So basically, even though many studies have shown speeding alone is mostly not a cause of car accidents, as long I stick below the speed limit, the insurance companies will reward me for being a good driver, regardless of how many people I cut off, how many lanes I swerve between lanes, how little I use my turn signals, or how much I update my facebook status and generally piss off other people while driving, not to mention how drunk or high I am while doing so. Great idea there guys.
It just seems common sense to me that if evolution can/does affect every mechanism in a living organism, then the mechanism governing the ability to evolve must itself be included.
What they're really telling you is that you are being too independent at least to start. Its generally good to be self-motivated but its preventing them from forming an opinion on how well (or even possibly what) you're doing or how good you are.
Basically because you are new you have to train your managers to trust you. At least for your first few months, until you feel you have become a trusted "part of the family" you need to communicate regularly (about daily) with all the person(s) you directly report to. It doesn't have to be a half hour meeting, just a few seconds/words to keep them updated with what's the latest news/progress with what you're working on (i.e. how fast you're working), what issues you're facing (i.e. how insightful you are) and what your solutions and suggestions to those issues were/are (i.e. how clever you are).
You could send a small summary by email, but that is only barely better than nothing, as email is unidirectional, so in most cases you dont get any feedback. You need to determine what their concerns and priorities are in response to your summary. Managers often incorrectly assume you somehow already know what they do. Try and find something more bidirectional and remember most communication is non-verbal.
Spotting when they aren't busy and dropping by their desk in person is by far the best, however If you are working remotely, use video chat or phone over email.
Yes you really do have to be concerned about this interpersonal bullshit if you want to be effective.
It's from Hollywood so inevitably just another in the unbroken stream of Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies where CGI is used to wallpaper over all the average acting and complete lack of any real story.
If I'm not mistaken, this one was stock plot #4 with predictable ending #2b.
I totally second that... I can't believe how hard/expensive it has become to replace my 10 year old 1920x1200 monitor with something of equal or higher res.
>> ) you are actually advocating for street racing (until you can afford the track) which goes against everything you claim to stand by and 2) most people do not have Ferarri's, Jags, or AM's to drive.
Not at all. I absolutely do not advocate for street racing. What I am saying is that most people start track racing by buying and old but basically good car for probably less than 5 grand and then turning it into a track car by adding a roll cage and some performance parts, and ripping out literally everything that isn't directly helping it get round a track. I wasn't even trying to suggest they race it on the street. In fact when they are done it is almost certainly very noticeably not street legal. My point is, this is the way most people get started. If you get rid of cars that can be controlled by humans, there wont be any donor cars for this process. you'd have to build race cars from scratch, and because of economies of scale, they'd cost 100's of thousands of dollars each.
>> 2) most people do not have Ferarri's, Jags, or AM's to drive. BTW you can buy a great condition used pre-2006 Jag XKR for maybe 10 grand. For performance/luxury/cost Jaguar is currently one of, if not the most underrated car brands there is when buying used.
You could even get a good used Ferrari 308 or even 355 for the cost of an average BMW.
And yeah.. I stand by my statement that BMWs are crap because they are (in my view) 1) Way overpriced for what they are, like most German cars. 2) Massively overrated reliability compared to reality, like most German cars. 3) Parts prices are ridiculous, like most German cars. 3) Not actually that great to drive. 4) All German cars tend to look ugly/boring but BMW is worst of them. 5) Most importantly: All German cars are particularly artless/soulless/sterile emotionally, but BMW is by far the worst of them.
I would take a Camaro over a BMW any day. Sure its slightly (but surprisingly not so much) more plasticky inside than say a 328i, but at least the Camaro reflects that in the price, and more importantly has some soul and character.
>> What exactly do you think you are gonna lose if they ban human drivers?
The pleasure of driving.
>> I know when you say that you love driving, you mean "driving" not commuting.
Actually I enjoy both, so in fact you don't know.
>> However, right now at this very second it illegal to "drive" your car. The only place you can take your Camaro/Mustang/Beemer is to a track to really drive.
Since I actually have taste, I dont own or drive a Camaro, Mustang or BMW, I own and drive more exotic marques than that, safely on the road but more often at tracks.
>> If you drove the shit out of it now (what most mean when they say they love to drive), you'll get tickets upon tickets or even impoundment. So if you already pretend your morning commute is a lap around Rallye Monte Carlo then making it illegal for you to drive your Camarostang will not affect you at all.
