"
(Warning! Any mod that requires removing the cover of your new $400 game console voids your warranty. Period. The use of tools such as pliers, screwdrivers, and power drills within close proximity of the internal components of your Xbox 360 can result in user error that could ultimately render you console inoperative. It goes without saying that [H]ardOCP assumes no responsibility for any damage that may occur to you or your Xbox 360 if you attempt this mod on your own. Having said that, all the cool kids are doing it.)
First of all, it isn't even an Outlook plugin, it runs as a separate app that starts when Windows does [just what Windows needs another of].
Secondly, it is completely empty of useful features, has almost no real ability to customize based on user preferences, and the interface is bad even by Microsoft's standards [for lack of a better term.]
If this is Microsoft's idea of innovation, I can see why they usually just find it easier to buy other people's technologies and then "extend" them.
I agree. I went ahead and tried it out and found it to be seriously lacking in useful features. I also have to question why it runs as a separate app instead of a plug-in for Outlook itself. You'd think Microsoft would have at least been able to integrate it into their own damn mail client.
It is a mildly interesting tool poorly implementing a mildly interesting idea.
This does make sense, in a sort of nonintuitive way. All of those that are saying Google would have to be on crack to challenge Microsoft at this point are correct, if you assume they are looking at simply doing what Microsoft already does. However, that also assumes that a "PC" would be what they are selling. Apple, with the iPod, has already proven that new markets can be created by simply challenging old ideas.
And just as Apple has been able, to some degree, increase awareness and movement to their platform with the iPod, others can do the same. Imagine if you will a low-cost device (explicitly NOT called a PC) that hooked up to your HDTV monitor and allowed you to browse [open source browser] and search the web [Google Search], get e-mail [GMail], browse and organize photos [Picasa], chat via text or voice[Google Talk], shop online [Froogle], and play DVDs and act as the tuner for your HDTV monitor. Hell, add in a little AJAX, and you can do simple word processing and other PC-like actions. Yes, those are all the things that a PC can do now, but by calling it something else, people's expectations would be different. Sell it for something like $299 MSRP or less, and all of those folks who've spent $999 to $2,999 and up on large HDTVs will be thinking it's the ultimate accessory. Add in the ability to organize and play music [think something like Picasa for audio files]and play games, and you've got something that could generate huge revenues for Google.
I'm not saying this is something Google is actually going to do, but while 95% of computer users have Windows, it also a well known fact that most only use about 5% of the features their PCs are capable of providing. The field is wide open to have someone address that need by providing a less complicated and thus more reliable device. Based on Linux and with many net-hosted applications, these devices would also be less vulnerable to viruses and spyware, increasing the reliability even more.
Yes, this is an exceptionally inelegant solution to a problem that doesn't even exist. That said, I'm well aware of the "font fetish" you mentioned, suffering a bit from it myself. As a web developer who is a believer in accessibility and standards, I leave it up to the user to decide the font, but as someone who also does design for print, I'm always looking for a "better" or at least more interesting font. I'll peruse font catalogs going ooh and aah, and may even purchase a few, but even in print, 90% of the text I create is in the standard fonts that everyone is used to. Especially since most of my work is corporate, boring fonts often translate as "comfortable" or "trustworthy" to customers.
I still remember back in the late 80's in a job in the budget office of a govt. agency, it was just at the dawn of WYSIWYG interfaces and choosing fonts was suddenly an easy option, and I was responsible for formatting the documents we sent to the White House, the Hill and OMB. We'd spend 20% of our time pulling the budget numbers together and 80% of the time discussing which font to use. It was like suddenly these people had a new tool, and they couldn't resist trying it out. Since then from what I understand, document formatting standards in govt. have become more draconian, but that's probably a good thing. It is very hard for people to understand that just because a tool exists, they don't necessarily have to use it all the time.
Um, what? You're claiming "fortnight" is a recent neologism that failed to gain widespread usage?
No, nowhere did I say "fortnight" was recent. I used two examples that were old neologisms (a meaningless word, as almost every word is created based on old words or are an old word with a new meaning). I was just saying it was a word that has dropped from mainstream usage after having been quite popular for a long time.
As for "coldcocked," you should use better dictionaries. It means to knock someone out.
Usage in sentence: There was this guy who lamely replied to one of my Slashdot posts, and my reply just coldcocked him.
Does anyone actually pronounce it that way? I've never heard it pronounced as a word, just always with the letters spelled out, and I've been doing website design and management since '96.
Someone needs to take a stick out of whatever orifice it has been jammed up into.
