Well, the Christian god is classically understood to be perfect, omniscient and omnipotent - if he isn't he's reduced to the status of a hyper-advanced meddling alien.
I doubt very much the ID/Creationism crew would welcome their relegation to kook UFO-nut status, right?
That's an interesting thought, but what you're positing here seems to be:
Humankind is not the pinnacle of creation (which contravenes an unspoken assumption of the majority of the Creationist/ID proponents). We are (or bits of us are) in fact an earlier design that was cannibalised to make other (classically "lower") animals.
God reuses designs, and is quite content to incrementally improve things. Important note - it's therefore unlikely that God is infallible and omniscient, or he wouldn't need to incrementally "upgrade" things he's already designed.
At this stage we have a process whereby simple creatures are initially created by a non-omniscient force. The creatures then develop and increase in complexity and give rise to humans, although humans are (admittedly) not the aim or ultimate end of the process.
Employing Occams Razor, how is this different to evolution? And falling back to the idea that "God works in mysterious ways" is bunk - it's simply papering over the cracks in your argument by defining something as "unknowable" on no evidence whatsoever.
"What are the chances for life to live on this earth? If it were too cool, or too warm, all species would be extinct. A little closer- or farther from the sun, *poof*. A little more of this gas, or that, or different weights in the forces."
Logical fallacy.
If conditions were even slightly different at any point in the history of the universe, all current species would be extinct. You can't say our current ecosystem contains all possible species for every possible set of environmental conditions and physical laws, so you can't say that no life would exist, merely that our current form(s) of life wouldn't.
We evolved in these conditions - it's no surprise that we're extraordinarily tightly bound to them. You're confusing cause and effect.
For another example, riffle through a pack of cards and pick one. Put it back and do it again. You pick the four of clubs, followed by the ace of hearts. So what?
So what? At this point, the four of clubs is looking around and thinking "Wow, what are the odds, eh? The chances of me and Ace here existing are 1 in two thousand and four!. Yeah, but the chance of "two cards being picked" is pretty much 1:1 (leaving aside the possibilities of spontaneous combustion or weird quantum tunneling effects half-way through;-)
You're looking around, assuming this is the only way "life" could possibly ever evolve, and positing the fluke was down to an intelligent creator.
First off, we still don't have a complete understanding of what even constitutes "life", so you can't claim a definite conclusion of any kind. All you can do is construct theories, using rational, logical inference and falsifiable hypotheses.
Secondly, it could well be that "life" is merely an emergent property of a sufficiently complex organisation of matter left for a long enough time, in which case the chances of life appearing in the universe would be about 1:1.
Short answer: Science teaches us to adopt the leading falsifiable hypothesis only until a better one comes along. In other words, keep investigating, and don't ever assume you know the complete answer.
Religion teaches us unsubstantiated irrational heresay from thousands of years before the scientific method, and expects us to treat it as the final answer. In other words, shut up, sit down and stop asking awkward questions.
"I just know that there is a Big Mind behind it all."
No, you think there's a Big Mind behind it all. This is the central point of ID/creationism/religious zealotry of all types - a complete inability to differentiate between "know", "believe, based on the preponderance of evidence" and "believe, with no evidence whatsoever to support your conclusion".
I have no problem with someone believing whatever they like - it's when they mistake that for "knowing" and attempt to force their own irrational beliefs on others that I feel compelled to stand up.
"Then what's the point arguing about it? Like ants arguing about the demi-god roaming around the garden making large craters.."
Amen to that - it's essentially unknowable, so it's not science, but philosophy. If Creationists/ID-proponents wanted religion discussed in Philosophy I'd have no problem.
"Funny to hear this when the consensus is that Apple will be using TCPA features in the next version of OS X to prevent it from being run on commodity hardware."
It's not all that amusing - that's exactly the reason I won't be buying an Apple machine any time soon. Not even an iPod - it's the principle.
"Secure audio path and Windows Media DRM are *already* a part of XP."
Yes, but they aren't effectively uncrackable until they're part of the hardware, too. All the time they're in software they can be broken with software or hardware hacks. Once it's ensconced in a hardware chipset we're in trouble - know of any good CPU-hacking tools that'll turn off DRM without buggering up your chip?
"I never got the Slashdot paranoia over DRM. It should be the laws that mandate DRM or make circumvention illegal that we should be against."
This is a point. However, allowing DRM on your system then just campaigning to stop it being abused presupposes you assume your campaigning will be successful, and that Big Media won't start denying your Fair Use rights and abusing their new-found power before the campaign wins.
FWIW, they're already abusing their power, and do you honestly believe they'll voluntarily give it up any time soon?
I can't see any realistic near-future situation in which DRM is both ubiquitous and not horribly abused by those holding the keys.
In addition, it's my computer, dammit. When Big Media pays £1000 to buy me a general-purpose computing device, then they can tell me what to play on it, how to play it and when to upgrade my fucking monitor...
(Many apologies, incidentally, but I didn't intend to get personal).
Funnily enough I seem to believe in (and rail against) many of the same things as you do - the erosion of personal responsibility, the problem of the "nanny state" mentality and the prohibition of victimless "crimes".
