To each his own, I guess...there are after all people out there that actually like plain rice cakes.
There's a reason Bud's the number-1 selling beer, and it ain't 'cause it's good, because it most certainly is not good.
It's because it's all some people know. Try introducing a Bud guy to a good beer, and you'll hear words like, "It's too bitter," or, "It's too thick," both of which mean, "It has flavor." (Yes, while "watered-down bear urine" is a flavor, it's not a good one.)
Same thing with Folgers. There are a *lot* of people who actually drink the stuff. (Here's a shout-out to my Dad.)
I use Linux almost exclusively. I've been a huge Debian fan, and lately I've been using Ubuntu, because I *like* the name. And, it's a damned good distro.
Ubuntu (and the most recent Fedora, apparently) are significantly better than MS-Windows. The standard interface is cleaner, it's much easier for new users to figure out, and it's generally a more pleasing experience. The applications are perhaps a different story, but I have my doubts computers have done anything to help productivity for most of the things people think. (I believe most office suites have destroyed office productivity. I've had to help people figure out ass-useless things like inserting goofy graphics into a memo to think we weren't better off with Selectric typewriters and Xerox machines.) Using MS-Windows itself is painful.
OS X is a horse of a different species, temperament, and hue. It is, like NeXTStep before it, a pleasure to use. It is easy, consistent, beautiful, simple, and efficient. Many of the applications written for OS X also possess those traits. We are *finally* back where NeXT left off in 1993.
I still use Ubuntu. Why? Because it fits my philosophy and general outlook. I enjoy it. I like to see Linux and associated project progress. I'm an optimist, and I believe Linux and the associated project will one day surpass even OS X. So for me, there's Ubuntu (or Debian, or any number of other Linux distros.)
For everyone else in my family, there's OS X.
Why? Because I don't like supporting them. With MS-Windows, I'm constantly fixing their damned systems, or helping them figure out the most trivial systems administration tasks. With Linux, I'm constantly installing some new piece of hardware, or telling them where to find a piece of software in the "add/remove software" utility. ("Ooo, I just bought a webcam!") With OS X, there's no fixing the system, because it's never broken. Hardware just works. (There have been a few exceptions, but not nearly as many as with Vista; and I've had to work hard to get some hardware installed on XP, as well.)
In general, OS X has three major advantages over Linux: looks (obviously), software installation (the OS X software installer is *nice*, though it seems to lag behind Debian in package management), and single-user desktop administration.
That being said, I think I'd rather administer a network of Linux boxes rather than a network of OS X machines. Of course, that's probably just because I *know* how to lock down, manage, and control a network of Linux boxes. It might be just as easy and flexible under OS X, if I took the time to figure it all out.
The whole concept of data ownership is flawed. You can't "own" data. You can have the government back you up when people do something with your data, but that's not "ownership." That's bullying.
Scott McNealy was right when he said privacy was dead. It's not because we *shouldn't* have privacy. It's because it's impossible. Computers gave us the ability to store, index, and access more data than ever before. If you want the benefits, you have to accept the drawbacks. The only thing we can do is mitigate the effects by social agreements. However, social agreements are weak at best, so we have to accept it.
It all comes down to one thing:
YOU CANNOT OWN DATA!
You might be able to keep it secret for a time, but you can't own it.
Given a quantum storage tank the size of a large sun, I could simulate the universe on a 386. It'd just take a long, long time to run.
You don't need a computer the size of the universe to model the universe. You just need a computer the size of the universe to model the universe *in real time.*
Thank you puritans for managing to mess with American society 300 years later! That's so swell!
It's a common American legacy. It's actually getting better. Fuck, just 40 years ago I'd get in trouble for saying, "Fuck." Now it's common in literature and movies and whatnot. Shit, even South Park got away with saying, "Shit." Quite a few times.
Violence? I just went to see Sweeney Todd last night. Victorian Englanders had *extraordinarily* high blood pressure. Who ever thought throat-slashing and secret cannibalism and a bunch of non-singing actors in a musical could be so funny?
It's getting better. Really. There's just a bunch of pussies in America who think we're all in eminent danger of being shot by a FPS-playing high-school kid, or blown up by MS-Flight Simulator-playing terrorists. I think the Jack Thompsons of the world really do think they're saving civilization. Or maybe it's just the way their little Napoleon complexes come out.
Unlike Creationism, there is both a rational explanation (an hypothesis) and a test to disprove the hypothesis.
The hypothesis goes like this: if intelligent life were to evolve in a universe, and it were to survive for any significant length of time (say, millions of years of civilization), then it will eventually create a simulation of the universe itself. This makes it entirely possible that we exist in the simulation, rather than being in the "physical" universe.
Unfortunately, there is a similar hypothesis that suggests the universe itself is real, but is nothing more than a giant quantum computer. (It is possible to calculate the entire processing power of the universe, to within an order or two of magnitude.) This suggests the universe is incapable of doing something impossible using information theory. This is the viewpoint held by very brilliant men like Ray Kurzweil and Seth Lloyd.
There is, as far as I can tell, no fundamental way to distinguish between these two possibilities. Me, I lean more towards the "computational universe" concept, rather than the simulation. The simulation would necessarily be slower than the universe itself (as the universe has only a limited amount of computational capacity), and so any significant simulation would by necessity be slower than the universe, probably by trillions of times. This makes it unlikely to be useful.
(Actually, I can see a case in which the universe is simulated in very broad terms unless there are observational entities nearby. This would rather fit with quantum mechanics. So, perhaps it wouldn't necessarily be significantly slower than the universe itself.)
And Apple's free developer tools are archaic and professional developer-unfriendly compared to what you get with an MSDN subscription.
That's your opinion, Bub. I can't fuckin' stand developing using Microsoft's development tools. I'd rather use ed (the standard Unix editor) while a junior programmer pours lemon juice in my eye than use Visual Studio. And I am a professional developer.
"Unfriendly to third party developer" also applies to Apple's developer support and API documentation, which is lousy compared to Microsoft.