Re:PLEASE, enough with the words!
on
The Podjacker Threat
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
How do you think English stays a living language? Is "podjacking" any worse than "coldcocked" or "fortnight?" Terms are developed and the good ones stick around and the bad ones disappear (as happened with "fortnight"). No one says you have to use "podjacking," if you don't like it come up with something else and if it is good, other people will use it.
Or would you rather be like the French and have some group decide what words can be allowed (not that actual French speakers listen to them much)?
Far more interesting to see the other things associated with the date. Wikipedia has a list
Who knows, maybe it is because its the 11th day of Christmas, and the author wants to bring attention to those 11 pipers piping? Or maybe they wanted everyone to harken back to the day in 1961 when the show Mr. Ed began? Isn't this jumping to a conclusion that isn't warranted by the available facts?
I can't come up with anything else in the entire marketing world where marketers knowingly introduce a flawed or inadequate product [and] it helps grow your user base
This has got to be the stupidest quote ever! Flawed products are constantly introduced and grow user bases . . . in areas where there is not already an established consumer base or need. To go for the prosaic example, look at George Foreman's damn grills. They were introduced and other similar products had not yet hit the mainstream. Where they perfect? No, and I still can't think of a decent use for them. But they were "flawed," as is made evident by mainstream competitors jumping into the market and introducing refinements.
Most new technologies, when introduced, are flawed: cars, computers, planes, building materials, etc. The difference is that on the software side, they are just finally getting a little more honest about it. For material goods, that change will probably never come. Who wants to drive around in a "Honda Civic, Release Candidate 2?" Between the financial outlay for material goods, and the inability to 'upgrade' to a stable release, it doesn't make sense.
However, if someone wants to hand out free software or provide a free service and call it 'beta,' what's wrong with that? It's truth in labeling and I can start reaping benefits from a new technology before it becomes 'stable' or 'feature mature.' So much of software is now open source, the development relies on a community of interested users and developers, and beta software allows that.
And if, as long as it is marked 'beta' the product or service continues to evolve and get better, who can complain about that? It's better than some Redmond-based company that has been charging people out the wazoo for years for software that, if it weren't for corporate mandated use, would have died a thousand deaths by now.
Funny how Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" was considered in his day (along with many of his plays) to be aimed at the lowest common denominator. His fight scenes and love scenes, which were quite racy for the time, were considered to targeted at the "masses." Hell, if he were still around, he'd probably be leading the charge to do this kind of thing.
Rather than launching all that weight from the earth, which is way too expensive, why not launch a "driver" that would attach to an existing a big ol' existing asteroid, and use the now "friendly" asteroid to pull asteroids on a collision or near-collision course off to a safer trajectory?
The driver could use one or more navigation/propulsion systems (solar sails, ion drive, etc.) and it would still be cheaper than lifting a satellite with that much weight out of our gravity well.
Hell, you could probably setup a matrix of these out a certain distance from the sun, providing greater coverage and depending on how close they all are, you could even have two or more "friendly" asteroids deflect an incoming one with greater efficiency.
Please note that I did not say "I wouldn't want to watch anything that is on TV . .."
But if you think that *most of what is on TV* is priceless gold and well suited to stimulating that pitiful group of malnourished neurons that you call a brain, be my guest. Personally, I have something like 300 channels, and *most* of them only have crap on *most* of the time.
Now take your reverse-snobbery and go back to watching "But Can They Sing?"
Scientists may have presuppositions, but science does not.
As for your argument about reproducing the jump from apes to humans in the lab, it is completely specious. No one has ever blown up Washington D.C. with a nuclear bomb, but there is no reason to believe that the laws of physics are somehow different there and that a bomb wouldn't blow up. That is not to say the evolving a human from a lower life form is not possible in a lab setting, but it would take thousands of generations and millions of years. However, you sound like a low enough life form that maybe we could start with you.
Evolution as the method of differntation in species has been proven in the lab and in the field. From amoeba to finches, we see the evidence of it every day. And as I said at the beginning, no one believes that scientists are not human and are somehow immune to bias. The difference is that science as a discipline works to remove that bias, while faith cannot exist without it.
Because evolution is *science* and the belief in a creator of the world/universe/your belly button is *faith*
Science offers theories that are testable and match the facts available. Faith offers beliefs that are not only untestable, but that are not in the least effected by not having facts available to match it up.
The "debate" about evolution vs. ID is stupid on the face of it. It would be like saying astronomers and astrologists need to find some common ground.
Instead of:Is the mainstream market not yet ready for portable video?
The question should be: Is portable video not yet ready for the mainstream market?
