There are entire sentences in there that convey no useful information at all. There are paragraphs that say something you could say in two to three WORDS. That sort of verbosity makes myself and others extremely suspicious because, underneath it all, I get the impression that he's not trying to say what he wants you to *think* he's saying.
I completely agree. Ozzie is smart enough to say what he means, so the fact that he rambled and prevaricated means he wanted to disguise what he really thinks.
I don't code for Windows anymore, but I still read Raymond Chen's blog, The Old New Thing, where he documents why certain design decisions were made as well as what he calls "microspeak" (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/tags/microspeak/), which is a buzzword-lingo used internally at Microsoft. Perhaps some of the microspeak examples he documents are useful new terms, but a lot of them seem like euphemisms to me.
It confirms my own internal prejudice, though... companies with cultures where talking like that is acceptable have zero morals, screw people over quite often and are extraordinarily elitest. They also usually waste millions producing sub-standard products.
I agree with this too. If you can't speak honestly, there's a reason for it and it can't be good.
I haven't finished reading Ray Ozzie's memo yet, but it's written in the same sort of tortured English I've seen from a lot of people at Microsoft. I don't know why they can't write clearly, or why they need to include the word "innovation" so many times, but I suspect it reflects the corporate culture. One particular sentence jumped out at me. This sentence includes the word "innovation" and is full of big words, and yet nearly empty of meaning.
"We’ve seen agile innovation playing out before a backdrop in which many dramatic changes have occurred across all aspects of our industry’s core infrastructure."
It's a boring sentence trapped in a boring, verbose memo, so I found it a new home in a Philip K Dick story:
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate. I watched agile innovation playing out before a backdrop in which many dramatic changes have occurred. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. [pause] Time to die."
I really hate this idea that society outweighs the individual.
it's OK if someone poisons your water by pouring toxic waste into the river
it's OK to dominate a good fishing river
it's OK if your burn down the next 10 houses around you
Sorry, but the only 'repression' here is _NOT_ having (at least some) areas where society outweighs the individual. I can't believe your at +5 for that drivel.
The key thing you're missing is that individuals in society are equal. Your hypothetical individual who has more rights than everyone else should not have those extra rights. When you maximize the rights for all individuals, you will have a healthy society.
Sure, Windows NT isn't based on DOS, but it does include backward compatibility to DOS and drive letters and other legacy junk from DOS. There's no drive letters in *nix.
Then there's the fourth group: those who think MS should create an all-new Windows without the legacy crap with an emulator inside for backwards compatibility. It should be based on un*x (not DOS), should have a well-planned, polished GUI for regular people with command-line and options for power users.
Then there's the fifth group: those who realize that describes OSX and have already switched.
You appear to be conflating conservative with Republican, but the two are not interchangeable, particularly with respect to the administration that just left office.
So who does a self-respecting conservative vote for when there's only two real parties on the ballot and the Republicans are royally screwing things up? Did you actually vote Democrat in the last election or are you both conservative and Republican?
So you think Obama doesn't have good or bad policies so much as no policies at all. Do you support McCain, and if so which if his policies do you like?
If she stood up there in K-mart clothes people would have perceived her as less sophisticated.
Where did you learn ten dollar, elitist words like sophisticated, son?
Essentially, consider it part of the advertising budget. When you're trying to sell yourself to a nation packaging is important.
Seriously though, do you think wearing sophisticated clothes is more important than actually knowing something about the real issues? Maybe what's in the package is more important than how shiny the package is?
The coolest part was at the end when one of the Afghans pointed to the contrails from a B52 flying overhead and said that so long as they were on the prowl, the Taliban would not come back and life would be good.
So they're like a cargo cult based around a very different type of cargo?
Against. But once government tinkers with the market by creating mortgage ATMs, Republicans would like a little oversight. Again, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are artificial government creations.
So the artificial, government banks were the problem because they're not really part of the free market. Did any non-government banks have problems?
Tell me, being that the root of this whole mess are subprime loans, were you this concerned when some Congressmen tried to enact new regulations on Fannie and Freddie, and others blocked it, citing such economic justifications as "racism" and "fairness"? Because it's in the Constitution that everyone gets a house, you know.
