Much of your response indicates that you misunderstand my comment. I do not know whether the misunderstanding is willful or whether it merely results from your own ignorance, but I shall allow you a brief response.* Some would consider me quite the charitable man for so doing!
Four points:
1. Your writing style has improved enormously. I presume therefore that your Microsoft Word comment was confessional.
2. You say:
Actually, this paragraph is truly a work of art. Please don't tell me you serious [sic] think Microsoft recompiled Vista in.NET.
I was merely following your lead when you asserted that:
As for the rewrite, maybe a broad term like rewrite is a little too broad. However, most of the OS has been changed, and the parts that haven't are compiled using the new development tools from MS.
3. Regardless of how many times you link to that Windows Desktop Search site (which is the equivalent of Apple's Spotlight), it will not make it WinFS. WinFS does not exist. Microsoft announced a long time ago that it will not be shipping in Vista. Give it up.
4. As to:
...you bought an iBook in 2002, which makes the odds very low that you have ever even used Windows XP.
Check Windows XP's release date again. Then check the number of months 2002 had, and consider that 2002 does not mean January 2002. I will grant that my saying that "I have never looked back" was unclear. It was intended to mean that I have never used Windows as my primary operating system since that time. Unfortunately for me, that doesn't mean I haven't used it.
And on that note, I bid you good day.
iqu:|
(* If you can write a coherent response with relevant facts to back up your assertions, I will attempt a fuller response. Until then, this is not really worth my time.)
Before I begin, I'd just like to say to anyone still reading that I am fully aware of that timeless maxim, and its appropriateness here is not lost on me.
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.
With that done, I can address your points.
It doesn't matter if you are using Linux, OpenBSD, or even WindowsXP, you are using technology I personally worked on at some point in my career.
You call yourself a veteran, yet you have a/. number which almost exceeds mine? Not exactly damning evidence, I admit, but having read some of your other posts this leads me to a more obvious conclusion - you're a bullshitter. At the very least, the malodorous whiff of your overside ego threatens rather than strengthens your argument - you appear to be little more than an arsehole. Furthermore, you cannot spell.
But, keeping an open mind...
I've no interest in debating who came up with the idea of OS-wide indexed searching first - I don't believe it was Microsoft; you believe it was. The reason I have no such interest is because it is immaterial - BeOS had it first, with some saying this was back in 1996*, Mac OS X got it in 10.4 in 2005 and...Windows still doesn't have it. Granted, Apple's implementation is not a full DBFS, but to the end user, the result is the same, so it matters little. And Microsoft isn't even including WinFS in Vista anyway! So I am left wondering if you have any idea what you are on about...
Moving on...
Actually the screenshots that Paul Posted are already outdated, this is why it is called a BETA.
No they aren't. You're either stupid or in denial. Incidentally, I love the capitalisation on the second P. Paul Posted. It's like some kind of...I dunno. But it's quite funny...
Now if you love Paul and believe he is always correct...
I probably hate him more than you do. He is, as you correctly stated in your original post, "not a technical person" (this was probably the only thing you got right), and I find his articles little more than shameless puff pieces. In short, he is a Microsoft fanboy. (Hence, incidentally, why this review is so interesting - his attacks are really quite scathing.)
I can't prove ya wrong, my NDA will not allow me.
Twat.
Anyway, you didn't respond to what was perhaps my most significant accusation (and the most obvious conclusion one can reasonably draw), which I quote here again for convenience:
Judging by the icons in some of the dialogue boxes (try here), some of the stuff hasn't seen an update since Windows 95. There's a reason it "'appears' to not be different to push away current Windows Users".
I suppose the essence of your response lies in this sentence:
However, most of the OS has been changed, and the parts that haven't are compiled using the new development tools from MS.
You say much has changed. I beg to differ. But before I respond, seeing as you seem so intent on waging a virtual cocksize contest, my background:
My Windows pedigree is pretty lengthy. I can certainly claim a familiarity with Windows 3.0 - I, unlike many of the wee babes-in-arms on here, can actually honestly say (and would swear to that in a court of law) that I have experienced an unrecoverable application error. If you were there, you will know these as UAEs. Yes kids, there was something before the dreaded GPF. Furthermore, I have used every version of Windows since then, some more than others and some more than I would like to admit.
So I have seen Windows evolve, from the glorified DOS shell that it was to the bloated piece of crap it has become in Windows XP and beyond, and in each release, I have noted what has changed and what has stayed the same.
