Therefore the features ARE in there to please the locked-up content creators, and to get their systems blessed by those content creators so they will allow their content to interface to it and the systems will sell.
See, that's not entirely true. In fact, hardware has the capability to ignore DRM, which is why the entertainment industry is always trying to get laws passed that REQUIRE hardware to consult the DRM in the content before playing said content.
However, you're right, it is to "please" the industry, because if the industry is "pleased" then that particular brand of DRM will show up in the laws the RI/MP/**/AA write for the protection of the American People, and thus licensing fees will roll in, because, you know, you HAVE to license it or your product breaks laws.
These companies see DRM as something that is just a truth, and laws will be enacted regarding it, so why fight it, make money licensing it. Or in the case of this consortium, don't license it, but the best offense is defense, so protect yourself from having to pay to license another company's technology. That's the point of this consortium - everyone agree on a standard, and noone will collect while others are paying out the nose.
Corporate pigs shipping work out to places that have NO health and safety laws... all in the name of short term shareholder profits. These bastards have NO ethics... how would they feel if they themselves were on the breadline with no job protection and the only work available being dirty, shit jobs exported from countries that should know better
Yeah, you're right. Without question. But someone's gotta be the first to test a drug. The real problem here is that the drug companies are trying to act without the restrictions of the US. Were they operating under the same restrictions over there, then I really wouldn't have much of a problem here at all, since someone, somewhere, has to be the first.
The US/FDA COULD refuse to accept or deny the right to sale to any drug that is tested without adhering to the same restrictions/rules that they would have to in the US. Test subjects would still be cheaper, but at least there would be incentive for treating these people decently.
Why is it that we have this awful attitude that being a mother is somehow this dead-end proposition that requires no job skills?
This is (dare I say it) at least partially the fault of the women's movement. It's the same pendulum swing that all issues go through - from one extreme to the other.
Things start out with there definately being a gender bias in everything - down to denying women the right to vote. Women's suffrage comes along, gains traction, gets the right to vote, and keeps on moving (rightfully so.) But as every movement has, certain radicals decided that not only should women have equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work, but that the traditional roles of the female were to be shunned. Now that the opportunity to have a career existed, women chosing not to do so were holding the movement back, and were themselves the product of a still-unbalanced culture.
Whether or not culture still does favor men over women in the career/pay department is not the debate here - I think that we're at least starting to see the pendulum swing back towards center again. Women go to college in droves - to most young people, there is no understanding of a gender bias in continuing eduacation at all. Women are executives and CEOs, and are starting to have real representation at the top of the ladder. What this means is that said pendulum is now free to swing back, and people can start realizing that it's choice that was lacking before. Now a woman can choose her path - career, stay-at-home mother, or even both, and it is that choice that we support.
It's true, there is no more nobel a calling than motherhood. There is a reason that no matter how a child was raised, most would instantly kill or be killed for the welfare of their mother. So now women have true choice, and people will hopefully stop judging so harshly for any choice, be it stay-at-home mother or career woman. And like your wife, that choice can be mutually exclusive from the level of education or intelligence a woman may possess or strive for.
I fail to see how we (humans) actively discourage women from entering the CS workforce. It's true that some IT professions have gotten a reputation as existing as a couple of overly obese 35 year old virgins in a server room without windows, but I'd like to see an example of someone (overtly or not) saying "women should not do IT" or "you as a woman do not want to enter into the IT world."
Obviously it doesn't have to be that forward, but actively discouraging women, and women being discouraged by an untrue or outdated stereotype are two different things. A positive eduactional campaign may be in order, but anything more than that - actively recruiting women just to close the gender gap that may or may not be simply the nature of things is unnecessary and unfair to those men that actually WANT to do CS, in my opinion.
For fucks sake, I am so tired of this pandering if certain things are not entirelly, totally equal. Wait - only 48% of people in profession X are female? Well there must be some gender bias! Quick, admit more women into universities into these studies! Quick, discourage males from being allowed to propigate such a gender biased view of things!