Again, I disagree. I don't know about direct developer support, but I find there's a *lot* of excellent documentation on the OpenStep API, and their SDKs come with more than adequate documentation. Their APIs are generally clean, and only minimalist documentation is required. I find Microsoft's APIs rococo, and rife with undocumented bugs that I have to work around.
I enjoy programming on a Mac. I can't stand programming on an MS-Windows machine.
But then, I also use EMACS as my IDE, and I *way* prefer Objective-C over C++ or C# or Java, and I use man as my documentation. So your mileage will certainly vary. I understand there are *professional* devs who prefer to use VS. I also understand *professional* devs often prefer vi over EMACS.
Oh, well. Just keep in mind, not all *professional* devs have your preferences. And, some professional devs are probably better than you.
Once Apple supports WMA, they must support WMA forever. During the next spin, they will be *forced* to support WMA-enabled silicon, even if they could perhaps get another WMA-less chip a bit cheaper.
By limiting the number of supported formats, they limit the number of formats they also must support in the future. Since WMA is a single-vendor proprietary format, why would they *want* to support it forever?
I don't care what the test is, the original intent of monopoly law was to prevent one business from controlling sole access to a resource.
Absolutely. And that was the problem with Microsoft. (Still is, to a certain extent.) It was demonstrated in their *first* anti-trust trial that they controlled access to the PC manufacturers. That is, they had sales lock-in, disallowing any other OS to appear on a computer.
I agree with the modern interpretation, myself. Any time a corporation can regulate the market, it destroys market value for its own profits. This is bad for the economy, bad for consumers, and bad for the world in general.
Microsoft is a monopoly, as they are able to control the market for their own advantage, rather than competing on product worth. However, I believe that power is waning. Perhaps we can recover from the damage they have inflicted; perhaps not. In any case, I believe Microsoft will be the new IBM, destined to be a big player without the control they once enjoyed.
At least, we can hope.
And if electing Ron Paul will delay that day, he has lost my vote. The *only* Constitutional mandate of the federal government is to regulate interstate commerce. I believe regulation of corporations, and revocation of corporate charters from abusive corporations, is both the right and primary responsibility of the federal government.
Apple should be made to allow their content on other media players and not just locked to their own.
Uh... what content?
Apple doesn't own any of the songs they sell, nor the TV shows or movies. You can get *any* of that "content" from other places-- CDs, other on-line music stores, Netflix, etc. Apple is a *distributor*, not a content owner. (At least for now.)
So, your request is complete nonsense. As in, it makes no sense. Illogical. Fallacious.
The created a single Active-X object type (XMLHttpRequest, with the strange caps and everything) that did what others were already doing using invisible iframes and DOM navigation. In the end, I think the invisible iframes method is actually easier, though you don't have good exception handling for failed requests, and it usually ends up with strong dependencies between caller and callee.
"Dangerous sex. Dangerous sex! Oh, why isn't there a single word for dangerous sex?"
Creating a single word to replace several words is helpful, but it is not "invention." Ajax (what a stupid term) was well-invented by the time Microsoft came up with XMLHttpRequest.
Back in the early days, Flash was pushed as a "better HTML than HTML." They *were* trying to tie up the web into their own proprietary product. Fortunately, nobody fell for it except marketroids who liked the pretty moving lights.
As for Silverlight, it's too little, too late. I think Microsoft is too far on the downhill side to push much of anything any more. They may be able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (they still have *way* more market control than everybody else combined), but I don't see it.
And the one that Microsoft typically uses: the standard which is never published.
MS-Office has been called a "standard" for so long, people believe it. And they conflate a "standard" piece of software with a document "standard."
In any kind of engineering, there is only one true standard-- that which is agreed-upon by the manufacturers and/or engineers themselves. Bridge architects will never use a non-standard size bolt, nor a non-standard metal. Why? Because the weld strength is too important. Because the dielectric interaction of different metals and alloys results in a weaker bridge. Because lives depend on it.
Corporations who push their own format as a "standard" harm the industry. If they never publish their formats, or publish a bowdlerized version of their standard (MS-Office 2007 doesn't even conform to the OOXML specification as published), they are selling their customers a trojan horse.
That's one of the things I love about the PS3-- it works with standard UPnP servers, like Media Tomb. I like having all my music and movies on a single server, accessible from any place in the house, from any computer (including the PS3). I can even get them to my PSP via the remoting of the PS3 to the PSP, which is great for playing music remotely. (It'd be even better if the PSP could work as a UPnP client as well.)
But, I disagree with the Wii and DVDs. I currently have two systems connected to the TV in the living room: a PS2, and a Wii. The PS2 is used exclusively as a DVD player. I'd ditch it in a heartbeat if the Wii played DVDs. Then there'd be one device connected to the TV. Yes, I'd also like to see a UPnP client, just like the PS3. But a DVD player seems so... fundamental.
I really, really love my PS3. (Yes, I'm thinking of marrying it.) The PSP/PS3 interaction is pretty damned cool. I play the hell out of Warhawk, and Ratchet and Clank is one of the best games out there. Unreal Tournament looks like it's going to kick some serious ass.
That said, I wish I had Bioshock for the PS3. I played Halo 3, and it was OK, but really nothing that great. Then again, I was never impressed with the Halo series, as a whole. They are good, solid games; I just never got into the story line. Bioshock, though, seems to be interesting.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is this: the PS3 is a damned solid piece of engineering, with some great *technical* advantages over the XBox. But the XBox has some great games. Now, you can't get R&C for the XBox, nor Haze (which also looks cool). But Haze is still a month off, it seems.
If you want a PSP, though, it's damned cool the way it works with the PS3. And it has internet radio now, too. I've been using it to remote my media from the PS3, and I can access my music and videos anywhere there's an internet connection. Now, *that's* cool.
X-Windows, which was never very good, has survived all its successors.
Maybe that's because it was really pretty good?
I hear a lot of people claim X-Windows isn't very good, but nobody can say *why* it wasn't very good. It was quite innovative for its time, with features nobody even today-- network transparency, separation of policy and presentation, etc. The reason it's still around today is partly because the original design was strong.