The main issue I had with that review is that its essential purpose was to highlight two features - Spotlight and Dashboard - one which could be safely explained away as being in Longhorn and one which could be dismissed as relatively pointless eye-candy.* It ignored advances like Core Data (probably too technical for Thurrott, and not particularly interesting for his readership, but some developers have been literally wanking over it. OK, not literally, but...) and, more obviously - until he later edited it in response to criticism - things like Automator, which is a wonderful way to make scripting more accessible. At the same time, he found himself able to devote a whole page's worth of text to the most cursory of updates to DVD Player! There are other things, but I'm not going to review 10.4 here as it's not relevant. In any case, the effect is not to praise the product at hand, but to trivialise it. It's quite clever, I'll give him that.
It's the subtle digs that nark me, as I said in the grandparent. I know he loves Mac OS X - the design of his Internet Nexus blog demonstrated as much, as for a long time it was awash with graphics lifted from Tiger - but he cannot resist taking a poke at every possible opportunity. For example:
In the previous version of Mac OS X, version 10.3, Apple introduced a feature for power users called Exposé that seeks to help manage the multiple applications and windows one typically opens in the course of using a Mac.
It's the "power users" dismissal that irritates me. The bit that says "Macs are for elitists, rather than for you and me." In fact, power users use Command+H and Command+Tab. Exposé is for people like my sister who want/like a simple visual representation of all their windows. Thurrott gets it totally wrong, and I can't help but wonder whether the misunderstanding is deliberate. And although he doesn't on this occasion, he is wont to bemoan its lack of keyboard shortcuts - this one I always love, because it makes me think of Windows Explorer and how you have to press Alt, F, W, F (separately) to create a new folder because there is no shortcut key. But I digress...
As to a couple of your quotes:
"Windows Vista will still include pervasive index-based searching features modeled, apparently, after the Spotlight feature in Mac OS X."
I'm not sure where this came from, but it's highy amusing. It's well-known that Apple copied Microsoft over Spotlight.
"The graphics subsystem is substantially improved, if a little obviously modeled after that in Mac OS X. Heck, half of the features of Windows Vista seem to have been lifted from Apple's marketing materials"
And herein my point is illustrated beautifully. In the Tiger review - in fact, in the bit that you quote - he can't help but include a little dig at Apple's marketing, or smoke and mirrors, as I like to call it. It all adds to the negative perception of Apple one takes from the article. But when it's Vista we're talking about, "Apple's marketing materials" is the fount of all Microsoft's innovation, and the negative connotations simply aren't there. He's schizophrenic.
But I think that the most succinct way to sum it all up is with numbers. After thoroughly savaging the current Vista, he awards it 5 stars. And Mac OS X 10.4 which, whatever you want to say about Windows XP SP2, was a far more significant update**? 4 stars.
Piffle.
iqu:|
(* I was dismissive of it at first, but with sufficient RAM, the dictionary and weather widgets are remarkably useful.)
(** Remember, as I have noted above, Thurrott's review is not a useful review of Tiger. If your opinions on Mac OS X are based on his review, then I cannot blame you for your conclusion, because, as I said, his purpose is to trivialise rather than to provide objective comment. Otherwise, consider Spotlight, RSS, Automator, CoreData, CoreI
This is such bollocks it's hard to know where to start. As Thurrott laments, one of the most fundamental features of a windowing system - the idea of depth in a 2D space and so marking out the active window - has been thoroughly fucked up by a team whose sole goal seems to have been to chase the teh pretty crowd. Those screenshots were damning. Usability has gone to shreds.
...even though most of the OS has been rewritten...
Do you actually have any evidence of this? Judging by the icons in some of the dialogue boxes (try here), some of the stuff hasn't seen an update since Windows 95. There's a reason it "'appears' to not be different to push away current Windows Users".
...and has tons of new protections and features that just work..
Evidently not. Evidently they are so poorly implemented that even fanboy Thurrott is banging his head on the table.
Vista is a new OS with the first radical change in Windows since Windows 3.0.
You're a fucking idiot. A first class fucking nutcase.
Then I read the rest of your post, where you start talking about this fire bollocks, or something, and I realise that you actually are a fucking nutcase...
...you need to prepare, learn and even USE some of the ideas Microsoft has recreated in development, and bring these to other OSes.
OK, I'll give you that. Apple brought decent search to Mac OS X in 2005 after Microsoft announced it would implement it in Vista, then Longhorn. Alas, Windows users will get their hands on it in...2007. Hmmmm...
iqu:|
(And, just one thing, moderators, before modding me down, take a moment to read and consider the parent's post. I am normally a rational and controlled type, but sometimes things just have to be said...)
Yeah, why would trust a guy that admits and critizes Microsoft problems when they exist, that admits that most of the things in vista are inspired in mac os x, and that owns a mac and likes mac os x?