Maybe less women WANT to go into CS! Listen, there is, and will always BE, fundamental differences between the sexes, between the way the mind works, between general interests. Yes, there is overlap, but the majority of young boys don't want to play with Barbies in pink dresses. Does that indicate some gender bias? Sure... is it wrong, bad, or need to be corrected? NO! It's nature, just let it be already.
I am sorry But I want the internet my way. Not the way some company wants to force me to pay Dollars extra for things they get for literaly pennies.
This isn't even "my way" - it's quite simply the connection itself. I am paying not for the service, but for the connection to the internet. Currently, the ISP passes my traffic back and forth to my computer/router. Serivces are provided by the connected server that is passing traffic back to my computer.
This is DIRECTLY akin to saying that phone companies want to provide better phone quality if you call another user on their network. Have Verizon and call someone on Cavalier? Well, we can't guarentee a connection, we can't promise you won't be booted off the line for a Verizon->Verizon connection, and we can't help the static unless you get the other party to switch to Verizon.
This, directly, stifles competition, especially at the small business level. It's sickening. And it will become law.
Mr Criminal leaves the Cell phone at home, or turns it off, or blocks the signal.
EEEEEEXACTLY. It's like banning assault rifles, or requiring a gun license - like those with criminal intent won't find a way to obtain a firearm of their choosing. I mean, has cell phone cloning been solved? I don't really want police showing up at my door because my cell phone happened to have been at a crime scene (which is, of course, days before I receive the $12,000 cell phone bill.)
that react with the heart tissue to make it more resilient after infarction (heart attack)
loaded with pro-survival factors
Pro-survival factors cracks me up. Wouldn't be much of a report if, while trying to make the heart more resiliant after a heart attack, doctors injected the heart with anti-survival factors.
But that makes me wonder... do they really want it to be accepted by the public?
It's an interesting thought - what if GTalk was simply a beta version - a test platform if you will - for a much larger VOIP rollout later on? Get folks to start chatting VOIP style, see how reliable it is, then incorporate that into all those fun trailor-sized boxes Google will start distributing... Instant phone network for Google.
I'm trying to think of any other time that the government has (or at least tried to) so highly regulate any manufacturing or product to benefit other for-profit agencies. So far the RIAA has or has in the works region encoding, tarifs on cassette tapes and cd/dvd-r/rw among other things, DRM on all content discs, that flag - what was it called? that was shot down because of the FCC overreaching its authority... etc... etc...
Does anyone have an example of this sort of continually ongoing, pounding abuse of government to benefit so few?
Ugh, this wheeling and dealing by Clinton is just infuriating. We HAVE laws that specify which games can and cannot be sold to minors. We HAVE a ratings board. If these are broken, fix them, but new laws? C'mon!
Perhaps you didn't learn to use emacs effectively? I've been using it full-time for three or four years, but first played with it 14 years ago, and it's only now that I'm beginning to really grok and extend it.
This is, in my opinion, one of emacs/vim's greatest detractions. With VS.NET and the like, most of the features I want/need are there, right out of the box. I can remember trying to extend emacs for the first time to get syntax highlighting in my Java code, and getting quite frustrated until someone helped me out. Sure, I was just learning at the time, but it shouldn't be that difficult.
Remember, emacs is written in (a) Lisp, and Lisp is the most powerful of programming languages.
Um, I'm gonna leave that alone. This is one of those "best for the required solution" arguments.
If you want a feature emacs doesn't have, it can be added; there's no feature which can't be added.
Same with VS.NET. Even more so with the likes of Eclipse. This is not unique to emacs, I just find the implementation more difficult. I had a friend who wanted to be able to embed WMP in the IDE, so he could play music without having to switch out of the IDE. Took me 10 minutes to write up a plugin that sat in the sidebar of VS.NET and embedded WMP. Of course emacs is extensible, it just seems more difficult, to me.