However, where we disagree is in how to rectify the problem.
I'd love a world where everyone could be thrown back on his own moral code, and was only punished if he brought harm to others. Unfortunately, I don't believe we (the modern western meta-culture) are anywhere close to reliable enough to do that.
I find (even in daily life) that the vast majority of people are simply too thoughtless, selfish, lacking in empathy or over-confident of their own abilities. This is partly due to the fact that they have been positively encouraged to hand over responsibility for their actions to the government, media or the latest trendy excuse for the last few decades, but I simply don't believe this can be reversed by simply instituting a "nothing is prohibited... but you break it, you pay for it" rule now. I think the sudden imposition of this kind of system would just lead to escalating injuries, deaths and economic ruin from the lawsuits involved.
I'd love it if we could turn the current trend around with the aim of ultimately instituting this kind of system, but I think that would take decades, at least, before people were ready for it.
Because of this I'm happy to rail against truly victimless crimes like prostitution, drug "abuse"[1] and the like, but I draw the line at complaining about laws which protect me from someone else's stupidity.
[1] Pet hate - the term "drug abuse". If someone takes cocaine, cannabis, acid or ecstacy, it's to get high, hence they're using it. I don't know what "drug abuse" would be, but probably "taking antibiotics to get high", or "stuffing cannabis up your ass".
Nope. Actually informed interviewer means someone with more than a passing familiarity with the topics covered, so they can tell when they've been brushed off, ask follow-up questions and cut through marketing bollocks to interesting information.
Real person means someone who answers the question, and isn't afraid to be honest. Perhaps you misunderstand my position, but the emphasis on that was on "real person", not "from MS" (the italics give a handy clue). Press Flacks (from any company) regurgitating their briefing notes are not real people, they're drones. And interviews with them are not interviews, they're stealth press releases.
"Actually answer the questions" means answer the bloody question they were asked, without prevaricating, dodgy the question or deliberately obscuring the issue. For example, from TFA:
Q. "So why do you think the ideals of open source... have appealed to so many people? Do you think it's more about people taking an anti-Microsoft stance?
This is a pretty interesting question, and one I'd like to hear the MS view on. Instead of an answer, though, we get an unnecessary query on the definition of "people" (here's a clue, the people he's talking about are the ones who are experimenting with OSS who never did before), a dodging of the first question ("at the end of the day, people want to deploy technology to solve business problems, be it Windows, Linux, BSD and so on", which was not the question), and an nice paragraph or so muddying the waters on what exactly constitutes "open source" (here's a clue guys - it's when the source code is freely available, unencumbered by non-trivial costs, licences and NDAs).
"With any reasonable complex issue people are going to have varying opinions. You would fall into the Linux side, and as such anything MS does is evil and wrong."
Nice try, but no. I don't run a Linux box at home or at work (although I am considering trying it). I have three Windows XP machines at home, and one at work. I use MS Office at work.
I don't know where you got the idea I was some raving Linux-obsessed fanboy, but you really should stop jumping to conclusions you have no evidence whatsoever to support. You'll note that in my original post I was complaining about the lightweight press-release interview style, not the fact is was "M1cr05oF7 cu4se t3hy aRe t3h suXX0rZ!!!!111!!!".
"People from the MS side clearly also view anything the Linux side does as evil and wrong."
Yeah, and if they actually gave a single truthful reason as to why maybe we could have a dialogue between the two camps. Unfortunately it's impossible to start a discussion between two people when one of them keeps claiming there is no disagreement while stabbing the other in the back.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of Linux fanboys out there bitching on forums and stirring up bad feeling too, but the people who actually "manage" Linux are generally quite approachable.
"The only thing that you can expect is that posting on Slashdot about Linux being great and MS sucking is a sure way to get karma."
Read the post again, fuckwit. Those words (or sentiments) never passed my lips (or fingers). Not once was Linux even mentioned ("open source as a concept" != "Linux"), and I was pissed because the "interview" was nothing more than a conent-free opportunity for a press flack to regurgitate the company line, with a couple of "hard" questions thrown in (and subsequently ignored) to make it look good. Boring, sterile and worthless.
Yeah, but I'd like to hear some kind of justification that stood up to informed questioning for more than 0.002 seconds, is all.
Unfortunately, the only person likely to actually know all the details under the BS is Bill, and he's hardly likely to make himself available for much apart from stage-managed press "events".
Granted, but I understood the question was about the relatively recent influx of many people outside Linux's natural demographic.
"Why do so many Linux developers like developing for Linux" is a stupid question - "Why have so many non-hackers suddenly started getting excited about (and defecting to) Linux" is an interesting one.
That said, the interviewer's hardly grilling the MS press flack so it's entirely possible you're right.
However, he still tries to redefine the ideals and approach of "open source" a few lines later, and those were explicitly defined in the question.
Q. "So why do you think the ideals of open source... have appealed to so many people?"
A. "Taylor: Well, first you have to define "people"... And what is open source? It is interesting in how you define it..."
How shifty is that?