Because he doesn't like Mac OS X. Not really. If you actually read what he says in his reviews of Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4, you will see that much of it amounts to Apple-bashing and saying that Microsoft will go one better. One memorable line from his review of 10.4 had it that Windows XP SP2 was a more significant update than was Tiger, yet elsewhere in that review he just casually pointed out how 10.4 was little more than a large collection of bug fixes. It's a peculiar kind of schizophrenia, I suppose...
And the same kind of schizophrenia manifests itself here. I was genuinely surprised when I read this as he really does highlight what a fuckup Vista has become, all the best part of a year before it will even be released, but, as the sister post to mine points out, he then goes and gives it 5/5? How can you do that after a 3 page lambasting?
This is possibly the first article I've seen him write which isn't rabidly pro-Microsoft and chock full of subtle digs at Apple. But it doesn't make him any less of an idiot...
I've high def 7.1 surround ears capable of intercepting 192kHz 32-bit sound, my noise level is minus thousands of decibels, my head acts as a subwoofer mic that reads down to -100 Hz (that's like 100 hertz lower than zero, it's very sophisticated I don't think you can even begin to understand).
Unfortunately, I believe it is wasted on here - I tried reasoning with someone elsewhere, but I can't see it going anywhere.
It's incredible when you think about it - certainly at school here (in Britain), we learn all about the civil rights movement in the USA, and so I presume that the same happens in the States, so people ought to be conscious of discrimination. Yet when it stares them right in the face, we are just a bunch of whining politically-correct faggots...
For the record, I am not a fan of political correctness either. I believe that political correctness enshrined in law as positive discrimination is incredibly detrimental to society. I generally like to blame bra-burning feminists from the 1960s who set about renaming terms like "manhole" and "manufacture" (despite its unconnected etymology) for the situation we find ourselves in today, but recognise that it is not fair to lump all the responsibility on them. Anyway, I digress somewhat...
I am also gay. My flickr page has proof - nothing explicit! - if you think I am still one of those reactionary types getting offended on behalf of others. My issue with the use of the term "gay" here runs roughly as follows:
"Gay" as "happy"
First, I think we ought to agree that this usage is now almost dead. The Oxford American Dictionary states:
As a result, the centuries-old other senses of gay meaning either 'carefree' or 'bright and showy,' once common in speech and literature, are much less frequent. The word gay cannot be readily used unselfconsciously today in these older senses without sounding old-fashioned or arousing a sense of double entendre, despite concerted attempts by some to keep them alive.
Etymology
"Gay" as applied to homosexuals was originally evidently a British coinage and presumably derived from its meaning of "brightly coloured; showy; brilliant" (OAD), a stereotype of the effeminate and flamboyant homosexual man. It was then co-opted, much like the epithet "nigger" among African Americans, by, at first, homosexual males, and then became the de-facto term for homosexual men and women. As expressions of homosexuality have diversified in the intervening years, the meaning of the term "gay" has broadened, such that it no longer explicitly only refers to those who are effeminate.
Offensive Associations
Whether or not femininity should be viewed negatively is another issue entirely, and it speaks volumes about the inherent sexism in our society, but that is for another time. The issue is that now that "gay" has a broader meaning, attempts to use the term to refer to what Slashdot has been exhibiting today are misguided. There is, certainly, a reasonable association between effeminate gay men and pink, but as someone who is both gay and who has never worn pink in his life, and who counts among his colleagues at work two very-definitely-heterosexual men who wear pink shirts to work, I fail to understand the blanket association. It simply makes no sense.
Hence my taking issue with the term. As alternatives, I might propose the tags "myspace-user"* or "clueless" (the film) - the latter certainly espouses the type of pink-obsessed vacuous teenage girl mentality with which Slashdot is seeking to associate itself on this day.
iqu:|
(* I realise this is a trifle unfair, and goes against everything that I have said above about the dangers of generalising. I only include it with tongue inserted firmly in cheek.)
Offence is completely in offendee, you choose to be offended, especially if you aren't in the target audience. You can't be offended FOR someone, it is absurd being that there isn't an objective particle of offence in the world.
Someone else has already offered a robust rebuttal, but unless you are of spectacularly limited intellect, you should be aware of the fallacy of your statement. It is such an incredible denial that it in fact borders on the absurd. I must ask - is it genuinely your view that when, say, some dimwitted hick from the Deep South bludgeons a gay man to death to cries of "Die fag, die!", the term "fag" is only offensive in the eyes of the offendee? Are you seriously suggesting that all the homophobic sentiment behind that epithet is as naught?
