Why is it that you don't understand that the USA is not supposed to be a pure Democracy, but rather a "Republic" of, by, and for the people? Of course I must give my obligatory request that you go read Plato's Republic (which will probably be ignored) as a starting point for understanding what a Republic is, and how it's supposed to work.
Just to be sure that you understand how important it is to specifically read that book: Aristotle's responses to it are invalid because Aristotle believed in eugenics and slavery. "The Prince" is a further adaptation of eugenics and rule by birthright. Aristotle and Machiavellian views are probably what you learned without you realizing it, assuming you know much at all about a Republic.
It's not shell programming, so you are wrong at least when it comes to html. The quote directive is used for, of all things, quoting people. Italics works with a similar effect if you don't want a new block quote.
Democrats/= Left, Republicans/= Right. Parties are not constants - they are groups of people and their ideologies shift over time. The Republicans of the 50s and 60s were consumed by the southern democrats, there has been a complete flip in party politics over the last one-hundred years.
Wrong! It has not been a flip, it's been a take over. There is no longer a left or right, or Democrat and Republican. It's one team that plays on people's desire to still believe a left-right paradigm exists.
All you have to do to validate my claims is to look at politician's records. Obama promised hope and change, and is a Democrat. Name something pertinent that was done differently than Bush. Go ahead and look, but outside of lies and fabrications you won't find anything. The Patriot act was strengthened, not dismantled. Gitmo was not closed, it's still used to torture people. A Presidential "Hit List" was made public, if the guy was anti-war it would not exist or would not have required a whistle blower. War in the middle east has been extended, not ended (Libya, Syria, Egypt, etc...). Surveillance has increased and the executive branch has attacked whistle blowers on a massive scale. I could go on, but believe I have shown my point to be more than valid.
The people in power are currently doing everything possible to keep you from looking at them. They push atheism vs. religion, ethnic hatred, gay vs. straight, and Dem. vs. Rep through a media monopoly which has not been bound to tell you a single truth for nearly a decade. If you don't believe that, compare the AP and what's on corporate owned media to independent reports anywhere in the world. They don't match usually, and on the odd chance that the AP publishes something in a light unfavorable to the people in power you will be inundated with celebrity news on corporate owned media instead of the pertinent "news".
I get that it is easier and more comforting to believe that things are not so bad, but that belief does not change reality. We must demand truthfulness in news and demand that the monopolies are broken up or the masses will never see any truths that are relevant to society. At the same time, we need to follow Socrates' demand and get rid of the political class which is keeping people in the proverbial cave.
It's simply not possible. If you don't get the tech, you can't work with it. Some may pick up new tech faster than others, or perceive to at least. But that is more related to how much other knowledge they have, and what's in the active portions of their brains when they are looking at it.
I work with a programmer who has a very sound programming way of looking at problems. Sometimes I learn things, but I'm never truly lost. He is a programmer working on programs, and I'm an Admin/Engineer working on systems related problems. I don't program all the time so what's in the fore part of my mind is not always best suited to thinking like a programmer. When he points out a way to do something while I'm writing a program, it's often different than how I had planned to do it but never illogical. Sometimes his requests are easier, sometimes not, but either way I understand it. I also implement it as he suggests because he's a damn fine programmer.
Now when it comes to systems analysis, I can give better methods to get results than he can. I can pinpoint errors quickly because that's what I do. What I do all the time is more methodical than pragmatic, but I do write programs to help the methods.
All of that out of the way, given time we could probably end up switching roles. We are both intelligent, and understand what each other comes up with (even if it was not our first thought).
My way of looking at it is this. As we gain knowledge we store knowledge for later access, but only so much can be in the foreground at any given time. The more we have in the background, the easier we can sort and make sense of new information. But our immediate access is only what's in the foreground. We have to shuffle things in and out to change that, and it does take a bit of time. The more we have, the better we are of course. The "Jack of all Trades is a Master of None" in my opinion is not necessarily true. The "Jack" in time can master anything that is true knowledge (understood learning, not rote learning), but not all at the same time.
Stop placing blame on people who are kept ignorant to the practices and lied to. Every time something like this comes out, consumers are first told "No wayz, we would never hurt people to make profits" which turns into "we are investigating" when more evidence is provided, and finally "we are fixing it" when they can't deny problems any further.