Do you have a citation for the "racism and fairness" bit? What actually happened is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got greedy and paid congress to stop the regulations:
"Since 1990, Freddie Mac has contributed more than $9.7 million to federal campaigns. Fannie Mae's political action committee chalked up more than $2.9 million since 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Together, they spent some $7.4 million in lobbying in the first six months of 2008 alone." -- http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0912/p03s01-usec.html
False registrations are bad, but they're only the first step. Mikey Mouse may be registered to vote, but he's not actually going to vote.
On the other hand, a rigged machine is the last step in voter fraud; it will results in fraudulent votes, probably on a massive scale (since switching many votes is as easy as switching one for a machine).
It's really hard to stick to asking questions, but it helps to stick to just one specific point. However, having a discussion means both sides have to be open minded enough to consider that the other person might actually be correct. If one person is absolutely sure that they're right (and isn't even willing to explain why!), then there's no point even trying to discuss it with them.
No.. Because "better" is a relative term subject to interpretation that will be different depending on who is deciding or looking at it. When you say better, your talking about what you think, not what is the ultimate truth.
Yes, "better" is subjective. I mean that debating substantive points is better than me criticizing what you wrote.
When you further compound the issue by looking at who the policies effect and how they effect them, your subjugating "better" to a subset of people with or without something specific in common. It is very much about who you like and much more about how and why you like them over any content in their policy. But the content of their policy is very connected with that too.
Policies effect different groups of people in different ways. I prefer the policies that benefit the majority of the people in the long term. For example, higher taxes for the 5% richest pays for some tax cuts to benefit the 95% of people who are poorer. America now has a huge debt and the rich are better able to pay it; giving the poor a break will allow them to afford their mortgages and help the economy in the long run.
His health care plan is one, his foreign relations policy of him sitting down in talks with terrorists and leaders of hostile states without preconditions is another.
Does "without preconditions" means giving in to anything they demand? Does setting preconditions make terrorists more likely to stop blowing innocent people up? Could getting them to start talking convince them to put the bombs down long enough talk? Ultimately, preconditions are an attempt to force terrorists to behave a certain way. If force was actually effective against terrorists, we'd have beat them already.
How about his "by a certain date, up and abandon Iraq" whether we are winning or not without regard to Iraq's ability to take care of itself.
Is Obama's policy really to leave Iraq on a certain date no matter what? Is it actually possible to "win" a war? How do you define winning? I define it as "nobody dies." We're passed that already, so I'm hoping for "less people die."
Probably the thing that scares me the most is his tax policy. I lived through the Carter administration, he ruined the entire economy and Obama wants to take his actions to an entirely new level.
Have George W Bush's tax cuts for the rich and opposition to regulation in banking helped the economy? Are modern Republicans really fiscally conservative? Is McCain's tax plan and plan for the economy substantially different from Bush's? Why did McCain "suspend his campaign" when the crisis hit instead of calmly explaining how he plans to handle the economy?
I'll also add that what scares me about Obama is that he has never won a race that he had opposition to. Somehow magically he has been propelled through the political process by some hand pulling the right strings.
Hillary Clinton put up a pretty good fight and nearly won.
Look at all the charges against "Joe the Plumber" after the debates. They act like because Joe isn't even his first name, it's his middle name, there is some major scandal. They act like just because a person has a tax lien and has had problems with taxes in the past, they aren't qualified to complain about high taxation.
I won't defend the people attacking Joe the Plumber. I will point out that Obama himself did not attack Joe, and in fact, Obama was respectful in his answers to Joe's questions.
And what gets me the most about these issues is that the Democrats are the ones claiming to champion free speech and the ability to redress the government and here it is, when something is said that they don't like or that puts them into check with a difficult question, they go into attack mode and start tearing the guy down. And if you
In your first post you said, "If it was actually that simple, there wouldn't be any conservative politicians and there wouldn't be debates that center around candidates talking points and we would actually get something substantive from them." My first reaction was to criticize what you wrote and how you wrote it, but then I realized that the "substantive debate" you mentioned was a better topic. Ultimately, it's not about who you like more, but about who has better policies.
I do however think some are worse for the country then others and Obama scares me with some of his.
Slashdot Mirror
There are entire sentences in there that convey no useful information at all. There are paragraphs that say something you could say in two to three WORDS. That sort of verbosity makes myself and others extremely suspicious because, underneath it all, I get the impression that he's not trying to say what he wants you to *think* he's saying.
