If you need heads-down time, block it off on your calendar. That's the easiest and first thing one should do if there is open space on their calendar and they are complaining about constantly being interrupted. Of course, this doesn't help when the person interrupting you is sitting on the other side of your cube's wall....
How the hell is this modded "Troll?" Some of you mods need to put the crack pipe down. Well, okay, I suppose comparing the worst Slashdot moderators to people who smoke crack cocaine is unfair. Unfair to the people who smoke crack, that is.
Remember that when you deal with the average member of the population you're dealing with someone who reads and writes somewhere between a grade 7-10 level.
Then why don't we fix that and solve or prevent a whole host of other problems by doing so?
There's something seriously pathological about seeing this as a situation to be accommodated rather than a disease state to be remedied.
I would venture to say that most humans are born curious, but then have it beaten out of them, both figuratively through the demands of societal conformity(specifically through the education system, church, etc.), and literally by the parents. It all happens at a very early age usually beyond conscious memory of the adult. Either way, it's usually our environment that kills the urge. Genetics plays a comparatively small part.
This is absolutely the truth! Any thorough investigation into the matter will convince you that this has been both deliberate and systematically executed, for the purpose of creating a society of people who are easier to control because they do not have strong minds that are willing to question. The public schools are essential to this effort and it could not have been so successful without them.
Albert Einstein once said "it's a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."
Also, you are not really venturing with that one. You are exercising the natural intuitive brightness and discernment that is your birthright as a human being. I say this because you may not be aware of how profound your insight actually is or of the real means by which you understood it. Let's say it was more direct than ordinary deductive processes. It only feels like a venture because people who do not possess that brightness may ask you to prove it to them logically or mathematically which is quite difficult compared to being able to see it on your own and know that it is the truth. The challenge is learning to trust that intuition.
It's a delight for me whenever I see an example of this. It makes me believe that there is still some hope, that maybe this unsustainable society doesn't need to collapse under the weight of its own excesses, or that if it does that it will be replaced by something much better. You won't see them promoted in the media because the media is heavily invested in the status quo, but I am encountering more and more people who have real understanding to some degree or another.
If I may, I'd like to recommend something to you. Another man has explored the same realization you have shared here, and for the subject of public schools he is quite exceptional because he was a schoolteacher for decades who was very good at what he did. He had to resign after he realized the damage that was being done in the name of education. His name is John Taylor Gatto. I'd highly recommend to you his essay and also his free online book. There is no better reference for this subject anywhere. Both are enlightening reads that I think you will truly enjoy.
I think in this case it's much more about whether a user likes to tinker or not.
Like there are people who cannot resist popping the lid on any electronic gadget they buy and start modding it as soon as they get home from the store, there are people who will start fiddling with the 'preferences' of their browser or OS even before it has finished loading.
It's not always about the ability to change something, it's about the desire to do so outweighing the effort required.
I do see your point and I agree that whether a user likes to tinker is definitely a factor. I just think that point is a little less applicable when you're talking about user-configurable settings that are intended to be mutable and have an interface (the "Options" or "Preferences" menus) for the specific purpose of modifying them. Just my opinion but I think your point would be much stronger if you were talking about folks who get Linux running on their Xbox or something like that.
I would speculate that those who like to tinker are more versed in the kind of independent problem-solving and abstract reasoning that lends itself to that task. I imagine that their relationship to authority figures involves a lot more questioning than someone who does not value those skills and avoids opportunities to exercise them.
So it couldn't possibly be because on a Microsoft search engine, the terms people search for are more Microsoft-centric, thereby resulting in a biased pool of suggestions?
That would make sense if this were a search of the Microsoft Knowledge Base or something else that inherently involves Microsoft. This does not hold water when you're talking about a Web search. Additionally, there is no need to speculate about the search terms and whether they are biased. The search terms were PROVIDED in that example -- he specifically said he searched for "Linux." Reading comprehension is important. That is not a Microsoft-centric search and should not produce Microsoft-centric results. It's really that simple, even if you can't stand it.
It couldn't possibly be because most people with a genuine interest in Linux are Microsoft-hating sheep who wouldn't dare go near a Microsoft search engine, resulting in a dearth of Linux-but-not-Microsoft related search terms?
Please.
That's some incredibly advanced AI if the search engine can read your emotional state (interface unspecified, perhaps electrodes on your head?) and tailor the search results according to whether or not you are a "Microsoft-hating sheep." That would be some amazing technology! How about we just say that it's a little more likely that Bing is a lower-quality search?
"Please" indeed. This is the third trivially-corrected post of yours I've seen in this discussion. Out of three total.
... Yeah, it's typically located to the right of the "Address" bar. Are you losing your cool because I called it a toolbar and not a box? Because that's what it looks like to me.
Tell ya what, cut+paste my post into a word processor. Do a search-and-replace to replace every occurrence of "toolbar" with "box". Note that none of the points I was making changes in any way. I have a feeling you aren't sharing my amusement at this. Too bad, that's your loss.
If you don't know that you wrote a troll post, now you do. If you did know that, you should know I've dealt with trolls far, far more effective and convincing than you. The best of them manage to be humorous instead of bitching about semantics. Ah well, to each his own.
I agree with you, but there's just one catch: we're not everyone.
Eh, I suppose it won't be productive to ask what purpose it serves to point out the obvious as I suspect I already know the answer. Additionally, nothing I have said depends in any way on the number of people who agree, so I don't understand the concern about popularity. Two plus two equals four and thankfully people recognize this, but it would be equally true even if the vast majority of people mistakenly think it equals five.
So, I'll be content with pointing out that you say that like all preferences are equally valid. In this case, they are not. The approach of learning how to tell the search engine what you want without needless second-guessing recognizes the reality of using something that, however sophisticated, is still a machine. The other approach fails to do so, placing it at a disadvantage when it comes to delivering useful results. Whether that disadvantage can be overcome so that Bing ends up as useful as Google is an interesting question, the answer to which remains to be seen.