People: Human beings. Open-source: Access to all the source-code for the application, such that you can copy it for no more than a negligible fee, and compile useful applications with it.
So, simple answer, MS "Shared Source" is not open source and people don't like that, but watch the frantic handwaving and redefinitions so he can avoid saying that.
Most telling bit of the article:
Q. "But software patents have been criticized for interfering in software development. Do Microsoft software developers worry about infringing on patents when they develop a piece of software?"
A. "From a software perspective, we don't think the patent system is perfect... But when I look at the software industry today, we've been getting a lot of innovation from Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Adobe, the list goes on..."
Yeah. In other words, patents encourage large corporations, and effectively lock out the little guy or smaller, independant ISVs. But again, watch the careful sidestepping of the obvious conclusion. Just once I'd like to see a real interview, between an informed interviewer and a real person from MS who actually answers questions. Or failing that, flying pigs over my house and a hunk of green moon-cheese for breakfast.
Just more uninformed blathering and semantic tapdancing from Yet Another MS Press Flack - redefining terms to avoid outright lying and regurgitating the same old crap we've all heard before.
I'm not being rude here, but I don't think you have much understanding of the way XUL works - it's a massive improvement to IE's plugins and dlls architecture, and makes it unbelievably easy to do things that in a Visual C++ DLL for IE would be a major headache.
Leaving that aside, even an incremental improvement (and XUL is/was a huge improvement) can be innovative - desktop computers had been around since the Altaire 800, but that doesn't mean the first Macintosh wasn't innovative. If things have to be genuinely unprecedented to be "innovative", then pretty much the only real innovation in the computing inductry was in Xerox PARC in the '70s... <:-/
Claiming "extension" isn't an innovation is so broad as to be meaningless - the important innovation is in the method, simplicity and power of creating them.
The point not whether "anyone will" actually create Firefox extensions, but that "vastly more people can" if they put their minds to it.
Lack of user-interest doesn't make it un-innovative - the innovation is in making it possible for them, not in making it so fascinating that they can't bear not to.
In other news, teddy bears are "wrong" because it's theoretically possible to trip over on one and break your neck.
You can construct a situation where anything has negative consequences - that doesn't make the thing bad.
Besides, points 1 and 3 are identical, and both they and point 3 is both unlikely and can be avoided by using protection, so it's hardly an intrinsic part of sex these days. Point 4 has nothing to do with "sex", and everything to do with "understanding yourself and not making bad choices".
Ok, how about we satisfy your pedanticism and state "There's no more wrong with sex than with practically any other abstract concept or action, and significantly less than most".
Fun Victimless Generally permitted by society Not likely to carry a hefty prison sentance Hard-wired into our genes by millions of years of evolution
and murder isn't.
In other news, games involving graphic paedophilia are legal (because it's not, statistically, common), and games involving breathing are banned (Eek! Everyone's doing it! Those games must be influencing people! Won't somebody think of the children???).
I know it's bad form to feed the trolls, but nevertheless...
"Since when did we start punishing people for attempted "wrong doing" anyhow? If someone speeds and hurts no one, who exactly is the victim?"
Ummm, forever. Maybe this is a UK/US thing, but over here we've always punished someone for attempting to break the law, regardless of whether they succeed or not. Printed up a bunch of banknotes but haven't distributed them before you get caught? Go to jail. Tried to kill someone but they survivied? Go to jail. Tried to have sex with a minor but they escaped? Go to jail.
I don't think you thought that statement out fully.
"If someone speeds and hurts no one, who exactly is the victim?"
No-one. That time. But by allowing people to drive at whatever speed they like means you'll get a whole lot of victims along the second you relax the restriction.
If one person once shits once behind a tree in the park, nobody cares too much. But if everybody shat in the park all the time, you've got a park full of shit that nobody wants to go to.
Like it or not, some people are stupid, overconfident, thoughtless or just don't give a shit. When one overconfident pillock in a car can plough into a bus stop and kill multiple people, you don't even need the majority to be like this - even a small number of regular incidents means it's not safe to walk anywhere anymore.
"Sure, in theory it may cut down on the wreckless driving. But I seriously doubt it."
Why? You provide no evidence whatsoever to support your position. Proper trolling procedure is to provide at least a confusinglly misleading justification for people to argue about...
"Much more likely is that this prevalent attitude of prevention will stifle individual and society development."
Ok, it was at this point you were clearly trolling. Ability to speed == personal enlightenment?
ROTFL.
And, given you're arguing your right to put other people's lives at risk, with no way for them to object short of throwing themselves in front of your car so you get punished, I'm damn glad we aren't relying on your personal morals.
"Any intelligent person knows when they are driving dangerously."
Parse that carefully. "Intelligent" generally means of above-average intellect. By definition, then, not everyone is "intelligent". Again, by definition "everyone" can't be "above average" - in fact, (allowing for some people who are exactly average) only a minority are then "intelligent".
And some of those are drunk. Or stoned. Or over-tired. Or in a rush. Or unobservant. Etc. Etc. Etc.
