I didn't say ignorant, nor do I even brush up against thinking that, nor do I ascribe the demographic to be only British. I just meant to express my frustration at the general lack of understanding of the history of Microsoft and the implications that lack of understanding brings.
I just think it unfortunate Microsoft skates on this. What is being passed off as at least a backhanded endorsement of or compliment for Microsoft is being done so courtesy of a meaningless survey.
Wow, I'm breathless and speechless! Just read the litany of comments
posted on the BBC article, collectively of which these posts represent the general
sentiment of the posting community.
If this is so, I'm devastated (but maybe I shouldn't be so surprised, as it is
consistent conversations I have casually with friends and family).
The general feelings seem to include:
Microsoft brought computing to the masses (what's wrong with that?)
Microsoft made lots of money by being good at what they do (what's wrong with
that?)
Microsoft made computers easy to use (what's wrong with that?)
Microsoft is powerful and is led by the charitable Mr. Gates (what's wrong with
that?)
Most disturbing is a seemingly cavalier attitude about what are historical data
regarding Microsoft's business practices, products, etc. As an excercise, note that
in the list above, each "what's wrong with that?" can be interpreted in two ways.
Why is everyone picking on Microsoft?
explain why the point is misguided (exercise left to readers).
As for Dvorak's speculation Microsoft is prepping to split into three companies,
I don't get that. Why would they? One of Microsoft's major
takeaways from the DOJ's penalty phase was not having to split up as a company.
I'm am not a businessman, but I can't see Microsoft splitting unless forced to. (Though
I wouldn't discount it as some huge PR spin to make it look like they're
taking steps to not be the evil empire anymore while behind closed doors (and through
underground tunnels) continuing to operate as a single company to ensure their
continued position in the marketplace.)
Great, a new acronym to learn and hate! (I hadn't been familiar with IFPI until a
couple of articles today... for those curious, it is
International Federation of Phonographic Industry which is ironic.)
Anyway, the assurance is that it removes only file sharing software. That in and of
itself is questionable policy both in technical feasibility (as in guranteed not to
do damage) and in philosophical sanity.
Next the assurance is no information will be uploaded or provided to any anti-piracy
organizations. Really? This from a demographic willing to intimidate
twelve year old girls with a team of high octane lawyers in legal torts? Trust us
this time. I don't think so.
It strikes me as interesting that the technology has come around to start eating
its own ass. Technology became good enough and inexpensive enough I saw it being
used to track consumers' tastes and buying habits permitting targetted and efficient
marketing. Now it appears to be fast, good, and inexpensive enough to be used to
snoop on consumers and make sure they "don't have things they're not supposed to
have". It's retarded, but it's what they're doing. (Yeah, I know there's the notion
of the illegality of sharing things like mp3's, etc., in it's purest analysis, but
before technology illegal "ownership" existed too. The difference as I see it is
the modern-day "pilfering" spawns more sales rather than subtracts from. Whether or
not I see that as rationalizing technically-illegal behavior is mostly moot, since
the entertaninment industry claims they're doing this to stop hemhorraging
sales.)
My experience has been that office workers (non-IT) are
not the only ones who are confused by IT jargon.
From the article:
Among office workers 26% aren't sure what a firewall does and
therefore have been tempted to turn it off.
Yeah, well a LOT of IT people don't really know what a firewall does either. I've
cringed at some of the definitions of firewalls I've heard peer IT workers
give for firewall. And, of those who have an inkling, I would not be surprised at all
if 75% of IT workers don't really know how and why firewalls work.
A massive 61% don't understand the difference between gigabytes, kilobytes and megabytes...
I've seen IT people play fast and loose with these terms too. I've been on projects
where estimations are off by 1 to 6 magnitudes because some erudite IT person didn't
understand the differences. (I got an emergency call one time because an entire
project was going to get canceled because a team member had confused baud (bits per
second) with Bps (bytes per second, combined with parity bits, essentially a magnitude
difference) and had said what we were attempting would kill our network. I walked
them through a pencil estimate and put them back on track that night with an estimate
of bandwidth within 2%.
Around 48% are confused by different kinds of files like Jpegs and
PDFs and don't know how they should be used.
Again, find me an IT team fo which the majority knows this, too. It's amazing how
many times jpg's vs. gif's vs. pdf vs. pbm, etc. are selected mostly on the basis of
only what the person involved knows.
further 23% are not sure whether to upload or download - requiring further conta
ct with the IT department for an explanation.
yeah, good luck getting consistent answers on this one. Again, my experience, IT
people can be amazingly clueless about the notion of "direction" and server-side
vs. client-side technology.
Nearly 75% of people said they spend more than an hour every week
simply trying to find out what something means in order to finish a task,
according to the survey by recruitment consultants Computer People.
Yeah, me too! The IT jargon is inconsistent, overloaded,
pseudointellectual, and obfuscated. It's a constantly moving target making true
currency in technology jargon a royal pain-in-the-ass.
And it isn't just the older generation who feel out of the loop -
more than one in two (54%) office workers under 30 have made a blunder
because of confusion over the meaning of IT jargon.