Now if we invent artificial intelligence that is absolutely indistinguishable from a person, including the flawless use of natural language, then those two approaches would be on equal footing. They would then be legitimate preferences, just like you might enjoy ice cream and another person can't stand it. Meanwhile, they are not; one is objectively superior, full stop. If users want to use an inferior solution for the sake of convenience, then let them do so, but that doesn't change the nature of the comparison. The only thing I wish were different is that most people do not seem to be aware of a trade-off when they are making one, and I recognize the value of informed decision-making.
There are people who do in fact not only want the computer to try guess what they meant, they expect it, and get their panties in a wad if the computer doesn't. That's who Bing's targeting, I think.
That too was already evident. I agree with you about Bing's target audience, but you already knew that because I have already described them. I detailed why someone would enjoy that sort of second-guessing in the post to which you are responding. They are the "people who want to be taken care of" and they find it desirable when "somebody offers to do some thinking for them." I wonder what you thought I was talking about if not that. If anything, you have only summarized my reasoning with less focus on the "why" component - was this your intention?
That's because defaults are intended to be applied to millions of users and therefore cannot be ideal for all users or even very many of them.
Sure it can. Most people prefer Google, so the default in every browser should be Google.
It's a 100% logical way of satisfying the vast majority of users. You'll just have trouble getting Microsoft onboard with it.
Context is important and you're responding to that out of context. That's kind of important when you are seeking to refute what I was saying:-). The discussion was about IE 8 and its default settings. This pertains to the idea of default settings in general (that is, every user-configurable option in IE) and why someone would not customize or at least review them. The search engine it is configured to use is only one such configurable option among many. So, you may have a point about the use of Google but not about the dozens of other options about which I was also speaking; my use of the plural clearly indicates I was talking about more than one setting.
Personally I don't think there should be a default search engine. If Microsoft's approach means that IE 8's first use asks you to choose one from a list, which I've heard it does (unconfirmed), I think that's the best way to handle it. I say this as someone who uses Google almost exclusively because I recognize that while it's my own preference, it may not suit everyone else. Besides, I find "easily customized because it asks you what you want" to be far superior to "one size fits all."
I don't have any idea whether the current version of Bing is grossly inferior to Google. And I'm not likely to find out.
To put it bluntly, I wouldn't trust MS to deliver an honest answer. Even if they do at first to try to build a reputation, in my eyes they already HAVE a reputation. Since this web site is controlled by MS, I would expect it to use any access made to it in unethical ways. Probably not quite so blatant as downloading a keylogger, but of that ilk.
Note that this doesn't mean that I expect that they are acting that way now, though it wouldn't surprise me. But I certainly don't expect them to give warnings before they DO start.
It does surprise me that so many people seem to have a very short memory when it comes to this company's history. When dealing with entities like corporations, I neither trust them nor distrust them. I wait for them to reveal to me who they are and how they operate. That usually doesn't take very long at all. It certainly does not require the rich 20+ year history of frequent unethical (in my opinion) practices with which anyone who knows much about Microsoft would be familiar. No search engine is so good as to make me forget or disregard any of this because no amount of clever coding is going to fix a trust issue.
"Syndrome" sounds like a disease. When you really do engage in anticompetitive, manipulative, underhanded practices, have been convicted in multiple nations of doing so in an illegal fashion, have (in my opinion) resorted to bribery to compromise independent standards bodies, have made Webmasters everywhere bear additional costs because you refuse to fully adhere to open standards, and have abused the meaning of "updates to the OS" to install phone-home software (WGA), perhaps it's understandable that many people won't like you? Just maybe that's not a "syndrome" but a predictable outcome?
Mr. Torvalds made a case for why it is sometimes expedient to work with a company that is important in its industry. He has not made the case that their tactics should be celebrated or that it's unreasonable to dislike them. The only way to make that case is to prove that everyone should enjoy the ill effects of abusive practices and that any and all pushback against them is wrong and unfounded. That would not be the argument of a sane person.
Something just bothers me about the "decision engine" thing. I'd like to think people are smart enough to make their own decisions and not follow whatever their search engine tells them to do, but for some reason I doubt that is the case. I think the major reason people click on more adds when using Bing is that those of us who Google already have some idea of what we are looking for, those of us who use Bing are looking for someone or something to make those choices for us. As for me, even if Bing was the best search engine ever invented, it gives me a bloody headache to look at it.
Yeah, I don't like it either and it's easy to deconstruct. When you don't really value and cherish freedom, you necessarily also don't value relative independence and self-sufficiency. When you don't have such firm and truly worthy principles, then you must resort to viewing everything in terms of whether or not it is immediately convenient. That means you view any independent problem-solving or decision-making as a burden or a price of admission for getting what you want, instead of viewing it as a way to expand your knowledge or to sharpen your skills. So someone comes along and offers to do some thinking and decision-making for you and then you can't help but view that as very nice of them. It's a naivete that might be cute if so many (so-called) adults didn't subscribe to it.
That's really just the tip of the iceberg. Bing is a rather benign effect of this horrible mentality. The ever-increasing size and power of government is a malign effect that goes with it because these are helpless people who need to be taken care of. So is the lack of independent realization in the average person; that is, the absence of ideas that someone else didn't spent a lot of money to put there. I do not exaggerate when I say that this is unsustainable and a nation which is based on this idea is well on its way to collapsing. Bing's "selling points" and why anyone would find them desirable are just symptoms of much deeper phenomena. Really, Microsoft is just giving those people what they want and probably doesn't care (or even know) about why they want it or whether it's good for them to have.
Yes you can:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030514035516436
It's just Mac & Linux users can, on occasion, manage to do something without a GUI. I'm not saying all Windows users can't, but that huge slice of market share Windows users brag about all the time includes a lot of really dumb people.
I don't think those users are merely dumb. A truly dumb person can't help it, and so I wouldn't fault them for that any more than I would blame a paraplegic for being unable to walk. What I do blame those "dumb users" for is something I call willful helplessness. That's when the information is out there, freely available, the person in question is literate and has 'Net access, and refuses to educate themselves even for simple configuration issues. It wouldn't be so bad except that these same people often complain that they don't get the results they want, and/or they think it's a terribly unreasonable thing to suggest that they can help themselves, almost like it's some kind of insult. Usually that's followed by something like "I'm not a computer expert" as though changing basic settings makes one an "expert."