"If someone screws up, *that* is when you should punish them. There will no longer be true consequences, but only premonitions (much like Minority Report). And those that do drive wreckless? They will do it *still*."
Yep, as will all those people with any respect for the law, who don't speed now because they're afraid of being caught. What you're doing is basically taking away all the deterrent factor the law has, and turning it into some kind of after-the-fact "eye for an eye" revenge punishment. You hurt someone? You'll get punished. You put several people's lives in terrible jeopardy, but managed to get away with it throught sheer dumb luck? No problem, you'll get off scot-free.
Everyone speeds, but you know what? The level I speed at is related to the official speed limit on that road, because I don't want to hit that magic point where a small fine and 3 points on your license becomes a much more serious punishment. Hence, though I'm not sticking to the limit, it is doing its job - namely, stopping me going as fast as I otherwise might.
As for where you get "there will no longer be true consequences, but only premonitions (much like Minority Report)"... well, I have no idea. How is only punishing people after the fact supposed to usher in a magical fairyland fascist
Entire replacement shells != Extensions to the existing shell Compiled binary IE plugins != Script-based FF extensions
The reason Extensions are so wildly popular is that they're essentially plain-text scripts and markup, whereas IE extensions are mostly compiled DLL files. This makes the barrier to entry for FF extension programming very low, whereas you have to be pretty handy with Visual C++ to even contemplate writing an IE extension. This allows anyone to more easily customise their browser, vs needing to be a professional-level developer to do it.
With FF extensions you can (IIRC) inspect most of the UI code to see how it works, and can generate basic (but professional-looking) extensions in minutes, with notepad. Writing IE plugins pretty much requires Visual C++, a fair bit of experience, and lots more time. Because it's written in C/C++ (non-managed code) it's also a hell of a lot easier to leak memory or crash the browser in an IE plugin (again, IIRC).
Maxthon, as I understand it, is a complete replacement shell - it uses the CWebBrowser ActiveX control like IE does, but I it's more of a replacement for IE than an extension to it.
Yes.
You're using RSS and an RSS Feed reader to avoid as many adverts as you can, and increase the amount of interesting, informative content you see.
This is exactly what the quote meant.
"That's about as built in as the sex in San Andreas or unlocking Ein in Dead or Alive, there is no way to get to it without knowing exactly what you're doing in the first place."
You appear to be using a different definition of "built-in" from the rest of us. We use it to describe functionality that's available with no additional downloads or installations. You seem to be using it as a synonym for "staring you right in the face".
<Inigo> You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. </Inigo>
"Once again, this is stuff that should be set up in your options to begin with, not unlocked by knowing what option to change a bigass list of options."
Why, exactly? Why should Firefox default to exactly the settings you like? What about the millions of inexperienced IE users who even now are initially confused by advances like tabbed browsing, and want it to work simply and understandably out-of-the-box?
The really big upturn in Firefox's adoption rate came when the developers weren't afraid to design for the stupidest user. Rare or unusual settings are hidden to avoid confusing people, and for the more 1337 there are the hidden preferences, which can be discovered with about 0.94 seconds' Googling.
Your problem appears to be that you want power users' control with idiot-level instructions, and you're eternally going to be frustrated on that score.
Of course, Firefox could indeed be made easier to use and configure, but with the built-in options alone it's already more powerful than pretty much any other browser out there.
Finally, part of the reason for Extensions is to put power back into the hands of the users, to come up with stuff the Mozilla developers didn't, wouldn't or couldn't think of. Popular extension functionality (IIRC) is even considered for folding into later versions of the "main" Firefox build, so your arguments are more that Firefox isn't developing fast enough in exactly the direction you want, rather than a genuine fault with Firefox...
No they didn't. I don't know what you're smoking, but (IIRC) IE is still stuck back in the days of Plugins/ActiveX Controls - it hasn't got anything like a decent Extensions architecture yet (and likely, due to the lack of control for MS, never will).
The progression of developments was roughly: Helper Apps (Mosaic, NS 1.?, etc) Plugins (NS 2+?) ActiveX Controls (IE 3?-6) Extensions (Firefox)
Clever trolls ensnare people in an argument they didn't even realise they were getting into. Bad trolls post flamebait indiscriminately in the hope that anyone will be offended enough to respond.
Dvorak is a bad troll, who unfortunately succeeds because of his high-prestige job as a technical "journalist".
If he wasn't paid to write for PC Mag (or whoever) he'd be living down the bus station in a scruffy mac shouting incomprehensibly at pigeons, and no-one would listen to a bloody word he said.
And everyone would be that little bit happier and better-informed.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly - you can never know, and that's why pushing ID as Science is bunk. Keep it in Philosophy where it belongs.
Well, the Christian god is classically understood to be perfect, omniscient and omnipotent - if he isn't he's reduced to the status of a hyper-advanced meddling alien.
I doubt very much the ID/Creationism crew would welcome their relegation to kook UFO-nut status, right?
That's an interesting thought, but what you're positing here seems to be:
Humankind is not the pinnacle of creation (which contravenes an unspoken assumption of the majority of the Creationist/ID proponents). We are (or bits of us are) in fact an earlier design that was cannibalised to make other (classically "lower") animals.