I completely agree. Ozzie is smart enough to say what he means, so the fact that he rambled and prevaricated means he wanted to disguise what he really thinks. I don't code for Windows anymore, but I still read Raymond Chen's blog, The Old New Thing, where he documents why certain design decisions were made as well as what he calls "microspeak" (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/tags/microspeak/), which is a buzzword-lingo used internally at Microsoft. Perhaps some of the microspeak examples he documents are useful new terms, but a lot of them seem like euphemisms to me.
It confirms my own internal prejudice, though... companies with cultures where talking like that is acceptable have zero morals, screw people over quite often and are extraordinarily elitest. They also usually waste millions producing sub-standard products.
I agree with this too. If you can't speak honestly, there's a reason for it and it can't be good.
"We’ve seen agile innovation playing out before a backdrop in which many dramatic changes have occurred across all aspects of our industry’s core infrastructure."
It's a boring sentence trapped in a boring, verbose memo, so I found it a new home in a Philip K Dick story:
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate. I watched agile innovation playing out before a backdrop in which many dramatic changes have occurred. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. [pause] Time to die."
The lights are on, but nobody's home.
Dude, have you seen that web site? I'd want to ban it too, at least until it got a serious redesign... ;)
What, you think that site isn't intelligently designed?
it's OK if someone poisons your water by pouring toxic waste into the river
it's OK to dominate a good fishing river
it's OK if your burn down the next 10 houses around you
Sorry, but the only 'repression' here is _NOT_ having (at least some) areas where society outweighs the individual. I can't believe your at +5 for that drivel.
The key thing you're missing is that individuals in society are equal. Your hypothetical individual who has more rights than everyone else should not have those extra rights. When you maximize the rights for all individuals, you will have a healthy society.
Sure, Windows NT isn't based on DOS, but it does include backward compatibility to DOS and drive letters and other legacy junk from DOS. There's no drive letters in *nix.
Then there's the fourth group: those who think MS should create an all-new Windows without the legacy crap with an emulator inside for backwards compatibility. It should be based on un*x (not DOS), should have a well-planned, polished GUI for regular people with command-line and options for power users.
Then there's the fifth group: those who realize that describes OSX and have already switched.
they deserve to go down with the ship they hitched their trailers to
This takes the car analogy in a whole new direction... the aquacar.
You appear to be conflating conservative with Republican, but the two are not interchangeable, particularly with respect to the administration that just left office.
So who does a self-respecting conservative vote for when there's only two real parties on the ballot and the Republicans are royally screwing things up? Did you actually vote Democrat in the last election or are you both conservative and Republican?
Also, I've lived in Victoria BC Canada for most of my life and our beaches barely change at all.
But Victoria's beaches are already refrigerated. Which is a shame because they should be heated.
My toilet has a Vista sticker on it. http://sonokie.net/photos/category/humour/loodicrous
So you think Obama doesn't have good or bad policies so much as no policies at all. Do you support McCain, and if so which if his policies do you like?
Replying to myself because I can't edit my previous post...
I misread the parent post as "i'm voting for her either way", so my reply doesn't make much sense. My bad.
If she stood up there in K-mart clothes people would have perceived her as less sophisticated.
Where did you learn ten dollar, elitist words like sophisticated, son?
Essentially, consider it part of the advertising budget. When you're trying to sell yourself to a nation packaging is important.
Seriously though, do you think wearing sophisticated clothes is more important than actually knowing something about the real issues? Maybe what's in the package is more important than how shiny the package is?
The coolest part was at the end when one of the Afghans pointed to the contrails from a B52 flying overhead and said that so long as they were on the prowl, the Taliban would not come back and life would be good.
So they're like a cargo cult based around a very different type of cargo?
So was "racism and fairness" a decisive factor in the failure of Mae and Mac? If it hadn't been for that, they would have been much better off?
Against. But once government tinkers with the market by creating mortgage ATMs, Republicans would like a little oversight. Again, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are artificial government creations.
So the artificial, government banks were the problem because they're not really part of the free market. Did any non-government banks have problems?
calls by Republicans to regulate it were opposed and called "ideological"
Quick question: are Republicans for or against market regulation?
Tell me, being that the root of this whole mess are subprime loans, were you this concerned when some Congressmen tried to enact new regulations on Fannie and Freddie, and others blocked it, citing such economic justifications as "racism" and "fairness"? Because it's in the Constitution that everyone gets a house, you know.