Intention is everything. Everything. When a gay man calls another gay man "gay", in the way an African American calls another African American "nigger", there is no offence behind the term, rather it is intended as a term of brotherhood or endearment. But when the above-mentioned dimwitted hick comes at me brandishing a piece of farm equipment and shouting "Kill the fucking queers!", "queer" is intended as an offensive term. It cannot be argued otherwise.
As the other response urged, pull your head out of the goddamn sand.
Oh dear. I don't even know where to begin with this. That you post as an anonymous coward gives some idea of how secure you are yourself, but anyway...
It's not being tagged as "gay" to insult anyone.
It is, by its very nature, insulting. Just for argument's sake, were I to describe the posts on here as a bit "nigger", I would be modded into oblivion. It would be racist and utterly uncalled for. But because there is still this tacit acceptance of gay-bashing, the tag is, alas, acceptable. Its meaning here is clear - in some of the summaries it is accompanied by the word "lame", and as anyone can see, the sentiment is therefore negative. If you must use a label, why not just use "lame" exclusively - it conveys the point reasonably well and avoids offence.
But of course, that's less fun.
Fact: if you're a male who spends hours looking at and commenting about pictures of kittens and puppies, chances are you're up there on the Kinsey scale.
Using your definition of the term "fact", a response:
Fact: you're a fucking moron.
Do not conflate facts with opinions. That's pretty basic stuff.
I just replied to someone who made a similar observation, because it has always intrigued me. I dismissed it as a "braindead Americanism" but I wonder if this is a trifle unfair. From my experience - and I have seen it quite a bit in this organ - its usage appears to be confined to Americans, but is it America-wide or just restricted to certain areas...
hehe, yeah, I've always wondered about this. As far as I can tell, it's a braindead Americanism, because in Britain, we always use the logical "I couldn't care less". Anyone who takes even the briefest of moments to actually read those three words - "could care less" - and properly think about their meaning, as you have done - will realise that, of course, its meaning is very different from that intended.
However, re-reading my comment causes me to take issue with another of your criticisms - that I am overly verbose. I suppose I ought to say that you are not the first person to level such an accusation, but to do so on the basis of this comment seems a trifle unfair. I cannot believe that you would be sad enough to have perused my other comments before replying, but then Slashdot is full of surprises, so...
Do not mistake luxuriant prose for verbosity, however inferior my take on it may be.* The literary world would be so much the poorer if we all just used your three words.
And you can string five perfect sentences together in how many languages?
Well, since you ask, three. English, French and Japanese. I am also learning Chinese, but I wouldn't count on being able to meet your precise requirement yet.
There is nothing wrong with my comma usage - certainly not from the point of view of a person who begins a sentence with the word "and".
Maybe, they should be sent to the same ESL class, that I went through, to know their own first (and, I suspect, only) language?
I realise this is extremely mean, given that English is not your first language, but:
Did they, teach you, to, make excessive, use of, commas at this, ESL school, of yours? Or are, you just, short of, breath?
Oh, and it's learn, not know.:P
But in fact, of course, you are quite correct. I upbraided the submitter's poor use of English myself, in fact. I only add this comment because I feel that if one is going to point out others' mistakes, one should ensure that one's own linguistic house, so to speak, is in order before so doing.
As I read the summary, I could not help but be amazed by the submitter's poor command of English. It is clear from the nature of his errors that he is a native speaker of English, but it is news to me that capital letters are now optional on proper nouns and at the start of sentences, that "your" is a valid replacement for "you're", that you can just string any number of clauses together with an "and"...I could go on. The its/it's thing. C'mon people! I suppose it's just that I'm not keeping up with the younger generation these days...
I am left wondering how old the submitter is, and worrying about just how bad the education system is in $country_of_origin.
Perhaps we should set up a charity and a PayPal account - "Help A Geek: Educating Slashdotters in Basic English". What say?
Slashdot Mirror
I suggest a spellchecker, it bears worth repeating.
:|
I suggest a decent command of English. "It bears worth repeating." What is that?
iqu
Much of your response indicates that you misunderstand my comment. I do not know whether the misunderstanding is willful or whether it merely results from your own ignorance, but I shall allow you a brief response.* Some would consider me quite the charitable man for so doing!
.NET.
...you bought an iBook in 2002, which makes the odds very low that you have ever even used Windows XP.
:|
Four points:
1. Your writing style has improved enormously. I presume therefore that your Microsoft Word comment was confessional.
2. You say:
Actually, this paragraph is truly a work of art. Please don't tell me you serious [sic] think Microsoft recompiled Vista in
I was merely following your lead when you asserted that:
As for the rewrite, maybe a broad term like rewrite is a little too broad. However, most of the OS has been changed, and the parts that haven't are compiled using the new development tools from MS.
