first
Last year, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told Germany's Manager Magazin: "We needed the first years to conquer the PC and those following to be ahead in the server business. In the upcoming years we'll conquer the Internet."
Yeah? And? Hey look, they're a company, and they win. They find a market, they go to it, and they win.
Look, fining MS isn't going to do anything. If you're concerned about a monopoly, split up the company, AT&T style. A fine is useless.
An MS is not - I repeat - NOT - stifiling innovation. Please. MS never broke up a company Homer Simpson style. Every company they bought sold to them. Every company that went under lost to them.
I dislike MS a lot. I am a moderate Apple fan boy. But I don't discredit MS's position. Break them up, or stop crying.
(*Holds hands over head, prepares for flaming and seriously painful modding...*)
They are simply charging what their fans are willing to pay.
They are charging what their wealthy or incredibly in-debt financially stupid fans are willing to pay. Just because Madonna has 1% of her fan base that is willing to pay that amount does not mean that she's not alienating the other 99% by charging so much.
A woman reportedly worth over 3/4 of a billion dollars at this time, charging $250/ticket is greed. Pure, simple, unadulterated greed, and a complete lack of care for the people who put her at that level.
WTF is a "home page" and who decides what page is the "home page"? Heres my 1000 pages of whatever and one page that says "click here to enter".
I have to agree. With Google and other search engines being my top X referrers and my home page only dominating a measly 36% of landing pages on my site, do I then have to redirect all new traffic to my home page, thus rendering useless search engine results?
My site (currently) engages in alcohol reviews. Now, I don't have nudity on my site NOW, but I have a bottle of wine to review from Italy that has a picture of a nude woman on the label. Would this count, and would my site suddenly be indecent? What if someone, searching for information on that particular type of wine, came to my site and saw a picture of the bottle/label? Do I go to jail?
I did an entry on how to make a good vodka gimlet. Since the page was picked up by Google, it has outstriped my home page by almost 3 to 1 in terms of landing pages to my site.
Would you care to guess what the free cheerleading Apple gets from fanboys like you and me is worth to Apple in dollar terms?
I'd guess it's a helluva lot more then a leak (that in itself promotes excitement & buzz). Apple are jeapodising the very fanbase that supports them most.
Forget the rest of your post - this line is poingiant enough. Apple perfected viral marketing before it was cool. They spend $x on marketing and because of the fan base really get about $x^x worth of marketing.
Not only is Apple totally shooting themselves in the foot (how many times have I read about Apple's evil ways on Slashdot, not a year after switching to a Mac) but by touting on the one hand to give people a total digital professional workspace in OSX on the one hand and then proport that anything developed therin is not professional (journalism, in this case) is a complete 180.
I love Apple, but like a brother that is hooked on smack, this is making me want to beat the hell out of them for their own good.
Re:Mr. Thurrott forgives Microsoft
on
How Vista Disappoints
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
It's funny how one of Microsoft's biggest champions (and, despite that, a man I highly regard) really liked OSX and is honest enough to come down on MS when necessary.
This article and its points (good ones) make me respect Paul even more. Not to mention TFA has some really well thought out points. MS is blowing it, hard.
There is nothing more brilliant than the fact that this has already been modded +1 informative. "Hmm... porn on iPod you say... well that's damned informative!"
How is the U.S. government censoring the information you're want about Iraq? Oh, wait, it isn't. The U.S. is not perfect, but don't throw away perspective because of it.
While maybe not about Iraq, the US government is currently involved in the largest, most far reaching classification nightmare since Nixon. Aside from having made up dozens if not hundreds of new sensitive but unclassified classifications of documents that exempt millions of documents from the FOIA despite their unclassified status, the government was recently caught re-classifying some 55,000 historical documents out of the National Archive for no apparent reason other than to cover up historical embarassment on the part of the government.
Classification and secrets in this country are on par with several countries that we criticize for this very thing. The wind is slowly being taken out of the sails of the FOIA, and our right to know as citizens is being whittled away at an unbelievably alarming rate.
This is the most secret administration in the history of the US. Not only have they classified millions of new documents at a cost of billions to the taxpayer that normally would have been declassified in the past (1950s budget information for the CIA, for instance) but the secret re-classification of tens of thousands of documents that have been public for years is a scary, scary precident.