Why spend time and money to be able to watch TV and/or movies on a portable device like an iPod or phone, when all that is on TV is crap? There are two different reasons people watch TV (usually gender differentiated), one is excitement and the other is escapism into a good story. Big budget movies and sporting events on a small screen are, let's face it, a stupid idea and painful to watch. Escapist television is all about cocooning in your big comfy couch/recliner and ignoring the rest of the world for awhile, which is not really suitable for a mobile device.
I wouldn't want to watch most of what is on TV on a 60-inch plasma w/ surround sound, let alone a teeny-tiny LCD with earbuds.
Re:Talking out both sides of out mouths.
on
Pepping Up Windows
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I believe it is a two-fold problem that people have with Microsoft.
1. They don't need to include all the programs that they do
2. The programs they do include are crap
The only real solution MS could move to is a plug-in model. Have a base OS that can be added to, as a user needs, with programs that not only integrate with the OS, but with other "plug-ins." But for that they'd either have to spend 5 years de-tangling their spaghetti code or just start over from scratch. In other words, it will never happen.
From the TFA: "Much of Firefox's gains, in fact, have come not at IE's expense, but at that of non-Firefox browsers from the Mozilla code (including the Mozilla suite and the stand-alone Netscape), as well as browsers by others, such as Apple's Safari and Opera Software's Opera."
First of all, it wasn't clear from the article what operating systems were being looked at. Since IE isn't available on anything but Windows, are they also looking at the number of non-Windows OSes and what browser they are using? (other than the mention of Apple) Any news story that doesn't tell you how the numbers were gathered, what controls were in place, etc. is pretty much useless.
Also, while this may be a "slowing," what it appears to be is a consolidation, which is a much bigger story. Now that Firefox has unified the non-IE users, they can start moving forward on making real in-roads into the great unwashed masses. Since Firefox couldn't have directly competed with IE until that happened, I would say this is just the milestone that marks the beginning of the end for IE.
Yes, even the articles explaining the problem have errors, but if you think about it, most modern workers are required to have a much broader skill set, vocabulary, and concept literacy than at any time in human history. We're only a few decades separated from being a manufacturing/agricultural society where a person would work 50 years in the same job and never do anything else. Now we have begun the transition to a service-based economy made possible by an ever increasing influx of technologies and concepts. Not only are we in jobs for a much shorter time, but more and more of us switch careers and/or industries.
Take all that and add it on to the fact that by the time you learn anything to a significant degree, the technology has become obsolete and you have to start all over again, and it is no wonder that some people stick their fingers in their ears, shout "LALALALALALALALA, I'm not listening," and refuse to try to learn anything again.
I'm not saying this is the correct approach, but before we blame the luddites, perhaps we should recognize there is a combination of factors at work, and some of the blame can be fairly apportioned to us bleeding-edge/. types who keep coming up with new stuff and abandoning perfectly usable technologies in the name of "progress."
Hmm, I guess that leaves 1% of the land area of the planet worth living on.
Rather than bitch and moan about people living in the path of natural disasters, the money spent to rebuild, etc., why don't we try coming up with some real solutions.
The problem is not that New Orleans was destined to get obliterated at some point, as the same can be said about any major city. The problem is that between poor urban planning and poor emergency response planning, any city that gets struck by a catastophe (natural or man-made)is destined to become a cluster-fuck.
There is no such thing as a "safe" place to live, and in planning our cities and our responses to disaster, we need to recognize that and make plans accordingly. For example, if state and local governments spent a quarter of what they do for transportation on things like telecommuting, better designed cities, and other measures, when disasters do strike, their impacts would be much less.
The difference between how this applies to Microsoft and Google is in the end products and services each produces. Google's place in the market is the result of quality applications, a building of a trust relationship with its users, and a eye towards putting out the best software and services it can.
Microsoft on the other hand owes its place in the market to luck, the laissez-faire attitude of govt. during the early days of its development, and a focus on corporate marketing double-speak that focuses on the "message" rather than the quality of their products.
Google may be evolving into a corporate giant, but that doesn't equate with them being evil. They are far more similar to early Apple, but with better leadership.
Slashdot Mirror
From the site:
If "it goes without saying," why say it at all?
Yep, just found out the same thing. Those little sneaky bastards!
First of all, it isn't even an Outlook plugin, it runs as a separate app that starts when Windows does [just what Windows needs another of].
Secondly, it is completely empty of useful features, has almost no real ability to customize based on user preferences, and the interface is bad even by Microsoft's standards [for lack of a better term.]
If this is Microsoft's idea of innovation, I can see why they usually just find it easier to buy other people's technologies and then "extend" them.
I agree. I went ahead and tried it out and found it to be seriously lacking in useful features. I also have to question why it runs as a separate app instead of a plug-in for Outlook itself. You'd think Microsoft would have at least been able to integrate it into their own damn mail client.
