Late response, but I picked up the November Official Playstation Magazine to get ahold of the Guitar Hero II demo, and the cover story was the big news that Oblivion would be a launch title. Given the way they were spouting off on it (I don't remember if they actually used the term "killer-app"), I certainly got that impression.
And yes, PGR3 totally sold me on the 360. The whole series from Metropolis Street Racer on the Dreamcast has been one of my single favorite games and I'm a big racing game nut, so that was my killer app. It sure as hell beats out Ridge Racer 7 when it comes to racing titles. Sure, the physics aren't up to Gran Turismo or Forza snuff (though both of those pale in comparison to what's out on the PC), but the physics do make real world sense, they're just exaggerated, and that whole series has been a huge amount of fun.
I picked up DOA4 and PGR3 when I got my 360 in January. I played DOA4 once and shelved it, I've never felt the urge to play it again. I still play PGR3, though it really struggles for time with Guitar Hero.
I remember that I wasn't going to bother with an XBox 360, then as it got closer and closer to release and I kept seeing shots of PGR3, I just kept wanting one more and more, cursing myself for not pre-ordering. I finally tracked one down a couple of months after launch.
I'm getting none of that with the PS3. As it was, the official playstation magazine a couple of months ago went nuts over the big killer-app launch title, Oblivion, and now that's delayed.
I'm sure I'll buy one eventually, but I'm certainly not upset that I didn't try to get a launch box.
While you appear to be a bit of a douchebag, I never noticed your other question.
Most of the digital cable boxes I've come into contact with (they've all been Motorolas, I believe) have a serial port on the back of the cable box that the Tivo can change channel through. It's a bit quicker and far more reliable than the infrared dealy-bob in my experience.
Just as far as the first question goes, cable companies are required by law to provide cablecards to customers upon request. I don't know about satellite, though I'd imagine they are required to. So, to answer the question, it will be compatible with all digital cable providers and I believe will be compatible with all satellite providers.
I've got the Moxi Hi-Def Tivo through Time Warner cable (originally through Adelphia, but there's been a buyout). At least for my cable company, they don't give me the box for free, I pay about $15 a month for it. In the meantime, the interface is horrid, it's been a little bit less than reliable when it comes to actually recording things and has randomly deleted things, it's slow, and basically spends most of its time reminding me why I like the Tivo so much more. Also, it sounds like the Tivo is going to have about 3-6 times more capacity depending on what you record.
After using the cable company's DVR, I definitely consider it worth the money to go for the Tivo instead.
FYI, you can, with the Tab preferences extension, tell it to open all pop-up windows in a new tab rather than a new window. That will prevent any pop-up from opening without window controls...it does make it sorta a pain to use any real pop-up windows that you actually want, though.
That's how I have my Firefox configured, and for the most part, it works well enough. Any pop-ups are killed just as quickly with a mouse gesture.
I should have read your post before writing mine. I'm not specific to Porsches, but racing of any sort has been my dream for a while now.
However, to contradict my own post, why not buy a cheap-o old 911/912, or even a 914 or 924, and track it enough to get really good at it, then aim for some sponsorships? Might be worth a shot, and a good way to get into the biz without needing the kind of money to field your own Porsche. Keep in mind, if you field your own, you need to be prepared to go on with life if you have to write the entire car off after a nasty shunt.
To jump to her defense, although I doubt that she and I come from the same motivation, there is a possible "happiness" defense to that. Whenever some employment thing asks me what my dream job is, it's "race car driver". I'm too old to get into actual driving now, at least at any professional level. However, if I could get ahold of a Ferrari F430 and some track time, I'd be a happy little boy.
I want to make enough money to end up doing what I really want to do. Unfortunately, what I really want to do is ridiculously expensive. So, I currently work for an employer that drives me crazy but pays a lot, hoping someday I'll have that sportscar (no need for a F430, I've seen a few race-prepped Datsun 210's going for around 8K) and tracktime and get to do what I've wanted to do.