It's the same problem we have with TCP/IP. The original design and implementation was damned good, especially for the day. Now that the network has become ubiquitous, there are some problems. But really, we don't have much to replace it with. Even IPv6, which was supposed to solve all the problems with IPv4, has merely traded one set of problems for another. (The only clear, real win is expanded address space.) Same with X11-- what's there to replace it that has the flexibility and extensibility and is as robust?
Now, as far as the article is concerned, these are definitely problems. From an innovation standpoint, *anything* that is as entrenched as filesystems, TCP/IP, windowing systems (network-transparent or not), and "applications" is a straitjacket. Really, if we want to do interesting things, we should start a system that breaks completely and cleanly from everything we have right now. Plan 9 was a good try, but still based too many of its ideas on Unix. Eros wasn't a bad attempt either, but still suffered from treating disk-based storage as a filesystem, and RAM as simply a place to run applications. Basically, all of these ideas are *so* 1978.
However, there's going to be a lot of floundering before any project that is revolutionary produces anything viable. That's why the IT landscape has been dominated by evolution for 20 years-- because anything truly revolutionary is going to break the current system. Hell, the closest thing we've had to a revolution is the web. (No, not the internet, which has been around for almost 30 years in its current form. The web, which is built on top of the internet, was almost a revolution.) After that, the only revolt we've had is open source, as a movement. And that is more a revolt, than a revolution.
The word "innovation" has been thrown around so much, it no longer means anything. Fuck, these days, it's used more as a marketing therm than to describe anything in realistic terms. I believe that's because we haven't seen real innovation in a long, long time. I think the only way we're going to see real innovation is by starting a new project, something that isn't tied to the ideas of "applications," filesystems, and the distinction of local and non-local processing. But believe me, any project like that is going to take years to develop anything useful at all.
So? Budweiser is the best-selling beer in America. That doesn't make it any good, let alone the best quality....but not one of those competing products has yet been able to overthrow Microsoft's dominance in its core fields.
Aye. And the reasons behind this (ruthless, immoral, and illegal business activity) have very little to do with the quality of their products.
When you're in first place, you dont really have to run harder to increase the distance between you and second place.
Or you can use the power that comes with being in first place the ensure no other runner can enter the race. That is the power Microsoft has wielded in the past to great affect: by restrictive licensing agreements, they were able to keep out DR-DOS, OS/2, Geos, BeOS, and a host of other early competitors. (IBM really fucked up with OS/2, so it's only on the list because Microsoft *still* had to pull some questionable tricks to keep it at bay, even when IBM had OS/2 locked in the basement, feeding it through the crack at the bottom of the door.)
So, now we come to the first line:
I know this is slashdot and all, but the person who wrote this summary is so hopelessly biased against Microsoft its not even funny...
It's not bias when your opinion is based on truth. Just because I want Charles Manson locked safely away doesn't mean I'm biased. It means I know what Chuck is like. Just because I wouldn't go to dinner with Jeffrey Dahmer doesn't mean I'm biased against him. Just because I wouldn't have sex with the most beautiful woman in the world who has aids, that doesn't mean I'm biased.
See what I'm getting at? Even your post in Microsoft's defense had nothing good to say. The best you could say was that they were "successful." That's certainly not untrue. The summary was actually pretty to-the-point, except for the swipe at Clippy. (C'mon, folks. That was a long time ago. Let it pass. Even Microsoft was embarrassed enough to dump Clippy. But they had to do *something* with MS-Bob.) For instance, the Zune is not a good MP3 player. It's decent, but not that great. MS-Vista rather sucks, as an upgrade 5 years in the making. MS-Office 2007 is essentially MS-Office 2003 with a facelift and new proprietary document format.
So far, the *only* product that is half-decent from Microsoft in the last couple of years is the XBox 360. It's hobbled by lack of high-density media (HD-DVD or BluRay), but they had to do that to keep the price down, so maybe that was the right call. It's still a decent game console. (I hated the original XBox, which was nothing but a cheap PC in an ugly case. At least they took the time to figure out how to make a *gaming* console this time around.) Even with the 360, there's no real innovation. It's a good, solid system with some quality control issues, but otherwise not very spectacular.
I guess my point is this: the summary was simply saying that, with so much regard for the quality patent portfolio, why is Microsoft still making Budweiser? Why can't they get up to Anchor Steam quality? Or Great Lakes Nosferatu? Or (insert your favorite ale or lager here. But not lambics. I hate lambics.)?
The languages are operating in between one another.
Ah, yes. All those.Net-based languages which all look like syntacticly-modified C#. It's like the famous Henry Ford (paraphrased) quote: "You can get a Model T in any color you want, as long as it's black."
The.Net runtime is restrictive by nature. This "interoperation" you speak of is really the way a dominatrix interoperates with her sex partners-- with black leather and whips. It looks sexy, I'll grant you that, but when you get into it, it's more uncomfortable than pleasurable.
Plus, that's still not "innovative." The Parrot project has been working on a language-neutral VLM for a while, and have had many working prototypes. The difference is, Parrot is aiming to support many different languages without restricting them to a single style library API, which is *much* more difficult.
Making Visual BASIC look like C# in black leather chaps and handcuffs isn't really innovative.
This is probably the funniest damned post in the entire thread, spot on-topic for both patents and artificial life forms, and you get modded "offtopic."
See, here's the deal, mods: *I'm* offtopic. The parent post was *funny.* See the difference? His was filled with relevant, smart, funny information. Mine is mere whining about mods and the way they waste their points. HUGE FUCKING DIFFERENCE!
Mr. MillionthMonkey, Sir, you may not have writ the works of Shakespeare, but your post made me throw up laughing.
Would you prefer that we place enormous power in everybody's hands? Regardless of their level of skill or ethics?
That's effectively the same thing.
What you describe is similar to "security through obscurity," the hope that not enough people will have the knowledge and information needed to cause damage. As soon as one person has the knowledge and power, you have compromised security. The whole point is to design a system that is resistant to knowledge and power.
