm sure what will get them really angry, though, is for me to leave the ropes hanging from the window instead of pulling them in, with the dryer.
Interesting - Austrailia must not have HOAs (Home Owners Associations) similar to those in the U.S.? My HOA policy is fairly forgiving on that piece: I can use a clothesline but it has to be a 'temporary' one that is taken down after it's use. Maybe I'll run a long extension cord from our laundry on the second floor of our house and put my dryer in the yard. Nothing in the HOA rules state running appliances can't be used in the yard! That way I can dry my clothes outside in the sunshine and still thumb my nose at the Kyoto Protocol. American Green ;-)
Maybe in some cases - but in another sense it preserves the competitive environment by enforcing the need for innovation (not like MS innovation, were a product is bought and repackaged). Consider the unique features of the iPod's user interface:
The iPod is incredibly intuitive and the copyright, I would assert, is applied to a new domain: controling a device with only one hand (usual Mac usability applied to a new device). All iPod functions - including the music controls but also backlight, calendar, and games, can be done with the unit in the palm of one hand using the same hand's thumb (or presumably other digit). Like the telephone. Unlike most other devices, unless they're phone based.
The obvious standard you're referring to is the uniqueness of the iPod's look and feel, control, and functionality. An entire U.I. driven with the action of one thumb on the hand holding it.
In other news, the unemployment rate among technology workers in Sri Lanka and India has decreased by 19%.