This is NOT a surprise. As may be inferred from my previous points, IT "experts"
probably reach this level of blundering also.
The fluid and obfuscated universe of IT jargon has long driven me crazy. And
foisting it on the lay community is a crime -- it's fscked enough in the IT universe,
who the heck would expect the user community to spend the time and energy to
stay current. I would like to think in an industry as driven by rigorous
technological underpinnings the language would distill to a more formal, stable, and
consistent language. Unfortunately, that's not been my observation.
Theory(?) The language is less driven by the technology and more
by the commercial/business bent, thus pushing all in IT to distinguish themselves
with the best and most sophisticated sounding terminology. (Just my theory.)
From the post: as part of a management shuffle, Microsoft said Tuesday
it would make hosted services a more strategic part of the company
I remember a few (several?) years back, this is the very thing Microsoft
was proposing as a new business model and technology approach for their products.
Interestingly, it's almost as if they'd considered this but deemed it unnecessary in
light of their near world dominance and there never were any developments around it.
Now, once again they're running scared and this time the threat could be real. I
don't doubt their tenacity and ability to respond but I do hope at some point here
they stumble badly enough that by the time they get back up the playing field
will have leveled (even if only somewhat).
Interestingly in this case they're going to be playing catch up with a concept
they first looked at.
Re: the "go out and buy another CD player", I wonder what Philips' stance will be
on all of this. Haven't they denied the right of DRM and copy-protected "CD"
distributors to actually call them CDs? Call the new "machines" what they are,
DRM/copy-protection capable CD-like players.
All I can say is I am sorry for the next generation of people who are introduced
to the entertainment marketplace. We who have so long been able to enjoy CDs as they
were originally defined, CDs that would play in our cars, would play in our home
entertainment centers, and on our computers. It seems that era may be ending. Sigh.
I suggest a meme, (hate that word)... start calling "DRM'ed CDs" something else. Say,
maybe non-standard-and-playable-only-on-certain-player-t hingies resembling CDs.
Yes, you can time-shift regular programming. But why should you be able to time-shift video-on-demand? I mean, you can start the show any time you wish, so it's not like it's only on at 8:00, and you need to record it so you can watch it at 9:00 when you get home.
The provider I have does not have video on demand. And, if they did, and were I to pay for it, I don't think I'd have any problem with not being able to record it. Heck, it doesn't even fit in the tivo paradigm (i.e., it's not a known scheduled show).
And part of pay-per-view is pay-PER-view.
Well, at least currently that's not entirely true. When I pay for my "pay per view", it is repeatedly available throughout the entire day. And I don't see the ability to record a pay-per-view and store it, then watch it more than once is the threat to the industry they claim it is. Most customers really will watch once or twice, it doesn't change the providers' bottom lines, and it doesn't change viewers' viewing habits. But, once you unleash the restrictions (how ironic) I think the potential backlash from customers could bring down the IP paranoids' houses of cards.
I appreciate your thoughts as devil's advocate. And I think you make valid points. I disagree that even in light of your points these restrictions are reasonable for the following reasons:
they're backpedaling on capabilities I originally had (and ostensibly paid for)
they're changing rules with no promises of not making more restrictive rule changes
hmmmm, my mind's a blank.... (but I won't be able to record anything on it
Bottom line, I don't trust anymore. I reached my fatigue threshold with seemingly getting one thing (in the world of gadgets) and ending up with something else less than what I'd originally expected.
Ever since I invested heavily in MD equipment first introduced by SONY, willingly paying the bleeding edge tax for what I thought was cool technology, and ever since Sony kept a white-knuckled grip on the control and licensing of that technology, effectively keeping the price sky high, and effectively killing it as a potential great medium, and effectively rendering my speculative investment worthless, I've avoided them like the plague.
Sony is very close to being the Microsoft of the electronics industry, except they haven't managed to garner the same dominant position (percentage-wise) in the electronics market as Microsoft has in the OS/software market. But, they keep trying with heavy-handed business practices, sky high (artificially) pricing, and proprietary non-interoperable (think memory sticks, "mp3" (heh) players, etc.) gadgets.
Maybe this shakeup can bring a change in attitude, a change in latitude, to their approach. I doubt it. But I can hope.
This is related to a previous article to which I posted my intent
were tivo/"the industry" to begin to rein in my ability to:
time shift
burn to dvd
xfer to computer
time shift and store indefinitely PPV
I would pretty much dump my tivo... since those are the features of tivo that make
television palatable. Since that related article, I've informally caucused friends and
family with the possible changes in tivo services/features. Every single
one of them agreed they'd not have use for tivo either. (And, they were
all very concerned that this could happen -- especially after I verified
with each one they were actually on the release of tivo that had these new "features".)
From what I've read, and my correspondence, tivo has resisted as well as they
could for as long as they could. I wonder how it must feel at tivo these days when
these fucktards start imposing their questionable (unethical) "standards"
unilaterally. Sheesh.