Many such users are on Windows. There could probably be debates about whether that's because Windows inherently suits them or if it's merely because that's what the computer came with and this kind of user is quite unlikely to evaluate other options since that would require the learning that they so resent. The easiest way to identify such folks is that they can use the same machine for years and never know much more about it than when they started. That's what amazes me. It seems like it would take a lot more work to make sure you don't pick up some knowledge here and there that would accumulate over the years, but I suppose you could say that they are true to their passive mentality.
At least IE allows you to easily change the search engine. It even fucking asks you if you want to do so upon initial use.
Safari on Mac does not allow you to use anything but Google.
But who gives a fuck, this is Slashdot.
I guess you are referring to search toolbars that are part of the browser interface, or maybe to the way IE will treat as a search anything input into the Address bar that isn't a valid URL. Personally, I disable all such toolbars, primarily for a less-cluttered browser UI. I also do it because I don't care to make efforts to determine what the toolbars do with search keywords, such as datamining for marketers.
When I want to search, I go to the URL of the search engine I want to use and input my search there. That way it's also easier to use NoScript, Adblock Plus, and my (large)/etc/hosts file to frustrate or at least mitigate attempts to track my browsing. With toolbars I am not certain whether those first two measures would be as effective as expected and since I don't care for them anyway I consider that a moot question. Doing things this way also removes any and all concerns over what my browser will "allow" me to do (a concept I reject).
Could it be just that "this is Slashdot", or is it more likely that Slashdot has an unusually high percentage of users who also take control of their own browsing experience? As my other comments in this discussion would indicate, I don't feel that people who are in charge of their own experience and like it that way are Bing's target audience, if only because they are a minority and Bing is being mass-marketed.
I don't know, but I've found myself pretty happy with Google's search. I've used Bing and can't find any difference other than the fact that Bing randomly decides what it thinks i'm meaning and tries to give me those results. When usually its wrong. With Google I basically get the information I need quickly, with Bing I have to wade through all kinds of "suggestions" that are usually wrong. For example, because it was on its main page as a "featured search" I typed in mosquito bite. I got 5 results on the actual mosquito bite and then other "suggestions" of first aid, symptoms, news, treatments, etc. Google's was a bit better, with actual results (though it did have a few YouTube videos, news and images mixed in) but it didn't try to suggest me what it thought I meant which is nice.
Then I decided to do another search, of SNES to see how well both engines did with acronyms. Bing ended up with a typical first segment, until you got down to suggestions of "SNES games"... However they were all NES related(!) totally different than what I was searching for. Than about half the "suggested" results were of things for the NES(!) which is totally different. For example the suggestions for "SNES Repair" ended up with pages about how to repair the NES. Google's results were typical, mods, ROMs and general history of the SNES with no mention of the NES in the first 3 pages.
That alone would annoy me. I want a machine to do what I told it to do. Depending on what machine it is, the failure to perform this way could be merely annoying (Web search) or rather dangerous (automobiles). When I use a search engine, I want it to search for what I told it to search for, not some other thing that it thinks I really meant. Sorry but the ultimate purpose of "we know what you meant better than you do" is to pander to sheeple. By "sheeple" here I mean "people who want to be taken care of" as opposed to "people who can independently determine what they want."
I will say one thing. This may be a smart business move on Microsoft's part, in that there are many such people, they are likely to respond to advertising as intended, and it's not a stretch to say that they don't enjoy thinking, find independence to be a burden instead of a privilege, and find it desirable when somebody offers to do some thinking for them. That's a formula for quickly building a userbase. Like a lot of Microsoft's business moves, I think it's a pretty shitty way to do things but I must admit that it's effective. Note, I never said that all of Bing's users fit this description, just the ones who flock to it because they saw an ad on TV with a brand name they recognized.
It'll be interesting to see if Bing gains momentum; I think they definitely have a good shot at it. Something to make sure Google doesn't get complacent and enjoy its search dominance too much is probably a good thing.
The use of Bing COULD be boosted by IE 8 choosing that by default. How many users install software defaults?
As for clicking on ads, there are lots of potential reasons, including the ones mentioned here. But of course, since it's a "decision engine" people are more likely to follow that decision.;-)
I would be very surprised if there were not a strong correlation between users who don't customize their settings and users who more frequently respond to advertising the way that the advertisers want them to.
That's because defaults are intended to be applied to millions of users and therefore cannot be ideal for all users or even very many of them. At least, I'll say that the number of people who use all-default settings is far greater than the number of users for whom this is ideal. The greater the number of options which can be customized, the more true this is. Someone who has an "ideal" in mind for how their setup should be and is willing to undergo at least some minor effort to arrange it is more likely to be a more independent thinker, reducing the susceptibility to external suggestion such as advertising.
Yes, I am deliberately replying to a top-level post to ask a question. A question about something that arguably doesn't belong in the summary (editors, anyone?).
I was wondering whether it would be legal to buy a copy of such a database
That's a legal question. The answer to that question might seriously complicate your life if you get it wrong. What would possess a person to ask this of Slashdot instead of contacting a lawyer? Better yet, why would a German expect a USA-based Web site to be familiar with the nuances of German (or EU) copyright law? I'm trying to picture a situation where I'd contact a German online forum to ask for legal advice pertaining to American law and I just can't come up with anything.
I suppose next we'll see an Ask Slashdot which says "hi, I'm a diabetic and I forgot how much insulin I am supposed to inject myself with, please advise." And I'll have to scroll down significantly to see a partly-buried comment where someone finally suggests that perhaps he should be asking a doctor...
Can someone explain how Oracle doesn't have a monopoly to protect? Aside from the fact that when they bought sun they bought up a lot of their own competition, the only database of any real consequence that is a competitor to Oracle is MS SQL, ffs Oracle owns MySQL now.