The article mentioned Superman: The Escape out here in Los Angeles. It's an older model from the same manufacturer, using "linear synchronous motors" (essentially a series of electromagnets that can reverse polarity, at any given point one set pulling while the other pushes) for its launch. Like he said, it's 0-100 in 7 seconds, though it doesn't hit much over 85mph with a full load of people, that 100 figure is only for an empty car.
Anyway, onto the point, that one is kinda dull. The 6 seconds of nearly zero-G is good fun, but otherwise, it's not that exciting, and it's decidedly not scary. I've ridden TTD's younger brother (essentially the prototype for TTD), Xcelerator, out here at Knott's Berry Farm, and it sounds like it's got a lot meaner kick over the top than TTD does.
Anyone ride all three of these? I'd be curious to find out what impressions people have had between them.
Oh, and the article was wrong about the 2 seconds to 120mph when the sled disconnects from the train, it's 4 seconds. If you really want your neck to snap, Dodonpa in Japan does 0-108mph in 1.8 seconds. I fear that thing.
In the meantime, I had it disabled in the registry, and installing the newest patches actually re-enabled it. It popped up and jacked the connection away from Gaim. I ended up setting a security policy to prevent it from running, we'll see if that works.
I got a couple of Washington Mutual phishes that a URL like http://www.wamu.com/chooseyourstate.asp?redirect=h ttp://some.ip.address/~username/.wamu/index.html, so the initial link actually did go to the right site. Probably sneaky enough to lure in my parents, unfortunately.
Oh, and no, I haven't verified even the Washington Mutual part of the URL.
We actually have ActiveX on our site (on a seperate part of the system run off IIS, the rest of the website is Apache+mod_perl) because of specific crypto requirements that we can't get through normal SSL. There are two ways to register for the service, one by downloading a 6 meg piece of client software, the other by using the ActiveX control. 'Course, you have to download the 6 meg client after registering via ActiveX anyway, but apparently marketing has found that people are more likely to download after they've signed up rather than prior.
I've been pushing regularly to get the ActiveX requirement out of the way, and we're working on a firefox extension to work with just our service, but so far, those are still the only two ways to get around the crypto requirements we've got.
Holy crap, Bill Hilf was my boss at eToys. We used Linux and BSD, and he taught me a lot about Linux. I definitely trust him to give open source a fair shake. I know nothing about the other consultant, but for once, I think Microsoft is actually using a consultant who knows his way around a linux environment. Here's hoping he hasn't been coached too much on what exactly the say:)
Given the recent article on the source of most complaints, it appears more that a very vocal minority would threaten to boycott. Until the majority starts sending letters saying "Thanks for sponsoring this show that's not full of annoying bleeps!", companies will continue to listen to organizations like the PTC.
I don't know much about how Sirius and XM work, but I'd imagine that it's similar to how any other broadcast system works. You never need to send back what station you're listening to to tune into it, you just need to be listening on the right frequency. I don't imagine that the satellite is sending down the specific station you want directly to your receiver, it's sending down all the stations and you just tune the one you want.
Now, it's possible it does talk back to the service to let them know when you change the station, but I don't think that's a requirement for a system such as this. It's certainly not as likely as your internet activities being traceable, and you don't seem to have a huge problem with that, being on the internet and all.
Traction Control is already in F1, and has been for a couple of years now, after they realized that, while it was banned, they had absolutely no way to enforce that ban. ABS and Launch Control are still banned, however, as are automatic shifts.
You could always mention Montoya's comments about rolling off the brakes into the corners after being told that the NASCAR wouldn't be able to do it like the F1 car can...
Not sure what exactly you mean by "what the sport is supposed to be about", whether you're referring to Nascar or motorsports in general. In Formula 1, just as much of the sport is about making the car better, at least as much as having the best driver. The teams are constantly trying to improve the car, often using rule ambiguities to get an advantage. IE, no launch control is allowed anymore, but if speculation is correct, Renault figured out how to make the clutch bite absolutely perfectly for launches, which is why they almost always get at least two positions on the start.