God reuses designs, and is quite content to incrementally improve things. Important note - it's therefore unlikely that God is infallible and omniscient, or he wouldn't need to incrementally "upgrade" things he's already designed.
At this stage we have a process whereby simple creatures are initially created by a non-omniscient force. The creatures then develop and increase in complexity and give rise to humans, although humans are (admittedly) not the aim or ultimate end of the process.
Employing Occams Razor, how is this different to evolution? And falling back to the idea that "God works in mysterious ways" is bunk - it's simply papering over the cracks in your argument by defining something as "unknowable" on no evidence whatsoever.
"What are the chances for life to live on this earth? If it were too cool, or too warm, all species would be extinct. A little closer- or farther from the sun, *poof*. A little more of this gas, or that, or different weights in the forces."
;-)
Logical fallacy.
If conditions were even slightly different at any point in the history of the universe, all current species would be extinct. You can't say our current ecosystem contains all possible species for every possible set of environmental conditions and physical laws, so you can't say that no life would exist, merely that our current form(s) of life wouldn't.
We evolved in these conditions - it's no surprise that we're extraordinarily tightly bound to them. You're confusing cause and effect.
For another example, riffle through a pack of cards and pick one. Put it back and do it again. You pick the four of clubs, followed by the ace of hearts. So what?
So what? At this point, the four of clubs is looking around and thinking "Wow, what are the odds, eh? The chances of me and Ace here existing are 1 in two thousand and four!. Yeah, but the chance of "two cards being picked" is pretty much 1:1 (leaving aside the possibilities of spontaneous combustion or weird quantum tunneling effects half-way through
You're looking around, assuming this is the only way "life" could possibly ever evolve, and positing the fluke was down to an intelligent creator.
First off, we still don't have a complete understanding of what even constitutes "life", so you can't claim a definite conclusion of any kind. All you can do is construct theories, using rational, logical inference and falsifiable hypotheses.
Secondly, it could well be that "life" is merely an emergent property of a sufficiently complex organisation of matter left for a long enough time, in which case the chances of life appearing in the universe would be about 1:1.
Short answer: Science teaches us to adopt the leading falsifiable hypothesis only until a better one comes along. In other words, keep investigating, and don't ever assume you know the complete answer.
Religion teaches us unsubstantiated irrational heresay from thousands of years before the scientific method, and expects us to treat it as the final answer. In other words, shut up, sit down and stop asking awkward questions.
"I just know that there is a Big Mind behind it all."
No, you think there's a Big Mind behind it all. This is the central point of ID/creationism/religious zealotry of all types - a complete inability to differentiate between "know", "believe, based on the preponderance of evidence" and "believe, with no evidence whatsoever to support your conclusion".
I have no problem with someone believing whatever they like - it's when they mistake that for "knowing" and attempt to force their own irrational beliefs on others that I feel compelled to stand up.
"Then what's the point arguing about it? Like ants arguing about the demi-god roaming around the garden making large craters.."
Amen to that - it's essentially unknowable, so it's not science, but philosophy. If Creationists/ID-proponents wanted religion discussed in Philosophy I'd have no problem.
I certainly hope so, since after you drink it you'll have a hard time not producing derivative works...
"Funny to hear this when the consensus is that Apple will be using TCPA features in the next version of OS X to prevent it from being run on commodity hardware."
It's not all that amusing - that's exactly the reason I won't be buying an Apple machine any time soon. Not even an iPod - it's the principle.
"Secure audio path and Windows Media DRM are *already* a part of XP."
Yes, but they aren't effectively uncrackable until they're part of the hardware, too. All the time they're in software they can be broken with software or hardware hacks. Once it's ensconced in a hardware chipset we're in trouble - know of any good CPU-hacking tools that'll turn off DRM without buggering up your chip?
"I never got the Slashdot paranoia over DRM. It should be the laws that mandate DRM or make circumvention illegal that we should be against."
This is a point. However, allowing DRM on your system then just campaigning to stop it being abused presupposes you assume your campaigning will be successful, and that Big Media won't start denying your Fair Use rights and abusing their new-found power before the campaign wins.
FWIW, they're already abusing their power, and do you honestly believe they'll voluntarily give it up any time soon?
I can't see any realistic near-future situation in which DRM is both ubiquitous and not horribly abused by those holding the keys.
In addition, it's my computer, dammit. When Big Media pays £1000 to buy me a general-purpose computing device, then they can tell me what to play on it, how to play it and when to upgrade my fucking monitor...
I like that, and it even fits in with the recent MS naming system:
Windows NT
Windows XP
Windows DRM
Well, I'm going to start calling it that - I wonder how far we can spread the meme before it's finally launched?
Yeah. Why not just call it Windows Eyecandy and have done with it?
Now you're talking!
(Many apologies, incidentally, but I didn't intend to get personal).
Funnily enough I seem to believe in (and rail against) many of the same things as you do - the erosion of personal responsibility, the problem of the "nanny state" mentality and the prohibition of victimless "crimes".