I found this article to be helpful. Other than MS SQL it mentions IBM's DB2 server for major commercial competitors, and three open-source projects. It also mentions four "niche competitors," whatever that means (I assume it denotes marketshare).
That really doesn't sound like a monopoly to me, though I will admit I don't generally work with databases of any sort so I may have some ignorance that makes me feel that way. Whether something other than Oracle is PHB-approved in that "nobody ever got fired for buying Oracle" sort of way is another story that I'm not sure about...
I think a federal law already exists that telemarketers (or bill collectors) are not allowed to call fax or cell numbers, due to the expense being born by the customer. If you've already asked this company to put you on their "Do Not Call List", and they are still calling, then you can file a small claims lawsuit which will result in that company being fined ~$10,000.
In most cases simply saying "I'm taking you to court, which will result in a 10,000 fine" is enough to make them stop.
The problem is that the ones which do not respect the Do Not Call list tend to be fly-by-night operations that hang up on you or become rude the moment you ask questions about the company. Case in point: the "YOUR CAR WARRANTY HAS EXPIRED" calls that seem to be coming out of Florida and only recently ended because some attorneys general got tired of all the complaints and opened an investigation. The government has the resources to do that sort of thing; regular citizens generally don't. Incidentally, many people who do not even own a car received those calls as they were just cold-calling random people.
In other words, the day my phone is equipped with ANI is the day I'd be able to consider taking them to court. ANI is what 911 operators, other emergency services, and owners of 1-800 numbers get to use instead of the blockable/spoofable CallerID.
So, please reconsider my (tongue-in-cheek) proposal. It's based on what the word "outlaw" originally meant. It did not mean someone that the government was looking to apprehend, like it does today. It meant someone who was no longer protected by the law, in the sense that nothing you could ever do to them would be considered a crime even if it would be a crime when done to anyone else. It was a highly effective means of dealing with the most extreme troublemakers. Such a concept probably isn't compatible with our legal system, and that's a good thing. I also think anything more than a beatdown would be excessive, so just a federal law saying that state and local governments cannot prosecute for (bare-handed) assault in the case of these individuals would be a decent approximation:-).
Save the number the robocalls are originating from, and set the custom ringer to 'Silent.'
Worked wonders for me when I had the same issue.
Better yet, make a federal law stating that you cannot be charged with assault for beating the crap out of the owners or upper management of any company that telemarkets or otherwise cold calls. That'd be the cheapest solution.
You can't legislate somebody or something into being nice.
Sure you can, indirectly. Force them to compete for their business by making "exclusivity contracts" illegal.
Yes, but why stop there? Here's what I'd like to see:
Eliminate all forms of being locked into a contract. Make all cellphone service a monthly deal like any other utility so that the carrier has to earn your business each month. Y'know, by being competitive.
Require that customers can use any phone on any network of the same type, regardless of carrier. I.e. any GSM phone on any GSM network and any CDMA phone on any CDMA network.
Ban all locking down of phones so that transitioning to another network does not require the old carrier's assistance.
Regard the intentional locking down of cellphone applications as a prosecutable anticompetitive practice. The fines should be at least 120% of any profits made from doing so, as measured by sales of exclusive apps. Of course, the provider of the phone need not support any third-party applications, i.e. Apple would not be expected to support an application that didn't come from their own app store.
For GSM networks, require that any fees charged for text messaging state on the bill that cell phones continuously transmit the data structures used by SMS whether or not text messages are sent, so the cost for the carrier to provide text messaging is effectively zero. Require that this statement be immediately below or next to the dollar amount and in at least a 12 point font.
I think everyone, and by that I mean Western culture in general, is so focused on external behaviors and pragmatic outcomes to the point of near-obsession with them. I say that because other factors that also matter get ignored due to this fixation.
There is such a thing as doing the right thing for the wrong reason. When that happens, the good that could have become of doing the right thing is minimized. There is a universe of difference between Microsoft acting as they did because they respect the GPL and the copyrights of others as much as they respect their own intellectual property, versus acting as they did to avoid a losing lawsuit or because of political expediency. It's sort of like the difference between a man who donates anonymously to charity because he really does want to help the unfortunate, and a man who only does so when a TV camera is nearby so he can impress everyone when he doesn't really give a damn about the poor.
We keep looking for ways to pretend like that difference doesn't matter. I don't know if that's because it's hard to assign a monetary value to it or what, but it's one of the more dysfunctional traits of our culture. Perhaps for that reason, our expectations in this area are generally very low. Collectively we act like we expect to get screwed over and that this is normal unless it's is overt and doesn't come with at least a flimsy justification. The peripheral effects of this mentality are non-obvious and quite extensive.
If you must have a pragmatic reason, then know that the difference I am talking about says volumes about who you're dealing with and whether they are acting in good faith. Good faith is still considered desirable in business relationships, right? It helps to determine whether you can expect to be screwed over by some clever maneuver, such as vendor lock-in, or whether your installed software (marketshare) is to be used as bargaining chips in a game of embrace-and-extend. I think there's something seriously pathological about people who don't mind being treated as an object like this. I say that knowing that most people either aren't aware of it or don't seem to mind it as long as it doesn't create an obvious problem for them.
I know that if I were starting a business and needed software, and found that I could go with either Microsoft or some other vendor because both are equally viable for me, this would strongly influence my decision. In my opinion, I see many ruthless Machiavellian tactics, deceptive marketing (including aggressive campaigns against the very GPL they have now utilized - the word for that is "hypocrisy), and other questionable practices. Many corporations do engage in such practices but not to the degree of severity and impunity that I so often see from this one. I also see a company that goes to great lengths to avoid competing on a level playing field. I have to wonder how anyone can see all of this and still want to support them, to stick up for them as though I insulted their best friend by pointing these things out. I think they see but they do not perceive, much like people who can hear quite well but don't listen.