In F1, I believe Jean Todt gets just as much credit as Michael these days, and I know Mike Gascoyne got a tremendous amount of credit for the resurgence of Renault and their absolutely stunning car design.
I have this show on my computer, it was called "Tradin' Paint" on Speed Channel. Juan Pablo Montoya was there with the 2003 BMW Williams and Jeff Gordon had his NASCAR.
Your description is a bit off. Gordon was fast, but he was still a couple of seconds off of the 107% rule. Not that that rule abides anymore, but if it did, he'd be close enough to qualify, not to grab pole.
Both of them had trouble with the other car. Juan did well, but one time goofed up going into T1 and overshot. Jeff had trouble going into T6 and overshot into the grass.
They both did well. They both seemed like they really enjoyed it. Neither did well enough to win in the other's series, but they both showed that they are excellent drivers.
However, the description of the performances you gave is kinda like something one of my teachers told us about in a Russian newspaper back in the early 80's describing the outcome of a two man 100-meter dash. According to them, the Russian came in 2nd while the American came in next to last.
Don't forget about Button and Sato, those two have really come into their own. Button moreso than Sato, IMHO, but Sato's got some maturing to do. If he can keep that agression but learn the points where discretion is the better part of valor, he may turn into something really special. In the meantime, he'll keep doing really well, then locking up and skidding into the inside of the car in front of them as they go through the corner;)
Sauber actually did a decent job of turning their fortunes around this past season, I thought. Of the second-tier teams, they did the best, beating out teams like Jaguar and Toyota.
Out of the past few races:
Brazil - 8th and 9th, 1 point Japan - 8th and 9th, 1 point China - 7th and 8th, 3 points Italy - 8th and 12th, 1 point Belgium - 4th and 5th, 9 points Hungary - 8th and DNF (brake failure), 1 point Germany - 9th and 13th, no points
It's only the last 7 races of the season, but no driver-caused accident for either of the drivers, usually at the top of the 2nd-tier teams, and, given that they had a Ferrari drivetrain, improving the chassis and aero would probably make them quite a bit quicker, I don't think anyone can argue that their cars alone are as fast as the BARs, Williams, and Ferraris out there, despite the Ferrari engine.
I thought Fisichella and Massa did a pretty decent job given what they had, and they held up rather well. I'd say the honor of crashing a lot should go to Jag and Jordan, though in Jordan's case, I'd blame that more on that horrid chassis rather than the drivers.
The problem is, that plan is solely pointed towards making more headway/money. Part of the beauty of OSS is that we can get exactly what we want.
Some people like Mandrake, because it has a nice installer, works well out of the box, and is reasonably easy to maintain. Myself, I like Gentoo, because I get a kick out of doing a stage 1 install, I find emerge to be about the best damn software management system I've ever used, and I love the flexibility I get simply from make.conf. If it consolidates, it loses all of that.
It's almost like saying cars will fail unless there's a focus on a specific type of car, be it expensive but fancy new cars, reliable but not-so-fancy "certified" used cars, or cheap, fix-it-up cars. Admittedly, most of the market is for new cars, at least from the corporations, but despite all the money car companies make off new car sales and the marketing muscle they have, there's still a market for vintage, fix-it cars. There will always be, it will never die. Linux, IMHO, will fill that niche until something better comes along. It will never take over the desktop, and it shouldn't aim to. It should aim to continue to be the best for the DIY computer user, continually improve, and it'd be foolish to aim for the overall computer market, the same market that gets online via AOL. As soon as it does, we'll all ditch it for the next DIY system, then espouse its virtues until it crosses over to the dark side.