3. Regardless of how many times you link to that Windows Desktop Search site (which is the equivalent of Apple's Spotlight), it will not make it WinFS. WinFS does not exist. Microsoft announced a long time ago that it will not be shipping in Vista. Give it up.
4. As to:
Check Windows XP's release date again. Then check the number of months 2002 had, and consider that 2002 does not mean January 2002. I will grant that my saying that "I have never looked back" was unclear. It was intended to mean that I have never used Windows as my primary operating system since that time. Unfortunately for me, that doesn't mean I haven't used it.
And on that note, I bid you good day.
iqu
(* If you can write a coherent response with relevant facts to back up your assertions, I will attempt a fuller response. Until then, this is not really worth my time.)
Yeah, something like that.
:D
I actually read Slashdot in vi every now and then. It has that luscious XChat feel to it.
iqu
Before I begin, I'd just like to say to anyone still reading that I am fully aware of that timeless maxim, and its appropriateness here is not lost on me.
/. number which almost exceeds mine? Not exactly damning evidence, I admit, but having read some of your other posts this leads me to a more obvious conclusion - you're a bullshitter. At the very least, the malodorous whiff of your overside ego threatens rather than strengthens your argument - you appear to be little more than an arsehole. Furthermore, you cannot spell.
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.
With that done, I can address your points.
It doesn't matter if you are using Linux, OpenBSD, or even WindowsXP, you are using technology I personally worked on at some point in my career.
You call yourself a veteran, yet you have a
But, keeping an open mind...
I've no interest in debating who came up with the idea of OS-wide indexed searching first - I don't believe it was Microsoft; you believe it was. The reason I have no such interest is because it is immaterial - BeOS had it first, with some saying this was back in 1996*, Mac OS X got it in 10.4 in 2005 and...Windows still doesn't have it. Granted, Apple's implementation is not a full DBFS, but to the end user, the result is the same, so it matters little. And Microsoft isn't even including WinFS in Vista anyway! So I am left wondering if you have any idea what you are on about...
Moving on...
Actually the screenshots that Paul Posted are already outdated, this is why it is called a BETA.
No they aren't. You're either stupid or in denial. Incidentally, I love the capitalisation on the second P. Paul Posted. It's like some kind of...I dunno. But it's quite funny...
Now if you love Paul and believe he is always correct...
I probably hate him more than you do. He is, as you correctly stated in your original post, "not a technical person" (this was probably the only thing you got right), and I find his articles little more than shameless puff pieces. In short, he is a Microsoft fanboy. (Hence, incidentally, why this review is so interesting - his attacks are really quite scathing.)
I can't prove ya wrong, my NDA will not allow me.
Twat.
Anyway, you didn't respond to what was perhaps my most significant accusation (and the most obvious conclusion one can reasonably draw), which I quote here again for convenience:
Judging by the icons in some of the dialogue boxes (try here), some of the stuff hasn't seen an update since Windows 95. There's a reason it "'appears' to not be different to push away current Windows Users".
I suppose the essence of your response lies in this sentence:
However, most of the OS has been changed, and the parts that haven't are compiled using the new development tools from MS.
You say much has changed. I beg to differ. But before I respond, seeing as you seem so intent on waging a virtual cocksize contest, my background:
My Windows pedigree is pretty lengthy. I can certainly claim a familiarity with Windows 3.0 - I, unlike many of the wee babes-in-arms on here, can actually honestly say (and would swear to that in a court of law) that I have experienced an unrecoverable application error. If you were there, you will know these as UAEs. Yes kids, there was something before the dreaded GPF. Furthermore, I have used every version of Windows since then, some more than others and some more than I would like to admit.
So I have seen Windows evolve, from the glorified DOS shell that it was to the bloated piece of crap it has become in Windows XP and beyond, and in each release, I have noted what has changed and what has stayed the same.
An awful lot
Well, OK. I was trying to give the poor fucker some credit for his post, but...
:P
iqu
I'm not really in the mood, but OK...
:|
The main issue I had with that review is that its essential purpose was to highlight two features - Spotlight and Dashboard - one which could be safely explained away as being in Longhorn and one which could be dismissed as relatively pointless eye-candy.* It ignored advances like Core Data (probably too technical for Thurrott, and not particularly interesting for his readership, but some developers have been literally wanking over it. OK, not literally, but...) and, more obviously - until he later edited it in response to criticism - things like Automator, which is a wonderful way to make scripting more accessible. At the same time, he found himself able to devote a whole page's worth of text to the most cursory of updates to DVD Player! There are other things, but I'm not going to review 10.4 here as it's not relevant. In any case, the effect is not to praise the product at hand, but to trivialise it. It's quite clever, I'll give him that.