I have an old Toyota for day-to-day driving, which I drive sensibly. I haven't had a speeding ticket for a very long time. Don't even need to pretend I'm driving around Monaco since I have already had the pleasure of that experience in real life.
>> You'll still jump in it, slam the pedal to the floor and boil the tires off in a mad rush to Wally World. You will risk tickets upon tickets or even impoundment.
I'm glad you apparently know so much about the way I drive. Not.
>> I have already had this argument countless times. You will tell us that you are an above average driver,
Well.. I have had advanced driver training, hold a professional racing licence and have lots of experience driving and racing in many different countries, so maybe. I admit I think I do a better job than most drivers I see on the road in the US, simply because unlike them I always pay attention, maintain situational awareness, know how big the car is, and truly how it and I handle. I haven't had an accident on the road in at least 30 years of driving, so again, maybe I have a justifiable point.
>> have never had any accidents, tickets, and haven't even smashed a bug on the windshield- you're that good.
Not me. I've had plenty of speeding tickets and smashed plenty of bugs. Admittedly with no road accidents though (accidents on track dont count... thats part of the "learning to really drive" process). BTW unlike most speed cops and brainwashed liberals would have you think, speed is actually not synonymous for bad driving. In fact it depends on the circumstances. But I do believe there's always more to learn about driving so never would think I'm 'that good'.
>> You have never even once exceeded the speed limit and wouldn't know what the smell of burning rubber is if you were sitting front row behind the burnout box at a drag strip.
So far from the truth its absurd.
>> So if your rebuttal is that when you love to drive, you don't mean drive it like it's stolen, then what the hell do you mean? You cannot possibly mean that you enjoy sitting in traffic for an hour plus, doing 15mph through downtown Atlanta. No one here buys that argument.
I actually do enjoy all forms of driving, including slowly in traffic. obviously not as much as a scenic open road or better yet, on a track, but I dont care if you think no-one buys that, its the truth.
My main point is that if it becomes illegal for cars to be driven, I and many of my friends, and the world in general will lose the freedom to enjoy the pleasure derived from actually driving very fine automobiles (Ferrari, Aston Martin, Jaguar, etc etc), I also happen to be the Vice President of a classic car club where most members have invested serious time and money into restoring old classic cars to be able to drive them safely and legally on the road. Some of those older cars cant even break a speed limit even if they wanted to, however they are mobile works of art that we won't ever see the like of built again, which often reward the driver wi
If you're talking 2D desktop-type computing (surfing, emails, writing documents etc) the point of this article has already been true for at least a decade.
If you're talking 3D hardware rendering (most usually gaming), there is no such thing as enough GPU power, as its also about consistently achieving the highest framerates your monitor can handle, while having every eye-candy setting maxxed out on the latest AAA games, which are mostly already developed to get the most out of the current and next generation hardware. Its a moving goalpost on purpose.
>> "Anyone wonder what the impact will be on self-driving cars?"
No but as a car enthusiast who enjoys driving I'm praying it will kill the idea stone dead. I can forsee the day when after self-driving cars actually work, it will quickly become illegal for humans to drive at all.
Windows is the victim of decades of uncontrolled bloat. It is unnecessarily large and inefficient for what it actually does. Apart from being very wasteful with CPU compared to Linux for example, even when Windows is supposedly idle it is actually engaging in a lot of activity. For example, regmon shows that even a supposedly idle PC not running any applications is doing like 5-10 registry writes a second and even more reads, not to mention swap I/O for no apparent reason. Who knows what the heck its really doing, but thats a LOT of (unnecessary?) Disk I/O over, say an hour. My guess (and thats all it is) is that most of the activity probably has no benefit to the user, and/or is just "workaround" solutions (e.g. needing to continuously run a defragment because NTFS sucks) to cover for Microsoft not having "done it right" at an architectural level.
As far as I can tell, Linux (Android etc) is far better designed and architected so it is more efficient with the CPU it does use, and also just doesn't (need to) do as much housekeeping activity.
Consequently with Linux and most other non-Windows OS's I've played with, Idle more often means actually idle, so much less peripheral activity. In turn, CPU throttling, disk & bus spindown and other hardware power-saving features that only occur when the OS is actually idle can be active far more often.