I'm not trying to put down emacs users. I'm also not trying to imply that those who still use it are either missing out or are not good programmers. I'm just trying to imply that things will continue to get better as time goes on, and for me, modern IDEs are just a lot better for the code I do than emacs/vim will ever be.
Yeah, Google is just trying to be sued apparently.
Google may very well be the greatest of the "little people" advocates out there. They are one of the 800 lb gorillas on the block, yet unlike RIAA/MPAA/Apple/MS etc. who sue individuals, they are working constantly to get sued so that they can help set precedent.
This is just the latest in a long line. Google Print, for instance. Googe Images. Google News. All have attracted lawsuits. No suit has resulted in much of a change of service. Google, here, is standing up for everyone's rights, and I gotta say I'm impressed. I know it's dangerous to put any sort of faith for "doing the right thing" in any for-profit agency, but I gotta tell you, Google's track record thus far has been pretty good.
Does anyone else want to take "measured accurately for the first time" with a grain of salt? I'm not a physicist or anyone that can make any truely accurate statements about how we measure the mass of objects light-years away from earth, but we constantly find that certain measuring devices we use are slightly off - like older, now debunked versions of carbon/radiation dating of fossils, etc.
Is there anyone that can comment intelligently on this?
My own experience is that they avoid doing anything about fraudulent sellers.
That is because the more they do, the more they "sort of" admit that they are - at least partially - responsible for the problem. Ebay would like to be very much like Kazaa and Napster in their arguments of "they're using the software we provide, but we can't be responsible for what they do with it." The more Ebay takes on fraud, the more they put themselves out as the police on the site, and they're not willing to accept that responsibility.
I'd always been told it was pressure on the carpal tunnel that caused it, not finger movements.
Exactly, but what people should not take away from this article is that improper use of the keyboard still can be a contributing factor to carpal tunnel along with other RSIs. As a matter of a fact, my forearms feel more stress from working with the mouse than the keyboard - probably because I've trained in piano for years and thus actually keep my hands pretty properly placed above the keyboard.
That said, programming for 7+ years has definately taken its toll on my arms/wrists/hands. Carpal tunnel or other RSIs, proper typing is a must.
Anybody who would make generalizations like this while obviously not knowing anything about what life is like outside VS is a complete idiot. We don't get the pretty widgets, but most of the shit you think is so nifty about Visual Studio was available several years prior to people in the know.
I'll tell you what, when I find someone that knows nothing about what life is like outside of VS, I'll let you know. I spent years writing C, C++, Java, Python, and even PHP/Html in emacs (no, I never decided to take the 10 days it takes to get aquainted with VI to get aquainted with VI.) I spent time coding ASP in variations of notepad or enhanced notepad applications. I had moderate code completion, syntax highlighting, the works.
I speak from a whole lot of experience here. Emacs and VIM are simply outdated in their ability to match the speed/enhancements of a modern IDE. I'm sorry I'm putting your baby down here, but getting so emotional about emacs is a bit over the top, and shows that zealotry cannot be combatted, no matter how rational the argument.
Now, with software the boundaries are blury. What can you patent as in invention?
This also has a little to do with who is suing them as much as the patent itself. I submitted this story (rejected) with a bit more info - the patents in question are similar to those which NTP is using to put down RIM.
As it turns out, the Slashdot posting regarding NTP licensing its patent library to start a RIM competitor was to - Visto.
NTP, along with the licensing "agreement", also then bought an equity stake in - Visto.
This is NTP, being spurred on by its successes in the Blackberry case, now going after bigger guns. Just as they did with RIM, which was on the verge of completing a giant licensing deal with NTP that NTP then rejected, doesn't want money from MS, but a permanent injunction against them.
Make no mistake. Visto might be the one listed on the suit, but NTP has equity ownership in Visto, and I'm damn sure is probably running the operation here.
Besides as long as there's Emacs for Windows, I can't imagine wanting to use anything else for Unix-origin languages.
Maybe for shell scripting, but for software/web development, I couldn't imagine life without a good IDE.
