Well, where's the fair use with the movie theater?
Ah! But if the movie was not released on video or DVD (and it wasn't for the first ~60 years of the movie industry), then the movie industry would make less money.
But you are saying that the movie industry should be allowed to change the law and the constitution of the land so they can have their cake and eat it too?
Travelling bards used to make their money from live performances, but then someone invented the printing press, and then we were able to distribute the bard's work to a great number of people. This made a lot of people quite rich. And the rights of the bards, the companies that published their works AND the customers who purchased their books and songs were ALL protected.
But what the movie and music industry is advocating is that the customers can no longer protect their product from damage or decay by making a backup copy, or making a copy to tape to listen to on the bus, but keep the original safe at home. No, you have to use the original copy, and when it breaks, buy another one.
OK, so if we are going to throw away consumer rights, why not dispense with free speech, the right of assembly, and the right to a trial by jury of one's peers?
After all, I'm sure those rights infringe on some company's profitability. You know, having people freely express that your product sucks and causes cancer, or people interfering with business by staging a rally in a public place. Or maybe you could dispense with your enemies by using your fully-paid up congressman have them charged under terrorism laws and lock them away for 2 or 3 years without trial until the danger has passed?
Tell me about it. I ran the rather delightful 0.9pr for 4 months with barely a crash, now 1.0 crashes at least once a day. I only upgraded due to the potentional jpg security vunerability.
I mean, come on, suddenly your product that you've slaved away in obscurity for years becomes massively popular (relatively), and is mentioned left and right in the trade rags, and the next version you release is the one that totally sucks. GOOD ONE!
Although they seem to be opposites (empty your mind of all thoughts vs. thinking of as many things at once as you can), they do seem to lead in similar directions, and the experience of hack mode/flow state/whatever your preferred term is has always struck me as very, very similar to descriptions of temporary enlightenment.
I think that the concept of 'satori' has in some ways been a little muddled by the Western interpreters of zen/chan/buddhism.
The idea of emptying your mind of thoughts, to cut off the internal dialog, is in fact simply a technique used rather than the whole end goal.
Sometimes, "enlightenment" simply means "to see clearly", ie. without illusion. This state can be brought about by many means, and intense introspection is one of them. Another way is by a sudden shift in perspective, as the following Zen story illustrates.
When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.
"Give me the best piece of meat you have," said the customer.
"Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best."
At these words Banzan was enlightened.
As you say...
The intellectual satisfaction when you suddenly "get it", at comprehending exactly how elements of a system fit together, and instinctively understanding the place of each component in the system sounds to me very like descriptions of the "joy" experienced by understanding the entire universe as one entity, and completely comprehending one's place in it.
The state of consciousness that can arise from intense concentration on the software system is indeed very similar to that of practising awareness. That is, one of "percieving directly not subjectively".
I honestly don't know what the old Find Dialog looked like, nor do I even know what the new one looks like.:) Searching for files is something I've never had a need to do. I guess I'm just very organized and always know where my files are.
All 700 of them? Each and every one? That's amazing. You can recall the full path name for every one of your files. Superlative!
In Advanced mode, it no longer asks you a series of questions, it just presents fields that you can fill in. Hope this helps.
Much better. Not as good as the old one, but much better. Strange... I went through those preferences 6 months ago and didn't find that option... Hmmm, maybe I still had the Mickey Mouse interface turned on.
They don't uninstall anti-virus software (Disableing is not good enough, it still leaves filters and such in the registry), they try to upgrade from an unstable OS, they don't check application compatibility, they don't uninstall drivers where possible. Geeks do this as well.
I have no idea what you were doing, as activation doesn't even involve a web browser. All I can say is that it's never taken me more than 1 minute to activate XP.
It did 18 months ago. I don't know about now as I go to great lengths to avoid installing XP on any computer.
Given the description of the problems you were having, this sounds more like a technical support call than an activation call.
In AU, all calls go through the same voice mail system, or at least they did when I activated XP last time (about 18 months ago).
If you get a new computer, or if you upgrade radically enough that XP thinks you have a new computer, you will have to activate it. Although new computers usually come with XP preinstalled and preactivated.
So that would mean that if I buy a new computer I am paying for software again that I already have paid for previously.
If I upgrade, you are telling me that I would need to go through the activation process again. Last time I called Microsoft they told me that XP could not be activated twice, has this changed?
The reason you are so upset about activation is that you have no idea how it works.
Wrong.