Kind of reminds me of and old, old, old Peanuts cartoon... Lucy sees
Linus playing with her toys, and in rage takes them all away. Linus is crestfallen,
and Lucy taking pity as she walks away tosses him a rubber band, "Here, you can play
with this". The next few frames show Linus becoming increasingly fascinated and
entertained by and with the rubber band until finally Linus is totally in rapture.
Lucy comes back, angrily rips that rubber band from Linus and says,
"I didn't mean for you to have that much fun with it!".
From your post: And then he'll push a couple buttons, curtains will raise, and some huge screen will blast "Office 13" and show videos about how all these new innovations have been replaced by the stuff that users wanted -- namely, a return to the regular menu.
You're probably right. We've seen this before (New Coke anyone?). But what is so sad about this instance is it'll be considered moving back what people already liked. But really all it is today is what people have adapted to. Today's Office menus and interface are amazingly obfuscated (dancing chevrons anyone?) and are a nightmare to use as well as support, but they're what people finally have gotten to know.
Sigh... BTW, Lucy, could you hold that football for Charlie?
"one time I had forgotten the key sequence to quit emacs"
That's not too hard:
Ctrl-X,Ctrl-C
Well, the whole point is if you don't remember it, it is way hard!:-)
I would be willing to bet out of a thousand people on the street if they were asked to provide 10 guesses how to exit emacs, and they had never used it before, NONE of the 10 guesses from the thousand people would be CTL-X CTL-C. There's just nothing mnenomic about it. So, when you get the brain fart, it's a nightmare! (And I even KNEW it was two keystrokes! And, I knew it involved the CTL key! No luck.)
As for the CTL-Z... that would've been nice but I happened to be running in a shell without job control... sigh.
Yeah, me too. I've been tempted numerous times into trying emacs again, but seem to always come back to vi/vim. Original speedbumps for me included (but not limited to) the ungodly resources required to run emacs (back then the machine could almost be brought to its knees by one emacs session, and the full package installation required juggling and managing available disk space...); the obfuscation factor of the META key -- one time I had forgotten the key sequence to quit emacs, and finally had to just abandon the frigging xterm session because I couldn't figure out how to get out of the edit session; and the ability of vi/vim to perform everything I needed without the obfuscation factor.
And, with minimal investment, vi/vim really approaches emacs in its abilities. I know that would trigger a religious flame war, but for my purposes, I believe it to be true. (I'm in no way dissing emacs, I'm amazed at its abilities, it's just not for me.)
Anyway, I agree with you -- emacs is tempting to want to learn -- the advocates tout it as the ultimate editing and shell environment... but, it really doesn't seem to give me the return on investment of time learning, installing, etc.
What about Google, though? It seems they are showing many of the traits that made Microsoft so strong. They're relatively new, innovative, providing useful products to the masses for cheap, and attracting talented people by good working conditions (including high salaries).
The same can be said about many new companies. The fact any new company becomes strong and offers products shouldn't make them fodder for comparisons to Microsoft. The differences in starting circumstances are striking. Most notably, in my opinion, is Microsoft was aggressive and arrogant from the very beginning. This was probably easy for them from their leader, himself an arrogant spoiled millionaire brat who dropped out of college, drove Daddy's Porsche cross country gathering speeding tickets while thumbing his nose at anyone who got in his way or disagreed with him. (Was he a genius?, a great business man? Maybe, but let's not think the beginnings of Microsoft and Google are really similar at all.)
As for vendor lockin with Google. I suppose it's a possibility, but their business model isn't based on selling products to consumers. It's based on advertisers and those advertiser's continued faith in Google's excellent consumer services. A 180 degree reversal of that bent by Google would greatly upset their user community and likely create a huge ding in their relationships with their true customers, the advertisers. Not likey, in my opinion.
And finally, from your post: I remember the days when Bill Gates was every nerd's idol. I don't, and I was around and working in IT back then already. Bill Gates has long been reviled by many for his arrogance and disdain for the rest of the world. Yeah, there were nerds and geeks who adored him, but every as a quantifier is a stretch. The guy was an asshole from day one.
Okay, I took the bait. Nasty hook marks in my mouth now.
If they're serious about this, how come when doing a search for linux in their "search all dell" option on their home page, I get no results around this new offering? If they were really proud of this and really intended to sell it it'd be nice if they made a bit more noise about it. This feels like PR.
I posted before on this and listed a few of my experiences and reasons for the unfortunate premature death of ebooks. Let me add another reason...
As always, I get all excited again when I think about the potential of ebooks and what they could bring. Seeing this slashdot article, I set out to google myself the latest and greatest. Turns out not much has changed.
Probably one of the most egregious and unforgivable injuries visited on the consumers is the lack of a price break. Consider:
So, for an ebook where they don't have to print the book, transport the book, pay the middleman bookstores, etc., they're going to charge $3 frigging more? Ya, right!
