i have dealt with some difficult customers, but this slashdot crowd right now is just utterly ridiculous. there are a few that are willing to go against the grain and give vista a chance before dismissing it entirely, but the vast majority of the slashdotters lately are as close-minded and biased as any group i have ever seen.
if MS adds a feature that you all love from another OS or application, they are copying. if they don't add it, they are behind the times.
if MS tries to beef up security, they are doing too little too late, and it probably won't be effective anyway. if they don't try to beef up security... well i think you know what you all think of that.
if MS releases a patch for IE, it is yet more proof that their software was flawed in the first place. if they don't release the patch, they are too slow to react to security threats, and are failing their users.
this is the best one, and it happened just like this, a few posts up... if they open up to a beta group and ask for suggestions, they are skimping out on doing actual work and getting us, the computer elite, to do their design for them. if they don't open up to a beta and take suggestions, they are ignoring their users.
i could go on, but i think you catch the drift. i get it, you guys hate MS. i thought this was a forum for open-minded people to share ideas and learn from each other, but if you want to just sit around and play target practice on a company that you have decided a long time ago that you will hate for life, then i might just have to give up on getting any more actual insight from reading the comments on slashdot, particularly on MS related stories.
I see things like this all the time, and the first thing people do is jump all over the DA for filing charges. I can't believe it even has to be said, but I guess is bears repeating that it is the job of the D.A. to file charges whenever it appears that the law has been broken, REGARDLESS OF EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES. This guy may or may not have had a good reason to do what he did, but either way, the verification of those motives is determined IN COURT, not by a D.A. I, for one, would not want any type of system whereby the District Attorney decided by his/her self whether or not the guy was in the right. That's not justice.
I guess there aren't clear-cut topics for everything, but is this really a "politics" issue? I guess they mention "government" in the blurb, but still...
I know this was said as a joke, but I see this a lot amongst the geek community, the attitude that users just don't know what they are doing, and that is why they can't make anything work.
Doing some GUI consultant work and writing a few users manuals for some pretty complex software has taught me one thing: Most user error is the fault of crappy software. A good setup (hardware or software) should be easy to use given the users.
Now, obviously it is all about knowing the audience. If you are writing an application for use by other software engineers versus people living in an assisted living home, well, that makes a difference, and you certainly can't cater to all people (for example the guy who writes code for a living but can't setup his own email at home).
The bottom line is, as much as it displeases us, not everyone is a geek. Not everyone cares about the latest firmware for their router, the latest patch for Call of Duty 2, or how to make a projection TV from an old overhead projector and a laptop from eBay. Our job, as geeks, is not to show everyone why they SHOULD care, but rather to make it easy for those who don't care to still do what they need to do.
Just a few minutes ago I got an email forwarded to me from a "stupid" user who couldn't figure out how to perform what to me seems like a simple task in some software my team wrote. We emailed him the directions, even though they were very clearly stated in the manual that I wrote, but I took it one step further. I submitted a feature request in our bug-tracking database to put a message near where what he was trying to do to explain why that option is grayed out.
Anyone can write software or setup hardware that has tons of geek features that we all like, but it takes a lot more effort to make the setup actually usable to the target users.
To start off, I should say that I like this plan by Google, but I just want to warn all of the slashdotters here who are jumping up to congratulate Google about what normally happens when a for-profit (and also, huge) company gets too involved in a small, free, open-source project:
Well, let's just say, it can be messy in the long run.
Part of me doesn't like the idea of getting Google's financial interests involved in something like this. The reason a project like OO.o can work is because there aren't any big companies trying to tell anyone working on it what to do. I am not saying for certain that Google is planning on stepping in and trying to take over -- not by a long shot at this point -- but you have to at least recognize that this is a step in that direction.
Since they make (pretty much) all of their money in advertising, getting their name out there as one of the biggest companies in the world (which they are well on their way to doing) sure does help them convince advertisers to buy ad space with them, doesn't it?
They didn't buy Keyhole to make a loss on it, in case you were wondering. They are a business, and they are in the business of making money. Although the idea is charming, "Not Being Evil" won't exactly put food on the table.
From the article: 'Why wouldn't we want to screen them? We screen police officers, teachers. Why not people who are going to handle billions of dollars?'. Citing Enron and Worldcom management as an example, it seems a reasonable argument.