It's like blaming unions for the downfall of companies while exec's get multi-million dollar bonuses. It's illogical to put the blame there, but you tow the party line and say it anyway.
When people realize there are issues, they do vote with their wallets. If that was not true companies would _never_, _ever_ change. Foxconn would still be the piece of trash it was (and maybe it is, we only see the post cards). If they are kept in the dark, you can't blame them for not making noise or boycotting.
If you really want to blame someone other than management, how about bashing our media monopoly that spreads propaganda instead of news and politicians that allowed it (and continue to allow) this to happen? Of course that's not the party line, so you won't even think about it. Right?
Worthy point, but I'll have you know that I'm as pedantic as the rest when it comes to this subject. I do have this discussion on occasion, and you are not the first to make this claim. Remember that Plato was not only a student of Socrates but a Historian. Plato was meticulous about capturing Socrates' dialogues since Socrates never wrote down any works (though he could read and write). Socrates's reasoning for not writing Philosophy is also captured by Plato.
Since Plato had other works which he does not attribute to Socrates, there is no reason do doubt his claim that he is capturing the words of Socrates or that he is using a pseudo/pen name.
Now if you are being pedantic about the "writer" owning the words, then I should assume that you give the machinery of a printing press due credit.
It is really hard to tell if you are a shill or a extremely ignorant. I'll assume the latter and tell you that you should really start opening your eyes and investigating facts instead of listening to propaganda. The majority of infrastructure (roads/rail/bridges/ports) in the US is over 60 years old and crumbling with no plan to repair or rebuild. The majority of manufacturing was packed up and moved out of the US over the last 30 years (largely paid for with your tax dollars). We import almost all of our oil because we have little. We import most of our metals (precious and industrial) because we have very little. I could go on, but believe I have shown that you are very ignorant so won't waste any more of my time.
And before you try it, the answer is "No"! Fiat money is not real wealth.
What the fuck does them being American have to do with what I stated? If it's not an American that dies, it does not count as a death? Until just now, you had no such qualification as you show in italics. You continue to prove you are a good slave, goodie for you. Now please go back to the puppet show and be quiet.
The 2 million number is rather generous if you consider all of the missions/wars we have in Yemen, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, et all. I know it's rather shocking if you live in a delusion where Fox is "Fair and Balanced" and all. Sources outside of the AP show a different picture, and that link is just Iraq.
The deficit is horrendous, but our existing wealth is staggering. It would require a civil war to destroy that wealth — an occasional mismanagement, however gross, by a nice-looking demagogue is not going to be enough to really cripple the country...
WHAT? What wealth are you referring to? The imaginary numbers someone plugs into a spread sheet to say we are worth a gigabazillion dollars? Wealth is in infrastructure, manufacturing capacity, ingenuity, and other "goods" like natural resources and agriculture. With the exception of farming, the US is at an all time low for every other item on that list.
Some of those scarcities "could" be artificial. Most however are not, and many like manufacturing would take decades (in addition to massive natural resources) to correct.
Others have already pointed it out, but I'll ask you to study history. No tyrant caused mass destruction immediately. That said, the USA has a pretty hefty death toll on it's hands. Between Iraq and Afghanistan it's nearly 2 million. Oh, I realize that we had labelled 10% of those killed to be "terrorists" so we obviously are justified. Those numbers are what we know our military did, and not what the CIA funded in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, etc.. And I won't even get into the corporate death squads that massacred about a million in Central and Southern America.
To your second point, you really have no idea what the Economy is right? You do realize that it's fact that at least 1/3rd of all Americans relies on some type of Government supplement right? No matter how the numbers are moved around, there are places in the US where you simply can not work because there is no work. If you are lucky enough to get a job in Detroit for example, you won't be making much over minimum wage. (I can speak of Detroit since I lived there for over 4 decades), and other large areas of the US have similar issues.
Surveillance sucks, but we are far from Stalin, Mao, and Hitler... Very, very far.
Delusional statement, sorry. We are not that far at all. The infrastructure is now in place to get bigger body counts than those guys ever dreamed of, and it won't take much to make that happen.
You can not blame it on stupid, when people are intentionally kept ignorant. For a minimum of 10 years, you are subjected to a program that creates servitude and removes people's ability to think. When people start to wake up, it's a rather alarming process. Not just because of the cognitive dissonance, but because there are numerous sources of fiction to frighten them back into a stupor.