Take the words of the Memorandum of Understanding issued in regards to the now uncovered secret reclassification of documents from the national archive: "It is in the interests of both the CIA and the National Archives and Records Administration to avoid the kind of public notice and researcher complaints that may arise from removing from the open shelves for extended periods of time records that had been public available."
Me things you have your signals crossed, it's not the hammer and sickle that are creeping into their logo, but rather its opposite, the almighty dollar.
A little of both. Desire for money justifies (not really but for Yahoo!) compliance with the hammer and sickle rule of law.
What's a shame is that people in opressive countries see these companies - Yahoo!, Google, etc. as bearers of the American brand of freedom - as idealistically as they may see it. So Yahoo! and Google and the like make their money off of the desire to partake and the understanding that the American company will bring American values and understanding of freedom of speech, and then said company turns around and stabs them in the back.
Yet another reason that people are growing increasingly upset with America. Anything for the almighty buck, even if it means preaching American freedom to justify Iraq, and then allowing companies to cooperate with communist regimes at the same time. Anything for that next dollar.
* stops burning porn DVDs long enough to read/. *
Hey, wait...we're allowed to do this now? Sweet!
Yes, but you see, this is like, one high quality movie per DVD. The burning that you (*cough* and I *cough*) currently engage in involves some 1500 3.2mb 100 px x 100px RealMedia or Divx files, all painstakingly categorized by number of women, boob size, and point of penetration.
Most people use Windows 1.0.2 Poodle. I personally have a box running Windows 1.0.1 Mexican Hairless, but very few people still run Windows 1.0 Terrior. I'm personally looking forward to the release of Windows 1.0.4 Basset Hound.
As though a million venture capitalists cried out, and were silenced...
Or as though a million venture capitalists lit a firecracker, held it in their hand, blew off their hand, smarted for a little bit, and lit a firecracker and held it in their other hand...
We've learned (ok, apparently only I have learned) that ad revenue does not a company make. Google lives off of it but only because its products are truely innovative to attract and retain a large audience.
Social networking is nice but not a huge money maker of any sustainable growth. Investing in these internet start ups with barely a business plan is going to result in the same thing it did the last time we went through this.
Aren't there any other companies to invest in? Ones with products?
I can believe that Windows and Office may be somewhat responsible for lack of innovation, but only in those specific areas, not "throughout the industry."
Really? Because I don't even think there. Linux is better than ever. OSX is a stunning achievement in OS design and development. Sun's offerings are nothing to shake a stick at either.
On the Office side, OO.org continues to innovate, especially in the format wars with OpenDocument.
Because that's what "lawmakers" do. Despite overwhelming evidence that we've had all the laws we need on the books for years, people make their names in Washington by introducing legislation.
Our representatives in Washington and elsewhere should be called just that - representatives of the people. Unfortunately, they are labeled "lawmakers" because that's the only thing they are given recognition for.
As long as we are labeling elected officials as "lawmakers" we have to expect them to want to make laws. Cell phones are a relatively new thing (along with digital media, the internet, etc.) and are currently relatively free of legistlation and laws. But more and more will be introduced, and whomever is running for re-election can say "I sponsored/authored/wrote/passed a law that protects the citizens of Springfield from unsavory people who talk while driving" and campaign on that note.
Hell, here in NJ they are trying to pass a law that would ban SMOKING while driving.
I'm really not worried about the French coming to get me, but I would be concerned if I was planning on traveling to France and didn't know my site would get me in trouble there.
Excellent point... Dmitry Sklyarov, anyone? But this has to already exist in some capacity. My pro-Nazi website (it's a hypothetical, people) may land me in trouble when I travel over to Germany I would think...
Perhaps we have been a bit lazy: Assuming that the partnership with Innobase would continue forever and that MySQL would eventually acquire Innobase.
Considering that the Innobase partnership is over, why partner with yet another 3rd party, assuming that this partnership will not fare the way Innobase did?
I guess what I'm asking is why MySQL doesn't just step up and develop it's own GOOD storage db solution, with transactions and all the nice stuff that InnoDB provided and solidDB will provide?
Ah, but baiting Christians is considered marvelous intellectual sport. Often by the same people who bemoan intolerance when any other religion is derided.
Intelligent Design is not a theory. It's not even a hypothesis. It's an assertion.