The answer is simple: We don't pay them. Teachers and cops work for the state, so the state can choose to screen them as they desire. CEOs work for a company, so, if the company wants to screen them to make sure they aren't psychopaths, they can feel free to do that. In fact based on this article, I would say that they *should* do that, but as a hands-off government kind of guy, I don't really like the idea of anyone besides the person writing the paycheck screening employees. Call me old-fashioned, but it just doesn't sit right with me.
Not to sound like a jerk, but are you hitting "Save" at the bottom or "close edit" at the top? I only ask because I was making the same mistake. It is not entirely obvious at first glance.
So, that means there is about a 2.7% chance that your next computer will be a Mac? That's not real high. Maybe you need to love Mac MORE than the "next guy" to consider yourself a real Mac fan.
Clearly you arent, since you are about the 1500th person to mention it.
Obligatory Austin Powers reference
on
Inside the Xbox 360
·
· Score: -1, Troll
No, that's not me inside an XBOX 360, this is me inside an XBOX 360: "HELP, I AM INSIDE AN XBOX 360! WHAT KIND OF CRAZY XBOX IS THIS THAT I CAN ACTUALLY FIT INSIDE OF IT?!?!"
As an anti-apple person turned mac fan over the last 5 years, it goes without saying that Apple has done a lot recently to convert me.
I just bought my first ipod the other day, and of course, it is a fantastic product.
That being said, I think that their pricing tactics on the ipod in particular have shown us their true colors: Apple is here to cash in.
Buying an ipod today means you get NONE of the accessories (dock, firewire etc). You have to buy them separately, and they are not so much "accessories" as they are "necessary components that you need to make the product work."
It doesn't bother me that they do this -- I have a degree in business, I understand that any company that isn't looking to make more money will fail, so I am not saying Apple is becoming more evil. I should mention, however, that I do not think that Microsoft is evil for trying to make money either.
The bottom line is, Apple saw lost capital potential in the pricing scheme of the ipod, and decided to capitlize by removing neccessary add-ons from the box and making $50 increments the entire way up their line of products, so that the next better model is _only_ $50 more (with the exception of the $100 gap between the 30gb and 60gb photo models). In fact, if you watched the unveiling of the ipod Shuffle, you saw Steve Jobs specifically say that the intention was to eat away at the smaller flash-based mp3 player market competition. Gee! A company that wants to defeat their competition! Imagine!. I know another company that likes to do the same thing *cough* Microsoft *cough*.
Apple is the underdog, and people, myself included, love to root for the underdog. It is my opinion, as hard as it is for me to admit now, that they put out amazing products, but still.
All companies are in it for one thing ALWAYS: money. That's the bottom line.
I know how much the slashot community loves to hate Bill Gates (and I admit, it can be fun from time to time), but this man has given away more money to charitable causes than EVERY SINGLE one of us combined will in our lives.
Sure, he has the money and we don't, but it is easy to say that if you were a billionaire, you would be that giving as well, it's probably harder to actually do. Let's give this man some credit where credit is due, he is doing phenomenal things with his money and (let's be honest here) he is EXACTLY what we all want to one day be: billionaire software developers.
...some of the banned games were but considered as pornographic or having a bad influence in Chinese youth...
Right, SOME of the software is banned. China is a communist country. I am not taking their side here, saying that they don't do anything wrong.
The point that I (succesfully, in my opinion) made is that the headline is the most dramatic part of the news article. 50 GAMES BANNED!!! IT COULDN'T BE!!! Then you read and you see that MOST are illegal pirated copies, and that a handful are actually "banned" as is implied in the title of the slashdot article.
Was I, or was I not, correct in saying that the title sensationalized the content of the article? Any reasonable person who looked at the headline/blurb would have thought that China banned "The Sims" because of it's capitalist overtones. Reading the article proved otherwise. That is my point.
In a related story: Slashdot's credibility dropped another ten points today by means of yet another over-zealous printing of a story with little actual content.
If you read the actual article, you will see, as many astute readers have pointed out, that this is an issue of China attempting to crack down on video game piracy, not ban games because they are evil communists.
It is my opinion that recently slashdot has started down the slippery slope of becoming what I despise about big time news agencies: a marketplace for sensationalized stories. Every dramatic article posted on/. recently ends up being far less dramatic upon further investigation. I used to love slashdot for the lack of glitzy CNN-esque flash headlines of empty news articles, now slashdot is becoming exactly that.