If you pick 5 people and start trying to teach them to think, you will be lucky to have made progress within 6 months. That however should be the goal of anyone that can see clearly. As people learn to think and can see for themselves it is imperative for you to ask them to do the same thing (go get 5 students).
An enlightened society is something the people in power fear. They hated Socrates because he advocated an intellectual society, and countless others that came after him calling for the same thing. If you want to rankle the hairs of the established, start teaching people to think. Ad hominem and mockery are what they expect and adore.
Funny that you tell other people they need medication, yet you ignore facts. I realize that it hurts peoples heads to think that their Government is corrupted, but facts show that to be absolutely true. The USA has become everything we used to despise in Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. At least weekly I read reports of SS agents, er. some federal agency, raiding an innocent business or house detaining innocent people for hours. I read at least weekly about something corrupt, where nobody in any Govt. agency is charged/investigated/blamed. These are not little things, these are huge things like conspiring to kill protesters in the USA (whether it was done or not does not take away the fact that it was planned).
I'm okay with you being a good little slave and happily watching the puppet show. I'm not okay with people being the slaves that tries to turn in people that can see outside the cave. (I also realize that Socrates's work is hard to read so you may be lost on those references).
I'm really not sure why you were trying to correct something I never stated. I stated that at peak MS had roughly 80% of the PC Server market. Now it's below 40%. I never stated that Apple servers were a big item, and would not have stated something so provably false. I didn't say where that 40% went, just corrected the person implying that MS owned 90% of the total PC market.
It's not hard to disbelieve the 91% number if you decide to use your noodle. Claiming that MS is dominant is not a question, I believe that to be true. Claiming that 915 people out of 1000 are using it is not the same thing. Ten years ago, I would have agreed with those numbers. Not today however, the market has drastically shifted. Less and less people I know are using a PC and going to tablet only (and not a Windows Surface).
Where I lean more toward the 70% number is considering countries outside of the US and developed nations, and more like in developing and 3rd world countries. Aggregate numbers from web browsers and such would be better, but consider the free Linux laptop programs for developing countries where they may not be connected to the internet. It becomes very hard to count. To me, 85% is giving some wiggle room to MS but in my opinion fair wiggle room.
In many cases the multiple boot systems all count to what ever vendor they survey is trying to get greased palms from, which tends to be Windows. If you disbelieve that, I guess you should go do some research into Tom's hardware and how they were paid by Intel and MS for preferential numbers in benchmarking many years ago (actually it was not bribes, it was "advertising dollars"). It's a shitty market, and quite frankly I doubt every statistic I see when those statistics deal with someone's marketing strategy. In other words, I don't consider companies in the US that get paid to do surveys to be very accurate.
Are you just shilling? A quick 10 second Wiki search shows that MS now owns less than 40% of the server market share, down from 80% in their prime. Desktops, it depends on who's stats you believe. Most rate Windows in the high 70% range%, but there is a rating of over 90. Since I see how many people are using MAC now days, I tend to disbelieve the 90%. I won't even get into the amount of PCs as a whole declining so causing MS to lose tons of market share to IOS and Android.
First off I don't have a party, so you are lying in your first statement. The rest of what you state hints at severe mental illness. Allowing corruption because it's "my people" is like advocating hate crimes because you are white/black/etc. It shows that you are socially retarded at a minimum, but also not intelligent enough to understand complex issues beyond bigotry.
If you bother to read any of my other posts you would see that I'm a pretty firm believer in the US as a Republic very similar to how Socrates defined it. I'd recommend you read it, but if you have trouble following a slash dot post I'm guessing it will be a lost request.
What you point at means that we (all of us) need to wake people up and have every State vote for the same 3rd party guy. If more than 50% of the popular vote went to Perot, or Paul, or anyone the electorate would have to issue their votes that way (or suffer the people's vengeance). If the people vote for X and the electorate votes for D or R then it would mean we must revolt (If I lived in Iowa and was an R I would be embarrassed, but loud). Paul is proof that you can be shammed out of a spot on the ticket if a good person runs on a R or D ticket, but when Paul an independent does not have to win a primary.
Until we prove that the system is broken, we must assume it works. Assuming it's broken when history shows otherwise is foolish. Being a defeatist will not pull you out of a shit hole, it makes you stink!