Do you have a citation for the "racism and fairness" bit? What actually happened is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got greedy and paid congress to stop the regulations: "Since 1990, Freddie Mac has contributed more than $9.7 million to federal campaigns. Fannie Mae's political action committee chalked up more than $2.9 million since 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Together, they spent some $7.4 million in lobbying in the first six months of 2008 alone." -- http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0912/p03s01-usec.html
False registrations are bad, but they're only the first step. Mikey Mouse may be registered to vote, but he's not actually going to vote.
On the other hand, a rigged machine is the last step in voter fraud; it will results in fraudulent votes, probably on a massive scale (since switching many votes is as easy as switching one for a machine).
It's really hard to stick to asking questions, but it helps to stick to just one specific point. However, having a discussion means both sides have to be open minded enough to consider that the other person might actually be correct. If one person is absolutely sure that they're right (and isn't even willing to explain why!), then there's no point even trying to discuss it with them.
little more then an ass clown jumping from bullshit to bullshit
You know what? You win for calling me an ass clown. I can't compete with your genius and I salute you sir, you win the internets. Goodbye.
No.. Because "better" is a relative term subject to interpretation that will be different depending on who is deciding or looking at it. When you say better, your talking about what you think, not what is the ultimate truth.
Yes, "better" is subjective. I mean that debating substantive points is better than me criticizing what you wrote.
When you further compound the issue by looking at who the policies effect and how they effect them, your subjugating "better" to a subset of people with or without something specific in common. It is very much about who you like and much more about how and why you like them over any content in their policy. But the content of their policy is very connected with that too.
Policies effect different groups of people in different ways. I prefer the policies that benefit the majority of the people in the long term. For example, higher taxes for the 5% richest pays for some tax cuts to benefit the 95% of people who are poorer. America now has a huge debt and the rich are better able to pay it; giving the poor a break will allow them to afford their mortgages and help the economy in the long run.
His health care plan is one, his foreign relations policy of him sitting down in talks with terrorists and leaders of hostile states without preconditions is another.
Does "without preconditions" means giving in to anything they demand? Does setting preconditions make terrorists more likely to stop blowing innocent people up? Could getting them to start talking convince them to put the bombs down long enough talk? Ultimately, preconditions are an attempt to force terrorists to behave a certain way. If force was actually effective against terrorists, we'd have beat them already.
How about his "by a certain date, up and abandon Iraq" whether we are winning or not without regard to Iraq's ability to take care of itself.
Is Obama's policy really to leave Iraq on a certain date no matter what? Is it actually possible to "win" a war? How do you define winning? I define it as "nobody dies." We're passed that already, so I'm hoping for "less people die."
Probably the thing that scares me the most is his tax policy. I lived through the Carter administration, he ruined the entire economy and Obama wants to take his actions to an entirely new level.
Have George W Bush's tax cuts for the rich and opposition to regulation in banking helped the economy? Are modern Republicans really fiscally conservative? Is McCain's tax plan and plan for the economy substantially different from Bush's? Why did McCain "suspend his campaign" when the crisis hit instead of calmly explaining how he plans to handle the economy?
I'll also add that what scares me about Obama is that he has never won a race that he had opposition to. Somehow magically he has been propelled through the political process by some hand pulling the right strings.
Hillary Clinton put up a pretty good fight and nearly won.
Look at all the charges against "Joe the Plumber" after the debates. They act like because Joe isn't even his first name, it's his middle name, there is some major scandal. They act like just because a person has a tax lien and has had problems with taxes in the past, they aren't qualified to complain about high taxation.
I won't defend the people attacking Joe the Plumber. I will point out that Obama himself did not attack Joe, and in fact, Obama was respectful in his answers to Joe's questions.
And what gets me the most about these issues is that the Democrats are the ones claiming to champion free speech and the ability to redress the government and here it is, when something is said that they don't like or that puts them into check with a difficult question, they go into attack mode and start tearing the guy down. And if you
In your first post you said, "If it was actually that simple, there wouldn't be any conservative politicians and there wouldn't be debates that center around candidates talking points and we would actually get something substantive from them." My first reaction was to criticize what you wrote and how you wrote it, but then I realized that the "substantive debate" you mentioned was a better topic. Ultimately, it's not about who you like more, but about who has better policies.
I do however think some are worse for the country then others and Obama scares me with some of his.
Which of Obama's policies scare you?
So do you think McCain and Obama's policies are exactly equal, or do you think one has better policies than the other?