Unfortunately, since we didn't design the system (biology), there's not much we can do to make it hack-proof. I believe we're still dozens of years away from synthetic life, but once it happens, it might as well be in the power of all people. This isn't something like The Bomb that you can control with access to scarce resources.
I'm not as pessimistic as Bill Joy (ironic last name when he goes off on his "the world is doomed" tear), but I definitely think it doesn't matter whether everybody gets this tech, or only a few get this tech. We're pretty much equally screwed either way.
Only compared to other MS-Windows products, and only if you use Microsoft metrics.
Sure, Vista is mostly an eye-candy upgrade with some DRM poison sugar thrown in. But that's not what makes it horrible.
What makes it horrible is that it's still insecure, that it is still poorly-organized, and the it's still not a joy to use. Sure, that's exactly like every other version of MS-Windows, but that's not the point. The point is, Vista might've been adequate for 2001, but for 2008, it's still just a rehash of MS-Windows. Instead of focusing on creating a secure system that's pleasant to use and easy to centrally manage, they created a system that is a pain in the ass to manage (though they have some very expensive server products to help with that), it's not that pleasant to use, and it's still a mish-mash of features designed to try to be all things. (Kind of a misdesign by aggregation.) It fails miserably when compared to NeXTStep, OS/2, several Linux distributions, Apple OS X, and pretty much any Unix OS out there. Sure, I wouldn't recommend Solaris for a desktop OS (yet), but I sure as hell wouldn't recommend MS-Windows for a server. For the desktop, NeXTStep has Vista beat, and that hasn't been around for 12 years. (This is the basis for my assertion that Microsoft has set the computer world back 12 years. And counting.)
That's part of the reason why many, many geeks despise MS-Windows. Once you stop judging MS-Windows by Microsoft's rules, you start to realize how shoddy it really is. Vista might look good at the bar after several drinks, but you're gonna regret waking up next to it the next morning.
The "Start" menu has always sucked in MS-Windows. It's never been good. Not at all.
And here's why:
Every GOD DAMNED vendor in the world has their own fuckin' menu! Instead of programs grouped by function or task, you get "Adobe Acrobat" and "Adobe GoLive!" and "Microsoft Office" and "McAfee Virus Scanner" and SO WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF A MENUING SYSTEM?
Sorry. I get really het up about this issue. It's one of the simplest, most fundamental problems with every version of MS-Windows. It's the most concise indication of the target audience of MS-Windows.
Other corporations.
Not the end-user. MS-Windows wasn't designed for end user ease-of-use. I've used computers, and helped other people use computers, for 25 years, and MS-Windows is the worst to have to teach. It makes the least sense, and is the least pleasing. It's a sad state of affairs when the biggest MS-Windows proponents say, "But I have to use MS-Windows, since that's the only thing MS-Office runs on," rather than (as most Mac users say), "Of course I use a Mac. It's fun."
The "Start" menu shows just how fucked-up and disorganized MS-Windows really is. It's hard to find a specific program, and when you are looking for a program to do a specific task, you have no idea how to find it. You have to "know" which programs do what, and which corporation makes each program. It's a corporate mash, and it tastes bitter, with a lingering sour aftertaste, like bad wine in a good bottle.
That's why MS-Windows is painful to use, and you'll find very few people who love to use it, even among fanbois. You can tell by how they defend it they don't really love it. It's just the sports team they chose to back.
Office 2007 is more than merely "acceptable." The Geek who pretends otherwise is just blowing smoke.
Bullshit. That might be you're opinion, but it's hardly Truth.
I used it. The interface is OK, but really it's a re-arrangement of controls to make things look a little bit more like Apple Pages. It's better than MS-Office 97, sure, but that's about it. Performance is adequate. Layout sucks, and the final printed product isn't any better than older MS-Office products-- that is, hardly acceptable at all. (Compare it to a LaTeX document, for example, and the kerning is horrible.)
It's OK. It's marginally better than OpenOffice. For casual users, it *sucks* compared to Apple's iWork suite. For business users, the incompatibilities with older versions of MS-Office (saving as older versions are about as good as importing into OpenOffice) means that a company is pretty much forced to upgrade as soon as a small percentage of the company gets it. (This isn't a problem in a company that strictly controls software purchases, of course.)
The Borg icon for Gates. The stained glass window.
Those are just funny, and you know it. If that disturbs you, perhaps you might consider yoga, or getting a dog.
Microsoft spelled with a dollar sign. The inane and ridiculous flamepoint stories that appear on a slow news day.
Fanboi-ism. Absolutely. Doesn't mean Microsoft isn't evil. Doesn't mean their products are good. Doesn't mean Microsoft hasn't set us back 12 years. That doesn't mean we're not right.
At the time of the invasion, Most Dems, Reps, and governments of the world believed Iraq had WMDs.
Yes. That's why so many countries jumped at the chance to join the "coalition of the willing."
Even Iraqi leadership believed it.
Only that one really cool minister of misinformation. "The infidels will die on their swords!" That was classic.
It should also be noted that a grand jury bent on charging the administration concerning the Valerie Plame "revelation" wasn't able to come up with any charges whatsoever except for a single perjury.
First, this is an interesting aside, which has nothing at all to do with the lead-up to war, except that it was a leak concerning the wife of the guy who *told the US government the yellowcake documents were fake.* He did this before the war. He did this before President Bush cited those documents as an excuse to go to war.
The government had no excuse to continue to push those documents as evidence, yet they did. This, along with the revelation that the "foreign government intelligence" (intelligence documents from Britain) were also faked, indicate the President and his cabinet had every intention of misleading the population into war, no matter the cost, and without probable reason.
Your post makes me wonder: are you even from this universe? Have you stepped in through some portal from a strange alternate universe in which the President actually had a case for war? Or were you merely ignoring outside news sources during the lead-up to war?
Slashdot Mirror
To each his own, I guess...there are after all people out there that actually like plain rice cakes.
There's a reason Bud's the number-1 selling beer, and it ain't 'cause it's good, because it most certainly is not good.