However, where we disagree is in how to rectify the problem.
I'd love a world where everyone could be thrown back on his own moral code, and was only punished if he brought harm to others. Unfortunately, I don't believe we (the modern western meta-culture) are anywhere close to reliable enough to do that.
I find (even in daily life) that the vast majority of people are simply too thoughtless, selfish, lacking in empathy or over-confident of their own abilities. This is partly due to the fact that they have been positively encouraged to hand over responsibility for their actions to the government, media or the latest trendy excuse for the last few decades, but I simply don't believe this can be reversed by simply instituting a "nothing is prohibited... but you break it, you pay for it" rule now. I think the sudden imposition of this kind of system would just lead to escalating injuries, deaths and economic ruin from the lawsuits involved.
I'd love it if we could turn the current trend around with the aim of ultimately instituting this kind of system, but I think that would take decades, at least, before people were ready for it.
Because of this I'm happy to rail against truly victimless crimes like prostitution, drug "abuse"[1] and the like, but I draw the line at complaining about laws which protect me from someone else's stupidity.
[1] Pet hate - the term "drug abuse". If someone takes cocaine, cannabis, acid or ecstacy, it's to get high, hence they're using it. I don't know what "drug abuse" would be, but probably "taking antibiotics to get high", or "stuffing cannabis up your ass".
Nope. Actually informed interviewer means someone with more than a passing familiarity with the topics covered, so they can tell when they've been brushed off, ask follow-up questions and cut through marketing bollocks to interesting information.
Real person means someone who answers the question, and isn't afraid to be honest. Perhaps you misunderstand my position, but the emphasis on that was on "real person", not "from MS" (the italics give a handy clue). Press Flacks (from any company) regurgitating their briefing notes are not real people, they're drones. And interviews with them are not interviews, they're stealth press releases.
"Actually answer the questions" means answer the bloody question they were asked, without prevaricating, dodgy the question or deliberately obscuring the issue. For example, from TFA:
Q. "So why do you think the ideals of open source... have appealed to so many people? Do you think it's more about people taking an anti-Microsoft stance?
This is a pretty interesting question, and one I'd like to hear the MS view on. Instead of an answer, though, we get an unnecessary query on the definition of "people" (here's a clue, the people he's talking about are the ones who are experimenting with OSS who never did before), a dodging of the first question ("at the end of the day, people want to deploy technology to solve business problems, be it Windows, Linux, BSD and so on", which was not the question), and an nice paragraph or so muddying the waters on what exactly constitutes "open source" (here's a clue guys - it's when the source code is freely available, unencumbered by non-trivial costs, licences and NDAs).
"With any reasonable complex issue people are going to have varying opinions. You would fall into the Linux side, and as such anything MS does is evil and wrong."
Nice try, but no. I don't run a Linux box at home or at work (although I am considering trying it). I have three Windows XP machines at home, and one at work. I use MS Office at work.
I don't know where you got the idea I was some raving Linux-obsessed fanboy, but you really should stop jumping to conclusions you have no evidence whatsoever to support. You'll note that in my original post I was complaining about the lightweight press-release interview style, not the fact is was "M1cr05oF7 cu4se t3hy aRe t3h suXX0rZ!!!!111!!!".
"People from the MS side clearly also view anything the Linux side does as evil and wrong."
Yeah, and if they actually gave a single truthful reason as to why maybe we could have a dialogue between the two camps. Unfortunately it's impossible to start a discussion between two people when one of them keeps claiming there is no disagreement while stabbing the other in the back.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of Linux fanboys out there bitching on forums and stirring up bad feeling too, but the people who actually "manage" Linux are generally quite approachable.
"The only thing that you can expect is that posting on Slashdot about Linux being great and MS sucking is a sure way to get karma."
Read the post again, fuckwit. Those words (or sentiments) never passed my lips (or fingers). Not once was Linux even mentioned ("open source as a concept" != "Linux"), and I was pissed because the "interview" was nothing more than a conent-free opportunity for a press flack to regurgitate the company line, with a couple of "hard" questions thrown in (and subsequently ignored) to make it look good. Boring, sterile and worthless.
Did you even read the article?
Yeah, but I'd like to hear some kind of justification that stood up to informed questioning for more than 0.002 seconds, is all.
Unfortunately, the only person likely to actually know all the details under the BS is Bill, and he's hardly likely to make himself available for much apart from stage-managed press "events".
Granted, but I understood the question was about the relatively recent influx of many people outside Linux's natural demographic.
"Why do so many Linux developers like developing for Linux" is a stupid question - "Why have so many non-hackers suddenly started getting excited about (and defecting to) Linux" is an interesting one.
That said, the interviewer's hardly grilling the MS press flack so it's entirely possible you're right.
However, he still tries to redefine the ideals and approach of "open source" a few lines later, and those were explicitly defined in the question.
Hey, at least I have chicken.
Well, it depends how you define "means"... ;-p
Tippety-tap, tippety-tap
My favourite bit of the article:
Q. "So why do you think the ideals of open source... have appealed to so many people?"
A. "Taylor: Well, first you have to define "people"... And what is open source? It is interesting in how you define it..."