Now, I know it's fashionable to eschew all personal responsibility, but the truth of this is inescapable: when you purchase the products of such a company, you are sending the message that you approve of those tactics and want to see more of them. You are telling the company that it was successful because it worked on you. You are voting with your feet. If I say I dislike such customer-unfriendly tactics and then I go and advocate for Microsoft's products, then I have made a hypocrite of myself. Additionally, if I believe a corporation is unusually untrustworthy, then how could I claim that forming a business relationship with them is in my best interests?
We ignore questions like that. Then we wonder why life is less joyful than it could be, why we are not happier and more satisfied with it. We wonder why that saying "most men lead lives of quiet desp
Slashdot Mirror
Did they tell you to bring all of your desk items with you in a box?
Nope, this isn't a troll post either. The mods failed. Again.
If anything this was Funny.
As for me, I have karma to burn. Do your worst!
If you need heads-down time, block it off on your calendar. That's the easiest and first thing one should do if there is open space on their calendar and they are complaining about constantly being interrupted. Of course, this doesn't help when the person interrupting you is sitting on the other side of your cube's wall....
How the hell is this modded "Troll?" Some of you mods need to put the crack pipe down. Well, okay, I suppose comparing the worst Slashdot moderators to people who smoke crack cocaine is unfair. Unfair to the people who smoke crack, that is.
Pedantic is French for "stop making me aware of my ignorance!". Grammar snob/nazi and prescriptivist, likewise.
Don't apologize for correcting someone's error. If they are offended, that's their insecurity.
That reminds me of an amusing saying:
"I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you."
-- Unattributed
Then why don't we fix that and solve or prevent a whole host of other problems by doing so?
There's something seriously pathological about seeing this as a situation to be accommodated rather than a disease state to be remedied.
I would venture to say that most humans are born curious, but then have it beaten out of them, both figuratively through the demands of societal conformity(specifically through the education system, church, etc.), and literally by the parents. It all happens at a very early age usually beyond conscious memory of the adult. Either way, it's usually our environment that kills the urge. Genetics plays a comparatively small part.
This is absolutely the truth! Any thorough investigation into the matter will convince you that this has been both deliberate and systematically executed, for the purpose of creating a society of people who are easier to control because they do not have strong minds that are willing to question. The public schools are essential to this effort and it could not have been so successful without them.
Albert Einstein once said "it's a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."
Also, you are not really venturing with that one. You are exercising the natural intuitive brightness and discernment that is your birthright as a human being. I say this because you may not be aware of how profound your insight actually is or of the real means by which you understood it. Let's say it was more direct than ordinary deductive processes. It only feels like a venture because people who do not possess that brightness may ask you to prove it to them logically or mathematically which is quite difficult compared to being able to see it on your own and know that it is the truth. The challenge is learning to trust that intuition.
It's a delight for me whenever I see an example of this. It makes me believe that there is still some hope, that maybe this unsustainable society doesn't need to collapse under the weight of its own excesses, or that if it does that it will be replaced by something much better. You won't see them promoted in the media because the media is heavily invested in the status quo, but I am encountering more and more people who have real understanding to some degree or another.
If I may, I'd like to recommend something to you. Another man has explored the same realization you have shared here, and for the subject of public schools he is quite exceptional because he was a schoolteacher for decades who was very good at what he did. He had to resign after he realized the damage that was being done in the name of education. His name is John Taylor Gatto. I'd highly recommend to you his essay and also his free online book. There is no better reference for this subject anywhere. Both are enlightening reads that I think you will truly enjoy.
I like your signature. Thanks!
I am glad you appreciated it. Thank you too, for taking the time to say so.
I think in this case it's much more about whether a user likes to tinker or not. Like there are people who cannot resist popping the lid on any electronic gadget they buy and start modding it as soon as they get home from the store, there are people who will start fiddling with the 'preferences' of their browser or OS even before it has finished loading. It's not always about the ability to change something, it's about the desire to do so outweighing the effort required.
I do see your point and I agree that whether a user likes to tinker is definitely a factor. I just think that point is a little less applicable when you're talking about user-configurable settings that are intended to be mutable and have an interface (the "Options" or "Preferences" menus) for the specific purpose of modifying them. Just my opinion but I think your point would be much stronger if you were talking about folks who get Linux running on their Xbox or something like that.
I would speculate that those who like to tinker are more versed in the kind of independent problem-solving and abstract reasoning that lends itself to that task. I imagine that their relationship to authority figures involves a lot more questioning than someone who does not value those skills and avoids opportunities to exercise them.
That would make sense if this were a search of the Microsoft Knowledge Base or something else that inherently involves Microsoft. This does not hold water when you're talking about a Web search. Additionally, there is no need to speculate about the search terms and whether they are biased. The search terms were PROVIDED in that example -- he specifically said he searched for "Linux." Reading comprehension is important. That is not a Microsoft-centric search and should not produce Microsoft-centric results. It's really that simple, even if you can't stand it.
That's some incredibly advanced AI if the search engine can read your emotional state (interface unspecified, perhaps electrodes on your head?) and tailor the search results according to whether or not you are a "Microsoft-hating sheep." That would be some amazing technology! How about we just say that it's a little more likely that Bing is a lower-quality search?
"Please" indeed. This is the third trivially-corrected post of yours I've seen in this discussion. Out of three total.
No, he's referring to the browser's search box.
Have you even fucking seen the browser?
... Yeah, it's typically located to the right of the "Address" bar. Are you losing your cool because I called it a toolbar and not a box? Because that's what it looks like to me.
Tell ya what, cut+paste my post into a word processor. Do a search-and-replace to replace every occurrence of "toolbar" with "box". Note that none of the points I was making changes in any way. I have a feeling you aren't sharing my amusement at this. Too bad, that's your loss.
If you don't know that you wrote a troll post, now you do. If you did know that, you should know I've dealt with trolls far, far more effective and convincing than you. The best of them manage to be humorous instead of bitching about semantics. Ah well, to each his own.
Eh, I suppose it won't be productive to ask what purpose it serves to point out the obvious as I suspect I already know the answer. Additionally, nothing I have said depends in any way on the number of people who agree, so I don't understand the concern about popularity. Two plus two equals four and thankfully people recognize this, but it would be equally true even if the vast majority of people mistakenly think it equals five.
