Not only the Yahoo! bid. Wasn't MS built up kinda like a pyramid scheme, with their reliance on stock options as payment for top professionals and other things like that? Someone calculated a couple years back by how much about the MS stock can slip before it sets a downward spiral into motion that will wipe the company out. Explained to me at that time while they are so hell-bent at domination and expansion, no matter the cost. Given their makeup, if MS falls, it will fall hard and far.
Partially true, just not for VCRs. For a wristwatch, definitely. For VCRs, there is enough surface area, and there were a few good examples that got it right. The problem - as always - is that careful design and user testing cost time, money and effort. When you're competing in a market where the difference between $199 and $219 can make or break your product, many companies just save money there.
If I'm reading this right, then what you're essentially saying is that you believe there should be only one correct way to write a UI? Across all operating systems? No, I don't. As with lightswitches, there are several good ways of doing one. There is no "best" way, because it depends on context, environment, requirements and users. However, there definitely are good and bad ways.
I'm dying for a better explanation of this paragraph because it seems to be made up of very generic statements. And you're saying that because something is "legacy", that makes it "crap"? Obviously not, otherwise the phrase "legacy crap" would be pointless. What it does mean is crap that is still around because, well mostly because it's been around for so long. The "Start" menu is an example. Even MS internal UI tests shortly before Win95 was released showed very clearly that it was a totally botched idea. However, by that time it was impossible to change it in time for release, so it stuck around. And in Vista it was kept because by now it is "the way" and the users would revolt if it were changed.
But you've already changed from "not having used Linux since 2000" to "not having used Linux until a few weeks ago" so I'm finding it very difficult to pick up any substance in your argument. I never said I didn't use Linux since 2000, please go and re-read what I actually wrote. I used to be part of the Gnome user interface development group. That was in circa 2000. I gave up that, and that's what I wrote, nothing more.
Right. So in other words, because Linux wasn't what you wanted eight years ago, you threw your toys out the pram then and have never bothered to pick them up since. Yes, because a user-interface-philosophy takes a much longer time to propagate than a total kernel rewrite. Look at windos. How much of the software there uses UI guidelines that you can't even get a copy of anymore, because they're 10, 15 years old?
It is much harder to push through a change in your UI guidelines than it is to force a change in even a core API. Legacy crap is much worse in the HCI area than they are in the technical area, and we all know bad they are there.
But, to complete the picture, I simply gave up contributing to that effort. I used Linux as my desktop machine until a few weeks ago. So I'm a little up-to-date on what has changed in those eight years, and it isn't that much, really. Definitely nothing that makes me reconsider my vote on the matter.
My ancient Sony Betacord (which is still 100% functional by the way) was so EPICLY confusing...ya...you hold clock, then you pressed "hour" till the hour was right, then you pressed "minute" till the minute was right, then you let go of "clock" and it was set. And if you think that's good user-interface-design, I seriously pray you don't write software. Things that are a lot simpler are confusing if you're not used to them. There are whole studies on the difficulties of operating various kinds of doorknobs. You'd never understand, but these things matter to millions of people.
Wow, what a novel, totally-unheard-off idea! Usability tests! And actually, you know, doing them, instead of just talking about them. And with, you know, actual users. Wow! Quick, get a patent about that!
Frankly, this is why I gave up about Linux-on-the-desktop back in, I'm not sure, 2000 or so. When the Gnome User Interface mailing list was full of people with great and groundbreaking ideas, most of them blatant violations of everything that HCI had long dumped as bullshit, others completely untested, the rest copies of windos ("because that's what people know and expect"). Most importantly, there wasn't a single expert in the field on the list or - to my knowledge - in the entire Gnome project. Yes, including me, having read a bunch of books on the subject doesn't make me an expert, it just allowed me to spot the I-have-no-idea-but-I'll-pretend-I-do guys more easily.
Linux has suffered tremendeously due to this disregard of the normal, non-geek user. You know, the kind of person whose VCR flashes "12:00" because the UI on VCRs is total shit and only geeks really bother with it because we are the only ones who consider bugs and technical problems to be a challenge instead of, say, bugs and technical problems.
People don't think the "free" in "Free Speech" refers to not having to pay. And RMS very intentionally choose a term close to that, check "The Right to Read" for one line of reasoning.
The more we learn about ourselves and our planet, the more Dawkins is right: What really happened is just so much more interesting and fantastic than the fiction our ancestors put into their holy books.
This (hi-)story definitely beats the whole "flood and Noah's Ark" bullshit. Evolution is a lot more thrilling than creation. And quite frankly, being distantly related to the other animals creates a lot more emotional connection than being told "here, rule over them" by a fictional daddy-of-all.