Depends on who you ask. To some, it's a belief. Like me - I believe in evolution, but I still believe it is the work of an intelligent force because (say it ain't so) I'm a Christian.
To others, however, it's cold hard fact. Like a poster said somewhere here - schools teach "fact" instead of how to reach a conclusion on ones own. It is religion that stoutly teaches from an early age that creationism is a "fact" and in that many people proport ID to be a counter-theory to evolution.
ID in schools - in theology or religion class makes it an assertation or a belief that can be applied in a series of ways or with any degree of vigor. ID in science books and science class... well... that's a direct opposition of evolution and thus a proported theory indeed.
Well, the problem is that you can't prove evolution. While this discovery certainly bridges the gap and piles on more evidence for and in favor of evolution.
Evolution is (GASP!!!) a theory - a solid, understandable, almost indisputable theory. Think of it like a murder case. The knife, DNA, motive, etc. might certainly remove all reasonable doubt... but without a video of the event, 100% proof of the event is impossible. That's why we have "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" instead of just "proof" - because the evidence is mounted high, but it's not something that's observable in real time.
It leaves open the door for dispute, no matter how flimsy. It's something that we have to deal with, and will have to deal with forever.
If, by "majo[r]", you mean "Everything that's commercial" then yes.
Which is why I rely on those smarter than me to anylize packets being sent and servers being called to tell me what is really happening.
I don't pirate much. I pirated Office in college, and may have downloaded all the betas of Windows ME (*cough* GARBAGE) XP, and even Vista from IRC. However, I've paid for all my running copies of Windows and OSX Tiger. I pay for Office. And I love to pay $12.95 to the kid who writes a killer utility like AppZapper.
But where I refuse to play to good software citizen is thorugh patching. I've patched all my versions of XP to kill off activation. I've done the same with other commercial pieces of software (like, say, Macromedia or Norton).
If it's true - that I don't buy a copy of Windows but a license to run it, then my money is spent and that's where our relationship ends. I know it's legit, and I don't need company X checking up on me all the time.
I despise the idea that everyone is a criminal until proven innocent. Aside from the obvious flying in the face of the Constitution of these troubled United States, it's an insult to me - the consumer who just shelled out one or two hundred dollars for your app.
The big companies - the billion dollar players - are the ones that treat me like garbage. The kid I pay $13 to not only doesn't have his software phone home and doesn't treat me like garbage - he gives me free upgrades for life. For $13.
So the big companies can fuck off. I'll continue to patch and break as many phone-home pieces of software that CORE or other lovely underground groups are wonderful enough to release patches for. I know it's a virus and security risk, but I just don't see how Microsoft is any better.
That was awesome when you played third base and shortstop for the Chicago White Sox in 1991. It was such a rip that you were picked 593rd overall in the draft that year.
Can I have your autograph?
Slashdot Mirror
*sigh*
stupid "html formatted" vs "plain text"... must pay better attention...
first Last year, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told Germany's Manager Magazin: "We needed the first years to conquer the PC and those following to be ahead in the server business. In the upcoming years we'll conquer the Internet." Yeah? And? Hey look, they're a company, and they win. They find a market, they go to it, and they win. Look, fining MS isn't going to do anything. If you're concerned about a monopoly, split up the company, AT&T style. A fine is useless. An MS is not - I repeat - NOT - stifiling innovation. Please. MS never broke up a company Homer Simpson style. Every company they bought sold to them. Every company that went under lost to them. I dislike MS a lot. I am a moderate Apple fan boy. But I don't discredit MS's position. Break them up, or stop crying. (*Holds hands over head, prepares for flaming and seriously painful modding...*)
They are charging what their wealthy or incredibly in-debt financially stupid fans are willing to pay. Just because Madonna has 1% of her fan base that is willing to pay that amount does not mean that she's not alienating the other 99% by charging so much.
A woman reportedly worth over 3/4 of a billion dollars at this time, charging $250/ticket is greed. Pure, simple, unadulterated greed, and a complete lack of care for the people who put her at that level.
I have to agree. With Google and other search engines being my top X referrers and my home page only dominating a measly 36% of landing pages on my site, do I then have to redirect all new traffic to my home page, thus rendering useless search engine results?
