The RIAA sometimes reminds me of Steve Martin in the movie The Jerk. Their ability (and the Jerk's) to associate cause and effect is just plain bizarre. Of course in the case of Steve Martin and the Jerk it's forgivable since the Jerk is supposed to be stupid!
In The Jerk Steve Martin is the idiot who, when a crazed sniper fires on him and starts asploding cans all around him, Martin jumps to the conclusion the cans are defective. When confronted with the reality there really is in fact a sniper shooting, he then jumps to the conclusion the sniper wants to shoot the cans. A memorably funny scene in a memorably funny movie for its day.
Fast forward to the insanity that is the music industry and RIAA. First it's music downloading and "piracy" that's killing them and CD sales even though contradicted by superimposed plots of downloaded songs and CD sales during the emergence and heyday of Napster (CD sales spiked identically with spiked activity in music downloads). Now it's people burning CD's. Obviously as this ship sinks, the people at the helm of the RIAA have been under water a few times and are now drawing conclusions with oxygen-starved brains. Idiots.
Fortunately, this is all evolution at its best and I predict the day will(maybe even soon!) come where the RIAA becomes largely irrelevant as musicians figure the business models out for themselves. Maybe we'll never see the juggernauts like the Beatles again because of the new model, but there sure are plenty of talented musicians out there just waiting to be heard. Lowering their threshold to market entry can be only a good thing.
Okay, just shoot me now, but I'm tossing out the car analogy again here.
Wouldn't this tactic by Microsoft be analogous to some car manufacturer requiring anyone wanting to make add-ons for their car pay some licensing fee? For example, VW might require anyone making floor mats for their Beetle to pay a licensing fee before they could do so. Or, Honda may charge Panasonic if Panasonic wanted to make a CD/Receiver in-dash player add-on for the Accord.
Seems perfectly legal (I guess), but, sheesh!, it seems childish and greedy.... oh, wait... Microsoft... ummmm, never mind.
I love Microsoft. Absolutely adore it and what's more, I hate Linux. I think it's the most over rated piece of software ever built and survives simply out of spite and not because it is terribly good at doing something because it is not!
I think that quote from your article says almost all. You adore Microsoft. Good for you. You hate [L]inux (it's not capitalized). Good for you. That's really about the only objective part of you article. You don't think linux is good at doing something? You're opinion... It's misguide at best, but it's really wrong. Did you know at Microsoft for the longest time their e-mail servers were Unix machines? That was because their e-mail applications weren't up to the task. This I know because I worked there. Haven't checked recently, so I don't know if they're still using unix for e-mail.
Also, some of the world's largest, most complex, and savviest applications are running on linux platforms. Do you ever use Google? Google (last time I checked) is up over 40,000 linux servers running the show. Ever shop at Amazon? Amazon runs almost exclusively on linux and Solaris (Sun) boxes under the covers.
This reminds me of the bundled issues with the antitrust lawsuits being slammed on it. It's just sad, unfair and uncompetitive. Basically what the stupid courts in Europe said was, hey, you're doing a great job, and you must pay for it! This coming from a bunch of people who couldn't even agree on a constitution!
Sad, unfair and uncompetitive? Maybe you're only fifteen years old. If you were older and had any sense of history and knew what Microsoft has done in the past you'd understand better. Microsoft has gotten where it is, become what it is, with blatant disregard for fair and competitive business practices. (Not sure what "agreeing on a constitution" has to do with anything in your thesis.)
Continue to love Microsoft, it's a warm fuzzy world from your view. You obviously are part of the target demographic.
You're probably going to get hammered for your column. You deserve it.
I read somewhere (wish I could remember where) that really good programmers can be on the order of a magnitude better in programming than average programmers (in lines of code, time needed to write working code) and over the span of years, that ratio of better performance remains constant. Based on my experience this is probably close to the truth.
I don't know why anyone hasn't thought of this before, maybe it's just seredipity on my part. NASA should talk with the packaging industry, e.g., RIAA and how they package CD's (don't remember the last time I've opened a CD without it damaging the knife, jewel case, my hand, etc.), or the computer industry. I just purchased a logitech mouse and after what I went through to get the friggin' mouse out of its packaging, I'm pretty sure some of these materials and techniques could be useful in creating a more sound Shuttle. Certainly they're at least up to re-entry heat and forces.
Vonage ranked best for "most reliable" with 99.4% uptime
Personally having worked in the telcom industry for years my experience has been not only would people be fired for providing phone service as low as 99.4% availability, but the telco delivering that kind of service would likely be subject to some hefty fines, and some potential lawsuits.