My employers DO honestly believe that their offer is better than all the rest. They truly believe in the company, and believe it offers a valuable service (note: as do I). The problem is, they don't understand the bad side of spam. These are, essentially, a bunch of people who don't understand the internet, despite working at an internet company. They're not geeks like me.
Beyond this, they don't spam on their own. What they do is go through intermediaries who claim to be "honest and reputable internet marketers". These marketers, in my experience, are simply intermediaries for spammers and, when caught with an "affiliate" who is a known spammer and has been caught harvesting addresses or whatever, claim "we had no reason to believe they participated in that kind of behaviour", simply take said spammer off that program, but certainly continue to give them other companies to advertise for.
My bosses at the time saw it this way: This marketing company brought them in LOTS of traffic, and claimed to take responsibility for any third party they worked for that spammed. However, all that meant was that they would listwash for that spammer, but continue doing business with them. In the meantime, that spammer could slightly change their business name and get right back into the game with minimal effort. In the meantime, the spam backlash would hit our company (as it rightfully should), as evidenced by articles in groups like news.admin.net-abuse.sightings and news.admin.net-abuse.email. My bosses believed that they were working with a company that wanted to "legitimately" advertise via email, knew that they were making LOTS of conversions via this company, and assumed that the worst elements would be taken care of by this third party.
My company never forged headers, and were never amongst the worst of spammers. However, they'd work with companies that, to me, were obviously harboring spammers, but gave the impression to my less-than-clued bosses that they didn't harbor spammers. My bosses believed this, saw results from their efforts, and continued to work with these harborers. If anything, this falls under the spammer rule that Spammers are Stupid, and I'd like to add the correlary, especially Indirect Spammers.
As far as my bosses go, yes, I do believe they're misguided. I think that they want the best for the company, I do honestly believe that we provide a legitimate and useful service (though only for some, and that's why I think the spamming is stupid, 99% of the spam that our company ends up being responsible for goes to people that have no use for our service), and I think that they truly don't know the damage they do, no matter what I tell them. However, I believe that those they work with, the marketing companies that they partner with, are not misguided, they're delusional.
I think Scott Richter lies, but I also think that he believes what he says, and that's why he lies, because he thinks that the ends justify the means, and in his mind, the ends are good, hence the delusion. When you show a marketer something like a 10% conversion rate off some spam, they truly, honestly believe that that means that people *really* want to hear what they say, so they must say it to everyone. Until that's realized, not much is going to stop spammers.
This is getting way too long, but I fully believe in the rules of spammers. I have done everything I can (my personal favorite being poisoning lists of unsubscribes given to partners (which I fought long and hard against, but lost) (and was pleasantly surprised to find out that the poison emails never got spammed)) short of quitting (and in the job market I'm in, that's nearly a non-option) (and yes, I like parenthesis) to get them to stop, and for the most part, they've truly let up. However, I believe the rules don't fall quite the way that the most rabid-anti-spammers would like to believe. I don't think they hate their customers like anti-spamm
Interesting. I had assumed that this looked non-evil simply because of a lack of links to open-source projects as part of the article. Some link to an article on Linux, Apache, or something else would have convinced me otherwise.
As evidence, I decided to search for Office, assuming I'd find something on MS Office. Instead, I found a link to "Office Quotations", the definition of an office, and something about the British TV series "The Office". So, I went for "Microsoft", and found that it required a subscription to Encarta Premium, and had a link in the "related links" to Open Source Software.
To this point, I had assumed everything they had done was evil with the notable exception of hardware, they made some fantastic mice, keyboards, steering wheels and joysticks (My Sidewinder 3D joystick is almost 10 years old and still works like the day I bought it), but you're right, I see nothing too nasty here.
Now, were I to subscribe and find that Microsoft's article contained links on how to purchase copies of MS operating systems, applications software, etc etc, then I'd be a bit convinced, but I'm not willing to pay the subsciption fee when I've got wikipedia around the corner.