It's because it's all some people know. Try introducing a Bud guy to a good beer, and you'll hear words like, "It's too bitter," or, "It's too thick," both of which mean, "It has flavor." (Yes, while "watered-down bear urine" is a flavor, it's not a good one.)
Same thing with Folgers. There are a *lot* of people who actually drink the stuff. (Here's a shout-out to my Dad.)
I use Linux almost exclusively. I've been a huge Debian fan, and lately I've been using Ubuntu, because I *like* the name. And, it's a damned good distro.
Ubuntu (and the most recent Fedora, apparently) are significantly better than MS-Windows. The standard interface is cleaner, it's much easier for new users to figure out, and it's generally a more pleasing experience. The applications are perhaps a different story, but I have my doubts computers have done anything to help productivity for most of the things people think. (I believe most office suites have destroyed office productivity. I've had to help people figure out ass-useless things like inserting goofy graphics into a memo to think we weren't better off with Selectric typewriters and Xerox machines.) Using MS-Windows itself is painful.
OS X is a horse of a different species, temperament, and hue. It is, like NeXTStep before it, a pleasure to use. It is easy, consistent, beautiful, simple, and efficient. Many of the applications written for OS X also possess those traits. We are *finally* back where NeXT left off in 1993.
I still use Ubuntu. Why? Because it fits my philosophy and general outlook. I enjoy it. I like to see Linux and associated project progress. I'm an optimist, and I believe Linux and the associated project will one day surpass even OS X. So for me, there's Ubuntu (or Debian, or any number of other Linux distros.)
For everyone else in my family, there's OS X.
Why? Because I don't like supporting them. With MS-Windows, I'm constantly fixing their damned systems, or helping them figure out the most trivial systems administration tasks. With Linux, I'm constantly installing some new piece of hardware, or telling them where to find a piece of software in the "add/remove software" utility. ("Ooo, I just bought a webcam!") With OS X, there's no fixing the system, because it's never broken. Hardware just works. (There have been a few exceptions, but not nearly as many as with Vista; and I've had to work hard to get some hardware installed on XP, as well.)
In general, OS X has three major advantages over Linux: looks (obviously), software installation (the OS X software installer is *nice*, though it seems to lag behind Debian in package management), and single-user desktop administration.
That being said, I think I'd rather administer a network of Linux boxes rather than a network of OS X machines. Of course, that's probably just because I *know* how to lock down, manage, and control a network of Linux boxes. It might be just as easy and flexible under OS X, if I took the time to figure it all out.
The whole concept of data ownership is flawed. You can't "own" data. You can have the government back you up when people do something with your data, but that's not "ownership." That's bullying.
Scott McNealy was right when he said privacy was dead. It's not because we *shouldn't* have privacy. It's because it's impossible. Computers gave us the ability to store, index, and access more data than ever before. If you want the benefits, you have to accept the drawbacks. The only thing we can do is mitigate the effects by social agreements. However, social agreements are weak at best, so we have to accept it.
It all comes down to one thing:
YOU CANNOT OWN DATA!
You might be able to keep it secret for a time, but you can't own it.
Given a quantum storage tank the size of a large sun, I could simulate the universe on a 386. It'd just take a long, long time to run.
You don't need a computer the size of the universe to model the universe. You just need a computer the size of the universe to model the universe *in real time.*
Thank you puritans for managing to mess with American society 300 years later! That's so swell!
It's a common American legacy. It's actually getting better. Fuck, just 40 years ago I'd get in trouble for saying, "Fuck." Now it's common in literature and movies and whatnot. Shit, even South Park got away with saying, "Shit." Quite a few times.
Violence? I just went to see Sweeney Todd last night. Victorian Englanders had *extraordinarily* high blood pressure. Who ever thought throat-slashing and secret cannibalism and a bunch of non-singing actors in a musical could be so funny?
It's getting better. Really. There's just a bunch of pussies in America who think we're all in eminent danger of being shot by a FPS-playing high-school kid, or blown up by MS-Flight Simulator-playing terrorists. I think the Jack Thompsons of the world really do think they're saving civilization. Or maybe it's just the way their little Napoleon complexes come out.
But really, it's getting better. Really.
This is just another spin on Creationism.
Unlike Creationism, there is both a rational explanation (an hypothesis) and a test to disprove the hypothesis.
The hypothesis goes like this: if intelligent life were to evolve in a universe, and it were to survive for any significant length of time (say, millions of years of civilization), then it will eventually create a simulation of the universe itself. This makes it entirely possible that we exist in the simulation, rather than being in the "physical" universe.
Unfortunately, there is a similar hypothesis that suggests the universe itself is real, but is nothing more than a giant quantum computer. (It is possible to calculate the entire processing power of the universe, to within an order or two of magnitude.) This suggests the universe is incapable of doing something impossible using information theory. This is the viewpoint held by very brilliant men like Ray Kurzweil and Seth Lloyd.
There is, as far as I can tell, no fundamental way to distinguish between these two possibilities. Me, I lean more towards the "computational universe" concept, rather than the simulation. The simulation would necessarily be slower than the universe itself (as the universe has only a limited amount of computational capacity), and so any significant simulation would by necessity be slower than the universe, probably by trillions of times. This makes it unlikely to be useful.
(Actually, I can see a case in which the universe is simulated in very broad terms unless there are observational entities nearby. This would rather fit with quantum mechanics. So, perhaps it wouldn't necessarily be significantly slower than the universe itself.)
And Apple's free developer tools are archaic and professional developer-unfriendly compared to what you get with an MSDN subscription.
That's your opinion, Bub. I can't fuckin' stand developing using Microsoft's development tools. I'd rather use ed (the standard Unix editor) while a junior programmer pours lemon juice in my eye than use Visual Studio. And I am a professional developer.
"Unfriendly to third party developer" also applies to Apple's developer support and API documentation, which is lousy compared to Microsoft.
Again, I disagree. I don't know about direct developer support, but I find there's a *lot* of excellent documentation on the OpenStep API, and their SDKs come with more than adequate documentation. Their APIs are generally clean, and only minimalist documentation is required. I find Microsoft's APIs rococo, and rife with undocumented bugs that I have to work around.