For some hyperbole and perspective, if the takeoff/landing reliability of commercial airliners were of that order, of the approximately 25,000 commercial flights taking off and landing each day, there would be about 300 incidents each day. Some may consider it an invalid comparison, but when the telcos were the only game in town, their role and function and criticality to the functioning of our society approached that level of urgency.
Is it reliable (how many keystrokes is it designed for lifetime?)?
Is it comfortable, is the key travel and feel well done?
(for me), Is it reasonably quiet? (I'd really like to find a nice silent keyboard, but at least it has to be about 20 db quieter than the monolith I'm banging away on right now (at a friend's house).)
last, but for me most importantly, are the pretty pictures on the left-hand column of keys configurable? There's no way in Hell I'm ever buying a keyboard with a picture of the IE icon on one of its keys! For less expensive keyboards I satisfied and content with ripping out the Microsoft menu keys (though it's landed me in hot water at work a couple of times), but for something this (probably) expensive, those pictures had better be configurable!
I think there are two main factions here, and the answer for what constitutes better security has slightly different context with significantly different results.
First, from the article: He added that Microsoft had made real progress on security in the past two years. This is true. But, Microsoft started from an awfully low level of security. And, yes they've done much to automate patches, make updates easier, etc., in my opinion, the one missing piece is they haven't collaborated with the Windows Applications community (Microsoft, itself, and third parties) to figure out the least authorized user problem. So, for the uninitiated, and the lay people, Windows continues to be a world where, out of the box, people set up their boxen with everyone at administrator privelege levels. Heck, most of the times I still go to people's homes and find they don't really even bother to set up separate accounts for users.
For all of these people their machines are ticking time bombs, and I'm usually the one who gets the call when their world of computer technology explodes. This by itself is reason enough to consider other technologies where by default they are secure. For example, Apple does a good job (not perfect) of making their machines secure... I won't go into great depth -- I'm not a heavy Mac user.
Also, linux by default comes out of the box with decent security. Even if users do try to just use, e.g., KDE an root only, they (as I recall) have to fight off the big red screen background, kind of like the enunciator lights and bells in cars when you don't fasten your seat belts.
So, in the lay community, though Windows carries the popular vote, I think linux out of the box is by far the more secure and safe way to go.
On the other hand, many companies have wised up (though not all) to the notion of restricting the default access of their employees, i.e., they do not get administrator priveleges to control their own boxen. This creates a more stable, manageable, and secure environment for companies, but at what cost? Given that by the articles own words, "Engates added that his company manages 13,000 servers, roughly half of which are open source and half Microsoft. He claims to see little difference between the security on either platform.", and given that not having administrator access in Windows can be so problematic because of ill conceived applications (see item 1.) and mismatched access to data, if I could forgo reliance on Windows applications I would choose to deploy as much linux in a company as I could.
needs to do to get there for the "regular user" AKA mom, dad and grandma Bootsie
(First off, I'm a little nervous about how the OP knew my grandma's name.)
If you don't help newbies with linux, especially ones not very technical, then linux may not be ready for mom, dad, and grandma. Applying this standard implies also then Windows is not ready for mom, dad, and grandma. I've spent countless hours (that I can't charge, and I'll NEVER get back) fixing, re-installing, helping, instructing, etc. in a support role for my parents from Windows 95 through Windows XP.
And, guess what? They're still struggling. Part of this stems from the fact they missed the technical revolution (and lest you diss my parents, one is a Doctor, the other is a Concert Violinist, played in the Pittsburgh Symphony). But most of it stems from the intractable problem of rendering technology intuitive and transparent to the lay-person.
Interestingly this problem plagues both Windows and linux. Interestingly, for Windows what I've found in coaxing my parents along the learning curve is Microsoft has done much if not most to make Windows obfuscated to my parents. Each new generation has left them re-learning pieces of the environment they had just about almost mastered... (they were this close!)
But, I do think linux is up to the desktop task for many who use the internet for mostly surfing, e-mail, quick word docs, and simple spreadsheets. And I think linux actually fares better simply for the rock solid reliability. I haven't set up my parents with linux because I live 2000 miles away from them, so I'm a little paranoid that should something really bizarre happen, I wouldn't know who to have help them, while with Windows, though it demands more support, if I'm not available, there's always some quasi-pseudo expert ready to jump in and "fix" things.
However I have set up others with linux, and I've been amazed... the support calls simply stop! This is for people who satisfy the above criteria: internet surfers; e-mail junkies; and simple "office" tasks. The linux just works. There's probably a larger demographic out there that could use linux than most people think.