Slashdot Mirror
Late response, but I picked up the November Official Playstation Magazine to get ahold of the Guitar Hero II demo, and the cover story was the big news that Oblivion would be a launch title. Given the way they were spouting off on it (I don't remember if they actually used the term "killer-app"), I certainly got that impression.
And yes, PGR3 totally sold me on the 360. The whole series from Metropolis Street Racer on the Dreamcast has been one of my single favorite games and I'm a big racing game nut, so that was my killer app. It sure as hell beats out Ridge Racer 7 when it comes to racing titles. Sure, the physics aren't up to Gran Turismo or Forza snuff (though both of those pale in comparison to what's out on the PC), but the physics do make real world sense, they're just exaggerated, and that whole series has been a huge amount of fun.
I picked up DOA4 and PGR3 when I got my 360 in January. I played DOA4 once and shelved it, I've never felt the urge to play it again. I still play PGR3, though it really struggles for time with Guitar Hero.
I remember that I wasn't going to bother with an XBox 360, then as it got closer and closer to release and I kept seeing shots of PGR3, I just kept wanting one more and more, cursing myself for not pre-ordering. I finally tracked one down a couple of months after launch.
I'm getting none of that with the PS3. As it was, the official playstation magazine a couple of months ago went nuts over the big killer-app launch title, Oblivion, and now that's delayed.
I'm sure I'll buy one eventually, but I'm certainly not upset that I didn't try to get a launch box.
While you appear to be a bit of a douchebag, I never noticed your other question.
Most of the digital cable boxes I've come into contact with (they've all been Motorolas, I believe) have a serial port on the back of the cable box that the Tivo can change channel through. It's a bit quicker and far more reliable than the infrared dealy-bob in my experience.
Moxi Hi-Def Tivo
err.....DVR
Just as far as the first question goes, cable companies are required by law to provide cablecards to customers upon request. I don't know about satellite, though I'd imagine they are required to. So, to answer the question, it will be compatible with all digital cable providers and I believe will be compatible with all satellite providers.
I've got the Moxi Hi-Def Tivo through Time Warner cable (originally through Adelphia, but there's been a buyout). At least for my cable company, they don't give me the box for free, I pay about $15 a month for it. In the meantime, the interface is horrid, it's been a little bit less than reliable when it comes to actually recording things and has randomly deleted things, it's slow, and basically spends most of its time reminding me why I like the Tivo so much more. Also, it sounds like the Tivo is going to have about 3-6 times more capacity depending on what you record.
After using the cable company's DVR, I definitely consider it worth the money to go for the Tivo instead.
FYI, you can, with the Tab preferences extension, tell it to open all pop-up windows in a new tab rather than a new window. That will prevent any pop-up from opening without window controls...it does make it sorta a pain to use any real pop-up windows that you actually want, though.
That's how I have my Firefox configured, and for the most part, it works well enough. Any pop-ups are killed just as quickly with a mouse gesture.
I should have read your post before writing mine. I'm not specific to Porsches, but racing of any sort has been my dream for a while now.
However, to contradict my own post, why not buy a cheap-o old 911/912, or even a 914 or 924, and track it enough to get really good at it, then aim for some sponsorships? Might be worth a shot, and a good way to get into the biz without needing the kind of money to field your own Porsche. Keep in mind, if you field your own, you need to be prepared to go on with life if you have to write the entire car off after a nasty shunt.
To jump to her defense, although I doubt that she and I come from the same motivation, there is a possible "happiness" defense to that. Whenever some employment thing asks me what my dream job is, it's "race car driver". I'm too old to get into actual driving now, at least at any professional level. However, if I could get ahold of a Ferrari F430 and some track time, I'd be a happy little boy.
I want to make enough money to end up doing what I really want to do. Unfortunately, what I really want to do is ridiculously expensive. So, I currently work for an employer that drives me crazy but pays a lot, hoping someday I'll have that sportscar (no need for a F430, I've seen a few race-prepped Datsun 210's going for around 8K) and tracktime and get to do what I've wanted to do.