2) It doesnt matter what you can make of it, if the weight is higher than it was, the handling WILL be affetcted. 2b) I dont need to be talked to like a kid you arrogant prick.
>>> But what if you could shift EV batteries away from being big blocks under the car and engineer them into the car itself?
You actually want all the weight to be in the middle of the car and low down. If you raised the car's centre of gravity or made it off-centre (by redistributing the weight of the batteries) you will make the car handle a lot worse.
Also batteries can be dangerous as they contain a LOT of energy. Physical damage can easily result in fire. They are best protected by being located in the middle of the car. If you made the body panels batteries so they contain all that energy, one small bump or even door ding could be catastrophic.
Actually it might be fun to see those freaks that dont care about denting other peoples parked cars when they open their doors get burnt alive.
Its clear from the video its still noticeably not as quick to accurately place shots as with a mouse (and keyboard). If it aint broke dont fix it. I'm gonna stick with a mouse and keyboard thanks.
I dont think you should generalise so much. The windows phone may be similar hardware but there are so many different Android phones out there that you cant assume any windows phone can match or beat all of their features. For example camera megapixels or screen size or resolution might be make/break decisions for someone. In my case they would certainly be factors to consider. The fact that it runs a Microsoft OS alone would put me off.
Similarly you make bold claims that 99% of users wouldn't want to change anything about their OS. Did you just pull that number out the air? I'm not so sure you're even close to right...there are numerous large communities dedicated to Android hacking. Also your point about timing of releases that the phone hardware would be so old you might as well buy a new phone by the next version of firmware, is beyond ridiculous at least in the android world.
I agree that your thoughts probably echo the mindset of Microsoft, that they always provide for Mr/Mrs "average". However, I and many if not most other people (on slashdot at least) just dont look like that. Personally I don't even know someone that looks like that. The dominance of Android in the global market speaks for itself in proving that the Microsoft marketing mindset just isn't really valid. Thats exactly why Microsoft is going down the pan. They dont even understand their potential customers needs. They are still arrogant enough to assume they can bend their customers to fit the Microsoft model, rather than the other way round. No thanks.
I dont think you should generalise so much. The windows phone may be similar hardware but there are so many Android phones out there that you cant assume the windows phone can match all their features. For example camera megapixels or screen size/resolution might be make/break decisions for someone. In my case they would certainly be factors to consider.
Similarly you make bold claims that 99% of users wouldnt want to change anything about their OS. Did you just pull that number out the air? I'm not so sure you're even close to right...and also about timing of releases that the phone hardware would be so old you might as well buy a new phone by the next version of firmware, is ridiculous at lest in the android world. I agree that your thoughts probably echo the mindset of Microsoft, that they always provide for Mr/Mrs "average". However, I and many if not most other people just dont look like that. Personally I don't even know someone that looks like that. The dominance of Android in the global market speaks for itself in proving that the Microsoft marketing mindset just isn't really valid.
Sounds like you may have (incorrect) preconceived ideas that android requires a lot of configuration/hacking or something, possibly because you know Android is based on Linux?
Android phones are honestly just "plug and play". Its actually surprisingly good at integrating with everything.
I've never had to dick about with android's internals, but its great that I could if I wanted. Everything I want to do is just supported out the box, even some obscure stuff, at most by downloading the approrpriate app for free from the play store.
I'm not speaking from a position of any real first hand experience here about Windows phones, but I dont believe there's that much flexibility in a windows phone. Can you even get to a shell at all? Are the tools for developing your own apps free? Can you see the whole file system? Can you treat the phone as a USB thumb drive and copy media and other files back and forward freely and without having to install some stupid app like Itunes? I know for sure that there isn't that much flexibility with an iPhone.
>> SQL Server is an amazing database (Simply the best product for Windows environments as I don't have experience installing/managing database in other platforms).
Which is best entirely depends on your usage and criteria. For example If what you want is a small database in an embedded environment, SQL Server would suck yet SqlLite might be great. Conversely for a large enterprise, SqlLite would be a joke and SQL server wouldn't even get close to Oracle on Windows or maybe even PostgreSQL if cost/performance is an issue. For mid-range windows shops, SQL Server would probably be the best but thats only one small view of the computing world.