I enjoy programming on a Mac. I can't stand programming on an MS-Windows machine.
But then, I also use EMACS as my IDE, and I *way* prefer Objective-C over C++ or C# or Java, and I use man as my documentation. So your mileage will certainly vary. I understand there are *professional* devs who prefer to use VS. I also understand *professional* devs often prefer vi over EMACS.
Oh, well. Just keep in mind, not all *professional* devs have your preferences. And, some professional devs are probably better than you.
Once Apple supports WMA, they must support WMA forever. During the next spin, they will be *forced* to support WMA-enabled silicon, even if they could perhaps get another WMA-less chip a bit cheaper.
By limiting the number of supported formats, they limit the number of formats they also must support in the future. Since WMA is a single-vendor proprietary format, why would they *want* to support it forever?
I don't care what the test is, the original intent of monopoly law was to prevent one business from controlling sole access to a resource.
Absolutely. And that was the problem with Microsoft. (Still is, to a certain extent.) It was demonstrated in their *first* anti-trust trial that they controlled access to the PC manufacturers. That is, they had sales lock-in, disallowing any other OS to appear on a computer.
I agree with the modern interpretation, myself. Any time a corporation can regulate the market, it destroys market value for its own profits. This is bad for the economy, bad for consumers, and bad for the world in general.
Microsoft is a monopoly, as they are able to control the market for their own advantage, rather than competing on product worth. However, I believe that power is waning. Perhaps we can recover from the damage they have inflicted; perhaps not. In any case, I believe Microsoft will be the new IBM, destined to be a big player without the control they once enjoyed.
At least, we can hope.
And if electing Ron Paul will delay that day, he has lost my vote. The *only* Constitutional mandate of the federal government is to regulate interstate commerce. I believe regulation of corporations, and revocation of corporate charters from abusive corporations, is both the right and primary responsibility of the federal government.
Apple should be made to allow their content on other media players and not just locked to their own.
Uh... what content?
Apple doesn't own any of the songs they sell, nor the TV shows or movies. You can get *any* of that "content" from other places-- CDs, other on-line music stores, Netflix, etc. Apple is a *distributor*, not a content owner. (At least for now.)
So, your request is complete nonsense. As in, it makes no sense. Illogical. Fallacious.
Actually, filing a lawsuit like this is in fact voicing their opinion with their dollars, since lawyers are not free.
Ah, yes. The best justice money can buy.
I'm so proud right now.
... and AJAX (which they invented, to a degree).
No, they didn't.
The created a single Active-X object type (XMLHttpRequest, with the strange caps and everything) that did what others were already doing using invisible iframes and DOM navigation. In the end, I think the invisible iframes method is actually easier, though you don't have good exception handling for failed requests, and it usually ends up with strong dependencies between caller and callee.
"Dangerous sex. Dangerous sex! Oh, why isn't there a single word for dangerous sex?"
Creating a single word to replace several words is helpful, but it is not "invention." Ajax (what a stupid term) was well-invented by the time Microsoft came up with XMLHttpRequest.
Back in the early days, Flash was pushed as a "better HTML than HTML." They *were* trying to tie up the web into their own proprietary product. Fortunately, nobody fell for it except marketroids who liked the pretty moving lights.
As for Silverlight, it's too little, too late. I think Microsoft is too far on the downhill side to push much of anything any more. They may be able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (they still have *way* more market control than everybody else combined), but I don't see it.
Silverlight seems to be Active-X redux.
And the one that Microsoft typically uses: the standard which is never published.
MS-Office has been called a "standard" for so long, people believe it. And they conflate a "standard" piece of software with a document "standard."
In any kind of engineering, there is only one true standard-- that which is agreed-upon by the manufacturers and/or engineers themselves. Bridge architects will never use a non-standard size bolt, nor a non-standard metal. Why? Because the weld strength is too important. Because the dielectric interaction of different metals and alloys results in a weaker bridge. Because lives depend on it.
Corporations who push their own format as a "standard" harm the industry. If they never publish their formats, or publish a bowdlerized version of their standard (MS-Office 2007 doesn't even conform to the OOXML specification as published), they are selling their customers a trojan horse.
That's one of the things I love about the PS3-- it works with standard UPnP servers, like Media Tomb. I like having all my music and movies on a single server, accessible from any place in the house, from any computer (including the PS3). I can even get them to my PSP via the remoting of the PS3 to the PSP, which is great for playing music remotely. (It'd be even better if the PSP could work as a UPnP client as well.)
But, I disagree with the Wii and DVDs. I currently have two systems connected to the TV in the living room: a PS2, and a Wii. The PS2 is used exclusively as a DVD player. I'd ditch it in a heartbeat if the Wii played DVDs. Then there'd be one device connected to the TV. Yes, I'd also like to see a UPnP client, just like the PS3. But a DVD player seems so... fundamental.
I really, really love my PS3. (Yes, I'm thinking of marrying it.) The PSP/PS3 interaction is pretty damned cool. I play the hell out of Warhawk, and Ratchet and Clank is one of the best games out there. Unreal Tournament looks like it's going to kick some serious ass.
That said, I wish I had Bioshock for the PS3. I played Halo 3, and it was OK, but really nothing that great. Then again, I was never impressed with the Halo series, as a whole. They are good, solid games; I just never got into the story line. Bioshock, though, seems to be interesting.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is this: the PS3 is a damned solid piece of engineering, with some great *technical* advantages over the XBox. But the XBox has some great games. Now, you can't get R&C for the XBox, nor Haze (which also looks cool). But Haze is still a month off, it seems.
If you want a PSP, though, it's damned cool the way it works with the PS3. And it has internet radio now, too. I've been using it to remote my media from the PS3, and I can access my music and videos anywhere there's an internet connection. Now, *that's* cool.
X-Windows, which was never very good, has survived all its successors.
Maybe that's because it was really pretty good?
I hear a lot of people claim X-Windows isn't very good, but nobody can say *why* it wasn't very good. It was quite innovative for its time, with features nobody even today-- network transparency, separation of policy and presentation, etc. The reason it's still around today is partly because the original design was strong.