How shifty is that?
People: Human beings.
Open-source: Access to all the source-code for the application, such that you can copy it for no more than a negligible fee, and compile useful applications with it.
So, simple answer, MS "Shared Source" is not open source and people don't like that, but watch the frantic handwaving and redefinitions so he can avoid saying that.
Most telling bit of the article:
Q. "But software patents have been criticized for interfering in software development. Do Microsoft software developers worry about infringing on patents when they develop a piece of software?"
A. "From a software perspective, we don't think the patent system is perfect... But when I look at the software industry today, we've been getting a lot of innovation from Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Adobe, the list goes on..."
Yeah. In other words, patents encourage large corporations, and effectively lock out the little guy or smaller, independant ISVs. But again, watch the careful sidestepping of the obvious conclusion. Just once I'd like to see a real interview, between an informed interviewer and a real person from MS who actually answers questions. Or failing that, flying pigs over my house and a hunk of green moon-cheese for breakfast.
Just more uninformed blathering and semantic tapdancing from Yet Another MS Press Flack - redefining terms to avoid outright lying and regurgitating the same old crap we've all heard before.
Sigh.
Wow - you should really fire your webmaster.
p x?PDA=false&javascript=False&cookies=False&browser Version=5&browserType=Firefox, with no chance to bail out, and nowhere to go from there.
Every time I hit that link I get seamlessly redirected to http://www.weightwatchers.com/siteRequirements.as
And yes, cookies are turned on.
What shitty site-design.
I'm not being rude here, but I don't think you have much understanding of the way XUL works - it's a massive improvement to IE's plugins and dlls architecture, and makes it unbelievably easy to do things that in a Visual C++ DLL for IE would be a major headache.
Leaving that aside, even an incremental improvement (and XUL is/was a huge improvement) can be innovative - desktop computers had been around since the Altaire 800, but that doesn't mean the first Macintosh wasn't innovative. If things have to be genuinely unprecedented to be "innovative", then pretty much the only real innovation in the computing inductry was in Xerox PARC in the '70s... <:-/
Claiming "extension" isn't an innovation is so broad as to be meaningless - the important innovation is in the method, simplicity and power of creating them.
The point not whether "anyone will" actually create Firefox extensions, but that "vastly more people can" if they put their minds to it.
Lack of user-interest doesn't make it un-innovative - the innovation is in making it possible for them, not in making it so fascinating that they can't bear not to.
In other news, teddy bears are "wrong" because it's theoretically possible to trip over on one and break your neck.
You can construct a situation where anything has negative consequences - that doesn't make the thing bad.
Besides, points 1 and 3 are identical, and both they and point 3 is both unlikely and can be avoided by using protection, so it's hardly an intrinsic part of sex these days. Point 4 has nothing to do with "sex", and everything to do with "understanding yourself and not making bad choices".
Ok, how about we satisfy your pedanticism and state "There's no more wrong with sex than with practically any other abstract concept or action, and significantly less than most".
Happy now?
Or, you know, sex is:
Fun
Victimless
Generally permitted by society
Not likely to carry a hefty prison sentance
Hard-wired into our genes by millions of years of evolution
and murder isn't.
In other news, games involving graphic paedophilia are legal (because it's not, statistically, common), and games involving breathing are banned (Eek! Everyone's doing it! Those games must be influencing people! Won't somebody think of the children???).
I know it's bad form to feed the trolls, but nevertheless...
"Since when did we start punishing people for attempted "wrong doing" anyhow? If someone speeds and hurts no one, who exactly is the victim?"
Ummm, forever. Maybe this is a UK/US thing, but over here we've always punished someone for attempting to break the law, regardless of whether they succeed or not. Printed up a bunch of banknotes but haven't distributed them before you get caught? Go to jail. Tried to kill someone but they survivied? Go to jail. Tried to have sex with a minor but they escaped? Go to jail.
I don't think you thought that statement out fully.
"If someone speeds and hurts no one, who exactly is the victim?"
No-one. That time. But by allowing people to drive at whatever speed they like means you'll get a whole lot of victims along the second you relax the restriction.
If one person once shits once behind a tree in the park, nobody cares too much. But if everybody shat in the park all the time, you've got a park full of shit that nobody wants to go to.
Like it or not, some people are stupid, overconfident, thoughtless or just don't give a shit. When one overconfident pillock in a car can plough into a bus stop and kill multiple people, you don't even need the majority to be like this - even a small number of regular incidents means it's not safe to walk anywhere anymore.
"Sure, in theory it may cut down on the wreckless driving. But I seriously doubt it."
Why? You provide no evidence whatsoever to support your position. Proper trolling procedure is to provide at least a confusinglly misleading justification for people to argue about...
"Much more likely is that this prevalent attitude of prevention will stifle individual and society development."
Ok, it was at this point you were clearly trolling. Ability to speed == personal enlightenment?
ROTFL.
And, given you're arguing your right to put other people's lives at risk, with no way for them to object short of throwing themselves in front of your car so you get punished, I'm damn glad we aren't relying on your personal morals.