Actually I do use Linux but dont stick to one particular distro. Currently I like Mint but have tried and worked with lots. I also occasionally use Apple products. Been a software developer for 35 years on a large number of different big and small computer OS's including every version of windows since 2.0. I'm continually frustrated by the lack of usability and stupid hoops you have to jump through to do even fairly standard stuff in nearly all Microsoft products, especially Office. I have a broad experience to draw on, and I still think Windows is the OS that sucks the most, except maybe for gaming but only because thats still the only platform that most PC games developers target. I Can't wait for SteamOS to start really changing that though. Goodbye Windows partition forever when it does.
>> And you're friend is too dumb to use a phone from his own company?
Not too dumb. Actually smart enough to make her own choice rather than swallow whatever the company line is.
>> What does Android have more to offer? Personally speaking I prefer the user interface and the better integration of shared data across the most popular apps. I also like the fact that the Play Store has much more content, especially free content, than Microsoft's store. I also like the fact that Android is based on Linux. I also like the fact that most of it is open source and easily hackable. I also like the fact that I can get android versions of stuff like VLC, BBC Iplayer and MythTV, good ssh clients, etc all free. I also prefer the hardware and features of my phone than any one that runs Microsoft. I have no idea what her reasons are.
>> Can Valve's Steam Machines Compete Against the Xbox One and PS4?
Linux-based open platform that I can also upgrade the HW myself and install/run anything I like on?
In my book its already won by a mile, and its not even out yet.
In my case I dont even need more hardware, I can just install SteamOS on my existing MythTV box, reinstall MythTV, install a bunch of steam games, and I'm done. Now my DVR has also become a next gen console for exactly $0. Apparently SteamOS will even be able to stream Netflix. Finally netflix on Linux,
Furthermore this saves me the $400+ that would have gone on a PS4. That is extra money that can now go on steam/linux games. Whats not to like?
Slashdot Mirror
>> Insurance isn't supposed to be about profit, it's supposed to be about cost-management.
Except you're missing the fundamental point that insurance companies are for-profit businesses rather than charities.
So basically, even though many studies have shown speeding alone is mostly not a cause of car accidents, as long I stick below the speed limit, the insurance companies will reward me for being a good driver, regardless of how many people I cut off, how many lanes I swerve between lanes, how little I use my turn signals, or how much I update my facebook status and generally piss off other people while driving, not to mention how drunk or high I am while doing so.
Great idea there guys.
It just seems common sense to me that if evolution can/does affect every mechanism in a living organism, then the mechanism governing the ability to evolve must itself be included.
What they're really telling you is that you are being too independent at least to start. Its generally good to be self-motivated but its preventing them from forming an opinion on how well (or even possibly what) you're doing or how good you are.
Basically because you are new you have to train your managers to trust you. At least for your first few months, until you feel you have become a trusted "part of the family" you need to communicate regularly (about daily) with all the person(s) you directly report to. It doesn't have to be a half hour meeting, just a few seconds/words to keep them updated with what's the latest news/progress with what you're working on (i.e. how fast you're working), what issues you're facing (i.e. how insightful you are) and what your solutions and suggestions to those issues were/are (i.e. how clever you are).
You could send a small summary by email, but that is only barely better than nothing, as email is unidirectional, so in most cases you dont get any feedback. You need to determine what their concerns and priorities are in response to your summary. Managers often incorrectly assume you somehow already know what they do. Try and find something more bidirectional and remember most communication is non-verbal.
Spotting when they aren't busy and dropping by their desk in person is by far the best, however If you are working remotely, use video chat or phone over email.
Yes you really do have to be concerned about this interpersonal bullshit if you want to be effective.
It's from Hollywood so inevitably just another in the unbroken stream of Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies where CGI is used to wallpaper over all the average acting and complete lack of any real story.
If I'm not mistaken, this one was stock plot #4 with predictable ending #2b.
I totally second that...
I can't believe how hard/expensive it has become to replace my 10 year old 1920x1200 monitor with something of equal or higher res.
>> ) you are actually advocating for street racing (until you can afford the track) which goes against everything you claim to stand by and 2) most people do not have Ferarri's, Jags, or AM's to drive.