It's the same problem we have with TCP/IP. The original design and implementation was damned good, especially for the day. Now that the network has become ubiquitous, there are some problems. But really, we don't have much to replace it with. Even IPv6, which was supposed to solve all the problems with IPv4, has merely traded one set of problems for another. (The only clear, real win is expanded address space.) Same with X11-- what's there to replace it that has the flexibility and extensibility and is as robust?
Now, as far as the article is concerned, these are definitely problems. From an innovation standpoint, *anything* that is as entrenched as filesystems, TCP/IP, windowing systems (network-transparent or not), and "applications" is a straitjacket. Really, if we want to do interesting things, we should start a system that breaks completely and cleanly from everything we have right now. Plan 9 was a good try, but still based too many of its ideas on Unix. Eros wasn't a bad attempt either, but still suffered from treating disk-based storage as a filesystem, and RAM as simply a place to run applications. Basically, all of these ideas are *so* 1978.
However, there's going to be a lot of floundering before any project that is revolutionary produces anything viable. That's why the IT landscape has been dominated by evolution for 20 years-- because anything truly revolutionary is going to break the current system. Hell, the closest thing we've had to a revolution is the web. (No, not the internet, which has been around for almost 30 years in its current form. The web, which is built on top of the internet, was almost a revolution.) After that, the only revolt we've had is open source, as a movement. And that is more a revolt, than a revolution.
The word "innovation" has been thrown around so much, it no longer means anything. Fuck, these days, it's used more as a marketing therm than to describe anything in realistic terms. I believe that's because we haven't seen real innovation in a long, long time. I think the only way we're going to see real innovation is by starting a new project, something that isn't tied to the ideas of "applications," filesystems, and the distinction of local and non-local processing. But believe me, any project like that is going to take years to develop anything useful at all.
They are an extremely successful company.
...but not one of those competing products has yet been able to overthrow Microsoft's dominance in its core fields.
So? Budweiser is the best-selling beer in America. That doesn't make it any good, let alone the best quality.
Aye. And the reasons behind this (ruthless, immoral, and illegal business activity) have very little to do with the quality of their products.
When you're in first place, you dont really have to run harder to increase the distance between you and second place.
Or you can use the power that comes with being in first place the ensure no other runner can enter the race. That is the power Microsoft has wielded in the past to great affect: by restrictive licensing agreements, they were able to keep out DR-DOS, OS/2, Geos, BeOS, and a host of other early competitors. (IBM really fucked up with OS/2, so it's only on the list because Microsoft *still* had to pull some questionable tricks to keep it at bay, even when IBM had OS/2 locked in the basement, feeding it through the crack at the bottom of the door.)
So, now we come to the first line:
I know this is slashdot and all, but the person who wrote this summary is so hopelessly biased against Microsoft its not even funny...
It's not bias when your opinion is based on truth. Just because I want Charles Manson locked safely away doesn't mean I'm biased. It means I know what Chuck is like. Just because I wouldn't go to dinner with Jeffrey Dahmer doesn't mean I'm biased against him. Just because I wouldn't have sex with the most beautiful woman in the world who has aids, that doesn't mean I'm biased.
See what I'm getting at? Even your post in Microsoft's defense had nothing good to say. The best you could say was that they were "successful." That's certainly not untrue. The summary was actually pretty to-the-point, except for the swipe at Clippy. (C'mon, folks. That was a long time ago. Let it pass. Even Microsoft was embarrassed enough to dump Clippy. But they had to do *something* with MS-Bob.) For instance, the Zune is not a good MP3 player. It's decent, but not that great. MS-Vista rather sucks, as an upgrade 5 years in the making. MS-Office 2007 is essentially MS-Office 2003 with a facelift and new proprietary document format.
So far, the *only* product that is half-decent from Microsoft in the last couple of years is the XBox 360. It's hobbled by lack of high-density media (HD-DVD or BluRay), but they had to do that to keep the price down, so maybe that was the right call. It's still a decent game console. (I hated the original XBox, which was nothing but a cheap PC in an ugly case. At least they took the time to figure out how to make a *gaming* console this time around.) Even with the 360, there's no real innovation. It's a good, solid system with some quality control issues, but otherwise not very spectacular.
I guess my point is this: the summary was simply saying that, with so much regard for the quality patent portfolio, why is Microsoft still making Budweiser? Why can't they get up to Anchor Steam quality? Or Great Lakes Nosferatu? Or (insert your favorite ale or lager here. But not lambics. I hate lambics.)?
The languages are operating in between one another.
.Net-based languages which all look like syntacticly-modified C#. It's like the famous Henry Ford (paraphrased) quote: "You can get a Model T in any color you want, as long as it's black."
.Net runtime is restrictive by nature. This "interoperation" you speak of is really the way a dominatrix interoperates with her sex partners-- with black leather and whips. It looks sexy, I'll grant you that, but when you get into it, it's more uncomfortable than pleasurable.
Ah, yes. All those
The
Plus, that's still not "innovative." The Parrot project has been working on a language-neutral VLM for a while, and have had many working prototypes. The difference is, Parrot is aiming to support many different languages without restricting them to a single style library API, which is *much* more difficult.
Making Visual BASIC look like C# in black leather chaps and handcuffs isn't really innovative.
Right. Off topic.
This is probably the funniest damned post in the entire thread, spot on-topic for both patents and artificial life forms, and you get modded "offtopic."
See, here's the deal, mods: *I'm* offtopic. The parent post was *funny.* See the difference? His was filled with relevant, smart, funny information. Mine is mere whining about mods and the way they waste their points. HUGE FUCKING DIFFERENCE!
Mr. MillionthMonkey, Sir, you may not have writ the works of Shakespeare, but your post made me throw up laughing.
Thank you.
Would you prefer that we place enormous power in everybody's hands? Regardless of their level of skill or ethics?
That's effectively the same thing.