Ebook technology is backwards. The article pretty much is dead on (in summary:).
physically uncomfortable to read
not portable
incompatible formats
drm
In addition, ebook readers don't feel like or smell like books. I
saw Bill Gates give a presentation probably five years ago and he was hot for ebook
technology. He described how ebooks would simulate the look and feel of a book to the
extent that would be possible electronically. Virtually none of his listed features
have appeared (e.g., the ability to "flip" a page with your finger as if it were a
paper book).
As for the above listed reasons:
I purchased an early-on reader, a dedicated device. It was about 8x11 in size
and had a four-level grey screen. I figured that would be good. It was horrible.
Jagged fonts, poor contrast, after reading only a few pages I couldn't stand it any more.
NOTE: the standard for acceptability is not readability, it's
comfort! I returned that device the same day I received it.
A year later I got the new and improved version, same size, higher resolution and
in color! Virtually no improvement in the font rendering, I returned
that unit the same day also.
Portability is a big issue. While I can't carry 40 or 50 books around in my
briefcase at time (a big "feature" of ebooks), I don't generally finding a need to
do so. But the books I do want to carry around (usually one or two at a time) I can
easily do, and they're pretty much everywhere with me. For the same portability with
ebooks you have to manage your portability to the extent the provider will even allow
(which may not be much). Not a good start.
Incompatible formats may be one of the most maddening. I can buy books from Penguin,
O'Reilly, heck, even Microsoft Press, and they're all compatible, i.e., I don't have
to do anything to be able to read them anywhere. Of course they're quite inert, but
that's a characteristic people are familiar and comfortable in books, they even expect
that! If you're going to start extending into technology with ebooks, you better make
the extensions interoperable. People partition themselves in camps in OS and computer
technology. In books and ebook technology, that doesn't even make sense.
Last but not least, DRM. That was probably the second most irritating feature of
the devices I've tried. I could get cool things like newspapers, magazines, etc. in
ebook format, but how I could look at them and where and how many times was in the
hands of the provider. I'm just not ready to go there. I hope nobody is (but I fear they do).
Take for instance a study that I read not too long ago on suicide. (I've not been able to find a link and do apologize, but it was only a few months ago) It basically came down the the psychology of what drives people to suicide. It stated something to the fact that once there was a suicide by someone that was broadcast on the news, radio, or in papers that there were statistically more suicides following the dissemination of the news. The concluded after much research etc that it was the sheep mentality, where someone may be feeling really bad, depressed, or whatever and not thought of suicide until they heard about jon or jane doe last week. They decide to follow suit and committ suicide. It was an interesting article that made very good points, and again I apoloigize for not being able to locate it.
I know this all prolly goes under "way offtopic", but for your (and others) reference could you possibly be referencing this book ? If not, I almost suspect the article you are referencing may in some way be derivative. Regardless, offtopic and all, this is an amazing and astounding book on human behavior and dynamics... highly recommended...
Re:hmmm, how should we interpret his statement?
on
Bill Gates Speaks Out
·
· Score: 1
Not one afraid to admit my mistake, I got punked... I did read the article, but out of order, and let myself believe the reference was to the "Do No Evil".
CNET: So that would be the philosophical difference
between Microsoft and what Google is up to at this point?
Gates: Well,
we don't know everything they are up to, but we do know their slogan
and we disagree with that.
Wow, that really raises in interesting dilemma in interpretation.
On the one hand, does Gates disagree with Google's contention
that Google will do no evil? As in, does he think they're being hypocrits?
Or, on the other hand, is Gates projecting the true Microsoft philosopy,
as in Gates believes an approach like Google's "Do No Evil" is not a good
approach, and thus Microsoft has a different one.
The remainder of the exercise is left to the readers.
(For those who don't read all of the references, as a preamble to my post, an example of what is happening is some tivo owner had a two year old episode of "King of the Hill" deleted from his tivo without his permission!)
If this is true, and the direction turns to restrictions of what, when, and how I can use my tivo, I will be canceling that subscription, and ebaying the hardware while (and if) it retains any value. I have owned six tivos now, each time I've upgraded (I actually own two), I've "turned on" others to tivo by sending my oldest machine to them for free, they only had to pay the subscription fee.
I'm a huge fan of tivo, ergonomically, their system is as close to right as it comes. It's a great concept, implemented wonderfully.
But my relationship with television in general is already a tenuous thread and tivo is what's made it palatable. If they start putting restrictions like this in new releases, fuck them... I'm outta there.
I sometimes wonder who the fuckbrains are that think they're improving their IP situation by applying screws to customers this way.
This is good news all around (all right, maybe not for Mr. Ballmer) as it
underscores faith in the rights of employees to work for whom they want
when they want assuming they act in reasonably good faith (NOTE: this is a
standard hardly applied equitably to corporations.
If you read the transcripts it seems clear (to me at least) Microsoft
kind of blew it with this guy. They hired him for important work expanding
their market into China and hamstrung him in his ideas and proposals.
Also, as an aside, I got criticized for
my post
and my views about this issue. Most notable I feel vindicated in this portion of the
exchange:
(other poster:) A judge already ruled preliminarily in Microsoft's favor,
stating that Lee could not do the duties at Google he was hired to do.
