And it took less than one decade for the average IQ to drop below that of a rock.
Hello, tech support? The cupholder on my PC is broken.... Yes, the cupholder.... Yes, it does... Or did... It broke just after I opened and ran that Microsoft virus patch you sent me in email, although it ended up in my junk folder for some reason.... Whaddayumean what? I had to disable the virus scanner because it said your patch was a virus.
I heard that we fought a great world war to end all wars. Problem is, it was quickly followed by a second world war to end all wars. Things weren't much different fundamentally before or since.
Very easily. They can have all the best recordkeeping procedures in the world, and still lose anything through poor recordkeeping practices despite procedure. And before y'all attribute it to conspiracy theories, I remind you: Don't attribute to malice that which is sufficiently explained by stupidity.
... WinXP works out of the box. Bam! No tweaking required.
Please define "works out of the box." The only thing I was ever able to do with an out-of-box Windows XP installation was get jerked around, if not by Microsoft then by the OEM vendor. A stock Windows XP installation can't do anything but load Web pages and read mail, using what are among the most vulnerable applications of any kind available.
Plus I also think that anyone who can't get a windows box to run for more than a week with no issues is a raging idiot.
Then perhaps you can explain to me why my (thankfully former) Windows XP installation developed the problem of — on its own — showing me two taskbars without the ability to disable either one, on average every third boot. I witnessed this happen on an installation which was pristine aside from being OEM-installed and patched with Microsoft updates, including Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Windows XP. This among many other problems for which either Microsoft's solutions were ineffective or Microsoft didn't have a solution.
What's your secret for keeping a Windows box running for more than a week with no issues? I ask in all honesty because it seems that 99% of Windows users are, by your definition, raging idiots. Oh, and just to be clear, I'm just a former Windows user now.
According to his profile page, he is a "former" vice president. It was updated on June 20th, presumably to reflect the change in his employment status. Not even retiring Co-President Jim's profile page has been updated to reflect his imminent departure.
No. NeXT was a venture of Steve Jobs after he left Apple the first time. After he returned to Apple, with NeXT a technological breakthrough but a commercial failure, it was Apple under Jobs' stewardship who bought out NeXT.
Apple had released just a year or two prior to Win95 the much ballyhooed System 7.5, which finally supported multitasking through a much improved Finder interface, instead of relying on the duct-taped MultiFinder first appearing in System 6. Also, System 7.5 was the first version of Mac OS to support virtual memory, IIRC.
WTG on nuclear fears. Right on the money. Nuclear energy, be it fission or fusion, seriously needs to be considered as a form of power generation and spacecraft propulsion. Instead, thanks largely to two high-profile incidents, nuclear anything isn't even an option except in distant unmanned probe missions like Cassini, Galileo, and the Grand Tour.
The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant had an incident that released less radiation into the air than a typical coal power plant does on a good day.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant suffered an incident that became a lasting monument to the failure of communism, an incident plant operators in American plants would never allow to happen, whether before or after the Soviet incident.
Wired isn't slashdotted; indeed that's true. But Wired is the hardest to read quasi-news site passed off as a mainstream news site. Not even/. itself is as bad as Wired is with hype.
I read every word of the article before posting, yet I managed to miss what the hype was.
Now that means one of two things: either there's something wrong with me, which doesn't explain why it's only Wired I have problems with, or there's something wrong with Wired, which fully explains why it's only with Wired I have an issue.
Thank you for applying your ability to find the tiny gem in that pile of rubbish that is Wired's "journalism" and letting me know. I genuinely appreciate that.
Or worse... Hey, is that a signpost ahead, standing between day and night?
* RING * Me: "Hello?" Caller: "I love you, Melissa... VRAUGH!" Phone: "Aieeee!" Me: "What the-" Phone: "Settings successfully changed. Thank you for choosing 1-900-SEX-LINE as your preferred local and long distance mobile carrier." * ME SHUTTING PHONE OFF * * PHONE TURNS BACK ON * Phone: "Your phone bill has been charged a $395 convenience fee for use of your new service. Thank you." * ME SCRAMBLING TO RIP OFF BATTERY COVER Phone: "Auto-answer enabled." * TEXT BEEP * Phone: "Thank you for your use of 1-900-SEX-LINE to send 18,000 email and text messages. The total charge is $42,648.33 in addition to roaming charges from your roaming service provider." * RIPS COVER OFF * * RING * Caller (auto-answer): "Hello. Your phone service has been suspended for unacceptable use, pending payment of $956.48 for sending 18,000 email and text messages." * FINALLY RIPS BATTERY OUT *
Big problem: The only place this will work is deep within cities and neighborhoods already deeply penetrated by free-access wireless hotspots. And it'll be more expensive and less reliable than wired cable Internet.
That is, unless they're talking about wireless cable modems. If that's so, then DSL has already beat cable to the punch: ActionTec has half-decent DSL modems that double as a wired router and wireless access point.
Wired Magazine is notoriously vague on the details when hyping new tech possibilities like this, so please forgive my own vagueness as well.
