I once worked for an interfering, micromanaging, annoying, unimaginative, and unengaging manager whose solution to the Dilbertization of the workplace was to BAN ALL DILBERT CARTOONS.
in the late 80s early 90s MS almost encouraged piracy, in an effort to kill off a slew of alternate OSes.
"Almost", you say? Then it's time for today's Slashdot Time Machine Trip (TM):
Cachunk. Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep... Borp!
[You.Are.In.1990.] -- "Listen, we can outplay the enemy," says Billy Gates The T'ird in a fetching jacquard-knit sweater. "IBM, Quarterdeck, Digital Research, and even those twits at Apple... They're disorganised and they think that glitzy advertising alone will make them winners. Advertising to the sheep doesn't matter because they will copy everything. However, our enemies are toast if we get big businesses to buy millions of cheap, legitimate copies of Windows while the home users copy ten times that amount. If we build momentum in the corporation, we'll win the Fortune 500, we'll win everything. But if we go beyond the Fortune 500, we'll win quicker!
We need to win the Fortune 640, okay?. The 640, okay, ought to be enough for anybody!"
Cachunk. Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep... Borp!
[You.Are.In.The.Present.] Yes, Slashdot, now you also know the origin of the famous phrase.
As a service to the citizens of Slashdot, here is my translation from Marketing into Honest of the Microsoft reply:
"We respect the customer's decision. As with any of our other Federal customers, it's our job to help DOT maximize the value of its Enterprise Agreement through the adoption of our technology. We are engaged with large, strategic customers across government at every level, and are working closely with them on these products through their participation in our Technical Adoption Programs." In HONEST: Many of our senior people have violently expectorated their coffee. A bunch of us wrote this ghastly response, but actually thought it was good, which shows you how bad things are around here. So the decision has been made to send our most attractive people on-site with special expense accounts and at least one carry-on valise full of lubricant.
"Windows Vista, Office 2007, and IE7 are widely recognized by independent analysts to offer dramatic improvements in security, management features, new collaboration capabilities and productivity enhancements. Ultimately we think we can help DOT understand how these products can help its enterprise organization. In HONEST: Our account escorts will sleep with the customer's decision-makers for the rest of the fiscal year if necessary.
"As DOT goes through the natural process of exploring the new capabilities of these products we expect they will continue to embrace Windows and Office as the departmental standard of DOT. In HONEST: In exchange for obtaining long-term lock-in, our account escorts may accept a marriage proposal for up to three years. We would prefer co-habitation, however. In any case, more lubricant will be shipped with service-pack CDs.
"Overall our government customers are excited about the technology as well as our product pipeline. Just last week more than 500 Public Sector CIOs from across the country joined us for our annual US Public Sector CIO Summit. The Summit offered these CIOs to see firsthand how Microsoft is working to be a strategic partner to government and educational institutions of every size." In HONEST: We're going to continue to innovate and create great software. Failing that, where would you like to have dinner tonight, ducky?
3.5" hard disks are hogs at the trough and you can save yourself pocketbook pain (and decibels) by using 2.5" notebook drives in your PC. OS X spins disks down nicely and Apple machines become dormant very effectively.
Everyone who buys a big LCD monitor without looking at the wattage is not doing the power grid a favour. The best value in an LCD monitor seems to be the 19" screen -- anything bigger is a hog at the trough, regardless of who makes it. Philips makes a 19" LCD monitor that only uses 34 watts.
Next... your video cards need special processors and fans if you want the latest glitzy effects. Do you really need this stuff? Fanless video cards and integrated video may not give your Beryl, Spaces, or Aero, but I haven't seen anything in these features that is essential to fun and productive computing.
the media and by marketing people in particular [...] I want my English language back from these idiots
You have to realize how ridiculous these people are. They babble for a living.
I must warn you that I have heard marketing people talking about their "Spider Sense tingling" and needing to "ping" colleagues for information.
"Your language" has been and always will be hostage to idiots. If you want to feel more secure, I suggest that you change your language from English to C. The C compiler is much stricter.
Microsoft has released Vista and it's not selling well for two reasons: - it's not a significant upgrade from Windows XP sp2 - it's anti-piracy measures are killing the one reason why Windows became popular in the first place
This is a failure. Microsoft is a big predator and needs big kills.
So what will Microsoft do? Will they
a) admit the worst public failure in their corporate history, clean out the senior management deadwood, and try again with another Windows version? b) try to divert attention to their loss of face by threatening Linux and Apple with patent litigation? c) upgrade Vista significantly through service packs? d) find ways to undermine Windows XP?
I'd say a), b), and d). They are simply too lost to know what to do for c).
1. Invent a verb. 2. Take the gerund of the verb and register it as a Web domain. 3. Launch a new Web site. There are already too many and yours sucks too. 4. Advertise your site on Slashdot, where opinionated fussbudgets, girlfriendless nerds, and Grammar Nazis (often all the same thing) will gleefully and mercilessly attack your competence and judgement.
