Or is it just some self-justifying "this is the way I believe the world works, and I'm going to cover my ears and shout 'LA LA LA' ever time it doesn't"
It's mostly that, except the la la la part. I'm totally open to reality being different then I assume it is.
It's true that the desktop does not need this pace of innovation. Some stability is nice - at least a few years.
However, if they are serious about merging the desktop and mobile platforms, they will need to go to a yearly (or more frequent) release schedule. The mobile market is simply moving too fast, and the platforms are becoming more powerful very quickly.
Queue discussion about the wisdom of merging the desktop and mobile platforms...
Microsoft has been trying to kill Google for years. Ain't gonna happen. Google will only die when it gets fat and complacent, and when technology changes such that they don't need Google as much anymore.
You almost have it right. They certainly do ignore the worker bees who shout "it won't work", but they don't ignore management saying the same thing. Instead, people who never say "it won't work" slowly get promoted over people who do, and you end up with no one in management who will ever say "it won't work".
I'm quite certain that this Mr. Williamson probably didn't say no to his bosses very often, and I don't particularly feel bad for him.
I understand that cash settling makes the commodities market more like gambling, but it still allows the commodities market to become more efficient and improves liquidity. And it's still all attached to a physical good and a market price. And of course, if by some error I happen to hold a futures contract that I cannot fulfill, it seems reasonable to let me buy my way out with cash. For instance, if I'm a farmer and had a drought, it is reasonable to let me buy my way out of a contract rather than arrange for a series of deliveries of physical product.
InTrade does have some commodity-like trading (e.g. gold and oil), and that is actually what got them in trouble. But they also provide markets for things that have nothing to do with items; you can bet on events like rocket launches and elections - things that have no market price at all.
The worst UI in the world could be the fastest and the best one could be the most bloated.
So in your opinion, a whole new superfluous section of the UI with a bunch of marginally useful or useless apps, some including ads... that's not bloat?
As all arguments on Slashdot, we seem to be arguing semantics. There is a bunch of new [insert your preferred terminology] in Windows 8 that takes up resources and makes the machine harder and less efficient to use as a desktop. I call it "bloat" but let's not get hung up on the terminology - I'll call it whatever you like.
I'm in PA, but here the red light cameras almost never are set up at dinky little lights as you describe. Here, the cameras are only at intersections with a dedicated left-turn arrow. If you get caught in the middle of the intersection with one of those, then you probably need a ticket.
I think CFTC stepped in when InTrade started offering things like gold and oil futures contracts - er, "prediction contracts", which indeed makes them a futures market. I admit I haven't been following that closely, though.
I think if they had stayed just a gambling site, there would be no CFTC action.
The futures market is not just a gambling forum... they are actually trading contracts for goods. Futures contracts give farmers a stable market for their goods, and having at least some kind of exchange market is necessary for liquidity and efficiency. People certainly can use a futures market for gambling, but that is not the primary purpose. A "prediction" market is fundamentally different - at no point is a good delivered... it is pure gambling.
Gaming is very heavily regulated in the US, even if not all at the federal level. There are a few very heavily regulated (and taxed!) casino markets, Indian casinos, race tracks, and state lotteries, but for the most part gambling is banned. This seems to be slowly changing, but the government still justifies almost every private casino by the amount of money it can make in taxes.
Did you miss the superfluous nipple that is Metro? It's like two whole user interfaces stapled together, and neither one has any idea what the other is up to. The boot time is nice, but I'll take a few extra seconds of boot time of 7 over the accumulated lost productivity of 8.
Yes, that's accurate. 98SE was the first version of Windows that I liked. 2000 was also very hard to part with. Moore's Law and service packs eventually made XP pretty solid. Windows 7 is nice.
Everything else was... underwhelming. 95 was a huge improvement over 3.1, but not a huge improvement over the competition (OS2, Mac, commercial unix). Windows ME was unstable and bloated. The initial versions of XP were slow and bloated compared to 2000, though computer hardware eventually made the difference imperceptible. Vista was released before it was ready - it should have been Windows 7, which is very decent - I like it better than XP and only Windows Explorer is flaky. Windows 8 has good guts, but the UI is an abortion.
All that said, the amazing thing about Windows is the compatibility. I just installed an X Windows package from 2001 in Windows 7, and it went splendidly.
Java is required for MATLAB, which I need for work. That alone makes me an AV candidate. I finally caved and installed Flash after the nine-millionth YouTube video was sent to me by friends and I was starting to feel left out. It used to be a requirement for Pandora, but now I can listen to that on my phone. I don't run Acrobat, but I do have a PDF viewer with God-knows-what vulnerabilities. Windows 8 comes with a terrible built-in PDF viewer that launches over in Metro Land.