Not at all. I absolutely do not advocate for street racing. What I am saying is that most people start track racing by buying and old but basically good car for probably less than 5 grand and then turning it into a track car by adding a roll cage and some performance parts, and ripping out literally everything that isn't directly helping it get round a track. I wasn't even trying to suggest they race it on the street. In fact when they are done it is almost certainly very noticeably not street legal. My point is, this is the way most people get started. If you get rid of cars that can be controlled by humans, there wont be any donor cars for this process. you'd have to build race cars from scratch, and because of economies of scale, they'd cost 100's of thousands of dollars each.
>> 2) most people do not have Ferarri's, Jags, or AM's to drive.
BTW you can buy a great condition used pre-2006 Jag XKR for maybe 10 grand. For performance/luxury/cost Jaguar is currently one of, if not the most underrated car brands there is when buying used.
You could even get a good used Ferrari 308 or even 355 for the cost of an average BMW.
And yeah.. I stand by my statement that BMWs are crap because they are (in my view)
1) Way overpriced for what they are, like most German cars.
2) Massively overrated reliability compared to reality, like most German cars.
3) Parts prices are ridiculous, like most German cars.
3) Not actually that great to drive.
4) All German cars tend to look ugly/boring but BMW is worst of them.
5) Most importantly: All German cars are particularly artless/soulless/sterile emotionally, but BMW is by far the worst of them.
I would take a Camaro over a BMW any day. Sure its slightly (but surprisingly not so much) more plasticky inside than say a 328i, but at least the Camaro reflects that in the price, and more importantly has some soul and character.
OK since you really seem to want a response:
>> What exactly do you think you are gonna lose if they ban human drivers?
The pleasure of driving.
>> I know when you say that you love driving, you mean "driving" not commuting.
Actually I enjoy both, so in fact you don't know.
>> However, right now at this very second it illegal to "drive" your car. The only place you can take your Camaro/Mustang/Beemer is to a track to really drive.
Since I actually have taste, I dont own or drive a Camaro, Mustang or BMW, I own and drive more exotic marques than that, safely on the road but more often at tracks.
>> If you drove the shit out of it now (what most mean when they say they love to drive), you'll get tickets upon tickets or even impoundment. So if you already pretend your morning commute is a lap around Rallye Monte Carlo then making it illegal for you to drive your Camarostang will not affect you at all.
I have an old Toyota for day-to-day driving, which I drive sensibly. I haven't had a speeding ticket for a very long time. Don't even need to pretend I'm driving around Monaco since I have already had the pleasure of that experience in real life.
>> You'll still jump in it, slam the pedal to the floor and boil the tires off in a mad rush to Wally World. You will risk tickets upon tickets or even impoundment.
I'm glad you apparently know so much about the way I drive. Not.
>> I have already had this argument countless times. You will tell us that you are an above average driver,
Well.. I have had advanced driver training, hold a professional racing licence and have lots of experience driving and racing in many different countries, so maybe. I admit I think I do a better job than most drivers I see on the road in the US, simply because unlike them I always pay attention, maintain situational awareness, know how big the car is, and truly how it and I handle. I haven't had an accident on the road in at least 30 years of driving, so again, maybe I have a justifiable point.
>> have never had any accidents, tickets, and haven't even smashed a bug on the windshield- you're that good.
Not me. I've had plenty of speeding tickets and smashed plenty of bugs. Admittedly with no road accidents though (accidents on track dont count... thats part of the "learning to really drive" process). BTW unlike most speed cops and brainwashed liberals would have you think, speed is actually not synonymous for bad driving. In fact it depends on the circumstances.
But I do believe there's always more to learn about driving so never would think I'm 'that good'.
>> You have never even once exceeded the speed limit and wouldn't know what the smell of burning rubber is if you were sitting front row behind the burnout box at a drag strip.
So far from the truth its absurd.
>> So if your rebuttal is that when you love to drive, you don't mean drive it like it's stolen, then what the hell do you mean? You cannot possibly mean that you enjoy sitting in traffic for an hour plus, doing 15mph through downtown Atlanta. No one here buys that argument.
I actually do enjoy all forms of driving, including slowly in traffic. obviously not as much as a scenic open road or better yet, on a track, but I dont care if you think no-one buys that, its the truth.
My main point is that if it becomes illegal for cars to be driven, I and many of my friends, and the world in general will lose the freedom to enjoy the pleasure derived from actually driving very fine automobiles (Ferrari, Aston Martin, Jaguar, etc etc), I also happen to be the Vice President of a classic car club where most members have invested serious time and money into restoring old classic cars to be able to drive them safely and legally on the road. Some of those older cars cant even break a speed limit even if they wanted to, however they are mobile works of art that we won't ever see the like of built again, which often reward the driver wi
If you're talking 2D desktop-type computing (surfing, emails, writing documents etc) the point of this article has already been true for at least a decade.