Don't get me wrong. I could hand-code everything in notepad if I so desired. I make sure to never become so dependent on the IDE that I lose the ability to think for myself.
But IDEs are just tools that make development so much quicker. They list all project files for easy opening, and keep them organized. They allow for compilation without having to write your own batch file. And - especially with VS.NET 2003 and 2005 - intellisense of some sort is simply inseperable from yours truely.
Intellisense saves me - easily - thousands of key-strokes per day. Being able to type two or three letters and hit tab or ctrl-space-tab to complete keywords or object names makes coding a line incredibly fast. Hitting . and having immediate keystroke access to an object's entire interface is a huge time saver. Anyone who thinks they can code at the same speed in notepad/emacs/vi is just plain nuts. Seriously. Nuts. Mod me down if you must but... Still nuts.
I think that Microsoft is starting to realize that karma actually counts towards something. You've got Firefox and the team basically getting MS level advertising for free. Google's mantra of "do no evil" has helped rocket them to a huge stock price.
Microsoft is starting to realize that sometimes, making things work for the user, the way the user wants (not the way MS wants) is enough to give you a better image.
Heck, I applaud MS for all the things listed in the parent post, as should just about everyone. Years of letting IE slide suck, but if they've admitted (in actions) that they needed to get up to snuff and have taken steps to do so, well, give 'em just a little love - whether they improve things out of love for the customer or fear of losing them doesn't really matter much.
"A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. The patent is granted upon the new machine, manufacture, etc., as has been said, and not upon the idea or suggestion of the new machine. A complete description of the actual machine or other subject matter for which a patent is sought is required."
Oh yeah, because that's how things have worked this past decade. Someone writes up 100 pages completely dodging any real description of the "machine" and it's considered an explanation and therefore valid.
Almost every tech/business patent is in direct violation of this very clause, yet has it stopped anyone from registering/suing/stifling innovation?
Seeing that many people have been harassed by the FBI and similar entitys just because they belong in a certain group (peace protestor, black, etc.), I really do not want the government to find out that I from time to time engage in peaceful marches agianst the man.
People often joke that George Orwell was a mere 20 years or so off the mark, such delay perhaps caused by the very fear his book invoked in the hearts of those who would fall victim to such surveillance.
But the scary truth is, this is not a joke. As a majority of communications moves online, even as phone calls are now almost all routed at some point over an IP network, this is perhaps the single largest surveillance undertaking and law that I have ever seen pass. I cannot imagine that any citizen would accept this as representing their beliefs or desires. This is, in fact, one of the scariest things to happen in a long time.
What concerns me further is the reach this has. This is all data that passes over any EU country's network, meaning that any time I visit a website hosted in Europe, my data will be tracked. Any time I email someone in Germany or France, my information will be tracked. This is in no way just surveillance of the EU's citizenry, but of the entire world's.
Slashdot Mirror
See, that's not entirely true. In fact, hardware has the capability to ignore DRM, which is why the entertainment industry is always trying to get laws passed that REQUIRE hardware to consult the DRM in the content before playing said content.
However, you're right, it is to "please" the industry, because if the industry is "pleased" then that particular brand of DRM will show up in the laws the RI/MP/**/AA write for the protection of the American People, and thus licensing fees will roll in, because, you know, you HAVE to license it or your product breaks laws.
These companies see DRM as something that is just a truth, and laws will be enacted regarding it, so why fight it, make money licensing it. Or in the case of this consortium, don't license it, but the best offense is defense, so protect yourself from having to pay to license another company's technology. That's the point of this consortium - everyone agree on a standard, and noone will collect while others are paying out the nose.
No no, he was hired for Microsoft's next Windows release - Windows 2014, codename Windows "Hang on, we're coming..."
Yeah, you're right. Without question. But someone's gotta be the first to test a drug. The real problem here is that the drug companies are trying to act without the restrictions of the US. Were they operating under the same restrictions over there, then I really wouldn't have much of a problem here at all, since someone, somewhere, has to be the first.