Not to mention that even a short look into outer space beats the entire bible in amazement.
We need more science like this, and less funding for the outdated liars.
meaning they want existing customers to buy even more iPods. It also worked with the iPhone Errr... no? A lot of the people (myself included) who bought an iPhone did not previously own an iPod. Quite a few people didn't own a Mac, or any other Apple device.
The Apple strategy is really smart - they introduce you to "the Apple world" from a wide variety of angles. Once you have device A you realize it would work really well with device B... and C... and so on.
You're looking at the wrong market. Microsoft is the company that sells more crap to those already knee-deep in it.
Also note that he re-defined Free Software, confusing it wizh Freeware. He's either dumb or malicious, and considering his track record, I'm inclined to say that doesn't have to be an xor.
Yeah, because we all know that worked extremely well with the phone companies, didn't it?
I'm with you that MS needs to be ripped apart. But that's not the end of the story, only the beginning. You have to prevent that the "pieces" simply merge, cooperate, or otherwise continue doing business as before. You have to ensure that they don't simply develop a few new anti-competitive strategies. Lots of what MS is guilty off can be done just as easily with multiple companies.
With their constant and blatant disregard of the law, one really has to wonder why they provide these mails at all, instead of "accidentally" deleting them come discovery time. Or maybe, just maybe, which even worse mails they did "forget" to include.
This seems to be the type of patent a patent troll would try to get through. Which, given the constant abuse of the patent system by said trolls, getting the patent yourself is the only way to be sure you aren't going to end up on the wrong side of a lawsuit.
Yes, ISO was essentially owned by a 0-day. That's bad enough. But much worse is the part where they pretend nothing happened, no damage was done, everything is alright - instead of fixing the hole and undoing the damage.
I know what I'd think about a sysadmin who acts that way with his system. I tend to think the same about ISO now: Incompetence, corruption and stupidity.
Will ISO and IEC review how ISO/IEC 29500 was adopted?
We reviewed the process before it started, all the while during its course and afterwards as well. In other words: "Our review process sucks so much that we can't even spot the most blatant and obvious abuse in our entire history right while it's going on under our noses."
Thanks, ISO. That removes my final doubts regarding your reliability and competence. Only leaves me to wonder how you're getting anything done right at all.
I've been in the same business for close to ten years before I decided to change for something else three years ago.
Maybe I'm still frustrated, but if you want it short and blunt:
Forget about ethics. You're in a business, and the "ethics" of business is called EBITDA, cash flow and bottom line.
Forget about caring. Identify the risk, estimate the risk, and get someone to sign that he takes responsibility for not fixing it.
Forget about being secure. You can be "more secure", but never "secure".
Forget about technology as the primary tool. Remediation is often preferred by business types and managers. Buy an insurance, that's easier to calculate and budget.
Hm. You've got me partially convinced. Logic should be considered a part of what I call metaphysics and you call philosophy. Basically you are right that I see "philosophy" as that part which is not metaphysics anymore, but only blabla - the wackos in your words. You think of philosophy in broader terms, or rather include that which I call metaphysics.
Essentially, what I'm saying is that which was called "philosophy" a very long time ago has split into two parts. One part that stayed close to logic, math and science and is useful. And a second part that concentrated on the daydreaming and mental masturbation and is a shocking example of how to waste brainpower by going round in circles.
I think you agree on that, except that you call both parts philosophy and I don't.
I also think we can agree on math and logic co-developing, and neither being the source of the other.
Pet peeve: Zeno is missing from your list of logic founders. Sorry, personal preference, I find his paradoxes a lot more interesting than anything Plato ever wrote and a lot less damaging to the human race than Aristotle.
Maybe you should check the facts. My mail servers process a few thousand mails a day, after greylisting, and almost half of it is spam. I've been running mailservers for over 10 years. Thank you, I know the From: line can be faked, been there, done that.
I stand by my claim. I don't have recent statistics because I stopped caring a year or two ago, but when those filters went into place, hotmail.com was a major source of spam and other abuses. Also, something in their mail system was broken that caused trouble for mailing lists because they didn't bounce mails properly, but I forgot the details.
You're pretty close, actually. Mathematics is a language. I would call it the language of thought, not the language of physics. From what I know about the mind, math models it more closely than any other language.
Your base assumption is that math and philosophy are closely related, which is why you mention them side-by-side in every other sentence. I don't think I can bridge that fundamental difference. To me that difference lies in the very fact of expression. If math is a language, but philosophers write in english, german, french, etc. - then these two subjects are pretty far apart.