It's the subtle digs that nark me, as I said in the grandparent. I know he loves Mac OS X - the design of his Internet Nexus blog demonstrated as much, as for a long time it was awash with graphics lifted from Tiger - but he cannot resist taking a poke at every possible opportunity. For example:
In the previous version of Mac OS X, version 10.3, Apple introduced a feature for power users called Exposé that seeks to help manage the multiple applications and windows one typically opens in the course of using a Mac.
It's the "power users" dismissal that irritates me. The bit that says "Macs are for elitists, rather than for you and me." In fact, power users use Command+H and Command+Tab. Exposé is for people like my sister who want/like a simple visual representation of all their windows. Thurrott gets it totally wrong, and I can't help but wonder whether the misunderstanding is deliberate. And although he doesn't on this occasion, he is wont to bemoan its lack of keyboard shortcuts - this one I always love, because it makes me think of Windows Explorer and how you have to press Alt, F, W, F (separately) to create a new folder because there is no shortcut key. But I digress...
As to a couple of your quotes:
"Windows Vista will still include pervasive index-based searching features modeled, apparently, after the Spotlight feature in Mac OS X."
I'm not sure where this came from, but it's highy amusing. It's well-known that Apple copied Microsoft over Spotlight.
"The graphics subsystem is substantially improved, if a little obviously modeled after that in Mac OS X. Heck, half of the features of Windows Vista seem to have been lifted from Apple's marketing materials"
And herein my point is illustrated beautifully. In the Tiger review - in fact, in the bit that you quote - he can't help but include a little dig at Apple's marketing, or smoke and mirrors, as I like to call it. It all adds to the negative perception of Apple one takes from the article. But when it's Vista we're talking about, "Apple's marketing materials" is the fount of all Microsoft's innovation, and the negative connotations simply aren't there. He's schizophrenic.
But I think that the most succinct way to sum it all up is with numbers. After thoroughly savaging the current Vista, he awards it 5 stars. And Mac OS X 10.4 which, whatever you want to say about Windows XP SP2, was a far more significant update**? 4 stars.
Piffle.
iqu
(* I was dismissive of it at first, but with sufficient RAM, the dictionary and weather widgets are remarkably useful.)
(** Remember, as I have noted above, Thurrott's review is not a useful review of Tiger. If your opinions on Mac OS X are based on his review, then I cannot blame you for your conclusion, because, as I said, his purpose is to trivialise rather than to provide objective comment. Otherwise, consider Spotlight, RSS, Automator, CoreData, CoreI
Nice troll.
...even though most of the OS has been rewritten...
...and has tons of new protections and features that just work..
...you need to prepare, learn and even USE some of the ideas Microsoft has recreated in development, and bring these to other OSes.
:|
I've karma to burn, so just a couple of points:
Vista doesn't look vastly different...
This is such bollocks it's hard to know where to start. As Thurrott laments, one of the most fundamental features of a windowing system - the idea of depth in a 2D space and so marking out the active window - has been thoroughly fucked up by a team whose sole goal seems to have been to chase the teh pretty crowd. Those screenshots were damning. Usability has gone to shreds.
Do you actually have any evidence of this? Judging by the icons in some of the dialogue boxes (try here), some of the stuff hasn't seen an update since Windows 95. There's a reason it "'appears' to not be different to push away current Windows Users".
Evidently not. Evidently they are so poorly implemented that even fanboy Thurrott is banging his head on the table.
Vista is a new OS with the first radical change in Windows since Windows 3.0.
You're a fucking idiot. A first class fucking nutcase.
Then I read the rest of your post, where you start talking about this fire bollocks, or something, and I realise that you actually are a fucking nutcase...
OK, I'll give you that. Apple brought decent search to Mac OS X in 2005 after Microsoft announced it would implement it in Vista, then Longhorn. Alas, Windows users will get their hands on it in...2007. Hmmmm...
iqu
(And, just one thing, moderators, before modding me down, take a moment to read and consider the parent's post. I am normally a rational and controlled type, but sometimes things just have to be said...)
Yeah, why would trust a guy that admits and critizes Microsoft problems when they exist, that admits that most of the things in vista are inspired in mac os x, and that owns a mac and likes mac os x?
:|
Because he doesn't like Mac OS X. Not really. If you actually read what he says in his reviews of Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4, you will see that much of it amounts to Apple-bashing and saying that Microsoft will go one better. One memorable line from his review of 10.4 had it that Windows XP SP2 was a more significant update than was Tiger, yet elsewhere in that review he just casually pointed out how 10.4 was little more than a large collection of bug fixes. It's a peculiar kind of schizophrenia, I suppose...