Have you every actually installed XP???
Yes, it took an hour. First, I tried to activate it online. The browser got caught in an infinite loop where I could never get the to final page. I persisted for about 10 minutes of so, then I called Microsoft. It took ~10 minutes to get through the voice mail system ~35 minutes on hold ~10 minutes to give my details and get my activation number.
All up ~65 minutes, so lets call it an hour.
Now if I buy a new computer, or upgrade, are you telling me when I install XP I won't have to activate it?
If XP is crashing for you daily, then something is wrong on your end. Probably you have a bad driver, or your hardware is unstable.
I have a compaq presario laptop. Should I return it to the manufacturer? What would they do? Nearly everything inside is soldered onto the board. Ironically, it came with a cute little sticker that said "Build for Windows XP" or something similar.
Others are not suffering as you are. I used W2K for about 2 years, then XP for the last 3 years, and I've *never* had either crash.
I've had NT4 SP6 running for 5 years and the only time it core dumped is when I had faulty RAM or a faulty graphics card. It was (and still is) running on my desktop.
I've occasionally had applications crash (including IE and OE), but never the OS.
Those are two applications I never use, and have been virus free for years. I have had plenty of other applications crash tho... Firefox comes to mind.
I'm willing to live with a 30-50% increase in memory usage every few years in exchange for new features, especially given that memory prices are dropping at a faster rate than that.
Personally, I don't want the OS vendor to put 'new features' into the OS, I just want them to fix the bugs and improve the robustness. Features I can get from ISVs and the Internet. So this situation ends up being OK for you, but leaves me without a choice.
The defaults definitely are aimed at newer users, moreso than in W2K.
So you are telling me that they dumped their old product, and their old users and aimed their new product at new users?
It makes sense to cater to the lowest common denominator, especially since XP is aimed at more of a mass market than W2K.
It makes more sense for Microsoft. Silly me, here I was thinking that companies made decisions for the benefit of their customers.
Or make me a decent offer and I'll sell you my copy. I have five licenses of XP, so I don't need W2K anymore.
Forgot to mention that I am in AU. What would you call a 'decent offer'. I value the OS at no more than AUD$60 delivered, which is the OEM price on a new machine.
Having thought about the relationship between drugs and work in humans and their societies for some time, I would like to extend your observations somewhat with my own experience.
In computer programming I notice there are three 'modes'. I only call them modes only because I can't think of a better name. They are: Brick-n-Mortar Complexity Creativity
Brick-n-Mortar is the simple, repetitive work that you need to do in every project. It's the tweaking of the user interface, the creation of non generic sql tables and setting permissions. It can't be made generic, it is project specific or just time consuming. The best drug for this kind of work is usually caffeine, because it's mostly boring stuuf you just want to complete.
Complexity is the system design on a macro-scale. How all the different parts fit together and interact with each other. It requires intense concentration of thought on many disparate entities and their relationships. The best drug for this work may be no drug at all. It may just be peace and quiet, meditation or relaxation. Alchohol or Cannabis or (mushies, DMT, ??) are NOT suitable for this mode.
Creativity is the part of the system that requires innovation or creation. A clever algorithm or a innovative use of an existing algorithm. Or creating a powerful and flexible framework that boosts productivity, or a feature with a high 'coolness' factor. The best drug for this mode of work may be Alchohol or Cannabis or some other drug that tends to make you inwardly reflective.
The problem I believe, is that someone will have one 'coding satori' moment under the influence of a particular drug, and will then generalise that state to all programming tasks. The overall result is that you are left with a system that can be brilliant in parts, but needs to be cleaned up by the person who follows (which on occasion has been me).
Cowardly Disclaimer: The author of this post does not engage in the taking of illegal drugs, and the above is purely academic speculation.
Win2k Pro is stable, and with SP4, relatively secure. As is XP.
Wrong. Win2k Pro can run for weeks. XP crashes once per day (sometimes twice).
Win2k Pro DOES NOT have integrated DRM, and no "activation". How are these even an issue, unless you are a pirate?
That comment really makes my blood boil. It's an issue because not only do Microsoft make shit operating systems, they make operating systems that become progressively more shit over time, until they are so shit you need to dig out the install CD and re-install the OS from scratch. And then what? Spend an hour of my precious time on the phone to 'register' a product I have ALREADY PAID FOR? Do you want to pay me for my time in 'registering' my product? What's that? You want to waste $50 of MY time to solve YOUR piracy problem?