If you're talking 3D hardware rendering (most usually gaming), there is no such thing as enough GPU power, as its also about consistently achieving the highest framerates your monitor can handle, while having every eye-candy setting maxxed out on the latest AAA games, which are mostly already developed to get the most out of the current and next generation hardware. Its a moving goalpost on purpose.
Wow thats quite an achievement. You put 2 paragraphs worth of words into my mouth and without exception, all of them are completely wrong.
Thats great. I have no problem with that.
I'm just hoping the government dont make it illegal to manually drive cars, but I bet they will.
>> "Anyone wonder what the impact will be on self-driving cars?"
No but as a car enthusiast who enjoys driving I'm praying it will kill the idea stone dead. I can forsee the day when after self-driving cars actually work, it will quickly become illegal for humans to drive at all.
Windows is the victim of decades of uncontrolled bloat. It is unnecessarily large and inefficient for what it actually does. Apart from being very wasteful with CPU compared to Linux for example, even when Windows is supposedly idle it is actually engaging in a lot of activity. For example, regmon shows that even a supposedly idle PC not running any applications is doing like 5-10 registry writes a second and even more reads, not to mention swap I/O for no apparent reason. Who knows what the heck its really doing, but thats a LOT of (unnecessary?) Disk I/O over, say an hour. My guess (and thats all it is) is that most of the activity probably has no benefit to the user, and/or is just "workaround" solutions (e.g. needing to continuously run a defragment because NTFS sucks) to cover for Microsoft not having "done it right" at an architectural level.
As far as I can tell, Linux (Android etc) is far better designed and architected so it is more efficient with the CPU it does use, and also just doesn't (need to) do as much housekeeping activity.
Consequently with Linux and most other non-Windows OS's I've played with, Idle more often means actually idle, so much less peripheral activity. In turn, CPU throttling, disk & bus spindown and other hardware power-saving features that only occur when the OS is actually idle can be active far more often.
My hometown (Weymouth, Dorset) has the dubious distinction of being the port where the black death entered England. Cool huh?
taking your points in order:
1) your sig isn't even visible in your post.
2) It doesnt matter what you can make of it, if the weight is higher than it was, the handling WILL be affetcted. 2b) I dont need to be talked to like a kid you arrogant prick.
3) see http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/10/07/tesla-ceo-says-fire-caused-by-impaled-battery/
4) see 3)
>>> But what if you could shift EV batteries away from being big blocks under the car and engineer them into the car itself?
You actually want all the weight to be in the middle of the car and low down. If you raised the car's centre of gravity or made it off-centre (by redistributing the weight of the batteries) you will make the car handle a lot worse.
Also batteries can be dangerous as they contain a LOT of energy. Physical damage can easily result in fire. They are best protected by being located in the middle of the car. If you made the body panels batteries so they contain all that energy, one small bump or even door ding could be catastrophic.
Actually it might be fun to see those freaks that dont care about denting other peoples parked cars when they open their doors get burnt alive.
Its clear from the video its still noticeably not as quick to accurately place shots as with a mouse (and keyboard).
If it aint broke dont fix it. I'm gonna stick with a mouse and keyboard thanks.
I dont think you should generalise so much.
The windows phone may be similar hardware but there are so many different Android phones out there that you cant assume any windows phone can match or beat all of their features. For example camera megapixels or screen size or resolution might be make/break decisions for someone. In my case they would certainly be factors to consider. The fact that it runs a Microsoft OS alone would put me off.
Similarly you make bold claims that 99% of users wouldn't want to change anything about their OS. Did you just pull that number out the air? I'm not so sure you're even close to right. ..there are numerous large communities dedicated to Android hacking. Also your point about timing of releases that the phone hardware would be so old you might as well buy a new phone by the next version of firmware, is beyond ridiculous at least in the android world.