It is a mildly interesting tool poorly implementing a mildly interesting idea.
This does make sense, in a sort of nonintuitive way. All of those that are saying Google would have to be on crack to challenge Microsoft at this point are correct, if you assume they are looking at simply doing what Microsoft already does. However, that also assumes that a "PC" would be what they are selling. Apple, with the iPod, has already proven that new markets can be created by simply challenging old ideas.
And just as Apple has been able, to some degree, increase awareness and movement to their platform with the iPod, others can do the same. Imagine if you will a low-cost device (explicitly NOT called a PC) that hooked up to your HDTV monitor and allowed you to browse [open source browser] and search the web [Google Search], get e-mail [GMail], browse and organize photos [Picasa], chat via text or voice[Google Talk], shop online [Froogle], and play DVDs and act as the tuner for your HDTV monitor. Hell, add in a little AJAX, and you can do simple word processing and other PC-like actions. Yes, those are all the things that a PC can do now, but by calling it something else, people's expectations would be different. Sell it for something like $299 MSRP or less, and all of those folks who've spent $999 to $2,999 and up on large HDTVs will be thinking it's the ultimate accessory. Add in the ability to organize and play music [think something like Picasa for audio files]and play games, and you've got something that could generate huge revenues for Google.
I'm not saying this is something Google is actually going to do, but while 95% of computer users have Windows, it also a well known fact that most only use about 5% of the features their PCs are capable of providing. The field is wide open to have someone address that need by providing a less complicated and thus more reliable device. Based on Linux and with many net-hosted applications, these devices would also be less vulnerable to viruses and spyware, increasing the reliability even more.
Yes, this is an exceptionally inelegant solution to a problem that doesn't even exist. That said, I'm well aware of the "font fetish" you mentioned, suffering a bit from it myself. As a web developer who is a believer in accessibility and standards, I leave it up to the user to decide the font, but as someone who also does design for print, I'm always looking for a "better" or at least more interesting font. I'll peruse font catalogs going ooh and aah, and may even purchase a few, but even in print, 90% of the text I create is in the standard fonts that everyone is used to. Especially since most of my work is corporate, boring fonts often translate as "comfortable" or "trustworthy" to customers.
I still remember back in the late 80's in a job in the budget office of a govt. agency, it was just at the dawn of WYSIWYG interfaces and choosing fonts was suddenly an easy option, and I was responsible for formatting the documents we sent to the White House, the Hill and OMB. We'd spend 20% of our time pulling the budget numbers together and 80% of the time discussing which font to use. It was like suddenly these people had a new tool, and they couldn't resist trying it out. Since then from what I understand, document formatting standards in govt. have become more draconian, but that's probably a good thing. It is very hard for people to understand that just because a tool exists, they don't necessarily have to use it all the time.
Um, what? You're claiming "fortnight" is a recent neologism that failed to gain widespread usage?
No, nowhere did I say "fortnight" was recent. I used two examples that were old neologisms (a meaningless word, as almost every word is created based on old words or are an old word with a new meaning). I was just saying it was a word that has dropped from mainstream usage after having been quite popular for a long time.
As for "coldcocked," you should use better dictionaries. It means to knock someone out.
Usage in sentence: There was this guy who lamely replied to one of my Slashdot posts, and my reply just coldcocked him.
From your link "URL (as pronounced "ERL")"
Does anyone actually pronounce it that way? I've never heard it pronounced as a word, just always with the letters spelled out, and I've been doing website design and management since '96.
Someone needs to take a stick out of whatever orifice it has been jammed up into.
How do you think English stays a living language? Is "podjacking" any worse than "coldcocked" or "fortnight?" Terms are developed and the good ones stick around and the bad ones disappear (as happened with "fortnight"). No one says you have to use "podjacking," if you don't like it come up with something else and if it is good, other people will use it.
Or would you rather be like the French and have some group decide what words can be allowed (not that actual French speakers listen to them much)?
Far more interesting to see the other things associated with the date. Wikipedia has a list
Who knows, maybe it is because its the 11th day of Christmas, and the author wants to bring attention to those 11 pipers piping? Or maybe they wanted everyone to harken back to the day in 1961 when the show Mr. Ed began? Isn't this jumping to a conclusion that isn't warranted by the available facts?
Oh wait, this is /., nevermind
This has got to be the stupidest quote ever! Flawed products are constantly introduced and grow user bases . . . in areas where there is not already an established consumer base or need. To go for the prosaic example, look at George Foreman's damn grills. They were introduced and other similar products had not yet hit the mainstream. Where they perfect? No, and I still can't think of a decent use for them. But they were "flawed," as is made evident by mainstream competitors jumping into the market and introducing refinements.