"Any intelligent person knows when they are driving dangerously."
Parse that carefully. "Intelligent" generally means of above-average intellect. By definition, then, not everyone is "intelligent". Again, by definition "everyone" can't be "above average" - in fact, (allowing for some people who are exactly average) only a minority are then "intelligent".
And some of those are drunk. Or stoned. Or over-tired. Or in a rush. Or unobservant. Etc. Etc. Etc.
"If someone screws up, *that* is when you should punish them. There will no longer be true consequences, but only premonitions (much like Minority Report). And those that do drive wreckless? They will do it *still*."
Yep, as will all those people with any respect for the law, who don't speed now because they're afraid of being caught. What you're doing is basically taking away all the deterrent factor the law has, and turning it into some kind of after-the-fact "eye for an eye" revenge punishment. You hurt someone? You'll get punished. You put several people's lives in terrible jeopardy, but managed to get away with it throught sheer dumb luck? No problem, you'll get off scot-free.
Everyone speeds, but you know what? The level I speed at is related to the official speed limit on that road, because I don't want to hit that magic point where a small fine and 3 points on your license becomes a much more serious punishment. Hence, though I'm not sticking to the limit, it is doing its job - namely, stopping me going as fast as I otherwise might.
As for where you get "there will no longer be true consequences, but only premonitions (much like Minority Report)"... well, I have no idea. How is only punishing people after the fact supposed to usher in a magical fairyland fascist
Entire replacement shells != Extensions to the existing shell
Compiled binary IE plugins != Script-based FF extensions
The reason Extensions are so wildly popular is that they're essentially plain-text scripts and markup, whereas IE extensions are mostly compiled DLL files. This makes the barrier to entry for FF extension programming very low, whereas you have to be pretty handy with Visual C++ to even contemplate writing an IE extension. This allows anyone to more easily customise their browser, vs needing to be a professional-level developer to do it.
With FF extensions you can (IIRC) inspect most of the UI code to see how it works, and can generate basic (but professional-looking) extensions in minutes, with notepad. Writing IE plugins pretty much requires Visual C++, a fair bit of experience, and lots more time. Because it's written in C/C++ (non-managed code) it's also a hell of a lot easier to leak memory or crash the browser in an IE plugin (again, IIRC).
Maxthon, as I understand it, is a complete replacement shell - it uses the CWebBrowser ActiveX control like IE does, but I it's more of a replacement for IE than an extension to it.
Yes. You're using RSS and an RSS Feed reader to avoid as many adverts as you can, and increase the amount of interesting, informative content you see. This is exactly what the quote meant.
"That's about as built in as the sex in San Andreas or unlocking Ein in Dead or Alive, there is no way to get to it without knowing exactly what you're doing in the first place."
You appear to be using a different definition of "built-in" from the rest of us. We use it to describe functionality that's available with no additional downloads or installations. You seem to be using it as a synonym for "staring you right in the face".
<Inigo>
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
</Inigo>
"Once again, this is stuff that should be set up in your options to begin with, not unlocked by knowing what option to change a bigass list of options."
Why, exactly? Why should Firefox default to exactly the settings you like? What about the millions of inexperienced IE users who even now are initially confused by advances like tabbed browsing, and want it to work simply and understandably out-of-the-box?
The really big upturn in Firefox's adoption rate came when the developers weren't afraid to design for the stupidest user. Rare or unusual settings are hidden to avoid confusing people, and for the more 1337 there are the hidden preferences, which can be discovered with about 0.94 seconds' Googling.
Your problem appears to be that you want power users' control with idiot-level instructions, and you're eternally going to be frustrated on that score.
Of course, Firefox could indeed be made easier to use and configure, but with the built-in options alone it's already more powerful than pretty much any other browser out there.
Finally, part of the reason for Extensions is to put power back into the hands of the users, to come up with stuff the Mozilla developers didn't, wouldn't or couldn't think of. Popular extension functionality (IIRC) is even considered for folding into later versions of the "main" Firefox build, so your arguments are more that Firefox isn't developing fast enough in exactly the direction you want, rather than a genuine fault with Firefox...
No they didn't. I don't know what you're smoking, but (IIRC) IE is still stuck back in the days of Plugins/ActiveX Controls - it hasn't got anything like a decent Extensions architecture yet (and likely, due to the lack of control for MS, never will).
The progression of developments was roughly:
Helper Apps (Mosaic, NS 1.?, etc)
Plugins (NS 2+?)
ActiveX Controls (IE 3?-6)
Extensions (Firefox)
Flamebait is bad Trolling.
Clever trolls ensnare people in an argument they didn't even realise they were getting into. Bad trolls post flamebait indiscriminately in the hope that anyone will be offended enough to respond.
Dvorak is a bad troll, who unfortunately succeeds because of his high-prestige job as a technical "journalist".
If he wasn't paid to write for PC Mag (or whoever) he'd be living down the bus station in a scruffy mac shouting incomprehensibly at pigeons, and no-one would listen to a bloody word he said.
And everyone would be that little bit happier and better-informed.