My response (emphasis mine):
Getting the preliminary injunction in cases
like this is pretty standard procedure. No judge is going to allow a potential
violation of a contract (or crime) be committed is it can be checked first.
This is not unusual. I don't know what the final result will be here,
but I'm guessing Fu-Lee will prevail.
Also, for the record, in contrast to Tom Burt's crowing ""Dr. Lee is going to be the highest-paid HR manager ever.", Google's main goal was to have Lee to establish recruiting and expansion in China... And I doubt for a moment Lee won't be contributing to discussions about products and company directions. That part of the "contract" is just plain unenforcable.
In reading the posts I'm seeing extremes of the continuum: those who say yes, this is finally the straw that bows the camel's back; and those who say, yeah, like they said last year, and the year before, blah, blah, blah.
I think reality is somewhere in between. Yes, Microsoft continues to hold sway in their dominance and yes, every time they make a new release (less and less often, by the way) the silence of people rushing to linux is deafening.
But there is ample evidence of chinks in Microsoft's armor and a soft underbelly starts to show. Consider the high profile of large customers lately deciding to at least pressure Microsoft by making public their decision or pseudo-decision to go with open source alternatives (consider MA, and some foreign countries).
Historically no company can dominate forever, and eventually I think critical mass will be achieved and linux will gain the foothold and purchase it probably deserves. At least I hope so. I used to be gungho in my knowing linux would waltz over Microsoft but I know better now. It's more complicated, and Microsoft is a juggernaut and will be difficult to knock from the top of the hill.
Be patient, be faithful, Linux has legs and is learning to walk.
Don't do what the former Windows admin did
in our shop when he came in to run our Sun Servers. He noticed one server had been
up for 555 days, and over the weekend re-booted it for us. Unix knows how to run
for long periods of time without failing. Unix expects to run for
long periods of time without failing.
See rule number 1.
what about re-training costs?
on
Office 12 Exposed
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Seems to me this interface is different enough it would almost require re-training for many users (I'm guessing the syllabuses are being cranked out by the one-week training class industry right now)? And, considering the retraining, what about the costs? Isn't this exactly the argument MS used against MA's decision to move to Open Documents? Really, looking at this interface, I wouldn't even consider unleashing it on my parents, who are already confused enough by the current Office Suite interface (chevrons in the pulldown menus, etc.)
Maybe this makes sense since so many promised features for Vista have pre-emptively (the only pre-emption MS does well, btw) deleted or scaled back leaving the anticipated new OS not very new at all. However, stratifying the offering (I've always HATED the Home vs Pro distinction, mainly you can use IIS -- yeah, THAT's worth $100) makes Vista seem different than XP. Good move on MS' part.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't say ignorant, nor do I even brush up against thinking that, nor do I ascribe the demographic to be only British. I just meant to express my frustration at the general lack of understanding of the history of Microsoft and the implications that lack of understanding brings.
I just think it unfortunate Microsoft skates on this. What is being passed off as at least a backhanded endorsement of or compliment for Microsoft is being done so courtesy of a meaningless survey.
Anyway, apologies all around if I've offended.
Wow, I'm breathless and speechless! Just read the litany of comments posted on the BBC article, collectively of which these posts represent the general sentiment of the posting community.
If this is so, I'm devastated (but maybe I shouldn't be so surprised, as it is consistent conversations I have casually with friends and family). The general feelings seem to include:
Most disturbing is a seemingly cavalier attitude about what are historical data regarding Microsoft's business practices, products, etc. As an excercise, note that in the list above, each "what's wrong with that?" can be interpreted in two ways.
As for Dvorak's speculation Microsoft is prepping to split into three companies, I don't get that. Why would they? One of Microsoft's major takeaways from the DOJ's penalty phase was not having to split up as a company. I'm am not a businessman, but I can't see Microsoft splitting unless forced to. (Though I wouldn't discount it as some huge PR spin to make it look like they're taking steps to not be the evil empire anymore while behind closed doors (and through underground tunnels) continuing to operate as a single company to ensure their continued position in the marketplace.)
Great, a new acronym to learn and hate! (I hadn't been familiar with IFPI until a couple of articles today... for those curious, it is International Federation of Phonographic Industry which is ironic.)
Anyway, the assurance is that it removes only file sharing software. That in and of itself is questionable policy both in technical feasibility (as in guranteed not to do damage) and in philosophical sanity.
Next the assurance is no information will be uploaded or provided to any anti-piracy organizations. Really? This from a demographic willing to intimidate twelve year old girls with a team of high octane lawyers in legal torts? Trust us this time. I don't think so.
It strikes me as interesting that the technology has come around to start eating its own ass. Technology became good enough and inexpensive enough I saw it being used to track consumers' tastes and buying habits permitting targetted and efficient marketing. Now it appears to be fast, good, and inexpensive enough to be used to snoop on consumers and make sure they "don't have things they're not supposed to have". It's retarded, but it's what they're doing. (Yeah, I know there's the notion of the illegality of sharing things like mp3's, etc., in it's purest analysis, but before technology illegal "ownership" existed too. The difference as I see it is the modern-day "pilfering" spawns more sales rather than subtracts from. Whether or not I see that as rationalizing technically-illegal behavior is mostly moot, since the entertaninment industry claims they're doing this to stop hemhorraging sales.)