And the same kind of schizophrenia manifests itself here. I was genuinely surprised when I read this as he really does highlight what a fuckup Vista has become, all the best part of a year before it will even be released, but, as the sister post to mine points out, he then goes and gives it 5/5? How can you do that after a 3 page lambasting?
This is possibly the first article I've seen him write which isn't rabidly pro-Microsoft and chock full of subtle digs at Apple. But it doesn't make him any less of an idiot...
iqu
I've high def 7.1 surround ears capable of intercepting 192kHz 32-bit sound, my noise level is minus thousands of decibels, my head acts as a subwoofer mic that reads down to -100 Hz (that's like 100 hertz lower than zero, it's very sophisticated I don't think you can even begin to understand).
:P
Really? Cool! I thought I was the only one.
iqu
Two words: island mentality. The Japanese have a similar view of the Asian mainland.
:|
I am no geographer, but one should not underestimate the fundamental importance it has in shaping the human experience.
iqu
Only just.
:P
iqu
Courtesy of the Oxford American Dictionary.
Remind you of a certain chair-throwing lunatic at a certain large Redmond, WA-based software company?
iqu
I wonder if this is the root of all of Bill Gates's philanthropy - giving to assuage the guilt wrought by past malfeasances. Like this.
:?
Couple that with the fact that Ballmer is clearly a psychopath (*ducks*) and the Gates-Ballmer leadership looks quite scary. Microsoft truly are evil.
iqu
Beautifully put.
:|
Unfortunately, I believe it is wasted on here - I tried reasoning with someone elsewhere, but I can't see it going anywhere.
It's incredible when you think about it - certainly at school here (in Britain), we learn all about the civil rights movement in the USA, and so I presume that the same happens in the States, so people ought to be conscious of discrimination. Yet when it stares them right in the face, we are just a bunch of whining politically-correct faggots...
*sigh*
iqu
For the record, I am not a fan of political correctness either. I believe that political correctness enshrined in law as positive discrimination is incredibly detrimental to society. I generally like to blame bra-burning feminists from the 1960s who set about renaming terms like "manhole" and "manufacture" (despite its unconnected etymology) for the situation we find ourselves in today, but recognise that it is not fair to lump all the responsibility on them. Anyway, I digress somewhat...
I am also gay. My flickr page has proof - nothing explicit! - if you think I am still one of those reactionary types getting offended on behalf of others. My issue with the use of the term "gay" here runs roughly as follows:
"Gay" as "happy"
First, I think we ought to agree that this usage is now almost dead. The Oxford American Dictionary states:
Etymology
"Gay" as applied to homosexuals was originally evidently a British coinage and presumably derived from its meaning of "brightly coloured; showy; brilliant" (OAD), a stereotype of the effeminate and flamboyant homosexual man. It was then co-opted, much like the epithet "nigger" among African Americans, by, at first, homosexual males, and then became the de-facto term for homosexual men and women. As expressions of homosexuality have diversified in the intervening years, the meaning of the term "gay" has broadened, such that it no longer explicitly only refers to those who are effeminate.
Offensive Associations
Whether or not femininity should be viewed negatively is another issue entirely, and it speaks volumes about the inherent sexism in our society, but that is for another time. The issue is that now that "gay" has a broader meaning, attempts to use the term to refer to what Slashdot has been exhibiting today are misguided. There is, certainly, a reasonable association between effeminate gay men and pink, but as someone who is both gay and who has never worn pink in his life, and who counts among his colleagues at work two very-definitely-heterosexual men who wear pink shirts to work, I fail to understand the blanket association. It simply makes no sense.
Hence my taking issue with the term. As alternatives, I might propose the tags "myspace-user"* or "clueless" (the film) - the latter certainly espouses the type of pink-obsessed vacuous teenage girl mentality with which Slashdot is seeking to associate itself on this day.
iqu
(* I realise this is a trifle unfair, and goes against everything that I have said above about the dangers of generalising. I only include it with tongue inserted firmly in cheek.)
Seeing as we're talking about kittens, and this is Slashdot, I ought to link to this:
:D
iCat?
It's not that cute, but...well, it's my cat on an iBook. Kinda seems appropriate given the mood of today.
iqu
Offence is completely in offendee, you choose to be offended, especially if you aren't in the target audience. You can't be offended FOR someone, it is absurd being that there isn't an objective particle of offence in the world.