Again, though, I doubt that's her motivation.
The article mentioned Superman: The Escape out here in Los Angeles. It's an older model from the same manufacturer, using "linear synchronous motors" (essentially a series of electromagnets that can reverse polarity, at any given point one set pulling while the other pushes) for its launch. Like he said, it's 0-100 in 7 seconds, though it doesn't hit much over 85mph with a full load of people, that 100 figure is only for an empty car.
Anyway, onto the point, that one is kinda dull. The 6 seconds of nearly zero-G is good fun, but otherwise, it's not that exciting, and it's decidedly not scary. I've ridden TTD's younger brother (essentially the prototype for TTD), Xcelerator, out here at Knott's Berry Farm, and it sounds like it's got a lot meaner kick over the top than TTD does.
Anyone ride all three of these? I'd be curious to find out what impressions people have had between them.
Oh, and the article was wrong about the 2 seconds to 120mph when the sled disconnects from the train, it's 4 seconds. If you really want your neck to snap, Dodonpa in Japan does 0-108mph in 1.8 seconds. I fear that thing.
In the meantime, I had it disabled in the registry, and installing the newest patches actually re-enabled it. It popped up and jacked the connection away from Gaim. I ended up setting a security policy to prevent it from running, we'll see if that works.
I got a couple of Washington Mutual phishes that a URL like http://www.wamu.com/chooseyourstate.asp?redirect=h ttp://some.ip.address/~username/.wamu/index.html, so the initial link actually did go to the right site. Probably sneaky enough to lure in my parents, unfortunately.
Oh, and no, I haven't verified even the Washington Mutual part of the URL.
We actually have ActiveX on our site (on a seperate part of the system run off IIS, the rest of the website is Apache+mod_perl) because of specific crypto requirements that we can't get through normal SSL. There are two ways to register for the service, one by downloading a 6 meg piece of client software, the other by using the ActiveX control. 'Course, you have to download the 6 meg client after registering via ActiveX anyway, but apparently marketing has found that people are more likely to download after they've signed up rather than prior.
I've been pushing regularly to get the ActiveX requirement out of the way, and we're working on a firefox extension to work with just our service, but so far, those are still the only two ways to get around the crypto requirements we've got.
Holy crap, Bill Hilf was my boss at eToys. We used Linux and BSD, and he taught me a lot about Linux. I definitely trust him to give open source a fair shake. I know nothing about the other consultant, but for once, I think Microsoft is actually using a consultant who knows his way around a linux environment. Here's hoping he hasn't been coached too much on what exactly the say :)
Given the recent article on the source of most complaints, it appears more that a very vocal minority would threaten to boycott. Until the majority starts sending letters saying "Thanks for sponsoring this show that's not full of annoying bleeps!", companies will continue to listen to organizations like the PTC.
I don't know much about how Sirius and XM work, but I'd imagine that it's similar to how any other broadcast system works. You never need to send back what station you're listening to to tune into it, you just need to be listening on the right frequency. I don't imagine that the satellite is sending down the specific station you want directly to your receiver, it's sending down all the stations and you just tune the one you want.
Now, it's possible it does talk back to the service to let them know when you change the station, but I don't think that's a requirement for a system such as this. It's certainly not as likely as your internet activities being traceable, and you don't seem to have a huge problem with that, being on the internet and all.
Traction Control is already in F1, and has been for a couple of years now, after they realized that, while it was banned, they had absolutely no way to enforce that ban. ABS and Launch Control are still banned, however, as are automatic shifts.
You could always mention Montoya's comments about rolling off the brakes into the corners after being told that the NASCAR wouldn't be able to do it like the F1 car can...
Not sure what exactly you mean by "what the sport is supposed to be about", whether you're referring to Nascar or motorsports in general. In Formula 1, just as much of the sport is about making the car better, at least as much as having the best driver. The teams are constantly trying to improve the car, often using rule ambiguities to get an advantage. IE, no launch control is allowed anymore, but if speculation is correct, Renault figured out how to make the clutch bite absolutely perfectly for launches, which is why they almost always get at least two positions on the start.