My experience has been that office workers (non-IT) are not the only ones who are confused by IT jargon.
From the article:
Yeah, well a LOT of IT people don't really know what a firewall does either. I've cringed at some of the definitions of firewalls I've heard peer IT workers give for firewall. And, of those who have an inkling, I would not be surprised at all if 75% of IT workers don't really know how and why firewalls work.
I've seen IT people play fast and loose with these terms too. I've been on projects where estimations are off by 1 to 6 magnitudes because some erudite IT person didn't understand the differences. (I got an emergency call one time because an entire project was going to get canceled because a team member had confused baud (bits per second) with Bps (bytes per second, combined with parity bits, essentially a magnitude difference) and had said what we were attempting would kill our network. I walked them through a pencil estimate and put them back on track that night with an estimate of bandwidth within 2%.
Again, find me an IT team fo which the majority knows this, too. It's amazing how many times jpg's vs. gif's vs. pdf vs. pbm, etc. are selected mostly on the basis of only what the person involved knows.
yeah, good luck getting consistent answers on this one. Again, my experience, IT people can be amazingly clueless about the notion of "direction" and server-side vs. client-side technology.
Yeah, me too! The IT jargon is inconsistent, overloaded, pseudointellectual, and obfuscated. It's a constantly moving target making true currency in technology jargon a royal pain-in-the-ass.
This is NOT a surprise. As may be inferred from my previous points, IT "experts" probably reach this level of blundering also.
The fluid and obfuscated universe of IT jargon has long driven me crazy. And foisting it on the lay community is a crime -- it's fscked enough in the IT universe, who the heck would expect the user community to spend the time and energy to stay current. I would like to think in an industry as driven by rigorous technological underpinnings the language would distill to a more formal, stable, and consistent language. Unfortunately, that's not been my observation.
Theory(?) The language is less driven by the technology and more by the commercial/business bent, thus pushing all in IT to distinguish themselves with the best and most sophisticated sounding terminology. (Just my theory.)
From the post: as part of a management shuffle, Microsoft said Tuesday it would make hosted services a more strategic part of the company
I remember a few (several?) years back, this is the very thing Microsoft was proposing as a new business model and technology approach for their products. Interestingly, it's almost as if they'd considered this but deemed it unnecessary in light of their near world dominance and there never were any developments around it. Now, once again they're running scared and this time the threat could be real. I don't doubt their tenacity and ability to respond but I do hope at some point here they stumble badly enough that by the time they get back up the playing field will have leveled (even if only somewhat).
Interestingly in this case they're going to be playing catch up with a concept they first looked at.
Re: the "go out and buy another CD player", I wonder what Philips' stance will be on all of this. Haven't they denied the right of DRM and copy-protected "CD" distributors to actually call them CDs? Call the new "machines" what they are, DRM/copy-protection capable CD-like players.
All I can say is I am sorry for the next generation of people who are introduced to the entertainment marketplace. We who have so long been able to enjoy CDs as they were originally defined, CDs that would play in our cars, would play in our home entertainment centers, and on our computers. It seems that era may be ending. Sigh.
I suggest a meme, (hate that word)... start calling "DRM'ed CDs" something else. Say, maybe non-standard-and-playable-only-on-certain-player-t hingies resembling CDs.
The provider I have does not have video on demand. And, if they did, and were I to pay for it, I don't think I'd have any problem with not being able to record it. Heck, it doesn't even fit in the tivo paradigm (i.e., it's not a known scheduled show).
Well, at least currently that's not entirely true. When I pay for my "pay per view", it is repeatedly available throughout the entire day. And I don't see the ability to record a pay-per-view and store it, then watch it more than once is the threat to the industry they claim it is. Most customers really will watch once or twice, it doesn't change the providers' bottom lines, and it doesn't change viewers' viewing habits. But, once you unleash the restrictions (how ironic) I think the potential backlash from customers could bring down the IP paranoids' houses of cards.
I appreciate your thoughts as devil's advocate. And I think you make valid points. I disagree that even in light of your points these restrictions are reasonable for the following reasons:
Bottom line, I don't trust anymore. I reached my fatigue threshold with seemingly getting one thing (in the world of gadgets) and ending up with something else less than what I'd originally expected.
Ever since I invested heavily in MD equipment first introduced by SONY, willingly paying the bleeding edge tax for what I thought was cool technology, and ever since Sony kept a white-knuckled grip on the control and licensing of that technology, effectively keeping the price sky high, and effectively killing it as a potential great medium, and effectively rendering my speculative investment worthless, I've avoided them like the plague.