It's hard to imagine anyone would put in the effort to manipulate millions and millions of people, without being able to micromanage anything, for a potential pay-off decades and decades down the road.
How much do you think needs to be micromanaged? The pay-off is immediate and daily. Sometimes, as in the recycling of fashion, the pay-off can be a three-decade cycle of nonsense spanning generations.
Advertising sells. And when people aren't shopping, they are at home and docile and talking about stuff that doesn't matter, such as how The Simpsons make fun of Batman.
If the people are spending their money and voting as they're told without learning, questioning, or rioting, it doesn't have to be a more complicated scheme.
Television exists to stuff the viewer's eyesockets with advertising. The programming content serves to keep your eyes "glued" for the advertising.
There's little of value on television that one couldn't learn more profoundly by going to the library, reading an encyclopedia article, talking to someone knowledgeable, taking a walk, or just reflecting. And anything that television does teach is likely not as worthwhile as any of these alternatives.
Television being what it is (consumer hypnosis, not education), it's hard not to conclude that television is really meant to be a significant challenge on the obstacle course preventing serious thinking (and political action) in this brave new world.
Bad government and multinational corporations thank you for watching.
they didn't receive a proper education, and failed to learn how to think independently and critically assess propositions put to them But what percentage of students in the You Ess Of Ay are receiving a good education? We can immediate rule out all those students who are told they'll burn in hell if they don't belief in some silly myth.
I have a suspicion that teaching independent thinking and critical analysis would not produce good consumerist sheep and would destabilize the plutocracy.
Reports of a hostage-taking in Redmond, Washington say that an unidentified man has taken several Microsoft employees hostage and has issued demands for bug fixes as well as the return of Clippy.
"I want system-modal Ok-Cancel dialogs to stop being buried under other dialogs," said the statement released by the man. "I want spyware completely removed from my computer and I want my registry to be less fragile."
"But most of all, I want Clippy back in MS Office. Clippy would have helped me write a better list of hostage-taker's demands."
"But increasingly, the appeal of Windows- and Linux-based systems running on cheaper, commodity hardware is becoming more and more compelling."
Increasingly, when people just make noises to fill up their packet space instead of thinking about the language they are using, I find that I am more and more compelled to kick them farther and farther across the parking lot, and the rate of incidence is on the rise.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a compliment to him that he inspired you, but come now... these grandiose statements are useless calls to undefined functions.
I once worked for an interfering, micromanaging, annoying, unimaginative, and unengaging manager whose solution to the Dilbertization of the workplace was to BAN ALL DILBERT CARTOONS.
It seems the cartoons made us employees cynical.
Jealousy is not the same thing as Envy.
For example, Ballboy does not suffer from penis ~jealousy~.
"Almost", you say? Then it's time for today's Slashdot Time Machine Trip (TM):
Cachunk. Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep... Borp!
[You.Are.In.1990.] -- "Listen, we can outplay the enemy," says Billy Gates The T'ird in a fetching jacquard-knit sweater. "IBM, Quarterdeck, Digital Research, and even those twits at Apple... They're disorganised and they think that glitzy advertising alone will make them winners. Advertising to the sheep doesn't matter because they will copy everything. However, our enemies are toast if we get big businesses to buy millions of cheap, legitimate copies of Windows while the home users copy ten times that amount. If we build momentum in the corporation, we'll win the Fortune 500, we'll win everything. But if we go beyond the Fortune 500, we'll win quicker!
We need to win the Fortune 640, okay?. The 640, okay, ought to be enough for anybody!"
Cachunk. Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep... Borp!
[You.Are.In.The.Present.] Yes, Slashdot, now you also know the origin of the famous phrase.
"We respect the customer's decision. As with any of our other Federal customers, it's our job to help DOT maximize the value of its Enterprise Agreement through the adoption of our technology. We are engaged with large, strategic customers across government at every level, and are working closely with them on these products through their participation in our Technical Adoption Programs." In HONEST: Many of our senior people have violently expectorated their coffee. A bunch of us wrote this ghastly response, but actually thought it was good, which shows you how bad things are around here. So the decision has been made to send our most attractive people on-site with special expense accounts and at least one carry-on valise full of lubricant.
"Windows Vista, Office 2007, and IE7 are widely recognized by independent analysts to offer dramatic improvements in security, management features, new collaboration capabilities and productivity enhancements. Ultimately we think we can help DOT understand how these products can help its enterprise organization. In HONEST: Our account escorts will sleep with the customer's decision-makers for the rest of the fiscal year if necessary.
"As DOT goes through the natural process of exploring the new capabilities of these products we expect they will continue to embrace Windows and Office as the departmental standard of DOT. In HONEST: In exchange for obtaining long-term lock-in, our account escorts may accept a marriage proposal for up to three years. We would prefer co-habitation, however. In any case, more lubricant will be shipped with service-pack CDs.