Nothing could possibly be less important than teaching kids when you think they should use "which" and when "that," etc. There is nothing wrong with language change, and the way it happens is that kids start speaking differently than their parents.
I'm going to take issue with you on one part, and agree with you on another:
(agree): There is nothing wrong with language change. This is true, and I think language change is essential to reflect and adapt to the evolution of society. But change in language and incomplete understanding of language usage are two different things (see next item).
(disagree): Nothing could possibly be less important than teaching kids when you think they should use "which" and when "that". Actually I think the opposite. Nothing could be more important. The nuances of semantics are greatly influenced by the mastery of underlying grammar principles. While these nuances can be highly elegant and esoteric, they are also important for a baseline of proper communication. While jargon, slang, and idiomatic speech and writing is generally decipherable, there is a reason for underlying structure. As for your point that these grammar "rules" were made up centuries ago, they weren't. Some rules we know today may have started there, but many are recent. Grammar, like language evolves.
stop inflating grades (a recent article reflected on how many schools now have so many valedictorians (one in Seattle actually had 47 valedictorians!) that many have had to dispense with the tradition of having valedictorian address the graduating classes). (The New Yorker article is here and is a long, but worthwhile read.)
more emphasis on (mathematics) basics. Get rid of the calculators, at least until after the fundamentals are assuredly learned. Make students learn how to use slide rules, for the sake and feel of what is really happening during calculations (addition of log tables... illustrates nice short cuts for coming up with fast and accurate estimates for seemingly complex "problems")
more emphasis on (language skills) basics. It would be nice to go an entire day without something totally illiterate on the CNN Headline News crawler. (We once had a "discussion" with our daughter's teacher because he said he wasn't so much interested in her spelling correctly and applying grammatical principles correctly as he was in what she was saying. While we agreed what she was trying to say was important, we felt it equally important (for a fifth grader) to be grounded in grammatical and spelling fundamentals)
stop moving kids onto the next grade if they really didn't perform at the level necessary. It's become an "everybody gets a trophy" society, and that's not consistent with the real world. Kids more than ever need to understand rewards and accountability.
standards of competency for teachers (rather than tenure by unions). We once accused our daughter of "doctoring" a bad grade when she brought it back with an updated "note" from her teacher. We were convinced she had not met with the teacher because the "note" on her paper from the teacher was illiterate. We were all embarrassed when we confronted the teacher and found he indeed had written the note (maybe that's why he was not so interested in our daughter's grammar).
stop relying on technology as the next silver bullet in transcendental teaching philosophies and techniques
get rid of MTV
There are probably more, but this might be a good start.
I don't know which came first, jargon-talk, or politically correct speech, but somewhere in the last thirty years, speech and writing has become more about saying something with empahis on:
not saying anything
not saying anything that could hurt someone's feelings or sensibilities
saying one thing but meaning something else
saying something with wiggle room for subsequent repudiation
saying something that wasn't asked for (not answering the question)
Maybe, though I get slaughtered sometimes, that's why I like slashdot... slashdotters give as good as they take. And usually say what they mean, or at least try. Case in point, how simple could a mission statement (hate that term) be other than "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." be?
I jumped off the politcally correct band wagon years ago when two "corrections" juxtaposed themselves:
An "instructor" in a sensitivity seminar (required by my company) stopped me mid-sentence after I used the term "black and white" and "corrected" it with "cut and dried". I argued a bit that the the difference between "black and white" and "cut and dried" (semantically) was, in fact, black and white, which of course she appreciated not at all.
A memo arrived one day to all employees with a list of terms no longer allowed to be used in company writings, correspondence, etc. One term, "maiden voyage". Of course I couldn't get to my terminal soon enough to create some paper where I could work "maiden voyage" into the text.
You all can fight back by using candid, frank, and direct language. But, you'll pay a price. Utlimately though I think you'll find it much more satisfying.
free Puff Piece for Microsoft? Here?
on
Ballmer on Innovation
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
This interview doesn't shed much light on an already dark and
rainy corporation. How could this be anything but intellectual masturbation
on Microsoft's part when you have a Microsoft employee slow pitching to the
biggest windbag at Microsoft? Especially when the two appear to be patting
themselves on the back about the fact that Microsoft really does innovate.
Aside from the fact Ballmer is amazingly general in his
list of innovations, the interviewer asks questions about
other companies and if those companies out-innovated Microsoft. Of
course, the response is they didn't.
But the interviewer might have asked
some more thoughtful questions in that line like:
Did MicroPro out-innovate us? (first word processor
WordPro)
Did Bricklin and Frankston out-innovate us? (fist spreadsheet...