I also hold that you have history backwards. Philosophy didn't start math - math (more precisely, logic) started philosophy. And then philosophy got lost in the maze and decided that if you can't find the exit, then wandering around aimlessly is just as well.
The test is simple, really. Math has had tremendeous advances in the meantime, and is putting out useful products by the dozen even in fields you'd not think about at first, whereas philosophy starts all over again all the time, and contributes next to nothing even to "its" fields such as ethics and understanding of the human condition. A single good science book about the brain and how it works gives you more understanding about yourself as half the university libraries' philosophy section.
And I don't even think it's the Ph.Ds in whackoness. As I said in an earlier comment, on a critical reading I found some of the most lauded philosophers of the 20th century embarassingly shallow. I've found almost a dozen fundamental flaws in the pseudo-science it was based on in a 30-minute review of a bestseller philosophy book, for example. That was in 1991. But that's not a problem of a specific era, post-structuralist or not. After I read Plato I couldn't contemplate how his fame goes beyond the purely historical. His famous cave allegory is so ridiculous viewed in the light of today's knowledge about mind internals (I don't blame Plato, in his time even simple truths and half-truths were hard to come by).
I think that's the problem with Philosophy: It never abandons a concept for good. It might get out of fashion for a while, but you can be sure someone, someday revives it. I like science exactly because it has it's "ether", but it gets over it and tells the young students all about where it was wrong. Philosophers have serious problems admitting they were wrong, and that's not just the wackos.
From TFA:
Spammers love getting their hands on live.com and hotmail.com addresses since the chance of such popular domain names being blacklisted are slim to none. You've got to be kidding! hotmail.com (and all it's other TLDs) has been banned from my game four, maybe 5 years ago. I've been giving every mail from a hotmail account an automatic 2 points in SpamAssassin for at least three years.
For as long as I can think, hotmail has been a spam source. "not blacklisted"? My ass.
Mathematics is a good example of one kind of philosophy in action. I couldn't disagree more, but that might just be a problem of definition. In mine, mathematics is absolutely not a branch of philosophy. In fact, little could be further from the truth.
And maybe that's the whole source of this disagreement.
Second, they didn't literally mean all men are equal, as in abilities, they mean all men share the same set of rights. And that's my point. They didn't write "all men share the same set of rights". They probably meant that (I share your interpretation), but the words they used were different, and can be read differently. As with all words.
Which is why you're essentially fucked by definition if your entire work is only words, as in philosophy. And sorry, the reference to context doesn't solve that problem, it only complicates it because it increases the amount of words that need interpretation. Only an actual, factual context, as in physical reality, can dissolve ambiguities finally.
I do agree in part, except that I draw the boundary elsewhere. Where you see the split at the universities, I see the split where philosophy moved away from science. As metaphysics (the term I choose for science-oriented philosophy, maybe a better term would be meta-science) it is the core and structure of the scientific method and everything that comes from that.
Modern philosophy, however, is an abomination. I've read a couple of the most lauded 20th century philosophers. They're no smarter than your average kid, they can just express themselves in more interesting and complicated sentences so that you never quite really know what they're talking about and it all sounds very intelligent and deep.
Popper, for example, had about three really meaningful sentences in all his books I've read and if you look for what his arguments are based on you almost always find that the foundation is - other arguments of his. And that's typical.
The US was founded by those that engaged in philosophical debates. To dismiss philosophy is pretty silly. I'm not dismissing it, nor its historical effects.
But taking your example, I do hold that the core ideas of the US constitution are pretty silly. For starters, "all men are created equal" is provably false. First, men aren't created. Two, they aren't equal, neither at start nor later on. Ignoring the differences between men is the source of quite a lot of troubles in this world.
But that's the problem: The founding fathers had a pretty good idea of what exactly they meant. But they didn't write down what they meant, they couldn't because meaning is unspeakable, in the words of Korzybski. They wrote down a verbal representation of the meaning. But that mapping isn't 1:1, there are multiple meanings that can be expressed with the same verbal representation, and multiple verbal representations to express the same meaning.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only the Yahoo! bid. Wasn't MS built up kinda like a pyramid scheme, with their reliance on stock options as payment for top professionals and other things like that? Someone calculated a couple years back by how much about the MS stock can slip before it sets a downward spiral into motion that will wipe the company out. Explained to me at that time while they are so hell-bent at domination and expansion, no matter the cost. Given their makeup, if MS falls, it will fall hard and far.