And don't give me that "well it's the readers who submit articles, so don't blame slashdot, blame the readers" crap. We all know how hard it is to get an article posted on the front page, and we all know that there are tons of articles submitted and only a few chosen by a handful of people who have their own ideologies/agendas. The only difference with having users submit the articles at this point is that the moderators don't have to dig up the articles themselves.
If trends continue along these lines, I think my days of reading slashdot are numbered. I can read sensationalized news anywhere (CNN, FOXNews, ABC, CBS, NBC etc). I come here for the in-depth, interesting, non-glamorous, I-might-just-learn-something-today news, and I am finding it harder and harder to come across on slashdot.
Mod this however you want. I might be a troll, but I feel like it needed to be said.
They shut down one segment of one program that geeks like, and all I read is a lot of grumbling about how if we can spend zillions on Iraq, why not ONE BILLION MORE on the Hubble?
Turn it around and say that the President decided to spend one billion on some program that you don't personally have any interest in, and all of a sudden it would be "Why spend a billion on that when there is a war going on in Iraq?"
Stop using both sides of the same arguement to bitch about the war. You don't support the war -- We get it. This is about the Hubble, not foriegn policy.
Titling this article "Laser Pointing into the Cockpit of a 747 Could get you 25 Years in Prison" would have made a lot more sense, and made it far less of the shocking "I-can't-believe-how-the-evil-right-wing-governmen t-is-taking-away-our-rights" piece that it is.
This guy was an idiot. Case closed. Ever read the Darwin Awards? This guy is lucky to still be alive based on how dumb he is. Odds are, 25 years in prison will protect him from doing something else this dumb that will cost him his life.
I even previewed my comments... TWICE! (It's early.) If only the good people at Google implemented some code here at slashdot that suggested subjects of posts!
If you just type in one letter, you get the result beginning with that letter that is most searched for. This makes for an interesting way to sum up the internet into 26 words/phrases.
Check it out:
A - Amazon
B - Best Buy
C - CNN
D - Dictionary
E - eBay
F - FireFox
G - Games
H - Hotmail
I - Ikea
J - Jokes
K - Kazaa
L - Lyrics
M - Mapquest
N - News
O - Online Dictionary
P - Paris Hilton
Q - Quotes
R - Recipes
S - Spybot
T - Tara Reid
U - UPS
V - Verizon
W - Weather
X - XBox
Y - Yahoo
Z - Zip Codes
If I had to sum up the internet in 26 words/phrases, I don't think I could have done it better than Google. Of course, that is keeping in mind that Google Suggest has some pretty serious filters in place, so instead of P being "Porn" it is "Paris Hilton." Not too far off, if you think about it.
Scientists have suspected in recent years that Mars might be undergoing some sort of global warming. New data points to the possibility it is emerging from an ice age.
See, that's what happens when we start putting vehicles on Mars, too. That thing isn't aerosol powered, is it?
Slashdot Mirror
i have dealt with some difficult customers, but this slashdot crowd right now is just utterly ridiculous. there are a few that are willing to go against the grain and give vista a chance before dismissing it entirely, but the vast majority of the slashdotters lately are as close-minded and biased as any group i have ever seen. if MS adds a feature that you all love from another OS or application, they are copying. if they don't add it, they are behind the times. if MS tries to beef up security, they are doing too little too late, and it probably won't be effective anyway. if they don't try to beef up security... well i think you know what you all think of that. if MS releases a patch for IE, it is yet more proof that their software was flawed in the first place. if they don't release the patch, they are too slow to react to security threats, and are failing their users. this is the best one, and it happened just like this, a few posts up... if they open up to a beta group and ask for suggestions, they are skimping out on doing actual work and getting us, the computer elite, to do their design for them. if they don't open up to a beta and take suggestions, they are ignoring their users. i could go on, but i think you catch the drift. i get it, you guys hate MS. i thought this was a forum for open-minded people to share ideas and learn from each other, but if you want to just sit around and play target practice on a company that you have decided a long time ago that you will hate for life, then i might just have to give up on getting any more actual insight from reading the comments on slashdot, particularly on MS related stories.
I see things like this all the time, and the first thing people do is jump all over the DA for filing charges. I can't believe it even has to be said, but I guess is bears repeating that it is the job of the D.A. to file charges whenever it appears that the law has been broken, REGARDLESS OF EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES. This guy may or may not have had a good reason to do what he did, but either way, the verification of those motives is determined IN COURT, not by a D.A. I, for one, would not want any type of system whereby the District Attorney decided by his/her self whether or not the guy was in the right. That's not justice.