VisiCalc)
Did Netscape out-innovate us? (guess!)
Did Google...
Did DARPA? (internet, TCP/IP, etc.)
Not sure why, but even on slashdot Microsoft manages to get some Puff
Pieces.
Never underestimate the human ear and its ability to pick (pun intended) the poser. I've heard of the obsolescence by technology of so many things musical that never really got there.
One I fondly remember was a report on the CBS Evening News, granted, it was a long time ago, but the point is valid today... They played a video clip of an orchestra playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and asked, "What's wrong with this picture?". I remember thinking, aside from the really crappy quality of sound, hard to say. Their punchline? The music was from a synthesizer, NOT the orchestra (yawn).
This experience (for me at least) is not unique. I had to toss my "white noise" generator I used to help sleep at night... over a period of time my ears picked up the "random" pattern and it actually became an irritant, not a mask of other ambient noise.
I also own a Yamaha high-end keyboard (full 88 key, acceleration keys, 128 voice polyphonic), and it's main piano "voice" was digitally sampled from a Steinway. It sounds wonderful, but I could pick the Yamaha out of a bunch of real pianos from a mile away. The pitch was always too perfect, the decay was always to predictable, etc.
Have you ever listened to a musical recording and found the laid down "generated rhythm" track so perfect it was annoying? I have.
Technology can do some interesting things in music, none of them human. If technology is used create an instrument played by a human, that's one thing... Technology to play an instrument is quite another, and in my opinion will never approach the real thing. If you've listened a lot to classical, it's pretty easy to pick out Stern, or Perlman as the violinist on the same piece. Likewise it's pretty easy to recognize Vladimir on piano.
First, reading the article, paragraph, how many people know what the heck coruscating
means? (definition here)
Anyway I don't know where the line is, but somewhere it is there albeit not a bright line.
I loved the re-mix (don't remember who, don't remember the name of the song) where
Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride was the core of the piece but I would be
disappointed if credit isn't extended and a cut of the profit isn't provided to
Steppenwolf for providing the original inspiration and music. Certainly if someone
were to digitally re-master any song in its purest and most original form and release
that as their own work they would be guilty of out and out ripoff. But, a song with hints
of the motif or melody of some other work is more subtle and probably more difficult
to clearly state theft of said original work.
In classical music it was quite common for composers to "rip off" a theme or motif
of another composer and incorporate it into another original work. In many cases it
was considered the ultimate homage to the original creator.
I guess for me it boils down to how much is added by the "new" artist's work. Some
of the re-mixes I've heard come pretty darned close to ripoffs.
For those interested, here is another article just popped up in the Seattle Times on the very same thing. I think the claims on "reaction" to spyware are a little more gentle (e.g., being more vigilant... what the heck is that?, and what added benefit does it really bring?). Regardless, enjoy... it's a good enough read to take a look.
We cluck our collective tongue and think that we'd never be so stupid, but this is a major problem that plagues personal computing.
One small but not insignificant piece of the problem is just that, the attitude among techies that if only the "lusers" would stop being so stupid, they wouldn't have so many problems.
they really aren't as stupid as we accuse them of being
most of us techies probably would have to admit to an infection or two ourselves, that with our extensive knowledge and background
the world of malware is incredibly aggressive at staying ahead of the defensive curve.
I've predicted this before, I'll stand by the prediction, (unless there are quick, effective, and transparent solutions) people eventually will become so fed up with this they will collectively begin to unplug (not necessarily a bad thing) and move on. I have in the last few years established my uneasy peace with Microsoft Windows on my dual boot machines now that XP has reached reasonable stability, but have gotten to the point where I rarely go there anymore because it has ceased being a "boot into" endeavor and instead is almost always a boot, then reboot, and sometimes yet another update and reboot. So much for transparency. I have programs I like to use in Windows I've actually begun to offset by creating my own similar linux functionality (thank Goodness I can code) just because I can't stand the 15 minute preamble to getting up and running in Windows.
On the other hand, my Dad, whom I've spent countless hours coaxing and helping learn Windows and how to use his computer called the other day and said he had disconnected it, and didn't care to ever use it again. I can't blame him.
From the original post: thoughts about the best places to go.
What criteria does the poster consider most important for best?
price?
speed?
reputation?
brand?
policy?