Back to the point on educating. Talk to _everyone_ and have them do the same. Believe it or not, I have gotten more people to read Plato's Republic than I can count. Those same people have seen the cave, and don't like living in it. It's not easy, but it does work. Also, the more people that tell the people the more they will believe.
Yeah yeah, the hard part is the President. Easier ones are Congress and Senate. People need to start railroading those people out of office and get real people in office.
It's all about educating people, which is part of the "hard" I mentioned. Talking to people, and asking them to talk to people. I'm not saying I disagree with you mind you, I'm stating that you did have a choice. We all did, and still do.
It's not going to be easy to get change, but if more and more people start talking to people instead of being defeatist it can happen.
Actually you were given a choice, but it's not an obvious thing. Voting against Democrats and Republicans to put a third party person in office would have worked. Unfortunately too many people believe the lie "Voting for a 3rd party harms you". Add to that the fact that you actually have to work and people tend to toss their hands up. "It's hard to get people on ballots" and "I don't want to talk to my friends about voting" and such. Even worse, having to learn about candidates is hard! It's much easier to watch TV and let them tell you who to vote for.
I realize this is OT, as the AC I'm responding to is OT so...
Numerous studies have been done indicating that it's not just an alter-ego problem. Here is a fantastic post on the deeper issues. As with TV, there are addiction mechanisms build in to keep you doing it. Of course lets not mention altering your brain waves and making you less able to process information.
An exec who trows chairs across a room and yells "I'm going to F^#*ing kill Google" when an employee puts in his notice?
A good follow up is:
What do you think of a summary that insinuates that is a "good" management tactic/effort?
I respect your point, but can't agree that the only thing to judge a managers merit on is delegation. Delegation should be a majority of what a manager does, but crisis management and people skills are two other areas I tend to judge. Balmer has failed in both of those areas, as well as what people claim to be his strength (sales).
Slashdot Mirror
Why is it that you don't understand that the USA is not supposed to be a pure Democracy, but rather a "Republic" of, by, and for the people? Of course I must give my obligatory request that you go read Plato's Republic (which will probably be ignored) as a starting point for understanding what a Republic is, and how it's supposed to work.
Just to be sure that you understand how important it is to specifically read that book: Aristotle's responses to it are invalid because Aristotle believed in eugenics and slavery. "The Prince" is a further adaptation of eugenics and rule by birthright. Aristotle and Machiavellian views are probably what you learned without you realizing it, assuming you know much at all about a Republic.
It's not shell programming, so you are wrong at least when it comes to html. The quote directive is used for, of all things, quoting people. Italics works with a similar effect if you don't want a new block quote.
Democrats /= Left, Republicans /= Right. Parties are not constants - they are groups of people and their ideologies shift over time. The Republicans of the 50s and 60s were consumed by the southern democrats, there has been a complete flip in party politics over the last one-hundred years.
Wrong! It has not been a flip, it's been a take over. There is no longer a left or right, or Democrat and Republican. It's one team that plays on people's desire to still believe a left-right paradigm exists.
All you have to do to validate my claims is to look at politician's records. Obama promised hope and change, and is a Democrat. Name something pertinent that was done differently than Bush. Go ahead and look, but outside of lies and fabrications you won't find anything. The Patriot act was strengthened, not dismantled. Gitmo was not closed, it's still used to torture people. A Presidential "Hit List" was made public, if the guy was anti-war it would not exist or would not have required a whistle blower. War in the middle east has been extended, not ended (Libya, Syria, Egypt, etc...). Surveillance has increased and the executive branch has attacked whistle blowers on a massive scale. I could go on, but believe I have shown my point to be more than valid.
The people in power are currently doing everything possible to keep you from looking at them. They push atheism vs. religion, ethnic hatred, gay vs. straight, and Dem. vs. Rep through a media monopoly which has not been bound to tell you a single truth for nearly a decade. If you don't believe that, compare the AP and what's on corporate owned media to independent reports anywhere in the world. They don't match usually, and on the odd chance that the AP publishes something in a light unfavorable to the people in power you will be inundated with celebrity news on corporate owned media instead of the pertinent "news".