I guess there aren't clear-cut topics for everything, but is this really a "politics" issue? I guess they mention "government" in the blurb, but still...
I know this was said as a joke, but I see this a lot amongst the geek community, the attitude that users just don't know what they are doing, and that is why they can't make anything work.
Doing some GUI consultant work and writing a few users manuals for some pretty complex software has taught me one thing: Most user error is the fault of crappy software. A good setup (hardware or software) should be easy to use given the users.
Now, obviously it is all about knowing the audience. If you are writing an application for use by other software engineers versus people living in an assisted living home, well, that makes a difference, and you certainly can't cater to all people (for example the guy who writes code for a living but can't setup his own email at home).
The bottom line is, as much as it displeases us, not everyone is a geek. Not everyone cares about the latest firmware for their router, the latest patch for Call of Duty 2, or how to make a projection TV from an old overhead projector and a laptop from eBay. Our job, as geeks, is not to show everyone why they SHOULD care, but rather to make it easy for those who don't care to still do what they need to do.
Just a few minutes ago I got an email forwarded to me from a "stupid" user who couldn't figure out how to perform what to me seems like a simple task in some software my team wrote. We emailed him the directions, even though they were very clearly stated in the manual that I wrote, but I took it one step further. I submitted a feature request in our bug-tracking database to put a message near where what he was trying to do to explain why that option is grayed out.
Anyone can write software or setup hardware that has tons of geek features that we all like, but it takes a lot more effort to make the setup actually usable to the target users.
Well, let's just say, it can be messy in the long run.
Part of me doesn't like the idea of getting Google's financial interests involved in something like this. The reason a project like OO.o can work is because there aren't any big companies trying to tell anyone working on it what to do. I am not saying for certain that Google is planning on stepping in and trying to take over -- not by a long shot at this point -- but you have to at least recognize that this is a step in that direction.
should read:
"And we want to make sure open source preserves competitiveness against Microsoft."
Not that there is anything wrong with that, I just find it funny that they don't just come out and say what we all know they are thinking.
They didn't buy Keyhole to make a loss on it, in case you were wondering. They are a business, and they are in the business of making money. Although the idea is charming, "Not Being Evil" won't exactly put food on the table.
I am starting to wonder if the two Google mottos -- "Don't Be Evil" and "Make Money" -- are being quietly switched in their ranking of importance.
The answer is simple: We don't pay them. Teachers and cops work for the state, so the state can choose to screen them as they desire. CEOs work for a company, so, if the company wants to screen them to make sure they aren't psychopaths, they can feel free to do that. In fact based on this article, I would say that they *should* do that, but as a hands-off government kind of guy, I don't really like the idea of anyone besides the person writing the paycheck screening employees. Call me old-fashioned, but it just doesn't sit right with me.
Not to sound like a jerk, but are you hitting "Save" at the bottom or "close edit" at the top? I only ask because I was making the same mistake. It is not entirely obvious at first glance.
There needs to be an "Offtopic but needed to be said" rating for threads such as the AC one here.
So, that means there is about a 2.7% chance that your next computer will be a Mac?
That's not real high. Maybe you need to love Mac MORE than the "next guy" to consider yourself a real Mac fan.
Clearly you arent, since you are about the 1500th person to mention it.
No, that's not me inside an XBOX 360, this is me inside an XBOX 360:
"HELP, I AM INSIDE AN XBOX 360! WHAT KIND OF CRAZY XBOX IS THIS THAT I CAN ACTUALLY FIT INSIDE OF IT?!?!"
I just bought my first ipod the other day, and of course, it is a fantastic product.
That being said, I think that their pricing tactics on the ipod in particular have shown us their true colors: Apple is here to cash in.
Buying an ipod today means you get NONE of the accessories (dock, firewire etc). You have to buy them separately, and they are not so much "accessories" as they are "necessary components that you need to make the product work."
It doesn't bother me that they do this -- I have a degree in business, I understand that any company that isn't looking to make more money will fail, so I am not saying Apple is becoming more evil. I should mention, however, that I do not think that Microsoft is evil for trying to make money either.