In F1, I believe Jean Todt gets just as much credit as Michael these days, and I know Mike Gascoyne got a tremendous amount of credit for the resurgence of Renault and their absolutely stunning car design.
I have this show on my computer, it was called "Tradin' Paint" on Speed Channel. Juan Pablo Montoya was there with the 2003 BMW Williams and Jeff Gordon had his NASCAR.
Your description is a bit off. Gordon was fast, but he was still a couple of seconds off of the 107% rule. Not that that rule abides anymore, but if it did, he'd be close enough to qualify, not to grab pole.
Both of them had trouble with the other car. Juan did well, but one time goofed up going into T1 and overshot. Jeff had trouble going into T6 and overshot into the grass.
They both did well. They both seemed like they really enjoyed it. Neither did well enough to win in the other's series, but they both showed that they are excellent drivers.
However, the description of the performances you gave is kinda like something one of my teachers told us about in a Russian newspaper back in the early 80's describing the outcome of a two man 100-meter dash. According to them, the Russian came in 2nd while the American came in next to last.
Don't forget about Button and Sato, those two have really come into their own. Button moreso than Sato, IMHO, but Sato's got some maturing to do. If he can keep that agression but learn the points where discretion is the better part of valor, he may turn into something really special. In the meantime, he'll keep doing really well, then locking up and skidding into the inside of the car in front of them as they go through the corner ;)
Sauber actually did a decent job of turning their fortunes around this past season, I thought. Of the second-tier teams, they did the best, beating out teams like Jaguar and Toyota.
Out of the past few races:
Brazil - 8th and 9th, 1 point
Japan - 8th and 9th, 1 point
China - 7th and 8th, 3 points
Italy - 8th and 12th, 1 point
Belgium - 4th and 5th, 9 points
Hungary - 8th and DNF (brake failure), 1 point
Germany - 9th and 13th, no points
It's only the last 7 races of the season, but no driver-caused accident for either of the drivers, usually at the top of the 2nd-tier teams, and, given that they had a Ferrari drivetrain, improving the chassis and aero would probably make them quite a bit quicker, I don't think anyone can argue that their cars alone are as fast as the BARs, Williams, and Ferraris out there, despite the Ferrari engine.
I thought Fisichella and Massa did a pretty decent job given what they had, and they held up rather well. I'd say the honor of crashing a lot should go to Jag and Jordan, though in Jordan's case, I'd blame that more on that horrid chassis rather than the drivers.
The problem is, that plan is solely pointed towards making more headway/money. Part of the beauty of OSS is that we can get exactly what we want.
Some people like Mandrake, because it has a nice installer, works well out of the box, and is reasonably easy to maintain. Myself, I like Gentoo, because I get a kick out of doing a stage 1 install, I find emerge to be about the best damn software management system I've ever used, and I love the flexibility I get simply from make.conf. If it consolidates, it loses all of that.
It's almost like saying cars will fail unless there's a focus on a specific type of car, be it expensive but fancy new cars, reliable but not-so-fancy "certified" used cars, or cheap, fix-it-up cars. Admittedly, most of the market is for new cars, at least from the corporations, but despite all the money car companies make off new car sales and the marketing muscle they have, there's still a market for vintage, fix-it cars. There will always be, it will never die. Linux, IMHO, will fill that niche until something better comes along. It will never take over the desktop, and it shouldn't aim to. It should aim to continue to be the best for the DIY computer user, continually improve, and it'd be foolish to aim for the overall computer market, the same market that gets online via AOL. As soon as it does, we'll all ditch it for the next DIY system, then espouse its virtues until it crosses over to the dark side.
I know this is late, but here goes nothing.