And even you run Antivirus, just not in real-time. I'd rather just run it real-time than worry about whether my image viewer/word processor/spreadsheet is susceptible to the threat of the month. On the rare occasion that I run a demanding game, I do shut down the virus service - but mostly I just let it run. With Windows 8, it's built-in anyway so it would actually take extra effort to remove it.
You do have antivirus - you! Not everyone is thrilled about the process of deliberately limiting what they can do with their machine and keeping abreast of the latest threats. For instance, there was an exploit in the built-in Windows image libraries a few years back... did you block all images when that happened?
It is still bloated, and it does still bluescreen. It's just that the "bluescreen" now reboots automatically instead of giving you useless error information, so it's an "improvement" of sorts. I would have made the error messages a bit more user friendly, or even rebooted the computer and then alerted the user as to why their computer rebooted... but hey, that would have been harder I guess. Windows 8 is the definition of bloated. It adds a ton of new features that make tablet use more appealing, but most people aren't running it on a tablet. Thus, you are carrying around all of this tablet crap when all you want to do is use your desktop/laptop.
Stability is far, far better than it was in the 9x series of Windows, but I can't say it really has improved tremendously over 2000, though it does seem a bit less susceptible to flaky hardware. I actually like 7 - it was a shame what they did to it in 8.
Diesel doesn't explode. The problem with a tank at the top is that the fuel can escape and gravity can help it spread over a much larger area, setting everything flammable ablaze. It can pour down otherwise-fireproof areas, such as elevator shafts and stairwells.
Even if some nightmare scenario had the diesel escaping from it's basement tank, it still wouldn't be able to actually go anywhere and spread it's mischief. The closed nature of a basement is also going to limit combustion.
The concerns were raised by 9/11, but do not necessarily involve airplanes.
In any case, you can place the tanks in the basement and locate the pumps up higher. If the tanks aren't watertight, you'd need to work out a system of separation, or at least float the intake.
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I'd argue that my phone doesn't have to do as much as my desktop.
How does Windows 8 recede into the background? You now have twice the GUI! It is more, not less, complicated.
LOL, cue indeed...
Or is it just some self-justifying "this is the way I believe the world works, and I'm going to cover my ears and shout 'LA LA LA' ever time it doesn't"
It's mostly that, except the la la la part. I'm totally open to reality being different then I assume it is.
It's true that the desktop does not need this pace of innovation. Some stability is nice - at least a few years.
However, if they are serious about merging the desktop and mobile platforms, they will need to go to a yearly (or more frequent) release schedule. The mobile market is simply moving too fast, and the platforms are becoming more powerful very quickly.
Queue discussion about the wisdom of merging the desktop and mobile platforms...
Microsoft has been trying to kill Google for years. Ain't gonna happen. Google will only die when it gets fat and complacent, and when technology changes such that they don't need Google as much anymore.
You almost have it right. They certainly do ignore the worker bees who shout "it won't work", but they don't ignore management saying the same thing. Instead, people who never say "it won't work" slowly get promoted over people who do, and you end up with no one in management who will ever say "it won't work".
I'm quite certain that this Mr. Williamson probably didn't say no to his bosses very often, and I don't particularly feel bad for him.
I understand that cash settling makes the commodities market more like gambling, but it still allows the commodities market to become more efficient and improves liquidity. And it's still all attached to a physical good and a market price. And of course, if by some error I happen to hold a futures contract that I cannot fulfill, it seems reasonable to let me buy my way out with cash. For instance, if I'm a farmer and had a drought, it is reasonable to let me buy my way out of a contract rather than arrange for a series of deliveries of physical product.
InTrade does have some commodity-like trading (e.g. gold and oil), and that is actually what got them in trouble. But they also provide markets for things that have nothing to do with items; you can bet on events like rocket launches and elections - things that have no market price at all.
The worst UI in the world could be the fastest and the best one could be the most bloated.
So in your opinion, a whole new superfluous section of the UI with a bunch of marginally useful or useless apps, some including ads... that's not bloat?
As all arguments on Slashdot, we seem to be arguing semantics. There is a bunch of new [insert your preferred terminology] in Windows 8 that takes up resources and makes the machine harder and less efficient to use as a desktop. I call it "bloat" but let's not get hung up on the terminology - I'll call it whatever you like.
I'm on board with that... I see corporations as an extension of government anyway. Or at least an example of extreme government regulation.
I'm in PA, but here the red light cameras almost never are set up at dinky little lights as you describe. Here, the cameras are only at intersections with a dedicated left-turn arrow. If you get caught in the middle of the intersection with one of those, then you probably need a ticket.
Also, the tickets carry no points.