I agree that your thoughts probably echo the mindset of Microsoft, that they always provide for Mr/Mrs "average". However, I and many if not most other people (on slashdot at least) just dont look like that. Personally I don't even know someone that looks like that. The dominance of Android in the global market speaks for itself in proving that the Microsoft marketing mindset just isn't really valid. Thats exactly why Microsoft is going down the pan. They dont even understand their potential customers needs. They are still arrogant enough to assume they can bend their customers to fit the Microsoft model, rather than the other way round. No thanks.
I dont think you should generalise so much.
The windows phone may be similar hardware but there are so many Android phones out there that you cant assume the windows phone can match all their features. For example camera megapixels or screen size/resolution might be make/break decisions for someone. In my case they would certainly be factors to consider.
Similarly you make bold claims that 99% of users wouldnt want to change anything about their OS. Did you just pull that number out the air? I'm not so sure you're even close to right. ..and also about timing of releases that the phone hardware would be so old you might as well buy a new phone by the next version of firmware, is ridiculous at lest in the android world.
I agree that your thoughts probably echo the mindset of Microsoft, that they always provide for Mr/Mrs "average". However, I and many if not most other people just dont look like that. Personally I don't even know someone that looks like that. The dominance of Android in the global market speaks for itself in proving that the Microsoft marketing mindset just isn't really valid.
Sounds like you may have (incorrect) preconceived ideas that android requires a lot of configuration/hacking or something, possibly because you know Android is based on Linux?
Android phones are honestly just "plug and play". Its actually surprisingly good at integrating with everything.
I've never had to dick about with android's internals, but its great that I could if I wanted. Everything I want to do is just supported out the box, even some obscure stuff, at most by downloading the approrpriate app for free from the play store.
I'm not speaking from a position of any real first hand experience here about Windows phones, but I dont believe there's that much flexibility in a windows phone. Can you even get to a shell at all? Are the tools for developing your own apps free? Can you see the whole file system? Can you treat the phone as a USB thumb drive and copy media and other files back and forward freely and without having to install some stupid app like Itunes? I know for sure that there isn't that much flexibility with an iPhone.
>> SQL Server is an amazing database (Simply the best product for Windows environments as I don't have experience installing/managing database in other platforms).
Which is best entirely depends on your usage and criteria. For example If what you want is a small database in an embedded environment, SQL Server would suck yet SqlLite might be great. Conversely for a large enterprise, SqlLite would be a joke and SQL server wouldn't even get close to Oracle on Windows or maybe even PostgreSQL if cost/performance is an issue. For mid-range windows shops, SQL Server would probably be the best but thats only one small view of the computing world.
Actually I do use Linux but dont stick to one particular distro. Currently I like Mint but have tried and worked with lots. I also occasionally use Apple products. Been a software developer for 35 years on a large number of different big and small computer OS's including every version of windows since 2.0. I'm continually frustrated by the lack of usability and stupid hoops you have to jump through to do even fairly standard stuff in nearly all Microsoft products, especially Office. I have a broad experience to draw on, and I still think Windows is the OS that sucks the most, except maybe for gaming but only because thats still the only platform that most PC games developers target. I Can't wait for SteamOS to start really changing that though. Goodbye Windows partition forever when it does.
>> And you're friend is too dumb to use a phone from his own company?
Not too dumb. Actually smart enough to make her own choice rather than swallow whatever the company line is.
>> What does Android have more to offer?
Personally speaking I prefer the user interface and the better integration of shared data across the most popular apps. I also like the fact that the Play Store has much more content, especially free content, than Microsoft's store. I also like the fact that Android is based on Linux. I also like the fact that most of it is open source and easily hackable. I also like the fact that I can get android versions of stuff like VLC, BBC Iplayer and MythTV, good ssh clients, etc all free. I also prefer the hardware and features of my phone than any one that runs Microsoft. I have no idea what her reasons are.
>> Can Valve's Steam Machines Compete Against the Xbox One and PS4?
Linux-based open platform that I can also upgrade the HW myself and install/run anything I like on?
In my book its already won by a mile, and its not even out yet.
In my case I dont even need more hardware, I can just install SteamOS on my existing MythTV box, reinstall MythTV, install a bunch of steam games, and I'm done. Now my DVR has also become a next gen console for exactly $0. Apparently SteamOS will even be able to stream Netflix. Finally netflix on Linux,
Furthermore this saves me the $400+ that would have gone on a PS4. That is extra money that can now go on steam/linux games. Whats not to like?
Again you post just a spew of personal attacks. Do you actually have a thread-related point to make at all?