I think many of us are kinda burned out from the TV industry selling "the next big thing" over and over again, when it's obvious they're only doing it in the hopes of getting fools ( read: consumers ) on a 2-5 year tv rotation.
It's always the same, "This is going to be huge! It's a revolution in TV quality" only to die off to little fanfare a few years later because it was an incremental upgrade at best, and not worth the extra cash for the vast majority of folks out there.
It'd help if the industry revamped it's marketing game and targeted only those who are purchasing TVs instead of attempting to manipulate everyone into upgrading.
I want to believe MS has competent design managers working for them. Maybe they are being micromanaged to the point of irrelevance, but I want to believe that after 20 years of trying to make a decent web browser they'd achieve success...or lacking that, they'd fail because some idiot manager keeps fucking them up.
Because damn...I'm embarrassed FOR them. How do you not put out at least a baseline capable browser by this point? Multi-billion dollar company who's spent 20+ years in the market, and they still fuck it up.
Piracy was only ever a symptom of the problem, not the cause. What's the problem? Music labels sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring changes to the consumer landscape. They were so used to dictating terms that they thought they would always get away with it. So much so that they continued trying even in the face of lost profits and outright consumer hostility.
Not that I ever thought piracy was ever that big of a contributor to the losses, mind you. I think they lost more from folks like me who started refusing to buy full albums for a single song, or pay 15-20 for a single album altogether.
You probably should only use words when you know what they actually mean.
The official story has a bit of an odor. Do I care if it really was an underwater military drone? Nope. Do I care that china snagged it? Nope. I'm pretty certain that kind of stuff goes on all the time, actually, on both sides. The official story, however, raised my curiosity.
So yes, I'm wrong to be suspicious that the stated purpose of the drone is not the actual purpose of the drone because....the stated purpose of the drone may not be the actual purpose?
Is it wrong I'm suspicious as to the actual nature of this drone? I mean, sure; it makes perfect sense for it to be doing what they say it was. However, it's equally possible it's gathering military intelligence.
I don't trust either country involved. although I don't know why China would waste their time on a meteorological drone.
Today we call it a hack when a 3rd party exposes factually accurate information to the people and then get angry about it.
Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here wondering, "Didn't we used to call that journalism?"/kermit
In all seriousness, it's fun that people seem to be more upset about the "hack" and not the data contained therein. If it were enough to lose the election, doesn't that say more about the data and not it's means of acquisition?
It even says so while it's searching for updates for drivers; "This may take a few minutes". So now we have to deal with that AND the game installation?
Is the idea to drive people away from their software? Looking at their crazy behavior over the past several years, I can't help but wonder if their new "business strategy" is to tank the company.
I get the joke, but I wonder if you see what's significant here. Sans regulation, the fraud was discovered. In this day and age of instant publicity and faux outrage, you can bet your ass there's going to be a boost in "Real Aloe Vera" sales. In fact, I'm a little surprised some enterprising company out there didn't create a "real" product first, then expose the fraud afterwards. Because capitalism.
This entire situation proves, if nothing else, that in this industry, regulation obviously isn't needed.
I was under the impression everyone knew office depot ( and just about every other computer shop out there ) pulled this. The temptation to upsell is just too good when you have truly ignorant clients. This was previously ( and currently ) seen in the automotive repair industry.
I'd say that's just the tip of the iceberg too. Let's face it, normal customers are dirt poor, so you gotta scam a bunch of them to turn a penny. No, the real money is in the b2b sales; where you can fleece an entire company for a king's ransom. Having sat in on more than my fair share of vendor meetings, I know damn well this happens.
Some of the biggest names in tech are only as large as they are because of it, really. Oracle. Cisco. Microsoft. They took advantage of the ignorance of people, only in their cases those people were C level execs.
It's so much more romantic to give diamonds that were mined by people on subsistence level wages in terrible conditions and then used to make massive profits by a parasitic organization that is dedicated to preserving a monopoly through artificial scarcity.
May not be romantic, but it certainly seems like a good fit for the institution we call "marriage".
Why is everyone saying this is carbon neutral? It doesn't sound to me like this is a part of any carbon cycle, nor is it sequestering carbon. It's, in fact, freeing carbon from the cycle by turning it in to oil then burning it, releasing the exhaust into the atmosphere.
This is as far from "carbon neutral" as you can get.
I disagree. All self-identified members of a culture are rarely of the same race. This is objective and verifiable. Therefore, race is not an artifact of culture.