The US/FDA COULD refuse to accept or deny the right to sale to any drug that is tested without adhering to the same restrictions/rules that they would have to in the US. Test subjects would still be cheaper, but at least there would be incentive for treating these people decently.
They were scared. It's not often they're in the presence of a bonafied female.
This is (dare I say it) at least partially the fault of the women's movement. It's the same pendulum swing that all issues go through - from one extreme to the other.
Things start out with there definately being a gender bias in everything - down to denying women the right to vote. Women's suffrage comes along, gains traction, gets the right to vote, and keeps on moving (rightfully so.) But as every movement has, certain radicals decided that not only should women have equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work, but that the traditional roles of the female were to be shunned. Now that the opportunity to have a career existed, women chosing not to do so were holding the movement back, and were themselves the product of a still-unbalanced culture.
Whether or not culture still does favor men over women in the career/pay department is not the debate here - I think that we're at least starting to see the pendulum swing back towards center again. Women go to college in droves - to most young people, there is no understanding of a gender bias in continuing eduacation at all. Women are executives and CEOs, and are starting to have real representation at the top of the ladder. What this means is that said pendulum is now free to swing back, and people can start realizing that it's choice that was lacking before. Now a woman can choose her path - career, stay-at-home mother, or even both, and it is that choice that we support.
It's true, there is no more nobel a calling than motherhood. There is a reason that no matter how a child was raised, most would instantly kill or be killed for the welfare of their mother. So now women have true choice, and people will hopefully stop judging so harshly for any choice, be it stay-at-home mother or career woman. And like your wife, that choice can be mutually exclusive from the level of education or intelligence a woman may possess or strive for.
I fail to see how we (humans) actively discourage women from entering the CS workforce. It's true that some IT professions have gotten a reputation as existing as a couple of overly obese 35 year old virgins in a server room without windows, but I'd like to see an example of someone (overtly or not) saying "women should not do IT" or "you as a woman do not want to enter into the IT world." Obviously it doesn't have to be that forward, but actively discouraging women, and women being discouraged by an untrue or outdated stereotype are two different things. A positive eduactional campaign may be in order, but anything more than that - actively recruiting women just to close the gender gap that may or may not be simply the nature of things is unnecessary and unfair to those men that actually WANT to do CS, in my opinion.
Seriously!
For fucks sake, I am so tired of this pandering if certain things are not entirelly, totally equal. Wait - only 48% of people in profession X are female? Well there must be some gender bias! Quick, admit more women into universities into these studies! Quick, discourage males from being allowed to propigate such a gender biased view of things!
Maybe less women WANT to go into CS! Listen, there is, and will always BE, fundamental differences between the sexes, between the way the mind works, between general interests. Yes, there is overlap, but the majority of young boys don't want to play with Barbies in pink dresses. Does that indicate some gender bias? Sure... is it wrong, bad, or need to be corrected? NO! It's nature, just let it be already.
Those are good examples... Thanks!
This isn't even "my way" - it's quite simply the connection itself. I am paying not for the service, but for the connection to the internet. Currently, the ISP passes my traffic back and forth to my computer/router. Serivces are provided by the connected server that is passing traffic back to my computer.
This is DIRECTLY akin to saying that phone companies want to provide better phone quality if you call another user on their network. Have Verizon and call someone on Cavalier? Well, we can't guarentee a connection, we can't promise you won't be booted off the line for a Verizon->Verizon connection, and we can't help the static unless you get the other party to switch to Verizon.
This, directly, stifles competition, especially at the small business level. It's sickening. And it will become law.
EEEEEEXACTLY. It's like banning assault rifles, or requiring a gun license - like those with criminal intent won't find a way to obtain a firearm of their choosing. I mean, has cell phone cloning been solved? I don't really want police showing up at my door because my cell phone happened to have been at a crime scene (which is, of course, days before I receive the $12,000 cell phone bill.)
loaded with pro-survival factors
Pro-survival factors cracks me up. Wouldn't be much of a report if, while trying to make the heart more resiliant after a heart attack, doctors injected the heart with anti-survival factors.