Partially true, just not for VCRs. For a wristwatch, definitely. For VCRs, there is enough surface area, and there were a few good examples that got it right. The problem - as always - is that careful design and user testing cost time, money and effort. When you're competing in a market where the difference between $199 and $219 can make or break your product, many companies just save money there.
It is much harder to push through a change in your UI guidelines than it is to force a change in even a core API. Legacy crap is much worse in the HCI area than they are in the technical area, and we all know bad they are there.
But, to complete the picture, I simply gave up contributing to that effort. I used Linux as my desktop machine until a few weeks ago. So I'm a little up-to-date on what has changed in those eight years, and it isn't that much, really. Definitely nothing that makes me reconsider my vote on the matter.
Wow, what a novel, totally-unheard-off idea! Usability tests! And actually, you know, doing them, instead of just talking about them. And with, you know, actual users. Wow! Quick, get a patent about that!
Frankly, this is why I gave up about Linux-on-the-desktop back in, I'm not sure, 2000 or so. When the Gnome User Interface mailing list was full of people with great and groundbreaking ideas, most of them blatant violations of everything that HCI had long dumped as bullshit, others completely untested, the rest copies of windos ("because that's what people know and expect"). Most importantly, there wasn't a single expert in the field on the list or - to my knowledge - in the entire Gnome project. Yes, including me, having read a bunch of books on the subject doesn't make me an expert, it just allowed me to spot the I-have-no-idea-but-I'll-pretend-I-do guys more easily.
Linux has suffered tremendeously due to this disregard of the normal, non-geek user. You know, the kind of person whose VCR flashes "12:00" because the UI on VCRs is total shit and only geeks really bother with it because we are the only ones who consider bugs and technical problems to be a challenge instead of, say, bugs and technical problems.
I've heard that a lot and I don't believe it.
People don't think the "free" in "Free Speech" refers to not having to pay. And RMS very intentionally choose a term close to that, check "The Right to Read" for one line of reasoning.
The more we learn about ourselves and our planet, the more Dawkins is right: What really happened is just so much more interesting and fantastic than the fiction our ancestors put into their holy books.
This (hi-)story definitely beats the whole "flood and Noah's Ark" bullshit. Evolution is a lot more thrilling than creation. And quite frankly, being distantly related to the other animals creates a lot more emotional connection than being told "here, rule over them" by a fictional daddy-of-all.
Not to mention that even a short look into outer space beats the entire bible in amazement.
We need more science like this, and less funding for the outdated liars.
The Apple strategy is really smart - they introduce you to "the Apple world" from a wide variety of angles. Once you have device A you realize it would work really well with device B... and C... and so on.
You're looking at the wrong market. Microsoft is the company that sells more crap to those already knee-deep in it.
Mod Gates -1: Troll.
Also note that he re-defined Free Software, confusing it wizh Freeware. He's either dumb or malicious, and considering his track record, I'm inclined to say that doesn't have to be an xor.
Yeah, because we all know that worked extremely well with the phone companies, didn't it?
I'm with you that MS needs to be ripped apart. But that's not the end of the story, only the beginning. You have to prevent that the "pieces" simply merge, cooperate, or otherwise continue doing business as before. You have to ensure that they don't simply develop a few new anti-competitive strategies. Lots of what MS is guilty off can be done just as easily with multiple companies.
With their constant and blatant disregard of the law, one really has to wonder why they provide these mails at all, instead of "accidentally" deleting them come discovery time. Or maybe, just maybe, which even worse mails they did "forget" to include.
Excellent analogy, Chandon.
Yes, ISO was essentially owned by a 0-day. That's bad enough. But much worse is the part where they pretend nothing happened, no damage was done, everything is alright - instead of fixing the hole and undoing the damage.
I know what I'd think about a sysadmin who acts that way with his system. I tend to think the same about ISO now: Incompetence, corruption and stupidity.
We reviewed the process before it started, all the while during its course and afterwards as well. In other words:
"Our review process sucks so much that we can't even spot the most blatant and obvious abuse in our entire history right while it's going on under our noses."
Thanks, ISO. That removes my final doubts regarding your reliability and competence. Only leaves me to wonder how you're getting anything done right at all.
Maybe I'm still frustrated, but if you want it short and blunt:
Hm. You've got me partially convinced. Logic should be considered a part of what I call metaphysics and you call philosophy. Basically you are right that I see "philosophy" as that part which is not metaphysics anymore, but only blabla - the wackos in your words. You think of philosophy in broader terms, or rather include that which I call metaphysics.