The explorer process fills four major roles, all replaceable: desktop/shell, file manager, Web browser, and FTP client. In XP, it fills a fifth role as well: PK-ZIP-compatible archive manager. All five roles can be replaced with alternatives such as LiteStep, DOpus, Firefox, CuteFTP, and PowerArchiver.
Grandparent post said that there would be no difference except in the size of the user's, uh, member. If your results are different, that's a personal problem hardly worth discussing on a tech news forum. Regardless, demanding that the post be modded down is the wrong way to say your experience was not the same. May I suggest seeking advice from DrRuth.com instead?
How many people does it take to come up with acronym SIGGRAPH?
Fewer than it took to come up with PCMCIA (People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms) but more than it took to come up with INTERCAL (Computer Programming Language With No Pronouncable Acronym).
The company I work for uses a proprietary billing system with an open-source back-end interface to our customer database. The proprietary system was sold to us from a commercial vendor and has as its major requirement a Red Hat-based OS, which is of course open source.
Care to adjust for a little more than two decades of inflation?
Actually, yes, I would care to. Thank you for reminding me. However, your DQ analogy is inappropriate. Over the last 20 years, the rate of inflation has averaged 3.01% [Source Gotta love Google]. That means that what cost $.50 in 1985 would cost today, not factoring in changes in manufacturing processes or business practices, still less that $1.00. Wow, you're getting ripped off for that cup of frozen yogurt.
Of course, it still doesn't explain why a box of Windows XP full-up still costs at least three times what a box of Windows 1.01 cost.
I seem to remember being able to pick up a copy of Microsoft MS-DOS, boxed and full-up, for $60 or so. Not OEM, not an upgrade. I'm talking a boxed set of disks and manuals, actual printed 300-page manuals that documented just about everything. I also remember being able to pick up a copy of GEOS for my Commodore 64 for only $40 or $50. Nowadays? I can't find a copy of even a Windows upgrade for less than $90, except in spam scams. Let alone a full-up boxed copy: cheapest I've seen is about $140, more than twice what Windows cost 20 years ago. And forget about manuals, you're lucky if it comes with a booklet that doesn't even tell you how to access the online help on how to use a mouse if you've never used one before. (Start button? What's "clicking"?)
Microsoft help drive down PC costs? Don't delude yourself. PC costs and prices have come down over the years in spite of Microsoft, not because of it.
Slashdot Mirror
And it took less than one decade for the average IQ to drop below that of a rock.
*Sigh*
I heard that we fought a great world war to end all wars. Problem is, it was quickly followed by a second world war to end all wars. Things weren't much different fundamentally before or since.
Double plusgood bellyfeel. Grandparent post is double plusgood, too.
Thank goodness I'm still using Harvard Graphics for DOS.
It's "How can the government lose 698/700 boxes?"
Very easily. They can have all the best recordkeeping procedures in the world, and still lose anything through poor recordkeeping practices despite procedure. And before y'all attribute it to conspiracy theories, I remind you: Don't attribute to malice that which is sufficiently explained by stupidity.
I thought they were backed up on Betamax in the '80s. All you need is a player that can play that forma—
Oh.
Please define "works out of the box." The only thing I was ever able to do with an out-of-box Windows XP installation was get jerked around, if not by Microsoft then by the OEM vendor. A stock Windows XP installation can't do anything but load Web pages and read mail, using what are among the most vulnerable applications of any kind available.
Then perhaps you can explain to me why my (thankfully former) Windows XP installation developed the problem of — on its own — showing me two taskbars without the ability to disable either one, on average every third boot. I witnessed this happen on an installation which was pristine aside from being OEM-installed and patched with Microsoft updates, including Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Windows XP. This among many other problems for which either Microsoft's solutions were ineffective or Microsoft didn't have a solution.
What's your secret for keeping a Windows box running for more than a week with no issues? I ask in all honesty because it seems that 99% of Windows users are, by your definition, raging idiots. Oh, and just to be clear, I'm just a former Windows user now.
According to his profile page, he is a "former" vice president. It was updated on June 20th, presumably to reflect the change in his employment status. Not even retiring Co-President Jim's profile page has been updated to reflect his imminent departure.
I stand corrected. Thank you.
Yes, it's supposed to be a play the third season's opener: Point of No Return.
No. NeXT was a venture of Steve Jobs after he left Apple the first time. After he returned to Apple, with NeXT a technological breakthrough but a commercial failure, it was Apple under Jobs' stewardship who bought out NeXT.
Apple had released just a year or two prior to Win95 the much ballyhooed System 7.5, which finally supported multitasking through a much improved Finder interface, instead of relying on the duct-taped MultiFinder first appearing in System 6. Also, System 7.5 was the first version of Mac OS to support virtual memory, IIRC.
WTG on nuclear fears. Right on the money. Nuclear energy, be it fission or fusion, seriously needs to be considered as a form of power generation and spacecraft propulsion. Instead, thanks largely to two high-profile incidents, nuclear anything isn't even an option except in distant unmanned probe missions like Cassini, Galileo, and the Grand Tour.