In database terms, race and culture exhibit a many-to-many relationship. You can ( and do ) have several different "races" in a single culture. Equally possible ( and probable ); you can have several different cultures distributed across the same race.
So no; race and culture are not equal, so your implication that finding fault with the culture equates to racism falls flat.
I find ganster "culture" to be abhorrent. The demeaning nature towards other people, the obsession with material objects, the violence, entitlement....Is it wrong that I want to avoid that? Would I be wrong to want to refuse service to that culture?
I don't think it is. I think it's a perfectly valid metric on which to base my discrimination.
BTW, your suggestion that "culturism" and "racism" are one in the same is, ironically and amusingly, racist in and of itself.
It's not that the riders were black, but rather that the names chosen "sounded black". This is significant as it introduces culture as a possible data point which wasn't controlled for.
Were I a freelance driver, I'm not sure how much I'd want to deal with a "La-DASH-ya" either.
Putting aside yet another "WE NEEDZ MORE WOMENZ IN IT" crap, did anyone else think "H1B" when they read "growing demand?"
Companies are already doing everything they can to bring in cheaper talent. The "demand" in question has nothing to do with the number of competent and trained talent, but rather the number of competent and trained talent willing to work for peanuts. Encouraging more domestic IT/programming workers to enter the field will only exasperate that, regardless of their plumbing.
Absolutely right. Most alarm systems have a "Panic" code which appears to disarm the alarm, but in fact sends out a panic signal and notifies the cops. A "self-destruct" finger print would be in the same vein.
They did not succeed in their stated aims, but that is not the same as "failed". I'd hazard these douchebags were happy with the message that they sent.
The only "fail" condition for these officials would have been some form of punishment up to and including deprivation of the roles and responsibilities as government agents.
They basically threw some shit at the wall to see if it would stick. It didn't, but it did leave a nice stain, and they're free to do it again and again in the future.
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I think many of us are kinda burned out from the TV industry selling "the next big thing" over and over again, when it's obvious they're only doing it in the hopes of getting fools ( read: consumers ) on a 2-5 year tv rotation.
It's always the same, "This is going to be huge! It's a revolution in TV quality" only to die off to little fanfare a few years later because it was an incremental upgrade at best, and not worth the extra cash for the vast majority of folks out there.
It'd help if the industry revamped it's marketing game and targeted only those who are purchasing TVs instead of attempting to manipulate everyone into upgrading.
Two whole years?
Golly.
I want to believe MS has competent design managers working for them. Maybe they are being micromanaged to the point of irrelevance, but I want to believe that after 20 years of trying to make a decent web browser they'd achieve success...or lacking that, they'd fail because some idiot manager keeps fucking them up.
Because damn...I'm embarrassed FOR them. How do you not put out at least a baseline capable browser by this point? Multi-billion dollar company who's spent 20+ years in the market, and they still fuck it up.
Piracy was only ever a symptom of the problem, not the cause. What's the problem? Music labels sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring changes to the consumer landscape. They were so used to dictating terms that they thought they would always get away with it. So much so that they continued trying even in the face of lost profits and outright consumer hostility.
Not that I ever thought piracy was ever that big of a contributor to the losses, mind you. I think they lost more from folks like me who started refusing to buy full albums for a single song, or pay 15-20 for a single album altogether.
You probably should only use words when you know what they actually mean.
The official story has a bit of an odor. Do I care if it really was an underwater military drone? Nope. Do I care that china snagged it? Nope. I'm pretty certain that kind of stuff goes on all the time, actually, on both sides. The official story, however, raised my curiosity.
So I wasn't wrong, necessarily, you just didn't like my question.
Interesting.
Easy cowboy, you are making quite a few assumptions. I was just questioning the official story, which it seems you are as well.
I honestly don't care that China stole it, or what it was doing in the first place. I'm sure this kind of nonsense goes on all the time.
I just don't trust the official story is all.
So yes, I'm wrong to be suspicious that the stated purpose of the drone is not the actual purpose of the drone because....the stated purpose of the drone may not be the actual purpose?
Want to try that again?
Is it wrong I'm suspicious as to the actual nature of this drone? I mean, sure; it makes perfect sense for it to be doing what they say it was. However, it's equally possible it's gathering military intelligence.
I don't trust either country involved. although I don't know why China would waste their time on a meteorological drone.
Today we call it a hack when a 3rd party exposes factually accurate information to the people and then get angry about it.
Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here wondering, "Didn't we used to call that journalism?" /kermit
In all seriousness, it's fun that people seem to be more upset about the "hack" and not the data contained therein. If it were enough to lose the election, doesn't that say more about the data and not it's means of acquisition?
It even says so while it's searching for updates for drivers; "This may take a few minutes". So now we have to deal with that AND the game installation?
Is the idea to drive people away from their software? Looking at their crazy behavior over the past several years, I can't help but wonder if their new "business strategy" is to tank the company.
This entire situation proves, if nothing else, that in this industry, regulation obviously isn't needed.
Which of those words didn't you understand?
I get the joke, but I wonder if you see what's significant here. Sans regulation, the fraud was discovered. In this day and age of instant publicity and faux outrage, you can bet your ass there's going to be a boost in "Real Aloe Vera" sales. In fact, I'm a little surprised some enterprising company out there didn't create a "real" product first, then expose the fraud afterwards. Because capitalism.
This entire situation proves, if nothing else, that in this industry, regulation obviously isn't needed.
No one wants that, near as I can tell.
We want diversity and quotas. No, I don't know how this translates into a healthy economy, but I suspect underwear gnomes are involved.
I was under the impression everyone knew office depot ( and just about every other computer shop out there ) pulled this. The temptation to upsell is just too good when you have truly ignorant clients. This was previously ( and currently ) seen in the automotive repair industry.
I'd say that's just the tip of the iceberg too. Let's face it, normal customers are dirt poor, so you gotta scam a bunch of them to turn a penny. No, the real money is in the b2b sales; where you can fleece an entire company for a king's ransom. Having sat in on more than my fair share of vendor meetings, I know damn well this happens.
Some of the biggest names in tech are only as large as they are because of it, really. Oracle. Cisco. Microsoft. They took advantage of the ignorance of people, only in their cases those people were C level execs.
It's so much more romantic to give diamonds that were mined by people on subsistence level wages in terrible conditions and then used to make massive profits by a parasitic organization that is dedicated to preserving a monopoly through artificial scarcity.
May not be romantic, but it certainly seems like a good fit for the institution we call "marriage".
Why is everyone saying this is carbon neutral? It doesn't sound to me like this is a part of any carbon cycle, nor is it sequestering carbon. It's, in fact, freeing carbon from the cycle by turning it in to oil then burning it, releasing the exhaust into the atmosphere.
This is as far from "carbon neutral" as you can get.
Those fuckers are always getting the latest and greatest stuff.
Race is a cultural artifact.
I disagree. All self-identified members of a culture are rarely of the same race. This is objective and verifiable. Therefore, race is not an artifact of culture.
In database terms, race and culture exhibit a many-to-many relationship. You can ( and do ) have several different "races" in a single culture. Equally possible ( and probable ); you can have several different cultures distributed across the same race.
So no; race and culture are not equal, so your implication that finding fault with the culture equates to racism falls flat.
Is "culturism" a lower "sin" than racism?
I find ganster "culture" to be abhorrent. The demeaning nature towards other people, the obsession with material objects, the violence, entitlement....Is it wrong that I want to avoid that? Would I be wrong to want to refuse service to that culture?
I don't think it is. I think it's a perfectly valid metric on which to base my discrimination.
BTW, your suggestion that "culturism" and "racism" are one in the same is, ironically and amusingly, racist in and of itself.
It's not that the riders were black, but rather that the names chosen "sounded black". This is significant as it introduces culture as a possible data point which wasn't controlled for.
Were I a freelance driver, I'm not sure how much I'd want to deal with a "La-DASH-ya" either.
You know it's still sexism, even when it's against men, right?
Putting aside yet another "WE NEEDZ MORE WOMENZ IN IT" crap, did anyone else think "H1B" when they read "growing demand?"
Companies are already doing everything they can to bring in cheaper talent. The "demand" in question has nothing to do with the number of competent and trained talent, but rather the number of competent and trained talent willing to work for peanuts. Encouraging more domestic IT/programming workers to enter the field will only exasperate that, regardless of their plumbing.
Absolutely right. Most alarm systems have a "Panic" code which appears to disarm the alarm, but in fact sends out a panic signal and notifies the cops. A "self-destruct" finger print would be in the same vein.
They did not succeed in their stated aims, but that is not the same as "failed". I'd hazard these douchebags were happy with the message that they sent.
The only "fail" condition for these officials would have been some form of punishment up to and including deprivation of the roles and responsibilities as government agents.
They basically threw some shit at the wall to see if it would stick. It didn't, but it did leave a nice stain, and they're free to do it again and again in the future.