What you describe is similar to "security through obscurity," the hope that not enough people will have the knowledge and information needed to cause damage. As soon as one person has the knowledge and power, you have compromised security. The whole point is to design a system that is resistant to knowledge and power.
Unfortunately, since we didn't design the system (biology), there's not much we can do to make it hack-proof. I believe we're still dozens of years away from synthetic life, but once it happens, it might as well be in the power of all people. This isn't something like The Bomb that you can control with access to scarce resources.
I'm not as pessimistic as Bill Joy (ironic last name when he goes off on his "the world is doomed" tear), but I definitely think it doesn't matter whether everybody gets this tech, or only a few get this tech. We're pretty much equally screwed either way.
Truth is, its not horrible, just lackluster.
Only compared to other MS-Windows products, and only if you use Microsoft metrics.
Sure, Vista is mostly an eye-candy upgrade with some DRM poison sugar thrown in. But that's not what makes it horrible.
What makes it horrible is that it's still insecure, that it is still poorly-organized, and the it's still not a joy to use. Sure, that's exactly like every other version of MS-Windows, but that's not the point. The point is, Vista might've been adequate for 2001, but for 2008, it's still just a rehash of MS-Windows. Instead of focusing on creating a secure system that's pleasant to use and easy to centrally manage, they created a system that is a pain in the ass to manage (though they have some very expensive server products to help with that), it's not that pleasant to use, and it's still a mish-mash of features designed to try to be all things. (Kind of a misdesign by aggregation.) It fails miserably when compared to NeXTStep, OS/2, several Linux distributions, Apple OS X, and pretty much any Unix OS out there. Sure, I wouldn't recommend Solaris for a desktop OS (yet), but I sure as hell wouldn't recommend MS-Windows for a server. For the desktop, NeXTStep has Vista beat, and that hasn't been around for 12 years. (This is the basis for my assertion that Microsoft has set the computer world back 12 years. And counting.)
That's part of the reason why many, many geeks despise MS-Windows. Once you stop judging MS-Windows by Microsoft's rules, you start to realize how shoddy it really is. Vista might look good at the bar after several drinks, but you're gonna regret waking up next to it the next morning.
The "Start" menu has always sucked in MS-Windows. It's never been good. Not at all.
And here's why:
Every GOD DAMNED vendor in the world has their own fuckin' menu! Instead of programs grouped by function or task, you get "Adobe Acrobat" and "Adobe GoLive!" and "Microsoft Office" and "McAfee Virus Scanner" and SO WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF A MENUING SYSTEM?
Sorry. I get really het up about this issue. It's one of the simplest, most fundamental problems with every version of MS-Windows. It's the most concise indication of the target audience of MS-Windows.
Other corporations.
Not the end-user. MS-Windows wasn't designed for end user ease-of-use. I've used computers, and helped other people use computers, for 25 years, and MS-Windows is the worst to have to teach. It makes the least sense, and is the least pleasing. It's a sad state of affairs when the biggest MS-Windows proponents say, "But I have to use MS-Windows, since that's the only thing MS-Office runs on," rather than (as most Mac users say), "Of course I use a Mac. It's fun."
The "Start" menu shows just how fucked-up and disorganized MS-Windows really is. It's hard to find a specific program, and when you are looking for a program to do a specific task, you have no idea how to find it. You have to "know" which programs do what, and which corporation makes each program. It's a corporate mash, and it tastes bitter, with a lingering sour aftertaste, like bad wine in a good bottle.
That's why MS-Windows is painful to use, and you'll find very few people who love to use it, even among fanbois. You can tell by how they defend it they don't really love it. It's just the sports team they chose to back.
Office 2007 is more than merely "acceptable." The Geek who pretends otherwise is just blowing smoke.
Bullshit. That might be you're opinion, but it's hardly Truth.
I used it. The interface is OK, but really it's a re-arrangement of controls to make things look a little bit more like Apple Pages. It's better than MS-Office 97, sure, but that's about it. Performance is adequate. Layout sucks, and the final printed product isn't any better than older MS-Office products-- that is, hardly acceptable at all. (Compare it to a LaTeX document, for example, and the kerning is horrible.)
It's OK. It's marginally better than OpenOffice. For casual users, it *sucks* compared to Apple's iWork suite. For business users, the incompatibilities with older versions of MS-Office (saving as older versions are about as good as importing into OpenOffice) means that a company is pretty much forced to upgrade as soon as a small percentage of the company gets it. (This isn't a problem in a company that strictly controls software purchases, of course.)
The Borg icon for Gates. The stained glass window.
Those are just funny, and you know it. If that disturbs you, perhaps you might consider yoga, or getting a dog.
Microsoft spelled with a dollar sign. The inane and ridiculous flamepoint stories that appear on a slow news day.
Fanboi-ism. Absolutely. Doesn't mean Microsoft isn't evil. Doesn't mean their products are good. Doesn't mean Microsoft hasn't set us back 12 years. That doesn't mean we're not right.
Twitter, twit, twit.
Ah. That helps your argument a lot.
At the time of the invasion, Most Dems, Reps, and governments of the world believed Iraq had WMDs.
Yes. That's why so many countries jumped at the chance to join the "coalition of the willing."
Even Iraqi leadership believed it.
Only that one really cool minister of misinformation. "The infidels will die on their swords!" That was classic.
It should also be noted that a grand jury bent on charging the administration concerning the Valerie Plame "revelation" wasn't able to come up with any charges whatsoever except for a single perjury.
First, this is an interesting aside, which has nothing at all to do with the lead-up to war, except that it was a leak concerning the wife of the guy who *told the US government the yellowcake documents were fake.* He did this before the war. He did this before President Bush cited those documents as an excuse to go to war.
The government had no excuse to continue to push those documents as evidence, yet they did. This, along with the revelation that the "foreign government intelligence" (intelligence documents from Britain) were also faked, indicate the President and his cabinet had every intention of misleading the population into war, no matter the cost, and without probable reason.
Your post makes me wonder: are you even from this universe? Have you stepped in through some portal from a strange alternate universe in which the President actually had a case for war? Or were you merely ignoring outside news sources during the lead-up to war?