I entirely agree with you that Vista requires far more system resources than it ought to, and as usual, Microsoft has understated in the official requirements the amount of computing power you really need to run Vista smoothly. This isn't new for Microsoft either, they have a long history of grossly understating minimum requirements, presumably to maximise potential upgrades. I remember the Windows 95 requirements stating that 4MB (8MB? This is a long time ago) was enough to run a fully functional Windows 95 system. Well, yes, it was, until you actually tried to load an application inside the operating system, at which point everything would grind to a halt.
But a significant portion of the blame lies with the OEM's as well, the people who choose to sell 'x' system with Vista pre-installed aren't complete idiots, as much as we'd like to think they are. They in all likeliness know that performance will be anything from sub-optimal to atrocious, but they sell it anyway, because it will ultimately net them a profit, even if it comes at the cost of the customers enjoyment.
I think you're simplifying the objective of "The Mojave Experiment", while speed is definitely one of the largest complaints against Vista (and one of the most valid), it's certainly not the only one. Other prominent ones, for example, include the perceived application compatibility and the UAC stigma (Opening Notepad will result in a UAC confirmation dialogue). I'm not entirely familiar with Mojave mind-you, I'm not really the target audience;) But I'd be very surprised if performance was the only criticism they are trying to address through it.
As for the Vista pre-cache, honestly, I'm not personally a big fan of it. I understand why it exists and I think much of the reasoning behind it is sound, but it's not ideal for many computer usage scenarios. I frequently dabble in virtualisation and have found that the SuperFetch functionality has an effect on VM performance, ranging from minor to severe, depending of course on what exactly the VM is doing. Thus, I tend to disable the SuperFetch service.
I think you are both misunderstanding the content of the ad and what it aims to achieve.
The fact that it barely mentions Microsoft or Windows directly at all, save for a very brief logo at the end, is definitely not unintentional. It's plainly obvious that the ad in no way is aiming to make you buy Vista by virtue of technical persuasion, nor does it bash Apple directly. I think the aim of the ad is primarily to create an association: Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. It's aiming to make you put them together mentally and recognise them as somewhat related. Really, that's what the ad is ultimately doing, creating a friendship between them. Jerry meets Bill, helps him buy shoes, they walk away eating, ad ends.
That being said, there are some subtle references I think to both Apple and Windows in the ad, but they will likely only be picked up by geeks. Once again, intentional. There's no way that your average non-techy is going to analyze this ad to the extent required to really pick up on these. Some examples: "Quality shoes at discount prices, why pay more?" --- Stab at Apple's expensive hardware/software costs? The Shoe Circus card with Bill Gates mugshot --- Definitely aimed at geeks, probably an intentional nod to them, I loved it personally.
But saying Microsoft should get a refund is just jumping the gun in a huge way. This isn't an isolated ad, it's part of a whole advertising campaign. This is Part 1 of god knows how many ads. I doubt they all follow in this surreal sort of vein, and become far more direct. But more so, as many posters have noted, everyone is talking about it. It's practically going viral. That's every ad agency's dream. And even if the response from many/most/all is "WTF???" right now, they're baited for the next advertisement. Once again, much like a viral campaign. I really think Microsoft and its agency has achieved what they are aiming for in this first segment, and maybe even exceeded them. I'm definitely reserving judgement until more ads are out and I can better guage the direction they are taking, and the response.
Not buying it because of SecuROM is certainly NOT justified, for many reasons.
Firstly, while I'm opposed to copy protection of this flavour in general, SecuROM is one of the tamer options out there. Yes, it causes problems for some users, but really, there's far worse out there. For instance, the horror that is StarForce. That's an example of a copy protection that crosses the line so blatantly, that it would be justified to all-out refuse to buy the game. SecuROM has if anything improved recently, notably, the v.7.x series can install and run in a non-administrator account, which has obvious security and stability benefits.