So, I'll be content with pointing out that you say that like all preferences are equally valid. In this case, they are not. The approach of learning how to tell the search engine what you want without needless second-guessing recognizes the reality of using something that, however sophisticated, is still a machine. The other approach fails to do so, placing it at a disadvantage when it comes to delivering useful results. Whether that disadvantage can be overcome so that Bing ends up as useful as Google is an interesting question, the answer to which remains to be seen.
Now if we invent artificial intelligence that is absolutely indistinguishable from a person, including the flawless use of natural language, then those two approaches would be on equal footing. They would then be legitimate preferences, just like you might enjoy ice cream and another person can't stand it. Meanwhile, they are not; one is objectively superior, full stop. If users want to use an inferior solution for the sake of convenience, then let them do so, but that doesn't change the nature of the comparison. The only thing I wish were different is that most people do not seem to be aware of a trade-off when they are making one, and I recognize the value of informed decision-making.
That too was already evident. I agree with you about Bing's target audience, but you already knew that because I have already described them. I detailed why someone would enjoy that sort of second-guessing in the post to which you are responding. They are the "people who want to be taken care of" and they find it desirable when "somebody offers to do some thinking for them." I wonder what you thought I was talking about if not that. If anything, you have only summarized my reasoning with less focus on the "why" component - was this your intention?
That's because defaults are intended to be applied to millions of users and therefore cannot be ideal for all users or even very many of them.
Sure it can. Most people prefer Google, so the default in every browser should be Google.
It's a 100% logical way of satisfying the vast majority of users. You'll just have trouble getting Microsoft onboard with it.
Context is important and you're responding to that out of context. That's kind of important when you are seeking to refute what I was saying :-). The discussion was about IE 8 and its default settings. This pertains to the idea of default settings in general (that is, every user-configurable option in IE) and why someone would not customize or at least review them. The search engine it is configured to use is only one such configurable option among many. So, you may have a point about the use of Google but not about the dozens of other options about which I was also speaking; my use of the plural clearly indicates I was talking about more than one setting.
Personally I don't think there should be a default search engine. If Microsoft's approach means that IE 8's first use asks you to choose one from a list, which I've heard it does (unconfirmed), I think that's the best way to handle it. I say this as someone who uses Google almost exclusively because I recognize that while it's my own preference, it may not suit everyone else. Besides, I find "easily customized because it asks you what you want" to be far superior to "one size fits all."
I don't have any idea whether the current version of Bing is grossly inferior to Google. And I'm not likely to find out.
To put it bluntly, I wouldn't trust MS to deliver an honest answer. Even if they do at first to try to build a reputation, in my eyes they already HAVE a reputation. Since this web site is controlled by MS, I would expect it to use any access made to it in unethical ways. Probably not quite so blatant as downloading a keylogger, but of that ilk.
Note that this doesn't mean that I expect that they are acting that way now, though it wouldn't surprise me. But I certainly don't expect them to give warnings before they DO start.
It does surprise me that so many people seem to have a very short memory when it comes to this company's history. When dealing with entities like corporations, I neither trust them nor distrust them. I wait for them to reveal to me who they are and how they operate. That usually doesn't take very long at all. It certainly does not require the rich 20+ year history of frequent unethical (in my opinion) practices with which anyone who knows much about Microsoft would be familiar. No search engine is so good as to make me forget or disregard any of this because no amount of clever coding is going to fix a trust issue.
There's a pandemic of Microsoft Hating syndrome, as discovered by Linus Torvalds.
"Syndrome" sounds like a disease. When you really do engage in anticompetitive, manipulative, underhanded practices, have been convicted in multiple nations of doing so in an illegal fashion, have (in my opinion) resorted to bribery to compromise independent standards bodies, have made Webmasters everywhere bear additional costs because you refuse to fully adhere to open standards, and have abused the meaning of "updates to the OS" to install phone-home software (WGA), perhaps it's understandable that many people won't like you? Just maybe that's not a "syndrome" but a predictable outcome?
Mr. Torvalds made a case for why it is sometimes expedient to work with a company that is important in its industry. He has not made the case that their tactics should be celebrated or that it's unreasonable to dislike them. The only way to make that case is to prove that everyone should enjoy the ill effects of abusive practices and that any and all pushback against them is wrong and unfounded. That would not be the argument of a sane person.
Something just bothers me about the "decision engine" thing. I'd like to think people are smart enough to make their own decisions and not follow whatever their search engine tells them to do, but for some reason I doubt that is the case. I think the major reason people click on more adds when using Bing is that those of us who Google already have some idea of what we are looking for, those of us who use Bing are looking for someone or something to make those choices for us. As for me, even if Bing was the best search engine ever invented, it gives me a bloody headache to look at it.
Yeah, I don't like it either and it's easy to deconstruct. When you don't really value and cherish freedom, you necessarily also don't value relative independence and self-sufficiency. When you don't have such firm and truly worthy principles, then you must resort to viewing everything in terms of whether or not it is immediately convenient. That means you view any independent problem-solving or decision-making as a burden or a price of admission for getting what you want, instead of viewing it as a way to expand your knowledge or to sharpen your skills. So someone comes along and offers to do some thinking and decision-making for you and then you can't help but view that as very nice of them. It's a naivete that might be cute if so many (so-called) adults didn't subscribe to it.
That's really just the tip of the iceberg. Bing is a rather benign effect of this horrible mentality. The ever-increasing size and power of government is a malign effect that goes with it because these are helpless people who need to be taken care of. So is the lack of independent realization in the average person; that is, the absence of ideas that someone else didn't spent a lot of money to put there. I do not exaggerate when I say that this is unsustainable and a nation which is based on this idea is well on its way to collapsing. Bing's "selling points" and why anyone would find them desirable are just symptoms of much deeper phenomena. Really, Microsoft is just giving those people what they want and probably doesn't care (or even know) about why they want it or whether it's good for them to have.