Win2k Pro uses less system resources If XP uses more resources, then it's only marginally so.
Translation: I have no idea if XP uses more resources but I'll say it doesn't anyway.
My experience: On the same hardware, XP uses approx 30-50% more memory and runs about 20-50% slower than any of it's predecessors.
It's the exact opposite. XP's feature set is a superset of W2K Pro's.
No, there used to be a perfectly usable find dialog, and now there is something that is "helpful" in the Microsoft sense. I had to turn off the Mickey Mouse interface just so I didn't spend all day clicking answers to "helpful questions" on the way to the control panel, or the printer.
Fast user switching. I don't know what you mean by that.
Really, it's pretty sad if you think W2K is better than XP in any way, shape, or form. Maybe you were just trolling. Otherwise feel free to continue to use W2K in blissful ignorance.
Well, I would really like to. Unfortunately I am unable to purchase W2k Pro in retail, OEM or otherwise. Can you enlighten me where I can obtain a legal copy for home use?
FEIT has a whole line of flourescent lightbulbs, including a couple kinds of floodlights.
Unfortunately, they are all white. When I was in Hong Kong, IKEA had a range of compact flourecents called 'natural', which produced a yellow glow that was easier on the eyes than even incandescents. I've never been able to find them since returning to Oz.
Do you know any manufacturers that make such a bulb?
You shouldn't dismiss the social and psychological side of business. Too often the "better" product doesn't sell as well because people think the other product is "better."
Well, I didn't mean to come off sounding like the social/psychological side of business is frivoulous or vapourous, just the people who engage in it:)
While your example of the ongoing benefits above (10c cheaper per bottle vs 3 bucks) has merit, it disregards the fact that without the chemists/engineers/ethnobotanists there would be no tylenol with which to make that distinction. In other words, putting marketing before the product is putting the cart before the horse.
They even convince people that american beer "tastes great"!
Well, you have me there, I can't think of a feat of engineering that even comes close to that incredible feat. Still, someone had to build the equipment that made of all that really bad beer in the first place. Guess what, the engineers.
Full text search is on the way once we get the server situation straigthened out. In the meantime, let me also add that it's not just about the business plans;
Sorry bout that. The slashdot story billed it as a business plan repository.
Perhaps if there were some way to search for a particular type of document (eg. business plans). I do find the other stuff such as anecdotal stories and listing documents, but if my real interest is the business plans, I want a way to go straight to them.
So, unlike others who scrambled to get first post, I went and had a look at the archive.
Errm... it's a bunch of business names with a "submit information on this company" button next to them. So I did another search for listings with multiple documents and finally found a business plan after the tenth company I looked at which was Artex.com, business plan here.
Looking at the executive summary, these guys planned to take a $20M investment and be generating $136M in revenues in two years. Ah, the hubris of those great days would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
Anyways, so they planned to spend $3.5M on hardware/hosting/etc, $3.5M the guys actually doing the software development and $11.5M on the marketroids to sell the idea (and presumably the artwork). No doubt the marketing guys were being paid 3 times the software developers also.
Is software development it's own reward? Do marketing people get paid a lot to compensate them for their frivolous job and their vapourous life?
What do you mean it isn't a word? "Ain't" is a word in many dialects of English too.... Lets see-- it is a group of letters without whitespace which has a readily understandable meaning....
Yes, about that readily understandable meaning...
Competitivity ( adv. mod. redneck )- word used to indicate speaker is a moron. 1. Y'all need some more competitivity down heya.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, where's the fair use with the movie theater?
Ah! But if the movie was not released on video or DVD (and it wasn't for the first ~60 years of the movie industry), then the movie industry would make less money.
But you are saying that the movie industry should be allowed to change the law and the constitution of the land so they can have their cake and eat it too?
Travelling bards used to make their money from live performances, but then someone invented the printing press, and then we were able to distribute the bard's work to a great number of people. This made a lot of people quite rich. And the rights of the bards, the companies that published their works AND the customers who purchased their books and songs were ALL protected.
But what the movie and music industry is advocating is that the customers can no longer protect their product from damage or decay by making a backup copy, or making a copy to tape to listen to on the bus, but keep the original safe at home. No, you have to use the original copy, and when it breaks, buy another one.
OK, so if we are going to throw away consumer rights, why not dispense with free speech, the right of assembly, and the right to a trial by jury of one's peers?