But more compelling than such technical arguments, is the ethical one from the developers point of view. Maxis is owned by EA (which is genuinely evil, or at least, has some pretty miserable standards), and I doubt the option of choosing whether to implement copy protection in the game is ultimately their choice. I'd imagine if a Maxis rep. went to EA and said "Spore is done, and by the way, we're releasing it free of any copy protection, except for a basic CD-Key check with server-side validation only in the case of multiplayer", they'd be laughed out of the office and/or fired. I don't believe it's fair or at all reasonable to let Maxis suffer because of the inclusion of SecuROM. They worked hard on this game, invested a lot of time to develop it; refusing to buy it purely because of copy protection is more a snub to them than it is to EA.
Should we protest against the inclusion of such copy protection mechanisms? Absolutely. But do so through means that don't whack the developers pocket except in extreme cases. Complain on the game forums, let both Maxis and EA know your opposition to the inclusion of SecuROM. If you are vocal enough, they may even remove the SecuROM checks from the binary. This has been done by developers numerous times in the past through future patches when faced with enough opposition.
It may be a good choice, but I think there's a fundamental difference in the degree of utility they can offer to their respective parties as VP's.
Obama picked Biden because of his extensive knowledge on foreign policy, which is perceived as one of his weakest aspects. The idea being, he can consult Biden for his opinion and expertise on foreign policy issues that he is not intimately familiar with.
Palin doesn't bring this kind of expertise as a VP. She's not intimitately familiar in a particular area of importance to the president like Biden is. She's got well defined stances on various social issues, such as gay rights and abortion for instance, but I hardly think McCain is going to consult her over these matters. Her advice is going to be predictable in this regard, and clear cut.
It may be a smart choice, the choice of each party is going to win voters, but I really think Obama's choice has more to contribute as a VP. Palin, to be fair, seems a very skilled politician and one who's got a strong stance on political ethics, but ideally, all politicians should possess such characteristics, and I don't think you can fault Biden in either of these areas.
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I entirely agree with you that Vista requires far more system resources than it ought to, and as usual, Microsoft has understated in the official requirements the amount of computing power you really need to run Vista smoothly. This isn't new for Microsoft either, they have a long history of grossly understating minimum requirements, presumably to maximise potential upgrades. I remember the Windows 95 requirements stating that 4MB (8MB? This is a long time ago) was enough to run a fully functional Windows 95 system. Well, yes, it was, until you actually tried to load an application inside the operating system, at which point everything would grind to a halt.
But a significant portion of the blame lies with the OEM's as well, the people who choose to sell 'x' system with Vista pre-installed aren't complete idiots, as much as we'd like to think they are. They in all likeliness know that performance will be anything from sub-optimal to atrocious, but they sell it anyway, because it will ultimately net them a profit, even if it comes at the cost of the customers enjoyment.
I think you're simplifying the objective of "The Mojave Experiment", while speed is definitely one of the largest complaints against Vista (and one of the most valid), it's certainly not the only one. Other prominent ones, for example, include the perceived application compatibility and the UAC stigma (Opening Notepad will result in a UAC confirmation dialogue). I'm not entirely familiar with Mojave mind-you, I'm not really the target audience ;) But I'd be very surprised if performance was the only criticism they are trying to address through it.
As for the Vista pre-cache, honestly, I'm not personally a big fan of it. I understand why it exists and I think much of the reasoning behind it is sound, but it's not ideal for many computer usage scenarios. I frequently dabble in virtualisation and have found that the SuperFetch functionality has an effect on VM performance, ranging from minor to severe, depending of course on what exactly the VM is doing. Thus, I tend to disable the SuperFetch service.
The systems they used in the Mojave advertisements were HP Pavilion DV 2000 machines with 2GB of RAM.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/07/31/windows-mojave-advertisements-start-to-appear-in-the-wild
Not really top of the line...
I think you are both misunderstanding the content of the ad and what it aims to achieve.