"Overall our government customers are excited about the technology as well as our product pipeline. Just last week more than 500 Public Sector CIOs from across the country joined us for our annual US Public Sector CIO Summit. The Summit offered these CIOs to see firsthand how Microsoft is working to be a strategic partner to government and educational institutions of every size." In HONEST: We're going to continue to innovate and create great software. Failing that, where would you like to have dinner tonight, ducky?
Which fools should they vote for?
3.5" hard disks are hogs at the trough and you can save yourself pocketbook pain (and decibels) by using 2.5" notebook drives in your PC. OS X spins disks down nicely and Apple machines become dormant very effectively.
Everyone who buys a big LCD monitor without looking at the wattage is not doing the power grid a favour. The best value in an LCD monitor seems to be the 19" screen -- anything bigger is a hog at the trough, regardless of who makes it. Philips makes a 19" LCD monitor that only uses 34 watts.
Next... your video cards need special processors and fans if you want the latest glitzy effects. Do you really need this stuff? Fanless video cards and integrated video may not give your Beryl, Spaces, or Aero, but I haven't seen anything in these features that is essential to fun and productive computing.
Friend, why not admit it? Like the rest of us, you're trying to understand what went so wrong in Anna Nicole's and Britney's lives.
You have to realize how ridiculous these people are. They babble for a living.
I must warn you that I have heard marketing people talking about their "Spider Sense tingling" and needing to "ping" colleagues for information.
"Your language" has been and always will be hostage to idiots. If you want to feel more secure, I suggest that you change your language from English to C. The C compiler is much stricter.
Microsoft has released Vista and it's not selling well for two reasons:
- it's not a significant upgrade from Windows XP sp2
- it's anti-piracy measures are killing the one reason why Windows became popular in the first place
This is a failure. Microsoft is a big predator and needs big kills.
So what will Microsoft do? Will they
a) admit the worst public failure in their corporate history, clean out the senior management deadwood, and try again with another Windows version?
b) try to divert attention to their loss of face by threatening Linux and Apple with patent litigation?
c) upgrade Vista significantly through service packs?
d) find ways to undermine Windows XP?
I'd say a), b), and d). They are simply too lost to know what to do for c).
Yes, this is from the period of his best work, when he was still doing lots of drugs.
Now look at him. His movie "Man Of The Year" was a disappointment.
Vocative, not dangling. But I raise a glass to you.
I see that the humour flew over your cuckoo's nest at quite an altitude, Sir.
Some serious mistakes...
1. Invent a verb.
2. Take the gerund of the verb and register it as a Web domain.
3. Launch a new Web site. There are already too many and yours sucks too.
4. Advertise your site on Slashdot, where opinionated fussbudgets, girlfriendless nerds, and Grammar Nazis (often all the same thing) will gleefully and mercilessly attack your competence and judgement.
Insects have survived worse and outnumber you billions to one, you insensitive mammalian clod!
How much do you think needs to be micromanaged? The pay-off is immediate and daily. Sometimes, as in the recycling of fashion, the pay-off can be a three-decade cycle of nonsense spanning generations.
Advertising sells. And when people aren't shopping, they are at home and docile and talking about stuff that doesn't matter, such as how The Simpsons make fun of Batman.
If the people are spending their money and voting as they're told without learning, questioning, or rioting, it doesn't have to be a more complicated scheme.
But it could get more complicated in the future.
Television exists to stuff the viewer's eyesockets with advertising. The programming content serves to keep your eyes "glued" for the advertising.
There's little of value on television that one couldn't learn more profoundly by going to the library, reading an encyclopedia article, talking to someone knowledgeable, taking a walk, or just reflecting. And anything that television does teach is likely not as worthwhile as any of these alternatives.
Television being what it is (consumer hypnosis, not education), it's hard not to conclude that television is really meant to be a significant challenge on the obstacle course preventing serious thinking (and political action) in this brave new world.
Bad government and multinational corporations thank you for watching.
I have a suspicion that teaching independent thinking and critical analysis would not produce good consumerist sheep and would destabilize the plutocracy.
It is easier for a pillar of salt to pass through the eye of a camel than to be out on a limb without a paddle.
For whom is SCO a front?
Fortunately for democracy in the USA, The Man is strictly limited in what He can do by the Patriot Act.
That's right, it did not. Because "Encyclopedia Brittanica" doesn't exist.
You don't have to believe me, look it up in Encyclopedia Britannica.
Reports of a hostage-taking in Redmond, Washington say that an unidentified man has taken several Microsoft employees hostage and has issued demands for bug fixes as well as the return of Clippy.
"I want system-modal Ok-Cancel dialogs to stop being buried under other dialogs," said the statement released by the man. "I want spyware completely removed from my computer and I want my registry to be less fragile."
"But most of all, I want Clippy back in MS Office. Clippy would have helped me write a better list of hostage-taker's demands."
I heartily concur!
Can we get back to discussing Microsoft Vista, SCO, Linux on the desktop, BSD's death, and Steve Ballmer's adult diaper?