Sony is very close to being the Microsoft of the electronics industry, except they haven't managed to garner the same dominant position (percentage-wise) in the electronics market as Microsoft has in the OS/software market. But, they keep trying with heavy-handed business practices, sky high (artificially) pricing, and proprietary non-interoperable (think memory sticks, "mp3" (heh) players, etc.) gadgets.
Maybe this shakeup can bring a change in attitude, a change in latitude, to their approach. I doubt it. But I can hope.
This is related to a previous article to which I posted my intent were tivo/"the industry" to begin to rein in my ability to:
I would pretty much dump my tivo... since those are the features of tivo that make television palatable. Since that related article, I've informally caucused friends and family with the possible changes in tivo services/features. Every single one of them agreed they'd not have use for tivo either. (And, they were all very concerned that this could happen -- especially after I verified with each one they were actually on the release of tivo that had these new "features".)
From what I've read, and my correspondence, tivo has resisted as well as they could for as long as they could. I wonder how it must feel at tivo these days when these fucktards start imposing their questionable (unethical) "standards" unilaterally. Sheesh.
Kind of reminds me of and old, old, old Peanuts cartoon... Lucy sees Linus playing with her toys, and in rage takes them all away. Linus is crestfallen, and Lucy taking pity as she walks away tosses him a rubber band, "Here, you can play with this". The next few frames show Linus becoming increasingly fascinated and entertained by and with the rubber band until finally Linus is totally in rapture. Lucy comes back, angrily rips that rubber band from Linus and says, "I didn't mean for you to have that much fun with it!".
From your post: And then he'll push a couple buttons, curtains will raise, and some huge screen will blast "Office 13" and show videos about how all these new innovations have been replaced by the stuff that users wanted -- namely, a return to the regular menu.
You're probably right. We've seen this before (New Coke anyone?). But what is so sad about this instance is it'll be considered moving back what people already liked . But really all it is today is what people have adapted to. Today's Office menus and interface are amazingly obfuscated (dancing chevrons anyone?) and are a nightmare to use as well as support, but they're what people finally have gotten to know.
Sigh... BTW, Lucy, could you hold that football for Charlie?
Well, the whole point is if you don't remember it, it is way hard! :-)
I would be willing to bet out of a thousand people on the street if they were asked to provide 10 guesses how to exit emacs, and they had never used it before, NONE of the 10 guesses from the thousand people would be CTL-X CTL-C. There's just nothing mnenomic about it. So, when you get the brain fart, it's a nightmare! (And I even KNEW it was two keystrokes! And, I knew it involved the CTL key! No luck.)
As for the CTL-Z... that would've been nice but I happened to be running in a shell without job control... sigh.
Yeah, me too. I've been tempted numerous times into trying emacs again, but seem to always come back to vi/vim. Original speedbumps for me included (but not limited to) the ungodly resources required to run emacs (back then the machine could almost be brought to its knees by one emacs session, and the full package installation required juggling and managing available disk space...); the obfuscation factor of the META key -- one time I had forgotten the key sequence to quit emacs, and finally had to just abandon the frigging xterm session because I couldn't figure out how to get out of the edit session; and the ability of vi/vim to perform everything I needed without the obfuscation factor. And, with minimal investment, vi/vim really approaches emacs in its abilities. I know that would trigger a religious flame war, but for my purposes, I believe it to be true. (I'm in no way dissing emacs, I'm amazed at its abilities, it's just not for me.) Anyway, I agree with you -- emacs is tempting to want to learn -- the advocates tout it as the ultimate editing and shell environment... but, it really doesn't seem to give me the return on investment of time learning, installing, etc.
The same can be said about many new companies. The fact any new company becomes strong and offers products shouldn't make them fodder for comparisons to Microsoft. The differences in starting circumstances are striking. Most notably, in my opinion, is Microsoft was aggressive and arrogant from the very beginning. This was probably easy for them from their leader, himself an arrogant spoiled millionaire brat who dropped out of college, drove Daddy's Porsche cross country gathering speeding tickets while thumbing his nose at anyone who got in his way or disagreed with him. (Was he a genius?, a great business man? Maybe, but let's not think the beginnings of Microsoft and Google are really similar at all.)
As for vendor lockin with Google. I suppose it's a possibility, but their business model isn't based on selling products to consumers. It's based on advertisers and those advertiser's continued faith in Google's excellent consumer services. A 180 degree reversal of that bent by Google would greatly upset their user community and likely create a huge ding in their relationships with their true customers, the advertisers. Not likey, in my opinion.
And finally, from your post: I remember the days when Bill Gates was every nerd's idol. I don't, and I was around and working in IT back then already. Bill Gates has long been reviled by many for his arrogance and disdain for the rest of the world. Yeah, there were nerds and geeks who adored him, but every as a quantifier is a stretch. The guy was an asshole from day one.
Okay, I took the bait. Nasty hook marks in my mouth now.
If they're serious about this, how come when doing a search for linux in their "search all dell" option on their home page, I get no results around this new offering? If they were really proud of this and really intended to sell it it'd be nice if they made a bit more noise about it. This feels like PR.