It's an interesting thought - what if GTalk was simply a beta version - a test platform if you will - for a much larger VOIP rollout later on? Get folks to start chatting VOIP style, see how reliable it is, then incorporate that into all those fun trailor-sized boxes Google will start distributing... Instant phone network for Google.
I'm trying to think of any other time that the government has (or at least tried to) so highly regulate any manufacturing or product to benefit other for-profit agencies. So far the RIAA has or has in the works region encoding, tarifs on cassette tapes and cd/dvd-r/rw among other things, DRM on all content discs, that flag - what was it called? that was shot down because of the FCC overreaching its authority... etc... etc...
Does anyone have an example of this sort of continually ongoing, pounding abuse of government to benefit so few?
think of the children!
Ugh, this wheeling and dealing by Clinton is just infuriating. We HAVE laws that specify which games can and cannot be sold to minors. We HAVE a ratings board. If these are broken, fix them, but new laws? C'mon!
Have I said UGH?
This is, in my opinion, one of emacs/vim's greatest detractions. With VS.NET and the like, most of the features I want/need are there, right out of the box. I can remember trying to extend emacs for the first time to get syntax highlighting in my Java code, and getting quite frustrated until someone helped me out. Sure, I was just learning at the time, but it shouldn't be that difficult.
Remember, emacs is written in (a) Lisp, and Lisp is the most powerful of programming languages.Um, I'm gonna leave that alone. This is one of those "best for the required solution" arguments.
If you want a feature emacs doesn't have, it can be added; there's no feature which can't be added.Same with VS.NET. Even more so with the likes of Eclipse. This is not unique to emacs, I just find the implementation more difficult. I had a friend who wanted to be able to embed WMP in the IDE, so he could play music without having to switch out of the IDE. Took me 10 minutes to write up a plugin that sat in the sidebar of VS.NET and embedded WMP. Of course emacs is extensible, it just seems more difficult, to me.
I'm not trying to put down emacs users. I'm also not trying to imply that those who still use it are either missing out or are not good programmers. I'm just trying to imply that things will continue to get better as time goes on, and for me, modern IDEs are just a lot better for the code I do than emacs/vim will ever be.
Google may very well be the greatest of the "little people" advocates out there. They are one of the 800 lb gorillas on the block, yet unlike RIAA/MPAA/Apple/MS etc. who sue individuals, they are working constantly to get sued so that they can help set precedent.
This is just the latest in a long line. Google Print, for instance. Googe Images. Google News. All have attracted lawsuits. No suit has resulted in much of a change of service. Google, here, is standing up for everyone's rights, and I gotta say I'm impressed. I know it's dangerous to put any sort of faith for "doing the right thing" in any for-profit agency, but I gotta tell you, Google's track record thus far has been pretty good.
Does anyone else want to take "measured accurately for the first time" with a grain of salt? I'm not a physicist or anyone that can make any truely accurate statements about how we measure the mass of objects light-years away from earth, but we constantly find that certain measuring devices we use are slightly off - like older, now debunked versions of carbon/radiation dating of fossils, etc.
Is there anyone that can comment intelligently on this?
That is because the more they do, the more they "sort of" admit that they are - at least partially - responsible for the problem. Ebay would like to be very much like Kazaa and Napster in their arguments of "they're using the software we provide, but we can't be responsible for what they do with it." The more Ebay takes on fraud, the more they put themselves out as the police on the site, and they're not willing to accept that responsibility.
Exactly, but what people should not take away from this article is that improper use of the keyboard still can be a contributing factor to carpal tunnel along with other RSIs. As a matter of a fact, my forearms feel more stress from working with the mouse than the keyboard - probably because I've trained in piano for years and thus actually keep my hands pretty properly placed above the keyboard.
That said, programming for 7+ years has definately taken its toll on my arms/wrists/hands. Carpal tunnel or other RSIs, proper typing is a must.