I get that it is easier and more comforting to believe that things are not so bad, but that belief does not change reality. We must demand truthfulness in news and demand that the monopolies are broken up or the masses will never see any truths that are relevant to society. At the same time, we need to follow Socrates' demand and get rid of the political class which is keeping people in the proverbial cave.
He's not investigating Dynacorp or the Franklin Cover up...
The word is not "casted", it is "cast". Please approve my correction comment /. mods!
Intended as ironic humor, not an insult just in case it gets over looked...
It's simply not possible. If you don't get the tech, you can't work with it. Some may pick up new tech faster than others, or perceive to at least. But that is more related to how much other knowledge they have, and what's in the active portions of their brains when they are looking at it.
I work with a programmer who has a very sound programming way of looking at problems. Sometimes I learn things, but I'm never truly lost. He is a programmer working on programs, and I'm an Admin/Engineer working on systems related problems. I don't program all the time so what's in the fore part of my mind is not always best suited to thinking like a programmer. When he points out a way to do something while I'm writing a program, it's often different than how I had planned to do it but never illogical. Sometimes his requests are easier, sometimes not, but either way I understand it. I also implement it as he suggests because he's a damn fine programmer.
Now when it comes to systems analysis, I can give better methods to get results than he can. I can pinpoint errors quickly because that's what I do. What I do all the time is more methodical than pragmatic, but I do write programs to help the methods.
All of that out of the way, given time we could probably end up switching roles. We are both intelligent, and understand what each other comes up with (even if it was not our first thought).
My way of looking at it is this. As we gain knowledge we store knowledge for later access, but only so much can be in the foreground at any given time. The more we have in the background, the easier we can sort and make sense of new information. But our immediate access is only what's in the foreground. We have to shuffle things in and out to change that, and it does take a bit of time. The more we have, the better we are of course. The "Jack of all Trades is a Master of None" in my opinion is not necessarily true. The "Jack" in time can master anything that is true knowledge (understood learning, not rote learning), but not all at the same time.
Stop placing blame on people who are kept ignorant to the practices and lied to. Every time something like this comes out, consumers are first told "No wayz, we would never hurt people to make profits" which turns into "we are investigating" when more evidence is provided, and finally "we are fixing it" when they can't deny problems any further.
It's like blaming unions for the downfall of companies while exec's get multi-million dollar bonuses. It's illogical to put the blame there, but you tow the party line and say it anyway.
When people realize there are issues, they do vote with their wallets. If that was not true companies would _never_, _ever_ change. Foxconn would still be the piece of trash it was (and maybe it is, we only see the post cards). If they are kept in the dark, you can't blame them for not making noise or boycotting.
If you really want to blame someone other than management, how about bashing our media monopoly that spreads propaganda instead of news and politicians that allowed it (and continue to allow) this to happen? Of course that's not the party line, so you won't even think about it. Right?
Worthy point, but I'll have you know that I'm as pedantic as the rest when it comes to this subject. I do have this discussion on occasion, and you are not the first to make this claim. Remember that Plato was not only a student of Socrates but a Historian. Plato was meticulous about capturing Socrates' dialogues since Socrates never wrote down any works (though he could read and write). Socrates's reasoning for not writing Philosophy is also captured by Plato.
Since Plato had other works which he does not attribute to Socrates, there is no reason do doubt his claim that he is capturing the words of Socrates or that he is using a pseudo/pen name.
Now if you are being pedantic about the "writer" owning the words, then I should assume that you give the machinery of a printing press due credit.
So by your logic, the guy who kills 1 person should be let go as long as we have a mass murder in the system? Wholly fuck your thinker is broken!
If only I had a mod point today... Well stated!
It is really hard to tell if you are a shill or a extremely ignorant. I'll assume the latter and tell you that you should really start opening your eyes and investigating facts instead of listening to propaganda. The majority of infrastructure (roads/rail/bridges/ports) in the US is over 60 years old and crumbling with no plan to repair or rebuild. The majority of manufacturing was packed up and moved out of the US over the last 30 years (largely paid for with your tax dollars). We import almost all of our oil because we have little. We import most of our metals (precious and industrial) because we have very little. I could go on, but believe I have shown that you are very ignorant so won't waste any more of my time.
And before you try it, the answer is "No"! Fiat money is not real wealth.