My site (currently) engages in alcohol reviews. Now, I don't have nudity on my site NOW, but I have a bottle of wine to review from Italy that has a picture of a nude woman on the label. Would this count, and would my site suddenly be indecent? What if someone, searching for information on that particular type of wine, came to my site and saw a picture of the bottle/label? Do I go to jail?
I did an entry on how to make a good vodka gimlet. Since the page was picked up by Google, it has outstriped my home page by almost 3 to 1 in terms of landing pages to my site.
So what is a "home page" exactly?
Forget the rest of your post - this line is poingiant enough. Apple perfected viral marketing before it was cool. They spend $x on marketing and because of the fan base really get about $x^x worth of marketing.
Not only is Apple totally shooting themselves in the foot (how many times have I read about Apple's evil ways on Slashdot, not a year after switching to a Mac) but by touting on the one hand to give people a total digital professional workspace in OSX on the one hand and then proport that anything developed therin is not professional (journalism, in this case) is a complete 180.
I love Apple, but like a brother that is hooked on smack, this is making me want to beat the hell out of them for their own good.
This article and its points (good ones) make me respect Paul even more. Not to mention TFA has some really well thought out points. MS is blowing it, hard.
There is nothing more brilliant than the fact that this has already been modded +1 informative. "Hmm... porn on iPod you say... well that's damned informative!"
You must be one of those "if you have nothing to hide" people.
While maybe not about Iraq, the US government is currently involved in the largest, most far reaching classification nightmare since Nixon. Aside from having made up dozens if not hundreds of new sensitive but unclassified classifications of documents that exempt millions of documents from the FOIA despite their unclassified status, the government was recently caught re-classifying some 55,000 historical documents out of the National Archive for no apparent reason other than to cover up historical embarassment on the part of the government.
Classification and secrets in this country are on par with several countries that we criticize for this very thing. The wind is slowly being taken out of the sails of the FOIA, and our right to know as citizens is being whittled away at an unbelievably alarming rate.
This is the most secret administration in the history of the US. Not only have they classified millions of new documents at a cost of billions to the taxpayer that normally would have been declassified in the past (1950s budget information for the CIA, for instance) but the secret re-classification of tens of thousands of documents that have been public for years is a scary, scary precident.
Take the words of the Memorandum of Understanding issued in regards to the now uncovered secret reclassification of documents from the national archive: "It is in the interests of both the CIA and the National Archives and Records Administration to avoid the kind of public notice and researcher complaints that may arise from removing from the open shelves for extended periods of time records that had been public available."
The GP was hardly out of perspective.
A little of both. Desire for money justifies (not really but for Yahoo!) compliance with the hammer and sickle rule of law.
What's a shame is that people in opressive countries see these companies - Yahoo!, Google, etc. as bearers of the American brand of freedom - as idealistically as they may see it. So Yahoo! and Google and the like make their money off of the desire to partake and the understanding that the American company will bring American values and understanding of freedom of speech, and then said company turns around and stabs them in the back.
Yet another reason that people are growing increasingly upset with America. Anything for the almighty buck, even if it means preaching American freedom to justify Iraq, and then allowing companies to cooperate with communist regimes at the same time. Anything for that next dollar.
Check the sig. I meant the first. Stoopid spelling.
Yes, but you see, this is like, one high quality movie per DVD. The burning that you (*cough* and I *cough*) currently engage in involves some 1500 3.2mb 100 px x 100px RealMedia or Divx files, all painstakingly categorized by number of women, boob size, and point of penetration.
Right? I mean, everyone does that, right?
*cough* http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/
Most people use Windows 1.0.2 Poodle. I personally have a box running Windows 1.0.1 Mexican Hairless, but very few people still run Windows 1.0 Terrior. I'm personally looking forward to the release of Windows 1.0.4 Basset Hound.
Or as though a million venture capitalists lit a firecracker, held it in their hand, blew off their hand, smarted for a little bit, and lit a firecracker and held it in their other hand...
We've learned (ok, apparently only I have learned) that ad revenue does not a company make. Google lives off of it but only because its products are truely innovative to attract and retain a large audience.
Social networking is nice but not a huge money maker of any sustainable growth. Investing in these internet start ups with barely a business plan is going to result in the same thing it did the last time we went through this.
Aren't there any other companies to invest in? Ones with products?