Okay, my main criterion is unequivocably (sp?) customer service. For me this includes only a few but important criteria:
friendliness
promptness
follow through
and, only a little... price
I have long since abandoned picking the cheapest offering and almost ignore that ranking when looking for a place to buy online. I've almost (saved by an attentive and pro-active Credit Union (Watermark Credit Union -- great service!)) been burned big time and the brush with sleeze was enough to nudge me to find a provider with good service and be loyal. That said, I will plug as an example, amazon.com. They come nowhere near to the leaders in lowest prices but they have been amazing in their response to some difficult transactions -- I consider their approach exemplary as a model to emulate.
Amazon isn't the only great provider out their, but they're a good starting point.
Also, for ebay-type shopping, though I'm loathe to penalize newbies, I shop from only highly rated, large sample-space sellers with extremely high ratings.
I wonder how this is going to play with the Telco's. I worked a long time at one of the Telco's and we did much/most of our work on IBM mainframes and Unix servers. Then our high level management and Microsoft marketers got very cozy and all of a sudden many of our critical applications began shifting to the Windows 2000, SQLServer, IIS platform. This was all very much with heavy opposition from technical staff, but their input wasn't wanted. In the course of five to ten years I saw us (them?) become very heavily vested in Microsoft platforms (including the public facing web site (which was nothing but problematic rolling out on the MS platform)).
And now, Microsoft wants to enter the market of the telcos? I know everyone is jumping in on this, and I for one have little empathy/sympathy for the PHB's who've made their beds with Microsoft, but I wonder how much they like Microsoft now?
Microsoft "grew up" from a fundamentally different mindset than real (no troll intended, just pragmatic viewpoint) computing technologies. Microsoft takes credit (rightly or wrongly) for inventing the PC. PC, that's Personal Computer... and the directory structure (among other things) especially reflects these roots:
the directory structure is a cobbled together hodgepodge with little apparent cohesive design. In my opinion it is an incredibly "designed by committee" hack.
any whiff of multi-user directory structure aside from not really being well designed is a cobbled hack on top of old directory structures and paradigms.
while there certainly isn't any requirement a computer have mulitple users, the notion of multiple users logged into a Windows machine is completely foreign without third party add-ons (terminal servers, et. al.).
the multilevel kernel architecture and hardware abstraction (HAL) early on were compromised to give direct access to hardware because HAL didn't allow for good enough performance for gaming.
many programs because of buggy behavior (this is not necessarily Microsoft's fault, but it's still true) require(d) conditional code in NT/XP to run thus propogating buggy design right back into the "new" product.
The third item above was especially interesting to me when I worked at Microsoft. This was the early days of NT, and when I hired on, I didn't have a machine in my office powerful enough to run NT. Wanting to get an early start on learning as much as possible about NT I had an office peer set up an account for me on another NT machine. I asked how to "login" to that machine. He looked at me as if I were mad. His (their) notion of multi-user meant my account on his box gave me access to file services pretty much, not much more.
Administration tools, while a nice idea, in light of the historical artifacts of Windows are only a bandaid over a compound fracture. It might cover up the bleeding and hide the potentially fatal wound, but it isn't going to solve the problem. Microsoft should have taken the time to desing the "P" out of PC when they completely re-designed the underlying technology. Had they done so, many of these problems today either wouldn't exist or would be much easier to fix.
Slashdot Mirror
The RIAA sometimes reminds me of Steve Martin in the movie The Jerk. Their ability (and the Jerk's) to associate cause and effect is just plain bizarre. Of course in the case of Steve Martin and the Jerk it's forgivable since the Jerk is supposed to be stupid!
In The Jerk Steve Martin is the idiot who, when a crazed sniper fires on him and starts asploding cans all around him, Martin jumps to the conclusion the cans are defective. When confronted with the reality there really is in fact a sniper shooting, he then jumps to the conclusion the sniper wants to shoot the cans. A memorably funny scene in a memorably funny movie for its day.
Fast forward to the insanity that is the music industry and RIAA. First it's music downloading and "piracy" that's killing them and CD sales even though contradicted by superimposed plots of downloaded songs and CD sales during the emergence and heyday of Napster (CD sales spiked identically with spiked activity in music downloads). Now it's people burning CD's. Obviously as this ship sinks, the people at the helm of the RIAA have been under water a few times and are now drawing conclusions with oxygen-starved brains. Idiots.
Fortunately, this is all evolution at its best and I predict the day will(maybe even soon!) come where the RIAA becomes largely irrelevant as musicians figure the business models out for themselves. Maybe we'll never see the juggernauts like the Beatles again because of the new model, but there sure are plenty of talented musicians out there just waiting to be heard. Lowering their threshold to market entry can be only a good thing.
Okay, just shoot me now, but I'm tossing out the car analogy again here.