The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant had an incident that released less radiation into the air than a typical coal power plant does on a good day.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant suffered an incident that became a lasting monument to the failure of communism, an incident plant operators in American plants would never allow to happen, whether before or after the Soviet incident.
Wired isn't slashdotted; indeed that's true. But Wired is the hardest to read quasi-news site passed off as a mainstream news site. Not even /. itself is as bad as Wired is with hype.
I read every word of the article before posting, yet I managed to miss what the hype was.
Now that means one of two things: either there's something wrong with me, which doesn't explain why it's only Wired I have problems with, or there's something wrong with Wired, which fully explains why it's only with Wired I have an issue.
Thank you for applying your ability to find the tiny gem in that pile of rubbish that is Wired's "journalism" and letting me know. I genuinely appreciate that.
Or worse... Hey, is that a signpost ahead, standing between day and night?
* RING *
Me: "Hello?"
Caller: "I love you, Melissa... VRAUGH!"
Phone: "Aieeee!"
Me: "What the-"
Phone: "Settings successfully changed. Thank you for choosing 1-900-SEX-LINE as your preferred local and long distance mobile carrier."
* ME SHUTTING PHONE OFF *
* PHONE TURNS BACK ON *
Phone: "Your phone bill has been charged a $395 convenience fee for use of your new service. Thank you."
* ME SCRAMBLING TO RIP OFF BATTERY COVER
Phone: "Auto-answer enabled."
* TEXT BEEP *
Phone: "Thank you for your use of 1-900-SEX-LINE to send 18,000 email and text messages. The total charge is $42,648.33 in addition to roaming charges from your roaming service provider."
* RIPS COVER OFF *
* RING *
Caller (auto-answer): "Hello. Your phone service has been suspended for unacceptable use, pending payment of $956.48 for sending 18,000 email and text messages."
* FINALLY RIPS BATTERY OUT *
Big problem: The only place this will work is deep within cities and neighborhoods already deeply penetrated by free-access wireless hotspots. And it'll be more expensive and less reliable than wired cable Internet.
That is, unless they're talking about wireless cable modems. If that's so, then DSL has already beat cable to the punch: ActionTec has half-decent DSL modems that double as a wired router and wireless access point.
Wired Magazine is notoriously vague on the details when hyping new tech possibilities like this, so please forgive my own vagueness as well.
The explorer process fills four major roles, all replaceable: desktop/shell, file manager, Web browser, and FTP client. In XP, it fills a fifth role as well: PK-ZIP-compatible archive manager. All five roles can be replaced with alternatives such as LiteStep, DOpus, Firefox, CuteFTP, and PowerArchiver.
Grandparent post said that there would be no difference except in the size of the user's, uh, member. If your results are different, that's a personal problem hardly worth discussing on a tech news forum. Regardless, demanding that the post be modded down is the wrong way to say your experience was not the same. May I suggest seeking advice from DrRuth.com instead?
In Soviet Russia, ... oh you beat me to it. Nuts.
How many people does it take to come up with acronym SIGGRAPH?
Fewer than it took to come up with PCMCIA (People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms) but more than it took to come up with INTERCAL (Computer Programming Language With No Pronouncable Acronym).
The company I work for uses a proprietary billing system with an open-source back-end interface to our customer database. The proprietary system was sold to us from a commercial vendor and has as its major requirement a Red Hat-based OS, which is of course open source.
Just wait until the computers controlling cars start embedding Windows. Insert lame crash joke here.
Absolutely correct, but it's still paying more and getting less for it.
Care to adjust for a little more than two decades of inflation?
Actually, yes, I would care to. Thank you for reminding me. However, your DQ analogy is inappropriate. Over the last 20 years, the rate of inflation has averaged 3.01% [Source Gotta love Google]. That means that what cost $.50 in 1985 would cost today, not factoring in changes in manufacturing processes or business practices, still less that $1.00. Wow, you're getting ripped off for that cup of frozen yogurt.
Of course, it still doesn't explain why a box of Windows XP full-up still costs at least three times what a box of Windows 1.01 cost.
I seem to remember being able to pick up a copy of Microsoft MS-DOS, boxed and full-up, for $60 or so. Not OEM, not an upgrade. I'm talking a boxed set of disks and manuals, actual printed 300-page manuals that documented just about everything. I also remember being able to pick up a copy of GEOS for my Commodore 64 for only $40 or $50. Nowadays? I can't find a copy of even a Windows upgrade for less than $90, except in spam scams. Let alone a full-up boxed copy: cheapest I've seen is about $140, more than twice what Windows cost 20 years ago. And forget about manuals, you're lucky if it comes with a booklet that doesn't even tell you how to access the online help on how to use a mouse if you've never used one before. (Start button? What's "clicking"?)
Microsoft help drive down PC costs? Don't delude yourself. PC costs and prices have come down over the years in spite of Microsoft, not because of it.