After all, I'm sure those rights infringe on some company's profitability. You know, having people freely express that your product sucks and causes cancer, or people interfering with business by staging a rally in a public place. Or maybe you could dispense with your enemies by using your fully-paid up congressman have them charged under terrorism laws and lock them away for 2 or 3 years without trial until the danger has passed?
Oh, and does anyone know how I can stop IE loading? At least that should kill some of the problems.
I asked the same question, and apparently now there is xplite
Merry Christmas!
Browser uptime has plummetted since 1.0
Tell me about it. I ran the rather delightful 0.9pr for 4 months with barely a crash, now 1.0 crashes at least once a day. I only upgraded due to the potentional jpg security vunerability.
I mean, come on, suddenly your product that you've slaved away in obscurity for years becomes massively popular (relatively), and is mentioned left and right in the trade rags, and the next version you release is the one that totally sucks. GOOD ONE!
Although they seem to be opposites (empty your mind of all thoughts vs. thinking of as many things at once as you can), they do seem to lead in similar directions, and the experience of hack mode/flow state/whatever your preferred term is has always struck me as very, very similar to descriptions of temporary enlightenment.
...
I think that the concept of 'satori' has in some ways been a little muddled by the Western interpreters of zen/chan/buddhism.
The idea of emptying your mind of thoughts, to cut off the internal dialog, is in fact simply a technique used rather than the whole end goal.
Sometimes, "enlightenment" simply means "to see clearly", ie. without illusion. This state can be brought about by many means, and intense introspection is one of them. Another way is by a sudden shift in perspective, as the following Zen story illustrates.
When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.
"Give me the best piece of meat you have," said the customer.
"Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best."
At these words Banzan was enlightened.
As you say
The intellectual satisfaction when you suddenly "get it", at comprehending exactly how elements of a system fit together, and instinctively understanding the place of each component in the system sounds to me very like descriptions of the "joy" experienced by understanding the entire universe as one entity, and completely comprehending one's place in it.
The state of consciousness that can arise from intense concentration on the software system is indeed very similar to that of practising awareness. That is, one of "percieving directly not subjectively".
Enjoy!
How does the anti-virus == the operating system?
How do the drivers == the operating system?
Exactly! Are you saying that the operating system is so fragile that it can be destroyed by anti-virus software or drivers?
Doesn't having to uninstall software make it a little more difficult to roll out 60,000 upgrades?
I honestly don't know what the old Find Dialog looked like, nor do I even know what the new one looks like. :) Searching for files is something I've never had a need to do. I guess I'm just very organized and always know where my files are.
... I went through those preferences 6 months ago and didn't find that option ... Hmmm, maybe I still had the Mickey Mouse interface turned on.
All 700 of them? Each and every one? That's amazing. You can recall the full path name for every one of your files. Superlative!
In Advanced mode, it no longer asks you a series of questions, it just presents fields that you can fill in. Hope this helps.
Much better. Not as good as the old one, but much better. Strange
They don't uninstall anti-virus software (Disableing is not good enough, it still leaves filters and such in the registry), they try to upgrade from an unstable OS, they don't check application compatibility, they don't uninstall drivers where possible. Geeks do this as well.
How does uninstall == upgrade?
This is one we should lobby our representatives on to ensure they don't do it at all.
Lucky for you, EDS won the contract, so you can be almost certain that the project will fail.
In AU, EDS have FUBARed every company/government department they have won contracts in.
On the downside, you can expect the project so spend twice as much as EDS says it will cost, so more taxpayer pounds down the crapper.
God save the queen! She ain't no human being...
...
There is no future ah, and England's dreaming
I have no idea what you were doing, as activation doesn't even involve a web browser. All I can say is that it's never taken me more than 1 minute to activate XP.
It did 18 months ago. I don't know about now as I go to great lengths to avoid installing XP on any computer.
Given the description of the problems you were having, this sounds more like a technical support call than an activation call.
In AU, all calls go through the same voice mail system, or at least they did when I activated XP last time (about 18 months ago).
If you get a new computer, or if you upgrade radically enough that XP thinks you have a new computer, you will have to activate it. Although new computers usually come with XP preinstalled and preactivated.
So that would mean that if I buy a new computer I am paying for software again that I already have paid for previously.
If I upgrade, you are telling me that I would need to go through the activation process again. Last time I called Microsoft they told me that XP could not be activated twice, has this changed?
The small portion who do know what they are doing can turn off all the handholding quite easily.