Really? Because I don't even think there. Linux is better than ever. OSX is a stunning achievement in OS design and development. Sun's offerings are nothing to shake a stick at either.
On the Office side, OO.org continues to innovate, especially in the format wars with OpenDocument.
Where exactly is innovation lacking?
Because that's what "lawmakers" do. Despite overwhelming evidence that we've had all the laws we need on the books for years, people make their names in Washington by introducing legislation.
Our representatives in Washington and elsewhere should be called just that - representatives of the people. Unfortunately, they are labeled "lawmakers" because that's the only thing they are given recognition for.
As long as we are labeling elected officials as "lawmakers" we have to expect them to want to make laws. Cell phones are a relatively new thing (along with digital media, the internet, etc.) and are currently relatively free of legistlation and laws. But more and more will be introduced, and whomever is running for re-election can say "I sponsored/authored/wrote/passed a law that protects the citizens of Springfield from unsavory people who talk while driving" and campaign on that note.
Hell, here in NJ they are trying to pass a law that would ban SMOKING while driving.
Laws are what lawmakers do.
Excellent point... Dmitry Sklyarov, anyone? But this has to already exist in some capacity. My pro-Nazi website (it's a hypothetical, people) may land me in trouble when I travel over to Germany I would think...
Considering that the Innobase partnership is over, why partner with yet another 3rd party, assuming that this partnership will not fare the way Innobase did?
I guess what I'm asking is why MySQL doesn't just step up and develop it's own GOOD storage db solution, with transactions and all the nice stuff that InnoDB provided and solidDB will provide?
Brilliant! If I had 10 mod points they would all be yours. Especially after last night's South Park episode.
Depends on who you ask. To some, it's a belief. Like me - I believe in evolution, but I still believe it is the work of an intelligent force because (say it ain't so) I'm a Christian.
To others, however, it's cold hard fact. Like a poster said somewhere here - schools teach "fact" instead of how to reach a conclusion on ones own. It is religion that stoutly teaches from an early age that creationism is a "fact" and in that many people proport ID to be a counter-theory to evolution.
ID in schools - in theology or religion class makes it an assertation or a belief that can be applied in a series of ways or with any degree of vigor. ID in science books and science class... well... that's a direct opposition of evolution and thus a proported theory indeed.
Well, the problem is that you can't prove evolution. While this discovery certainly bridges the gap and piles on more evidence for and in favor of evolution.
Evolution is (GASP!!!) a theory - a solid, understandable, almost indisputable theory. Think of it like a murder case. The knife, DNA, motive, etc. might certainly remove all reasonable doubt... but without a video of the event, 100% proof of the event is impossible. That's why we have "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" instead of just "proof" - because the evidence is mounted high, but it's not something that's observable in real time.
It leaves open the door for dispute, no matter how flimsy. It's something that we have to deal with, and will have to deal with forever.
to say that I'm glad dupe and spel check have been added.
Which is why I rely on those smarter than me to anylize packets being sent and servers being called to tell me what is really happening.
I don't pirate much. I pirated Office in college, and may have downloaded all the betas of Windows ME (*cough* GARBAGE) XP, and even Vista from IRC. However, I've paid for all my running copies of Windows and OSX Tiger. I pay for Office. And I love to pay $12.95 to the kid who writes a killer utility like AppZapper.
But where I refuse to play to good software citizen is thorugh patching. I've patched all my versions of XP to kill off activation. I've done the same with other commercial pieces of software (like, say, Macromedia or Norton).
If it's true - that I don't buy a copy of Windows but a license to run it, then my money is spent and that's where our relationship ends. I know it's legit, and I don't need company X checking up on me all the time.
I despise the idea that everyone is a criminal until proven innocent. Aside from the obvious flying in the face of the Constitution of these troubled United States, it's an insult to me - the consumer who just shelled out one or two hundred dollars for your app.
The big companies - the billion dollar players - are the ones that treat me like garbage. The kid I pay $13 to not only doesn't have his software phone home and doesn't treat me like garbage - he gives me free upgrades for life. For $13.
So the big companies can fuck off. I'll continue to patch and break as many phone-home pieces of software that CORE or other lovely underground groups are wonderful enough to release patches for. I know it's a virus and security risk, but I just don't see how Microsoft is any better.
Just my 13,995 cents (cost of XP Pro).
Um... yes. And for only $50. ;)