What the fuck does them being American have to do with what I stated? If it's not an American that dies, it does not count as a death? Until just now, you had no such qualification as you show in italics. You continue to prove you are a good slave, goodie for you. Now please go back to the puppet show and be quiet.
The 2 million number is rather generous if you consider all of the missions/wars we have in Yemen, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, et all. I know it's rather shocking if you live in a delusion where Fox is "Fair and Balanced" and all. Sources outside of the AP show a different picture, and that link is just Iraq.
The deficit is horrendous, but our existing wealth is staggering. It would require a civil war to destroy that wealth — an occasional mismanagement, however gross, by a nice-looking demagogue is not going to be enough to really cripple the country...
WHAT? What wealth are you referring to? The imaginary numbers someone plugs into a spread sheet to say we are worth a gigabazillion dollars? Wealth is in infrastructure, manufacturing capacity, ingenuity, and other "goods" like natural resources and agriculture. With the exception of farming, the US is at an all time low for every other item on that list.
Some of those scarcities "could" be artificial. Most however are not, and many like manufacturing would take decades (in addition to massive natural resources) to correct.
Others have already pointed it out, but I'll ask you to study history. No tyrant caused mass destruction immediately. That said, the USA has a pretty hefty death toll on it's hands. Between Iraq and Afghanistan it's nearly 2 million. Oh, I realize that we had labelled 10% of those killed to be "terrorists" so we obviously are justified. Those numbers are what we know our military did, and not what the CIA funded in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, etc.. And I won't even get into the corporate death squads that massacred about a million in Central and Southern America.
To your second point, you really have no idea what the Economy is right? You do realize that it's fact that at least 1/3rd of all Americans relies on some type of Government supplement right? No matter how the numbers are moved around, there are places in the US where you simply can not work because there is no work. If you are lucky enough to get a job in Detroit for example, you won't be making much over minimum wage. (I can speak of Detroit since I lived there for over 4 decades), and other large areas of the US have similar issues.
Surveillance sucks, but we are far from Stalin, Mao, and Hitler... Very, very far.
Delusional statement, sorry. We are not that far at all. The infrastructure is now in place to get bigger body counts than those guys ever dreamed of, and it won't take much to make that happen.
You can not blame it on stupid, when people are intentionally kept ignorant. For a minimum of 10 years, you are subjected to a program that creates servitude and removes people's ability to think. When people start to wake up, it's a rather alarming process. Not just because of the cognitive dissonance, but because there are numerous sources of fiction to frighten them back into a stupor.
If you pick 5 people and start trying to teach them to think, you will be lucky to have made progress within 6 months. That however should be the goal of anyone that can see clearly. As people learn to think and can see for themselves it is imperative for you to ask them to do the same thing (go get 5 students).
An enlightened society is something the people in power fear. They hated Socrates because he advocated an intellectual society, and countless others that came after him calling for the same thing. If you want to rankle the hairs of the established, start teaching people to think. Ad hominem and mockery are what they expect and adore.
Funny that you tell other people they need medication, yet you ignore facts. I realize that it hurts peoples heads to think that their Government is corrupted, but facts show that to be absolutely true. The USA has become everything we used to despise in Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. At least weekly I read reports of SS agents, er. some federal agency, raiding an innocent business or house detaining innocent people for hours. I read at least weekly about something corrupt, where nobody in any Govt. agency is charged/investigated/blamed. These are not little things, these are huge things like conspiring to kill protesters in the USA (whether it was done or not does not take away the fact that it was planned).
I'm okay with you being a good little slave and happily watching the puppet show. I'm not okay with people being the slaves that tries to turn in people that can see outside the cave. (I also realize that Socrates's work is hard to read so you may be lost on those references).
I'm really not sure why you were trying to correct something I never stated. I stated that at peak MS had roughly 80% of the PC Server market. Now it's below 40%. I never stated that Apple servers were a big item, and would not have stated something so provably false. I didn't say where that 40% went, just corrected the person implying that MS owned 90% of the total PC market.
It's not hard to disbelieve the 91% number if you decide to use your noodle. Claiming that MS is dominant is not a question, I believe that to be true. Claiming that 915 people out of 1000 are using it is not the same thing. Ten years ago, I would have agreed with those numbers. Not today however, the market has drastically shifted. Less and less people I know are using a PC and going to tablet only (and not a Windows Surface).