I posted before on this and listed a few of my experiences and reasons for the unfortunate premature death of ebooks. Let me add another reason...
As always, I get all excited again when I think about the potential of ebooks and what they could bring. Seeing this slashdot article, I set out to google myself the latest and greatest. Turns out not much has changed.
Probably one of the most egregious and unforgivable injuries visited on the consumers is the lack of a price break. Consider:
So, for an ebook where they don't have to print the book, transport the book, pay the middleman bookstores, etc., they're going to charge $3 frigging more? Ya, right!
Ebook technology is backwards. The article pretty much is dead on (in summary:).
In addition, ebook readers don't feel like or smell like books. I saw Bill Gates give a presentation probably five years ago and he was hot for ebook technology. He described how ebooks would simulate the look and feel of a book to the extent that would be possible electronically. Virtually none of his listed features have appeared (e.g., the ability to "flip" a page with your finger as if it were a paper book).
As for the above listed reasons:
A year later I got the new and improved version, same size, higher resolution and in color! Virtually no improvement in the font rendering, I returned that unit the same day also.
From your post....
I know this all prolly goes under "way offtopic", but for your (and others) reference could you possibly be referencing this book ? If not, I almost suspect the article you are referencing may in some way be derivative. Regardless, offtopic and all, this is an amazing and astounding book on human behavior and dynamics... highly recommended...
Not one afraid to admit my mistake, I got punked... I did read the article, but out of order, and let myself believe the reference was to the "Do No Evil".
It was not. Withdrawn.
Wow, that really raises in interesting dilemma in interpretation.
The remainder of the exercise is left to the readers.
(For those who don't read all of the references, as a preamble to my post, an example of what is happening is some tivo owner had a two year old episode of "King of the Hill" deleted from his tivo without his permission!)
If this is true, and the direction turns to restrictions of what, when, and how I can use my tivo, I will be canceling that subscription, and ebaying the hardware while (and if) it retains any value. I have owned six tivos now, each time I've upgraded (I actually own two), I've "turned on" others to tivo by sending my oldest machine to them for free, they only had to pay the subscription fee.
I'm a huge fan of tivo, ergonomically, their system is as close to right as it comes. It's a great concept, implemented wonderfully.
But my relationship with television in general is already a tenuous thread and tivo is what's made it palatable. If they start putting restrictions like this in new releases, fuck them... I'm outta there.
I sometimes wonder who the fuckbrains are that think they're improving their IP situation by applying screws to customers this way.
This is good news all around (all right, maybe not for Mr. Ballmer) as it underscores faith in the rights of employees to work for whom they want when they want assuming they act in reasonably good faith (NOTE: this is a standard hardly applied equitably to corporations.
If you read the transcripts it seems clear (to me at least) Microsoft kind of blew it with this guy. They hired him for important work expanding their market into China and hamstrung him in his ideas and proposals.
Also, as an aside, I got criticized for my post and my views about this issue. Most notable I feel vindicated in this portion of the exchange:
My response (emphasis mine):Also, for the record, in contrast to Tom Burt's crowing ""Dr. Lee is going to be the highest-paid HR manager ever.", Google's main goal was to have Lee to establish recruiting and expansion in China... And I doubt for a moment Lee won't be contributing to discussions about products and company directions. That part of the "contract" is just plain unenforcable.
In reading the posts I'm seeing extremes of the continuum: those who say yes, this is finally the straw that bows the camel's back; and those who say, yeah, like they said last year, and the year before, blah, blah, blah.
I think reality is somewhere in between. Yes, Microsoft continues to hold sway in their dominance and yes, every time they make a new release (less and less often, by the way) the silence of people rushing to linux is deafening.
But there is ample evidence of chinks in Microsoft's armor and a soft underbelly starts to show. Consider the high profile of large customers lately deciding to at least pressure Microsoft by making public their decision or pseudo-decision to go with open source alternatives (consider MA, and some foreign countries).
Historically no company can dominate forever, and eventually I think critical mass will be achieved and linux will gain the foothold and purchase it probably deserves. At least I hope so. I used to be gungho in my knowing linux would waltz over Microsoft but I know better now. It's more complicated, and Microsoft is a juggernaut and will be difficult to knock from the top of the hill.
Be patient, be faithful, Linux has legs and is learning to walk.
Well, maybe rule number one:
Seems to me this interface is different enough it would almost require re-training for many users (I'm guessing the syllabuses are being cranked out by the one-week training class industry right now)? And, considering the retraining, what about the costs? Isn't this exactly the argument MS used against MA's decision to move to Open Documents? Really, looking at this interface, I wouldn't even consider unleashing it on my parents, who are already confused enough by the current Office Suite interface (chevrons in the pulldown menus, etc.)
Maybe this makes sense since so many promised features for Vista have pre-emptively (the only pre-emption MS does well, btw) deleted or scaled back leaving the anticipated new OS not very new at all. However, stratifying the offering (I've always HATED the Home vs Pro distinction, mainly you can use IIS -- yeah, THAT's worth $100) makes Vista seem different than XP. Good move on MS' part.