Essentially, what I'm saying is that which was called "philosophy" a very long time ago has split into two parts. One part that stayed close to logic, math and science and is useful. And a second part that concentrated on the daydreaming and mental masturbation and is a shocking example of how to waste brainpower by going round in circles.
I think you agree on that, except that you call both parts philosophy and I don't.
I also think we can agree on math and logic co-developing, and neither being the source of the other.
Pet peeve: Zeno is missing from your list of logic founders. Sorry, personal preference, I find his paradoxes a lot more interesting than anything Plato ever wrote and a lot less damaging to the human race than Aristotle.
Maybe you should check the facts. My mail servers process a few thousand mails a day, after greylisting, and almost half of it is spam. I've been running mailservers for over 10 years. Thank you, I know the From: line can be faked, been there, done that.
I stand by my claim. I don't have recent statistics because I stopped caring a year or two ago, but when those filters went into place, hotmail.com was a major source of spam and other abuses. Also, something in their mail system was broken that caused trouble for mailing lists because they didn't bounce mails properly, but I forgot the details.
You're pretty close, actually. Mathematics is a language. I would call it the language of thought, not the language of physics. From what I know about the mind, math models it more closely than any other language.
Your base assumption is that math and philosophy are closely related, which is why you mention them side-by-side in every other sentence. I don't think I can bridge that fundamental difference. To me that difference lies in the very fact of expression. If math is a language, but philosophers write in english, german, french, etc. - then these two subjects are pretty far apart.
I also hold that you have history backwards. Philosophy didn't start math - math (more precisely, logic) started philosophy. And then philosophy got lost in the maze and decided that if you can't find the exit, then wandering around aimlessly is just as well.
The test is simple, really. Math has had tremendeous advances in the meantime, and is putting out useful products by the dozen even in fields you'd not think about at first, whereas philosophy starts all over again all the time, and contributes next to nothing even to "its" fields such as ethics and understanding of the human condition. A single good science book about the brain and how it works gives you more understanding about yourself as half the university libraries' philosophy section.
And I don't even think it's the Ph.Ds in whackoness. As I said in an earlier comment, on a critical reading I found some of the most lauded philosophers of the 20th century embarassingly shallow. I've found almost a dozen fundamental flaws in the pseudo-science it was based on in a 30-minute review of a bestseller philosophy book, for example. That was in 1991. But that's not a problem of a specific era, post-structuralist or not. After I read Plato I couldn't contemplate how his fame goes beyond the purely historical. His famous cave allegory is so ridiculous viewed in the light of today's knowledge about mind internals (I don't blame Plato, in his time even simple truths and half-truths were hard to come by).
I think that's the problem with Philosophy: It never abandons a concept for good. It might get out of fashion for a while, but you can be sure someone, someday revives it. I like science exactly because it has it's "ether", but it gets over it and tells the young students all about where it was wrong. Philosophers have serious problems admitting they were wrong, and that's not just the wackos.
For as long as I can think, hotmail has been a spam source. "not blacklisted"? My ass.
And maybe that's the whole source of this disagreement.
Which is why you're essentially fucked by definition if your entire work is only words, as in philosophy. And sorry, the reference to context doesn't solve that problem, it only complicates it because it increases the amount of words that need interpretation. Only an actual, factual context, as in physical reality, can dissolve ambiguities finally.
Interesting argument there.
I do agree in part, except that I draw the boundary elsewhere. Where you see the split at the universities, I see the split where philosophy moved away from science. As metaphysics (the term I choose for science-oriented philosophy, maybe a better term would be meta-science) it is the core and structure of the scientific method and everything that comes from that.
Modern philosophy, however, is an abomination. I've read a couple of the most lauded 20th century philosophers. They're no smarter than your average kid, they can just express themselves in more interesting and complicated sentences so that you never quite really know what they're talking about and it all sounds very intelligent and deep.
Popper, for example, had about three really meaningful sentences in all his books I've read and if you look for what his arguments are based on you almost always find that the foundation is - other arguments of his. And that's typical.
But taking your example, I do hold that the core ideas of the US constitution are pretty silly. For starters, "all men are created equal" is provably false. First, men aren't created. Two, they aren't equal, neither at start nor later on. Ignoring the differences between men is the source of quite a lot of troubles in this world.
But that's the problem: The founding fathers had a pretty good idea of what exactly they meant. But they didn't write down what they meant, they couldn't because meaning is unspeakable, in the words of Korzybski. They wrote down a verbal representation of the meaning. But that mapping isn't 1:1, there are multiple meanings that can be expressed with the same verbal representation, and multiple verbal representations to express the same meaning.