Wouldn't this tactic by Microsoft be analogous to some car manufacturer requiring anyone wanting to make add-ons for their car pay some licensing fee? For example, VW might require anyone making floor mats for their Beetle to pay a licensing fee before they could do so. Or, Honda may charge Panasonic if Panasonic wanted to make a CD/Receiver in-dash player add-on for the Accord.
Seems perfectly legal (I guess), but, sheesh! , it seems childish and greedy.... oh, wait... Microsoft... ummmm, never mind.
I think that quote from your article says almost all. You adore Microsoft. Good for you. You hate [L]inux (it's not capitalized). Good for you. That's really about the only objective part of you article. You don't think linux is good at doing something? You're opinion... It's misguide at best, but it's really wrong. Did you know at Microsoft for the longest time their e-mail servers were Unix machines? That was because their e-mail applications weren't up to the task. This I know because I worked there. Haven't checked recently, so I don't know if they're still using unix for e-mail.
Also, some of the world's largest, most complex, and savviest applications are running on linux platforms. Do you ever use Google? Google (last time I checked) is up over 40,000 linux servers running the show. Ever shop at Amazon? Amazon runs almost exclusively on linux and Solaris (Sun) boxes under the covers.
Sad, unfair and uncompetitive? Maybe you're only fifteen years old. If you were older and had any sense of history and knew what Microsoft has done in the past you'd understand better. Microsoft has gotten where it is, become what it is, with blatant disregard for fair and competitive business practices. (Not sure what "agreeing on a constitution" has to do with anything in your thesis.)
Continue to love Microsoft, it's a warm fuzzy world from your view. You obviously are part of the target demographic.
You're probably going to get hammered for your column. You deserve it.
I read somewhere (wish I could remember where) that really good programmers can be on the order of a magnitude better in programming than average programmers (in lines of code, time needed to write working code) and over the span of years, that ratio of better performance remains constant. Based on my experience this is probably close to the truth.
for me, the last line on the page:
kind of says it all... In their hurry to rip off the competition, they even forgot a semicolon... Tsk-tsk!
Surprised noone's suggested this one yet. One of my favorites. If you can solve these puzzles, you know C.
I don't know why anyone hasn't thought of this before, maybe it's just seredipity on my part. NASA should talk with the packaging industry, e.g., RIAA and how they package CD's (don't remember the last time I've opened a CD without it damaging the knife, jewel case, my hand, etc.), or the computer industry. I just purchased a logitech mouse and after what I went through to get the friggin' mouse out of its packaging, I'm pretty sure some of these materials and techniques could be useful in creating a more sound Shuttle. Certainly they're at least up to re-entry heat and forces.
Man, I've got to stop checking my slashdot past 1 a.m. Thought I saw an article about Microsoft doing an Open Source OS......
I recently learned what MILF was... but this "Hilf" is a new one for me. Can anyone provide assistance? (I'm guessing it's Microsoft related.)
If you're interested in sending your comments about Mr. Taylor's comments, you can send to his e-mail address at Microsoft.
Personally having worked in the telcom industry for years my experience has been not only would people be fired for providing phone service as low as 99.4% availability, but the telco delivering that kind of service would likely be subject to some hefty fines, and some potential lawsuits.
For some hyperbole and perspective, if the takeoff/landing reliability of commercial airliners were of that order, of the approximately 25,000 commercial flights taking off and landing each day, there would be about 300 incidents each day. Some may consider it an invalid comparison, but when the telcos were the only game in town, their role and function and criticality to the functioning of our society approached that level of urgency.
Wow! Looked at the pictures, very attractive!
So, eye-candy aside:
I think there are two main factions here, and the answer for what constitutes better security has slightly different context with significantly different results.
For all of these people their machines are ticking time bombs, and I'm usually the one who gets the call when their world of computer technology explodes. This by itself is reason enough to consider other technologies where by default they are secure. For example, Apple does a good job (not perfect) of making their machines secure... I won't go into great depth -- I'm not a heavy Mac user.
Also, linux by default comes out of the box with decent security. Even if users do try to just use, e.g., KDE an root only, they (as I recall) have to fight off the big red screen background, kind of like the enunciator lights and bells in cars when you don't fasten your seat belts.
So, in the lay community, though Windows carries the popular vote, I think linux out of the box is by far the more secure and safe way to go.
From the post:
(First off, I'm a little nervous about how the OP knew my grandma's name.)