:|
Someone else has already offered a robust rebuttal, but unless you are of spectacularly limited intellect, you should be aware of the fallacy of your statement. It is such an incredible denial that it in fact borders on the absurd. I must ask - is it genuinely your view that when, say, some dimwitted hick from the Deep South bludgeons a gay man to death to cries of "Die fag, die!", the term "fag" is only offensive in the eyes of the offendee? Are you seriously suggesting that all the homophobic sentiment behind that epithet is as naught?
Intention is everything. Everything. When a gay man calls another gay man "gay", in the way an African American calls another African American "nigger", there is no offence behind the term, rather it is intended as a term of brotherhood or endearment. But when the above-mentioned dimwitted hick comes at me brandishing a piece of farm equipment and shouting "Kill the fucking queers!", "queer" is intended as an offensive term. It cannot be argued otherwise.
As the other response urged, pull your head out of the goddamn sand.
iqu
Oh dear. I don't even know where to begin with this. That you post as an anonymous coward gives some idea of how secure you are yourself, but anyway...
:|
It's not being tagged as "gay" to insult anyone.
It is, by its very nature, insulting. Just for argument's sake, were I to describe the posts on here as a bit "nigger", I would be modded into oblivion. It would be racist and utterly uncalled for. But because there is still this tacit acceptance of gay-bashing, the tag is, alas, acceptable. Its meaning here is clear - in some of the summaries it is accompanied by the word "lame", and as anyone can see, the sentiment is therefore negative. If you must use a label, why not just use "lame" exclusively - it conveys the point reasonably well and avoids offence.
But of course, that's less fun.
Fact: if you're a male who spends hours looking at and commenting about pictures of kittens and puppies, chances are you're up there on the Kinsey scale.
Using your definition of the term "fact", a response:
Fact: you're a fucking moron.
Do not conflate facts with opinions. That's pretty basic stuff.
Idiot.
iqu
Thank you! That actually makes a lot of sense.
:D
iqu
I just replied to someone who made a similar observation, because it has always intrigued me. I dismissed it as a "braindead Americanism" but I wonder if this is a trifle unfair. From my experience - and I have seen it quite a bit in this organ - its usage appears to be confined to Americans, but is it America-wide or just restricted to certain areas...
:?
Anyone know? Anyone care?
iqu
hehe, yeah, I've always wondered about this. As far as I can tell, it's a braindead Americanism, because in Britain, we always use the logical "I couldn't care less". Anyone who takes even the briefest of moments to actually read those three words - "could care less" - and properly think about their meaning, as you have done - will realise that, of course, its meaning is very different from that intended.
:D
iqu
Yes, OK, I know. I had to argue the point though.
:|
However, re-reading my comment causes me to take issue with another of your criticisms - that I am overly verbose. I suppose I ought to say that you are not the first person to level such an accusation, but to do so on the basis of this comment seems a trifle unfair. I cannot believe that you would be sad enough to have perused my other comments before replying, but then Slashdot is full of surprises, so...
Do not mistake luxuriant prose for verbosity, however inferior my take on it may be.* The literary world would be so much the poorer if we all just used your three words.
iqu
(* This is, after all, Slashdot.)
And you can string five perfect sentences together in how many languages?
:P
Well, since you ask, three. English, French and Japanese. I am also learning Chinese, but I wouldn't count on being able to meet your precise requirement yet.
There is nothing wrong with my comma usage - certainly not from the point of view of a person who begins a sentence with the word "and".
Just as long as we are nitpicking, anyway...
iqu
Maybe, they should be sent to the same ESL class, that I went through, to know their own first (and, I suspect, only) language?
:P
:D
I realise this is extremely mean, given that English is not your first language, but:
Did they, teach you, to, make excessive, use of, commas at this, ESL school, of yours? Or are, you just, short of, breath?
Oh, and it's learn, not know.
But in fact, of course, you are quite correct. I upbraided the submitter's poor use of English myself, in fact. I only add this comment because I feel that if one is going to point out others' mistakes, one should ensure that one's own linguistic house, so to speak, is in order before so doing.
iqu
As I read the summary, I could not help but be amazed by the submitter's poor command of English. It is clear from the nature of his errors that he is a native speaker of English, but it is news to me that capital letters are now optional on proper nouns and at the start of sentences, that "your" is a valid replacement for "you're", that you can just string any number of clauses together with an "and"...I could go on. The its/it's thing. C'mon people! I suppose it's just that I'm not keeping up with the younger generation these days...
:D
I am left wondering how old the submitter is, and worrying about just how bad the education system is in $country_of_origin.
Perhaps we should set up a charity and a PayPal account - "Help A Geek: Educating Slashdotters in Basic English". What say?
iqu