Where I lean more toward the 70% number is considering countries outside of the US and developed nations, and more like in developing and 3rd world countries. Aggregate numbers from web browsers and such would be better, but consider the free Linux laptop programs for developing countries where they may not be connected to the internet. It becomes very hard to count. To me, 85% is giving some wiggle room to MS but in my opinion fair wiggle room.
In many cases the multiple boot systems all count to what ever vendor they survey is trying to get greased palms from, which tends to be Windows. If you disbelieve that, I guess you should go do some research into Tom's hardware and how they were paid by Intel and MS for preferential numbers in benchmarking many years ago (actually it was not bribes, it was "advertising dollars"). It's a shitty market, and quite frankly I doubt every statistic I see when those statistics deal with someone's marketing strategy. In other words, I don't consider companies in the US that get paid to do surveys to be very accurate.
Are you just shilling? A quick 10 second Wiki search shows that MS now owns less than 40% of the server market share, down from 80% in their prime. Desktops, it depends on who's stats you believe. Most rate Windows in the high 70% range%, but there is a rating of over 90. Since I see how many people are using MAC now days, I tend to disbelieve the 90%. I won't even get into the amount of PCs as a whole declining so causing MS to lose tons of market share to IOS and Android.
First off I don't have a party, so you are lying in your first statement. The rest of what you state hints at severe mental illness. Allowing corruption because it's "my people" is like advocating hate crimes because you are white/black/etc. It shows that you are socially retarded at a minimum, but also not intelligent enough to understand complex issues beyond bigotry.
If you bother to read any of my other posts you would see that I'm a pretty firm believer in the US as a Republic very similar to how Socrates defined it. I'd recommend you read it, but if you have trouble following a slash dot post I'm guessing it will be a lost request.
What you point at means that we (all of us) need to wake people up and have every State vote for the same 3rd party guy. If more than 50% of the popular vote went to Perot, or Paul, or anyone the electorate would have to issue their votes that way (or suffer the people's vengeance). If the people vote for X and the electorate votes for D or R then it would mean we must revolt (If I lived in Iowa and was an R I would be embarrassed, but loud). Paul is proof that you can be shammed out of a spot on the ticket if a good person runs on a R or D ticket, but when Paul an independent does not have to win a primary.
Until we prove that the system is broken, we must assume it works. Assuming it's broken when history shows otherwise is foolish. Being a defeatist will not pull you out of a shit hole, it makes you stink!
Back to the point on educating. Talk to _everyone_ and have them do the same. Believe it or not, I have gotten more people to read Plato's Republic than I can count. Those same people have seen the cave, and don't like living in it. It's not easy, but it does work. Also, the more people that tell the people the more they will believe.
Yeah yeah, the hard part is the President. Easier ones are Congress and Senate. People need to start railroading those people out of office and get real people in office.
It's all about educating people, which is part of the "hard" I mentioned. Talking to people, and asking them to talk to people. I'm not saying I disagree with you mind you, I'm stating that you did have a choice. We all did, and still do.
It's not going to be easy to get change, but if more and more people start talking to people instead of being defeatist it can happen.
Actually you were given a choice, but it's not an obvious thing. Voting against Democrats and Republicans to put a third party person in office would have worked. Unfortunately too many people believe the lie "Voting for a 3rd party harms you". Add to that the fact that you actually have to work and people tend to toss their hands up. "It's hard to get people on ballots" and "I don't want to talk to my friends about voting" and such. Even worse, having to learn about candidates is hard! It's much easier to watch TV and let them tell you who to vote for.
I realize this is OT, as the AC I'm responding to is OT so...
Numerous studies have been done indicating that it's not just an alter-ego problem. Here is a fantastic post on the deeper issues. As with TV, there are addiction mechanisms build in to keep you doing it. Of course lets not mention altering your brain waves and making you less able to process information.
And what do you think of:
An exec who trows chairs across a room and yells "I'm going to F^#*ing kill Google" when an employee puts in his notice?
A good follow up is:
What do you think of a summary that insinuates that is a "good" management tactic/effort?
I respect your point, but can't agree that the only thing to judge a managers merit on is delegation. Delegation should be a majority of what a manager does, but crisis management and people skills are two other areas I tend to judge. Balmer has failed in both of those areas, as well as what people claim to be his strength (sales).