The fact that it barely mentions Microsoft or Windows directly at all, save for a very brief logo at the end, is definitely not unintentional. It's plainly obvious that the ad in no way is aiming to make you buy Vista by virtue of technical persuasion, nor does it bash Apple directly. I think the aim of the ad is primarily to create an association: Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. It's aiming to make you put them together mentally and recognise them as somewhat related. Really, that's what the ad is ultimately doing, creating a friendship between them. Jerry meets Bill, helps him buy shoes, they walk away eating, ad ends.
That being said, there are some subtle references I think to both Apple and Windows in the ad, but they will likely only be picked up by geeks. Once again, intentional. There's no way that your average non-techy is going to analyze this ad to the extent required to really pick up on these. Some examples:
"Quality shoes at discount prices, why pay more?" --- Stab at Apple's expensive hardware/software costs?
The Shoe Circus card with Bill Gates mugshot --- Definitely aimed at geeks, probably an intentional nod to them, I loved it personally.
But saying Microsoft should get a refund is just jumping the gun in a huge way. This isn't an isolated ad, it's part of a whole advertising campaign. This is Part 1 of god knows how many ads. I doubt they all follow in this surreal sort of vein, and become far more direct. But more so, as many posters have noted, everyone is talking about it. It's practically going viral. That's every ad agency's dream. And even if the response from many/most/all is "WTF???" right now, they're baited for the next advertisement. Once again, much like a viral campaign. I really think Microsoft and its agency has achieved what they are aiming for in this first segment, and maybe even exceeded them. I'm definitely reserving judgement until more ads are out and I can better guage the direction they are taking, and the response.
Not buying it because of SecuROM is certainly NOT justified, for many reasons.
Firstly, while I'm opposed to copy protection of this flavour in general, SecuROM is one of the tamer options out there. Yes, it causes problems for some users, but really, there's far worse out there. For instance, the horror that is StarForce. That's an example of a copy protection that crosses the line so blatantly, that it would be justified to all-out refuse to buy the game. SecuROM has if anything improved recently, notably, the v.7.x series can install and run in a non-administrator account, which has obvious security and stability benefits.
But more compelling than such technical arguments, is the ethical one from the developers point of view. Maxis is owned by EA (which is genuinely evil, or at least, has some pretty miserable standards), and I doubt the option of choosing whether to implement copy protection in the game is ultimately their choice. I'd imagine if a Maxis rep. went to EA and said "Spore is done, and by the way, we're releasing it free of any copy protection, except for a basic CD-Key check with server-side validation only in the case of multiplayer", they'd be laughed out of the office and/or fired. I don't believe it's fair or at all reasonable to let Maxis suffer because of the inclusion of SecuROM. They worked hard on this game, invested a lot of time to develop it; refusing to buy it purely because of copy protection is more a snub to them than it is to EA.
Should we protest against the inclusion of such copy protection mechanisms? Absolutely. But do so through means that don't whack the developers pocket except in extreme cases. Complain on the game forums, let both Maxis and EA know your opposition to the inclusion of SecuROM. If you are vocal enough, they may even remove the SecuROM checks from the binary. This has been done by developers numerous times in the past through future patches when faced with enough opposition.
It may be a good choice, but I think there's a fundamental difference in the degree of utility they can offer to their respective parties as VP's.
Obama picked Biden because of his extensive knowledge on foreign policy, which is perceived as one of his weakest aspects. The idea being, he can consult Biden for his opinion and expertise on foreign policy issues that he is not intimately familiar with.
Palin doesn't bring this kind of expertise as a VP. She's not intimitately familiar in a particular area of importance to the president like Biden is. She's got well defined stances on various social issues, such as gay rights and abortion for instance, but I hardly think McCain is going to consult her over these matters. Her advice is going to be predictable in this regard, and clear cut.
It may be a smart choice, the choice of each party is going to win voters, but I really think Obama's choice has more to contribute as a VP. Palin, to be fair, seems a very skilled politician and one who's got a strong stance on political ethics, but ideally, all politicians should possess such characteristics, and I don't think you can fault Biden in either of these areas.