I'll tell you what, when I find someone that knows nothing about what life is like outside of VS, I'll let you know. I spent years writing C, C++, Java, Python, and even PHP/Html in emacs (no, I never decided to take the 10 days it takes to get aquainted with VI to get aquainted with VI.) I spent time coding ASP in variations of notepad or enhanced notepad applications. I had moderate code completion, syntax highlighting, the works.
I speak from a whole lot of experience here. Emacs and VIM are simply outdated in their ability to match the speed/enhancements of a modern IDE. I'm sorry I'm putting your baby down here, but getting so emotional about emacs is a bit over the top, and shows that zealotry cannot be combatted, no matter how rational the argument.
This also has a little to do with who is suing them as much as the patent itself. I submitted this story (rejected) with a bit more info - the patents in question are similar to those which NTP is using to put down RIM.
As it turns out, the Slashdot posting regarding NTP licensing its patent library to start a RIM competitor was to - Visto.
NTP, along with the licensing "agreement", also then bought an equity stake in - Visto.
This is NTP, being spurred on by its successes in the Blackberry case, now going after bigger guns. Just as they did with RIM, which was on the verge of completing a giant licensing deal with NTP that NTP then rejected, doesn't want money from MS, but a permanent injunction against them.
Make no mistake. Visto might be the one listed on the suit, but NTP has equity ownership in Visto, and I'm damn sure is probably running the operation here.
Maybe for shell scripting, but for software/web development, I couldn't imagine life without a good IDE.
Don't get me wrong. I could hand-code everything in notepad if I so desired. I make sure to never become so dependent on the IDE that I lose the ability to think for myself.
But IDEs are just tools that make development so much quicker. They list all project files for easy opening, and keep them organized. They allow for compilation without having to write your own batch file. And - especially with VS.NET 2003 and 2005 - intellisense of some sort is simply inseperable from yours truely.
Intellisense saves me - easily - thousands of key-strokes per day. Being able to type two or three letters and hit tab or ctrl-space-tab to complete keywords or object names makes coding a line incredibly fast. Hitting . and having immediate keystroke access to an object's entire interface is a huge time saver. Anyone who thinks they can code at the same speed in notepad/emacs/vi is just plain nuts. Seriously. Nuts. Mod me down if you must but... Still nuts.
I think that Microsoft is starting to realize that karma actually counts towards something. You've got Firefox and the team basically getting MS level advertising for free. Google's mantra of "do no evil" has helped rocket them to a huge stock price.
Microsoft is starting to realize that sometimes, making things work for the user, the way the user wants (not the way MS wants) is enough to give you a better image.
Heck, I applaud MS for all the things listed in the parent post, as should just about everyone. Years of letting IE slide suck, but if they've admitted (in actions) that they needed to get up to snuff and have taken steps to do so, well, give 'em just a little love - whether they improve things out of love for the customer or fear of losing them doesn't really matter much.
Oh yeah, because that's how things have worked this past decade. Someone writes up 100 pages completely dodging any real description of the "machine" and it's considered an explanation and therefore valid.
Almost every tech/business patent is in direct violation of this very clause, yet has it stopped anyone from registering/suing/stifling innovation?
People often joke that George Orwell was a mere 20 years or so off the mark, such delay perhaps caused by the very fear his book invoked in the hearts of those who would fall victim to such surveillance.
But the scary truth is, this is not a joke. As a majority of communications moves online, even as phone calls are now almost all routed at some point over an IP network, this is perhaps the single largest surveillance undertaking and law that I have ever seen pass. I cannot imagine that any citizen would accept this as representing their beliefs or desires. This is, in fact, one of the scariest things to happen in a long time.
What concerns me further is the reach this has. This is all data that passes over any EU country's network, meaning that any time I visit a website hosted in Europe, my data will be tracked. Any time I email someone in Germany or France, my information will be tracked. This is in no way just surveillance of the EU's citizenry, but of the entire world's.
I for one am off to fashion a tin foil hat.