The bottom line is, Apple saw lost capital potential in the pricing scheme of the ipod, and decided to capitlize by removing neccessary add-ons from the box and making $50 increments the entire way up their line of products, so that the next better model is _only_ $50 more (with the exception of the $100 gap between the 30gb and 60gb photo models). In fact, if you watched the unveiling of the ipod Shuffle, you saw Steve Jobs specifically say that the intention was to eat away at the smaller flash-based mp3 player market competition. Gee! A company that wants to defeat their competition! Imagine!. I know another company that likes to do the same thing *cough* Microsoft *cough*.
Apple is the underdog, and people, myself included, love to root for the underdog. It is my opinion, as hard as it is for me to admit now, that they put out amazing products, but still.
All companies are in it for one thing ALWAYS: money. That's the bottom line.
Sure, he has the money and we don't, but it is easy to say that if you were a billionaire, you would be that giving as well, it's probably harder to actually do. Let's give this man some credit where credit is due, he is doing phenomenal things with his money and (let's be honest here) he is EXACTLY what we all want to one day be: billionaire software developers.
Right, SOME of the software is banned. China is a communist country. I am not taking their side here, saying that they don't do anything wrong.
The point that I (succesfully, in my opinion) made is that the headline is the most dramatic part of the news article. 50 GAMES BANNED!!! IT COULDN'T BE!!! Then you read and you see that MOST are illegal pirated copies, and that a handful are actually "banned" as is implied in the title of the slashdot article.
Was I, or was I not, correct in saying that the title sensationalized the content of the article? Any reasonable person who looked at the headline/blurb would have thought that China banned "The Sims" because of it's capitalist overtones. Reading the article proved otherwise. That is my point.
If you read the actual article, you will see, as many astute readers have pointed out, that this is an issue of China attempting to crack down on video game piracy, not ban games because they are evil communists.
It is my opinion that recently slashdot has started down the slippery slope of becoming what I despise about big time news agencies: a marketplace for sensationalized stories. Every dramatic article posted on /. recently ends up being far less dramatic upon further investigation. I used to love slashdot for the lack of glitzy CNN-esque flash headlines of empty news articles, now slashdot is becoming exactly that.
And don't give me that "well it's the readers who submit articles, so don't blame slashdot, blame the readers" crap. We all know how hard it is to get an article posted on the front page, and we all know that there are tons of articles submitted and only a few chosen by a handful of people who have their own ideologies/agendas. The only difference with having users submit the articles at this point is that the moderators don't have to dig up the articles themselves.
If trends continue along these lines, I think my days of reading slashdot are numbered. I can read sensationalized news anywhere (CNN, FOXNews, ABC, CBS, NBC etc). I come here for the in-depth, interesting, non-glamorous, I-might-just-learn-something-today news, and I am finding it harder and harder to come across on slashdot.
Mod this however you want. I might be a troll, but I feel like it needed to be said.
Turn it around and say that the President decided to spend one billion on some program that you don't personally have any interest in, and all of a sudden it would be "Why spend a billion on that when there is a war going on in Iraq?"
Stop using both sides of the same arguement to bitch about the war. You don't support the war -- We get it. This is about the Hubble, not foriegn policy.
And how is this not EXACTLY like real life?
This guy was an idiot. Case closed. Ever read the Darwin Awards? This guy is lucky to still be alive based on how dumb he is. Odds are, 25 years in prison will protect him from doing something else this dumb that will cost him his life.
I even previewed my comments... TWICE! (It's early.)
If only the good people at Google implemented some code here at slashdot that suggested subjects of posts!
This makes for an interesting way to sum up the internet into 26 words/phrases.
Check it out:
A - Amazon
B - Best Buy
C - CNN
D - Dictionary
E - eBay
F - FireFox
G - Games
H - Hotmail
I - Ikea
J - Jokes
K - Kazaa
L - Lyrics
M - Mapquest
N - News
O - Online Dictionary
P - Paris Hilton
Q - Quotes
R - Recipes
S - Spybot
T - Tara Reid
U - UPS
V - Verizon
W - Weather
X - XBox
Y - Yahoo
Z - Zip Codes
If I had to sum up the internet in 26 words/phrases, I don't think I could have done it better than Google. Of course, that is keeping in mind that Google Suggest has some pretty serious filters in place, so instead of P being "Porn" it is "Paris Hilton." Not too far off, if you think about it.
That's nothing. In Korea, old people can read email on their electric razors.
See, that's what happens when we start putting vehicles on Mars, too. That thing isn't aerosol powered, is it?