If you don't help newbies with linux, especially ones not very technical, then linux may not be ready for mom, dad, and grandma. Applying this standard implies also then Windows is not ready for mom, dad, and grandma. I've spent countless hours (that I can't charge, and I'll NEVER get back) fixing, re-installing, helping, instructing, etc. in a support role for my parents from Windows 95 through Windows XP.
And, guess what? They're still struggling. Part of this stems from the fact they missed the technical revolution (and lest you diss my parents, one is a Doctor, the other is a Concert Violinist, played in the Pittsburgh Symphony). But most of it stems from the intractable problem of rendering technology intuitive and transparent to the lay-person.
Interestingly this problem plagues both Windows and linux. Interestingly, for Windows what I've found in coaxing my parents along the learning curve is Microsoft has done much if not most to make Windows obfuscated to my parents. Each new generation has left them re-learning pieces of the environment they had just about almost mastered... (they were this close!)
But, I do think linux is up to the desktop task for many who use the internet for mostly surfing, e-mail, quick word docs, and simple spreadsheets. And I think linux actually fares better simply for the rock solid reliability. I haven't set up my parents with linux because I live 2000 miles away from them, so I'm a little paranoid that should something really bizarre happen, I wouldn't know who to have help them, while with Windows, though it demands more support, if I'm not available, there's always some quasi-pseudo expert ready to jump in and "fix" things.
However I have set up others with linux, and I've been amazed... the support calls simply stop! This is for people who satisfy the above criteria: internet surfers; e-mail junkies; and simple "office" tasks. The linux just works. There's probably a larger demographic out there that could use linux than most people think.
I'm going to take issue with you on one part, and agree with you on another:
From the Ask Slashdot post:
There are probably more, but this might be a good start.
I don't know which came first, jargon-talk, or politically correct speech, but somewhere in the last thirty years, speech and writing has become more about saying something with empahis on:
Maybe, though I get slaughtered sometimes, that's why I like slashdot... slashdotters give as good as they take. And usually say what they mean, or at least try. Case in point, how simple could a mission statement (hate that term) be other than "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." be?
I jumped off the politcally correct band wagon years ago when two "corrections" juxtaposed themselves:
You all can fight back by using candid, frank, and direct language. But, you'll pay a price. Utlimately though I think you'll find it much more satisfying.
This interview doesn't shed much light on an already dark and rainy corporation. How could this be anything but intellectual masturbation on Microsoft's part when you have a Microsoft employee slow pitching to the biggest windbag at Microsoft? Especially when the two appear to be patting themselves on the back about the fact that Microsoft really does innovate. Aside from the fact Ballmer is amazingly general in his list of innovations, the interviewer asks questions about other companies and if those companies out-innovated Microsoft. Of course, the response is they didn't.
But the interviewer might have asked some more thoughtful questions in that line like:
Not sure why, but even on slashdot Microsoft manages to get some Puff Pieces.
(open the Troll and Flamebait mod floodgates)
Never underestimate the human ear and its ability to pick (pun intended) the poser. I've heard of the obsolescence by technology of so many things musical that never really got there.
One I fondly remember was a report on the CBS Evening News, granted, it was a long time ago, but the point is valid today... They played a video clip of an orchestra playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and asked, "What's wrong with this picture?". I remember thinking, aside from the really crappy quality of sound, hard to say. Their punchline? The music was from a synthesizer, NOT the orchestra (yawn).
This experience (for me at least) is not unique. I had to toss my "white noise" generator I used to help sleep at night... over a period of time my ears picked up the "random" pattern and it actually became an irritant, not a mask of other ambient noise.
I also own a Yamaha high-end keyboard (full 88 key, acceleration keys, 128 voice polyphonic), and it's main piano "voice" was digitally sampled from a Steinway. It sounds wonderful, but I could pick the Yamaha out of a bunch of real pianos from a mile away. The pitch was always too perfect, the decay was always to predictable, etc.
Have you ever listened to a musical recording and found the laid down "generated rhythm" track so perfect it was annoying? I have.
Technology can do some interesting things in music, none of them human. If technology is used create an instrument played by a human, that's one thing... Technology to play an instrument is quite another, and in my opinion will never approach the real thing. If you've listened a lot to classical, it's pretty easy to pick out Stern, or Perlman as the violinist on the same piece. Likewise it's pretty easy to recognize Vladimir on piano.
First, reading the article, paragraph, how many people know what the heck coruscating means? (definition here)
Anyway I don't know where the line is, but somewhere it is there albeit not a bright line. I loved the re-mix (don't remember who, don't remember the name of the song) where Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride was the core of the piece but I would be disappointed if credit isn't extended and a cut of the profit isn't provided to Steppenwolf for providing the original inspiration and music. Certainly if someone were to digitally re-master any song in its purest and most original form and release that as their own work they would be guilty of out and out ripoff. But, a song with hints of the motif or melody of some other work is more subtle and probably more difficult to clearly state theft of said original work.