So how do I get the old 'Find Dialog' back? You know, then one with three tabs and no annoying questions about what kind of file I want to find.
The reason you are so upset about activation is that you have no idea how it works.
Wrong.
Have you every actually installed XP???
Yes, it took an hour. First, I tried to activate it online. The browser got caught in an infinite loop where I could never get the to final page. I persisted for about 10 minutes of so, then I called Microsoft.
It took
~10 minutes to get through the voice mail system
~35 minutes on hold
~10 minutes to give my details and get my activation number.
All up ~65 minutes, so lets call it an hour.
Now if I buy a new computer, or upgrade, are you telling me when I install XP I won't have to activate it?
If XP is crashing for you daily, then something is wrong on your end. Probably you have a bad driver, or your hardware is unstable.
... Firefox comes to mind.
I have a compaq presario laptop. Should I return it to the manufacturer? What would they do? Nearly everything inside is soldered onto the board.
Ironically, it came with a cute little sticker that said "Build for Windows XP" or something similar.
Others are not suffering as you are. I used W2K for about 2 years, then XP for the last 3 years, and I've *never* had either crash.
I've had NT4 SP6 running for 5 years and the only time it core dumped is when I had faulty RAM or a faulty graphics card. It was (and still is) running on my desktop.
I've occasionally had applications crash (including IE and OE), but never the OS.
Those are two applications I never use, and have been virus free for years. I have had plenty of other applications crash tho
I'm willing to live with a 30-50% increase in memory usage every few years in exchange for new features, especially given that memory prices are dropping at a faster rate than that.
Personally, I don't want the OS vendor to put 'new features' into the OS, I just want them to fix the bugs and improve the robustness. Features I can get from ISVs and the Internet. So this situation ends up being OK for you, but leaves me without a choice.
The defaults definitely are aimed at newer users, moreso than in W2K.
So you are telling me that they dumped their old product, and their old users and aimed their new product at new users?
It makes sense to cater to the lowest common denominator, especially since XP is aimed at more of a mass market than W2K.
It makes more sense for Microsoft. Silly me, here I was thinking that companies made decisions for the benefit of their customers.
Or make me a decent offer and I'll sell you my copy. I have five licenses of XP, so I don't need W2K anymore.
Forgot to mention that I am in AU. What would you call a 'decent offer'. I value the OS at no more than AUD$60 delivered, which is the OEM price on a new machine.
And why do brussels sprouts get a pass?
They taste like shit, so they must be good for you.
This is just my subjective opinion, but the worst web on that page is 'caffiene'.
Any thoughts?
Having thought about the relationship between drugs and work in humans and their societies for some time, I would like to extend your observations somewhat with my own experience.
In computer programming I notice there are three 'modes'. I only call them modes only because I can't think of a better name.
They are:
Brick-n-Mortar
Complexity
Creativity
Brick-n-Mortar is the simple, repetitive work that you need to do in every project. It's the tweaking of the user interface, the creation of non generic sql tables and setting permissions. It can't be made generic, it is project specific or just time consuming. The best drug for this kind of work is usually caffeine, because it's mostly boring stuuf you just want to complete.
Complexity is the system design on a macro-scale. How all the different parts fit together and interact with each other. It requires intense concentration of thought on many disparate entities and their relationships. The best drug for this work may be no drug at all. It may just be peace and quiet, meditation or relaxation. Alchohol or Cannabis or (mushies, DMT, ??) are NOT suitable for this mode.
Creativity is the part of the system that requires innovation or creation. A clever algorithm or a innovative use of an existing algorithm. Or creating a powerful and flexible framework that boosts productivity, or a feature with a high 'coolness' factor. The best drug for this mode of work may be Alchohol or Cannabis or some other drug that tends to make you inwardly reflective.
The problem I believe, is that someone will have one 'coding satori' moment under the influence of a particular drug, and will then generalise that state to all programming tasks. The overall result is that you are left with a system that can be brilliant in parts, but needs to be cleaned up by the person who follows (which on occasion has been me).
Cowardly Disclaimer: The author of this post does not engage in the taking of illegal drugs, and the above is purely academic speculation.
Win2k Pro is stable, and with SP4, relatively secure.
As is XP.
Wrong. Win2k Pro can run for weeks. XP crashes once per day (sometimes twice).
Win2k Pro DOES NOT have integrated DRM, and no "activation".
How are these even an issue, unless you are a pirate?