I think CFTC stepped in when InTrade started offering things like gold and oil futures contracts - er, "prediction contracts", which indeed makes them a futures market. I admit I haven't been following that closely, though.
I think if they had stayed just a gambling site, there would be no CFTC action.
The futures market is not just a gambling forum... they are actually trading contracts for goods. Futures contracts give farmers a stable market for their goods, and having at least some kind of exchange market is necessary for liquidity and efficiency. People certainly can use a futures market for gambling, but that is not the primary purpose. A "prediction" market is fundamentally different - at no point is a good delivered... it is pure gambling.
Gaming is very heavily regulated in the US, even if not all at the federal level. There are a few very heavily regulated (and taxed!) casino markets, Indian casinos, race tracks, and state lotteries, but for the most part gambling is banned. This seems to be slowly changing, but the government still justifies almost every private casino by the amount of money it can make in taxes.
And the US has already been (repeatedly, IIRC?) sanctioned by the WTO for doing so.
As they should be. Either gambling is a moral problem or it is not.
Everyone says this, but I think it is actually the rental truck that makes it explosive...
The US doesn't ban gambling, they protect the government's monopoly of it.
Did you miss the superfluous nipple that is Metro? It's like two whole user interfaces stapled together, and neither one has any idea what the other is up to. The boot time is nice, but I'll take a few extra seconds of boot time of 7 over the accumulated lost productivity of 8.
Yes, that's accurate. 98SE was the first version of Windows that I liked. 2000 was also very hard to part with. Moore's Law and service packs eventually made XP pretty solid. Windows 7 is nice.
Everything else was... underwhelming. 95 was a huge improvement over 3.1, but not a huge improvement over the competition (OS2, Mac, commercial unix). Windows ME was unstable and bloated. The initial versions of XP were slow and bloated compared to 2000, though computer hardware eventually made the difference imperceptible. Vista was released before it was ready - it should have been Windows 7, which is very decent - I like it better than XP and only Windows Explorer is flaky. Windows 8 has good guts, but the UI is an abortion.
All that said, the amazing thing about Windows is the compatibility. I just installed an X Windows package from 2001 in Windows 7, and it went splendidly.
Java is required for MATLAB, which I need for work. That alone makes me an AV candidate. I finally caved and installed Flash after the nine-millionth YouTube video was sent to me by friends and I was starting to feel left out. It used to be a requirement for Pandora, but now I can listen to that on my phone. I don't run Acrobat, but I do have a PDF viewer with God-knows-what vulnerabilities. Windows 8 comes with a terrible built-in PDF viewer that launches over in Metro Land.
And even you run Antivirus, just not in real-time. I'd rather just run it real-time than worry about whether my image viewer/word processor/spreadsheet is susceptible to the threat of the month. On the rare occasion that I run a demanding game, I do shut down the virus service - but mostly I just let it run. With Windows 8, it's built-in anyway so it would actually take extra effort to remove it.
And a tank full of diesel becomes vapor how?
Yes, I'm aware of that option - clearly others are not, thus the need for my comment.
It can't possibly be "immune", but Mac also doesn't seem highly targeted.
Windows comes with antivirus now - that should tell you all you need to know.
You do have antivirus - you! Not everyone is thrilled about the process of deliberately limiting what they can do with their machine and keeping abreast of the latest threats. For instance, there was an exploit in the built-in Windows image libraries a few years back... did you block all images when that happened?
It is still bloated, and it does still bluescreen. It's just that the "bluescreen" now reboots automatically instead of giving you useless error information, so it's an "improvement" of sorts. I would have made the error messages a bit more user friendly, or even rebooted the computer and then alerted the user as to why their computer rebooted... but hey, that would have been harder I guess. Windows 8 is the definition of bloated. It adds a ton of new features that make tablet use more appealing, but most people aren't running it on a tablet. Thus, you are carrying around all of this tablet crap when all you want to do is use your desktop/laptop.
Stability is far, far better than it was in the 9x series of Windows, but I can't say it really has improved tremendously over 2000, though it does seem a bit less susceptible to flaky hardware. I actually like 7 - it was a shame what they did to it in 8.
Diesel doesn't explode. The problem with a tank at the top is that the fuel can escape and gravity can help it spread over a much larger area, setting everything flammable ablaze. It can pour down otherwise-fireproof areas, such as elevator shafts and stairwells.
Even if some nightmare scenario had the diesel escaping from it's basement tank, it still wouldn't be able to actually go anywhere and spread it's mischief. The closed nature of a basement is also going to limit combustion.
The concerns were raised by 9/11, but do not necessarily involve airplanes.
In any case, you can place the tanks in the basement and locate the pumps up higher. If the tanks aren't watertight, you'd need to work out a system of separation, or at least float the intake.