Yes you can: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030514035516436 It's just Mac & Linux users can, on occasion, manage to do something without a GUI. I'm not saying all Windows users can't, but that huge slice of market share Windows users brag about all the time includes a lot of really dumb people.
I don't think those users are merely dumb. A truly dumb person can't help it, and so I wouldn't fault them for that any more than I would blame a paraplegic for being unable to walk. What I do blame those "dumb users" for is something I call willful helplessness. That's when the information is out there, freely available, the person in question is literate and has 'Net access, and refuses to educate themselves even for simple configuration issues. It wouldn't be so bad except that these same people often complain that they don't get the results they want, and/or they think it's a terribly unreasonable thing to suggest that they can help themselves, almost like it's some kind of insult. Usually that's followed by something like "I'm not a computer expert" as though changing basic settings makes one an "expert."
Many such users are on Windows. There could probably be debates about whether that's because Windows inherently suits them or if it's merely because that's what the computer came with and this kind of user is quite unlikely to evaluate other options since that would require the learning that they so resent. The easiest way to identify such folks is that they can use the same machine for years and never know much more about it than when they started. That's what amazes me. It seems like it would take a lot more work to make sure you don't pick up some knowledge here and there that would accumulate over the years, but I suppose you could say that they are true to their passive mentality.
At least IE allows you to easily change the search engine. It even fucking asks you if you want to do so upon initial use. Safari on Mac does not allow you to use anything but Google. But who gives a fuck, this is Slashdot.
I guess you are referring to search toolbars that are part of the browser interface, or maybe to the way IE will treat as a search anything input into the Address bar that isn't a valid URL. Personally, I disable all such toolbars, primarily for a less-cluttered browser UI. I also do it because I don't care to make efforts to determine what the toolbars do with search keywords, such as datamining for marketers.
/etc/hosts file to frustrate or at least mitigate attempts to track my browsing. With toolbars I am not certain whether those first two measures would be as effective as expected and since I don't care for them anyway I consider that a moot question. Doing things this way also removes any and all concerns over what my browser will "allow" me to do (a concept I reject).
When I want to search, I go to the URL of the search engine I want to use and input my search there. That way it's also easier to use NoScript, Adblock Plus, and my (large)
Could it be just that "this is Slashdot", or is it more likely that Slashdot has an unusually high percentage of users who also take control of their own browsing experience? As my other comments in this discussion would indicate, I don't feel that people who are in charge of their own experience and like it that way are Bing's target audience, if only because they are a minority and Bing is being mass-marketed.
I don't know, but I've found myself pretty happy with Google's search. I've used Bing and can't find any difference other than the fact that Bing randomly decides what it thinks i'm meaning and tries to give me those results. When usually its wrong. With Google I basically get the information I need quickly, with Bing I have to wade through all kinds of "suggestions" that are usually wrong. For example, because it was on its main page as a "featured search" I typed in mosquito bite. I got 5 results on the actual mosquito bite and then other "suggestions" of first aid, symptoms, news, treatments, etc. Google's was a bit better, with actual results (though it did have a few YouTube videos, news and images mixed in) but it didn't try to suggest me what it thought I meant which is nice. Then I decided to do another search, of SNES to see how well both engines did with acronyms. Bing ended up with a typical first segment, until you got down to suggestions of "SNES games"... However they were all NES related(!) totally different than what I was searching for. Than about half the "suggested" results were of things for the NES(!) which is totally different. For example the suggestions for "SNES Repair" ended up with pages about how to repair the NES. Google's results were typical, mods, ROMs and general history of the SNES with no mention of the NES in the first 3 pages.
That alone would annoy me. I want a machine to do what I told it to do. Depending on what machine it is, the failure to perform this way could be merely annoying (Web search) or rather dangerous (automobiles). When I use a search engine, I want it to search for what I told it to search for, not some other thing that it thinks I really meant. Sorry but the ultimate purpose of "we know what you meant better than you do" is to pander to sheeple. By "sheeple" here I mean "people who want to be taken care of" as opposed to "people who can independently determine what they want."
I will say one thing. This may be a smart business move on Microsoft's part, in that there are many such people, they are likely to respond to advertising as intended, and it's not a stretch to say that they don't enjoy thinking, find independence to be a burden instead of a privilege, and find it desirable when somebody offers to do some thinking for them. That's a formula for quickly building a userbase. Like a lot of Microsoft's business moves, I think it's a pretty shitty way to do things but I must admit that it's effective. Note, I never said that all of Bing's users fit this description, just the ones who flock to it because they saw an ad on TV with a brand name they recognized.
It'll be interesting to see if Bing gains momentum; I think they definitely have a good shot at it. Something to make sure Google doesn't get complacent and enjoy its search dominance too much is probably a good thing.
The use of Bing COULD be boosted by IE 8 choosing that by default. How many users install software defaults?
As for clicking on ads, there are lots of potential reasons, including the ones mentioned here. But of course, since it's a "decision engine" people are more likely to follow that decision. ;-)
I would be very surprised if there were not a strong correlation between users who don't customize their settings and users who more frequently respond to advertising the way that the advertisers want them to.
That's because defaults are intended to be applied to millions of users and therefore cannot be ideal for all users or even very many of them. At least, I'll say that the number of people who use all-default settings is far greater than the number of users for whom this is ideal. The greater the number of options which can be customized, the more true this is. Someone who has an "ideal" in mind for how their setup should be and is willing to undergo at least some minor effort to arrange it is more likely to be a more independent thinker, reducing the susceptibility to external suggestion such as advertising.
That's a legal question. The answer to that question might seriously complicate your life if you get it wrong. What would possess a person to ask this of Slashdot instead of contacting a lawyer? Better yet, why would a German expect a USA-based Web site to be familiar with the nuances of German (or EU) copyright law? I'm trying to picture a situation where I'd contact a German online forum to ask for legal advice pertaining to American law and I just can't come up with anything.