My employers DO honestly believe that their offer is better than all the rest. They truly believe in the company, and believe it offers a valuable service (note: as do I). The problem is, they don't understand the bad side of spam. These are, essentially, a bunch of people who don't understand the internet, despite working at an internet company. They're not geeks like me.
Beyond this, they don't spam on their own. What they do is go through intermediaries who claim to be "honest and reputable internet marketers". These marketers, in my experience, are simply intermediaries for spammers and, when caught with an "affiliate" who is a known spammer and has been caught harvesting addresses or whatever, claim "we had no reason to believe they participated in that kind of behaviour", simply take said spammer off that program, but certainly continue to give them other companies to advertise for.
My bosses at the time saw it this way: This marketing company brought them in LOTS of traffic, and claimed to take responsibility for any third party they worked for that spammed. However, all that meant was that they would listwash for that spammer, but continue doing business with them. In the meantime, that spammer could slightly change their business name and get right back into the game with minimal effort. In the meantime, the spam backlash would hit our company (as it rightfully should), as evidenced by articles in groups like news.admin.net-abuse.sightings and news.admin.net-abuse.email. My bosses believed that they were working with a company that wanted to "legitimately" advertise via email, knew that they were making LOTS of conversions via this company, and assumed that the worst elements would be taken care of by this third party.
My company never forged headers, and were never amongst the worst of spammers. However, they'd work with companies that, to me, were obviously harboring spammers, but gave the impression to my less-than-clued bosses that they didn't harbor spammers. My bosses believed this, saw results from their efforts, and continued to work with these harborers. If anything, this falls under the spammer rule that Spammers are Stupid, and I'd like to add the correlary, especially Indirect Spammers.
As far as my bosses go, yes, I do believe they're misguided. I think that they want the best for the company, I do honestly believe that we provide a legitimate and useful service (though only for some, and that's why I think the spamming is stupid, 99% of the spam that our company ends up being responsible for goes to people that have no use for our service), and I think that they truly don't know the damage they do, no matter what I tell them. However, I believe that those they work with, the marketing companies that they partner with, are not misguided, they're delusional.
I think Scott Richter lies, but I also think that he believes what he says, and that's why he lies, because he thinks that the ends justify the means, and in his mind, the ends are good, hence the delusion. When you show a marketer something like a 10% conversion rate off some spam, they truly, honestly believe that that means that people *really* want to hear what they say, so they must say it to everyone. Until that's realized, not much is going to stop spammers.
This is getting way too long, but I fully believe in the rules of spammers. I have done everything I can (my personal favorite being poisoning lists of unsubscribes given to partners (which I fought long and hard against, but lost) (and was pleasantly surprised to find out that the poison emails never got spammed)) short of quitting (and in the job market I'm in, that's nearly a non-option) (and yes, I like parenthesis) to get them to stop, and for the most part, they've truly let up. However, I believe the rules don't fall quite the way that the most rabid-anti-spammers would like to believe. I don't think they hate their customers like anti-spamm
Interesting. I had assumed that this looked non-evil simply because of a lack of links to open-source projects as part of the article. Some link to an article on Linux, Apache, or something else would have convinced me otherwise.
As evidence, I decided to search for Office, assuming I'd find something on MS Office. Instead, I found a link to "Office Quotations", the definition of an office, and something about the British TV series "The Office". So, I went for "Microsoft", and found that it required a subscription to Encarta Premium, and had a link in the "related links" to Open Source Software.
To this point, I had assumed everything they had done was evil with the notable exception of hardware, they made some fantastic mice, keyboards, steering wheels and joysticks (My Sidewinder 3D joystick is almost 10 years old and still works like the day I bought it), but you're right, I see nothing too nasty here.
Now, were I to subscribe and find that Microsoft's article contained links on how to purchase copies of MS operating systems, applications software, etc etc, then I'd be a bit convinced, but I'm not willing to pay the subsciption fee when I've got wikipedia around the corner.