In classical music it was quite common for composers to "rip off" a theme or motif of another composer and incorporate it into another original work. In many cases it was considered the ultimate homage to the original creator.
I guess for me it boils down to how much is added by the "new" artist's work. Some of the re-mixes I've heard come pretty darned close to ripoffs.
For those interested, here is another article just popped up in the Seattle Times on the very same thing. I think the claims on "reaction" to spyware are a little more gentle (e.g., being more vigilant... what the heck is that?, and what added benefit does it really bring?). Regardless, enjoy... it's a good enough read to take a look.
One small but not insignificant piece of the problem is just that, the attitude among techies that if only the "lusers" would stop being so stupid, they wouldn't have so many problems.
I've predicted this before, I'll stand by the prediction, (unless there are quick, effective, and transparent solutions) people eventually will become so fed up with this they will collectively begin to unplug (not necessarily a bad thing) and move on. I have in the last few years established my uneasy peace with Microsoft Windows on my dual boot machines now that XP has reached reasonable stability, but have gotten to the point where I rarely go there anymore because it has ceased being a "boot into" endeavor and instead is almost always a boot, then reboot, and sometimes yet another update and reboot. So much for transparency. I have programs I like to use in Windows I've actually begun to offset by creating my own similar linux functionality (thank Goodness I can code) just because I can't stand the 15 minute preamble to getting up and running in Windows.
On the other hand, my Dad, whom I've spent countless hours coaxing and helping learn Windows and how to use his computer called the other day and said he had disconnected it, and didn't care to ever use it again. I can't blame him.
From the original post: thoughts about the best places to go.
What criteria does the poster consider most important for best?
Okay, my main criterion is unequivocably (sp?) customer service. For me this includes only a few but important criteria:
I have long since abandoned picking the cheapest offering and almost ignore that ranking when looking for a place to buy online. I've almost (saved by an attentive and pro-active Credit Union (Watermark Credit Union -- great service!)) been burned big time and the brush with sleeze was enough to nudge me to find a provider with good service and be loyal. That said, I will plug as an example, amazon.com. They come nowhere near to the leaders in lowest prices but they have been amazing in their response to some difficult transactions -- I consider their approach exemplary as a model to emulate.
Amazon isn't the only great provider out their, but they're a good starting point.
Also, for ebay-type shopping, though I'm loathe to penalize newbies, I shop from only highly rated, large sample-space sellers with extremely high ratings.
I wonder how this is going to play with the Telco's. I worked a long time at one of the Telco's and we did much/most of our work on IBM mainframes and Unix servers. Then our high level management and Microsoft marketers got very cozy and all of a sudden many of our critical applications began shifting to the Windows 2000, SQLServer, IIS platform. This was all very much with heavy opposition from technical staff, but their input wasn't wanted. In the course of five to ten years I saw us (them?) become very heavily vested in Microsoft platforms (including the public facing web site (which was nothing but problematic rolling out on the MS platform)).
And now, Microsoft wants to enter the market of the telcos? I know everyone is jumping in on this, and I for one have little empathy/sympathy for the PHB's who've made their beds with Microsoft, but I wonder how much they like Microsoft now?
The problem lies more in the design, architecture, and implementation. One facet recently appeared here (The 12-minute Windows Heist) and here (Windows Users Ignoring LUA Security).
Microsoft "grew up" from a fundamentally different mindset than real (no troll intended, just pragmatic viewpoint) computing technologies. Microsoft takes credit (rightly or wrongly) for inventing the PC. PC, that's Personal Computer... and the directory structure (among other things) especially reflects these roots:
The third item above was especially interesting to me when I worked at Microsoft. This was the early days of NT, and when I hired on, I didn't have a machine in my office powerful enough to run NT. Wanting to get an early start on learning as much as possible about NT I had an office peer set up an account for me on another NT machine. I asked how to "login" to that machine. He looked at me as if I were mad. His (their) notion of multi-user meant my account on his box gave me access to file services pretty much, not much more.
Administration tools, while a nice idea, in light of the historical artifacts of Windows are only a bandaid over a compound fracture. It might cover up the bleeding and hide the potentially fatal wound, but it isn't going to solve the problem. Microsoft should have taken the time to desing the "P" out of PC when they completely re-designed the underlying technology. Had they done so, many of these problems today either wouldn't exist or would be much easier to fix.