I suppose next we'll see an Ask Slashdot which says "hi, I'm a diabetic and I forgot how much insulin I am supposed to inject myself with, please advise." And I'll have to scroll down significantly to see a partly-buried comment where someone finally suggests that perhaps he should be asking a doctor...
Can someone explain how Oracle doesn't have a monopoly to protect? Aside from the fact that when they bought sun they bought up a lot of their own competition, the only database of any real consequence that is a competitor to Oracle is MS SQL, ffs Oracle owns MySQL now.
I found this article to be helpful. Other than MS SQL it mentions IBM's DB2 server for major commercial competitors, and three open-source projects. It also mentions four "niche competitors," whatever that means (I assume it denotes marketshare).
...
That really doesn't sound like a monopoly to me, though I will admit I don't generally work with databases of any sort so I may have some ignorance that makes me feel that way. Whether something other than Oracle is PHB-approved in that "nobody ever got fired for buying Oracle" sort of way is another story that I'm not sure about
I think a federal law already exists that telemarketers (or bill collectors) are not allowed to call fax or cell numbers, due to the expense being born by the customer. If you've already asked this company to put you on their "Do Not Call List", and they are still calling, then you can file a small claims lawsuit which will result in that company being fined ~$10,000.
In most cases simply saying "I'm taking you to court, which will result in a 10,000 fine" is enough to make them stop.
The problem is that the ones which do not respect the Do Not Call list tend to be fly-by-night operations that hang up on you or become rude the moment you ask questions about the company. Case in point: the "YOUR CAR WARRANTY HAS EXPIRED" calls that seem to be coming out of Florida and only recently ended because some attorneys general got tired of all the complaints and opened an investigation. The government has the resources to do that sort of thing; regular citizens generally don't. Incidentally, many people who do not even own a car received those calls as they were just cold-calling random people.
:-).
In other words, the day my phone is equipped with ANI is the day I'd be able to consider taking them to court. ANI is what 911 operators, other emergency services, and owners of 1-800 numbers get to use instead of the blockable/spoofable CallerID.
So, please reconsider my (tongue-in-cheek) proposal. It's based on what the word "outlaw" originally meant. It did not mean someone that the government was looking to apprehend, like it does today. It meant someone who was no longer protected by the law, in the sense that nothing you could ever do to them would be considered a crime even if it would be a crime when done to anyone else. It was a highly effective means of dealing with the most extreme troublemakers. Such a concept probably isn't compatible with our legal system, and that's a good thing. I also think anything more than a beatdown would be excessive, so just a federal law saying that state and local governments cannot prosecute for (bare-handed) assault in the case of these individuals would be a decent approximation
Save the number the robocalls are originating from, and set the custom ringer to 'Silent.'
Worked wonders for me when I had the same issue.
Better yet, make a federal law stating that you cannot be charged with assault for beating the crap out of the owners or upper management of any company that telemarkets or otherwise cold calls. That'd be the cheapest solution.
That link should really be in the summary.
You can't legislate somebody or something into being nice.
Sure you can, indirectly. Force them to compete for their business by making "exclusivity contracts" illegal.
Yes, but why stop there? Here's what I'd like to see:
THAT would be customer-friendly.
I think everyone, and by that I mean Western culture in general, is so focused on external behaviors and pragmatic outcomes to the point of near-obsession with them. I say that because other factors that also matter get ignored due to this fixation.
There is such a thing as doing the right thing for the wrong reason. When that happens, the good that could have become of doing the right thing is minimized. There is a universe of difference between Microsoft acting as they did because they respect the GPL and the copyrights of others as much as they respect their own intellectual property, versus acting as they did to avoid a losing lawsuit or because of political expediency. It's sort of like the difference between a man who donates anonymously to charity because he really does want to help the unfortunate, and a man who only does so when a TV camera is nearby so he can impress everyone when he doesn't really give a damn about the poor.
We keep looking for ways to pretend like that difference doesn't matter. I don't know if that's because it's hard to assign a monetary value to it or what, but it's one of the more dysfunctional traits of our culture. Perhaps for that reason, our expectations in this area are generally very low. Collectively we act like we expect to get screwed over and that this is normal unless it's is overt and doesn't come with at least a flimsy justification. The peripheral effects of this mentality are non-obvious and quite extensive.
If you must have a pragmatic reason, then know that the difference I am talking about says volumes about who you're dealing with and whether they are acting in good faith. Good faith is still considered desirable in business relationships, right? It helps to determine whether you can expect to be screwed over by some clever maneuver, such as vendor lock-in, or whether your installed software (marketshare) is to be used as bargaining chips in a game of embrace-and-extend. I think there's something seriously pathological about people who don't mind being treated as an object like this. I say that knowing that most people either aren't aware of it or don't seem to mind it as long as it doesn't create an obvious problem for them.
I know that if I were starting a business and needed software, and found that I could go with either Microsoft or some other vendor because both are equally viable for me, this would strongly influence my decision. In my opinion, I see many ruthless Machiavellian tactics, deceptive marketing (including aggressive campaigns against the very GPL they have now utilized - the word for that is "hypocrisy), and other questionable practices. Many corporations do engage in such practices but not to the degree of severity and impunity that I so often see from this one. I also see a company that goes to great lengths to avoid competing on a level playing field. I have to wonder how anyone can see all of this and still want to support them, to stick up for them as though I insulted their best friend by pointing these things out. I think they see but they do not perceive, much like people who can hear quite well but don't listen.
Now, I know it's fashionable to eschew all personal responsibility, but the truth of this is inescapable: when you purchase the products of such a company, you are sending the message that you approve of those tactics and want to see more of them. You are telling the company that it was successful because it worked on you. You are voting with your feet. If I say I dislike such customer-unfriendly tactics and then I go and advocate for Microsoft's products, then I have made a hypocrite of myself. Additionally, if I believe a corporation is unusually untrustworthy, then how could I claim that forming a business relationship with them is in my best interests?
We ignore questions like that. Then we wonder why life is less joyful than it could be, why we are not happier and more satisfied with it. We wonder why that saying "most men lead lives of quiet desp