That comment really makes my blood boil. It's an issue because not only do Microsoft make shit operating systems, they make operating systems that become progressively more shit over time, until they are so shit you need to dig out the install CD and re-install the OS from scratch. And then what? Spend an hour of my precious time on the phone to 'register' a product I have ALREADY PAID FOR?
Do you want to pay me for my time in 'registering' my product? What's that? You want to waste $50 of MY time to solve YOUR piracy problem?
Win2k Pro uses less system resources
If XP uses more resources, then it's only marginally so.
Translation: I have no idea if XP uses more resources but I'll say it doesn't anyway.
My experience: On the same hardware, XP uses approx 30-50% more memory and runs about 20-50% slower than any of it's predecessors.
It's the exact opposite. XP's feature set is a superset of W2K Pro's.
No, there used to be a perfectly usable find dialog, and now there is something that is "helpful" in the Microsoft sense. I had to turn off the Mickey Mouse interface just so I didn't spend all day clicking answers to "helpful questions" on the way to the control panel, or the printer.
Fast user switching.
I don't know what you mean by that.
Really, it's pretty sad if you think W2K is better than XP in any way, shape, or form. Maybe you were just trolling. Otherwise feel free to continue to use W2K in blissful ignorance.
Well, I would really like to. Unfortunately I am unable to purchase W2k Pro in retail, OEM or otherwise. Can you enlighten me where I can obtain a legal copy for home use?
911 Commission Says: Iraq Was Not Involved
Cheney Says: 911 Commission are Liars
Knowledge property.
Knowledge monopoly.
Knowledge use rights.
Invention rights.
Innovation rights.
Invention use rights.
Invention monopoly.
????
FEIT has a whole line of flourescent lightbulbs, including a couple kinds of floodlights.
Unfortunately, they are all white. When I was in Hong Kong, IKEA had a range of compact flourecents called 'natural', which produced a yellow glow that was easier on the eyes than even incandescents. I've never been able to find them since returning to Oz.
Do you know any manufacturers that make such a bulb?
You shouldn't dismiss the social and psychological side of business. Too often the "better" product doesn't sell as well because people think the other product is "better."
:)
Well, I didn't mean to come off sounding like the social/psychological side of business is frivoulous or vapourous, just the people who engage in it
While your example of the ongoing benefits above (10c cheaper per bottle vs 3 bucks) has merit, it disregards the fact that without the chemists/engineers/ethnobotanists there would be no tylenol with which to make that distinction.
In other words, putting marketing before the product is putting the cart before the horse.
They even convince people that american beer "tastes great"!
Well, you have me there, I can't think of a feat of engineering that even comes close to that incredible feat.
Still, someone had to build the equipment that made of all that really bad beer in the first place. Guess what, the engineers.
Full text search is on the way once we get the server situation straigthened out. In the meantime, let me also add that it's not just about the business plans;
Sorry bout that. The slashdot story billed it as a business plan repository.
Perhaps if there were some way to search for a particular type of document (eg. business plans). I do find the other stuff such as anecdotal stories and listing documents, but if my real interest is the business plans, I want a way to go straight to them.
Cheers,
So, unlike others who scrambled to get first post, I went and had a look at the archive.
Errm... it's a bunch of business names with a "submit information on this company" button next to them. So I did another search for listings with multiple documents and finally found a business plan after the tenth company I looked at which was Artex.com, business plan here.
Looking at the executive summary, these guys planned to take a $20M investment and be generating $136M in revenues in two years. Ah, the hubris of those great days would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
Anyways, so they planned to spend $3.5M on hardware/hosting/etc, $3.5M the guys actually doing the software development and $11.5M on the marketroids to sell the idea (and presumably the artwork). No doubt the marketing guys were being paid 3 times the software developers also.
Is software development it's own reward? Do marketing people get paid a lot to compensate them for their frivolous job and their vapourous life?
What do you mean it isn't a word? "Ain't" is a word in many dialects of English too.... Lets see-- it is a group of letters without whitespace which has a readily understandable meaning....
...
Yes, about that readily understandable meaning
Competitivity ( adv. mod. redneck )- word used to indicate speaker is a moron.
1. Y'all need some more competitivity down heya.
Critical analysis over unquestioning belief is a much maligned concept in most education systems.
It is still my assertion that one needs information to analyse something critically. A point that you haven't refuted.
Don't get me wrong, I agree 100% with the premise of what you are saying, I just question the effeciacy of your solution.