Most new technologies, when introduced, are flawed: cars, computers, planes, building materials, etc. The difference is that on the software side, they are just finally getting a little more honest about it. For material goods, that change will probably never come. Who wants to drive around in a "Honda Civic, Release Candidate 2?" Between the financial outlay for material goods, and the inability to 'upgrade' to a stable release, it doesn't make sense.
However, if someone wants to hand out free software or provide a free service and call it 'beta,' what's wrong with that? It's truth in labeling and I can start reaping benefits from a new technology before it becomes 'stable' or 'feature mature.' So much of software is now open source, the development relies on a community of interested users and developers, and beta software allows that.
And if, as long as it is marked 'beta' the product or service continues to evolve and get better, who can complain about that? It's better than some Redmond-based company that has been charging people out the wazoo for years for software that, if it weren't for corporate mandated use, would have died a thousand deaths by now.
What is the most inappropriate use of ballistics gel you've ever witnessed/participated in?
Funny how Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" was considered in his day (along with many of his plays) to be aimed at the lowest common denominator. His fight scenes and love scenes, which were quite racy for the time, were considered to targeted at the "masses." Hell, if he were still around, he'd probably be leading the charge to do this kind of thing.
Rather than launching all that weight from the earth, which is way too expensive, why not launch a "driver" that would attach to an existing a big ol' existing asteroid, and use the now "friendly" asteroid to pull asteroids on a collision or near-collision course off to a safer trajectory?
The driver could use one or more navigation/propulsion systems (solar sails, ion drive, etc.) and it would still be cheaper than lifting a satellite with that much weight out of our gravity well.
Hell, you could probably setup a matrix of these out a certain distance from the sun, providing greater coverage and depending on how close they all are, you could even have two or more "friendly" asteroids deflect an incoming one with greater efficiency.
Please note that I did not say "I wouldn't want to watch anything that is on TV . . ."
But if you think that *most of what is on TV* is priceless gold and well suited to stimulating that pitiful group of malnourished neurons that you call a brain, be my guest. Personally, I have something like 300 channels, and *most* of them only have crap on *most* of the time.
Now take your reverse-snobbery and go back to watching "But Can They Sing?"
Scientists may have presuppositions, but science does not.
As for your argument about reproducing the jump from apes to humans in the lab, it is completely specious. No one has ever blown up Washington D.C. with a nuclear bomb, but there is no reason to believe that the laws of physics are somehow different there and that a bomb wouldn't blow up. That is not to say the evolving a human from a lower life form is not possible in a lab setting, but it would take thousands of generations and millions of years. However, you sound like a low enough life form that maybe we could start with you.
Evolution as the method of differntation in species has been proven in the lab and in the field. From amoeba to finches, we see the evidence of it every day. And as I said at the beginning, no one believes that scientists are not human and are somehow immune to bias. The difference is that science as a discipline works to remove that bias, while faith cannot exist without it.
Because evolution is *science* and the belief in a creator of the world/universe/your belly button is *faith*
Science offers theories that are testable and match the facts available. Faith offers beliefs that are not only untestable, but that are not in the least effected by not having facts available to match it up.
The "debate" about evolution vs. ID is stupid on the face of it. It would be like saying astronomers and astrologists need to find some common ground.
Instead of :Is the mainstream market not yet ready for portable video?
The question should be: Is portable video not yet ready for the mainstream market?
Why spend time and money to be able to watch TV and/or movies on a portable device like an iPod or phone, when all that is on TV is crap? There are two different reasons people watch TV (usually gender differentiated), one is excitement and the other is escapism into a good story. Big budget movies and sporting events on a small screen are, let's face it, a stupid idea and painful to watch. Escapist television is all about cocooning in your big comfy couch/recliner and ignoring the rest of the world for awhile, which is not really suitable for a mobile device.
I wouldn't want to watch most of what is on TV on a 60-inch plasma w/ surround sound, let alone a teeny-tiny LCD with earbuds.
I believe it is a two-fold problem that people have with Microsoft.
1. They don't need to include all the programs that they do
2. The programs they do include are crap
The only real solution MS could move to is a plug-in model. Have a base OS that can be added to, as a user needs, with programs that not only integrate with the OS, but with other "plug-ins." But for that they'd either have to spend 5 years de-tangling their spaghetti code or just start over from scratch. In other words, it will never happen.
From the TFA: "Much of Firefox's gains, in fact, have come not at IE's expense, but at that of non-Firefox browsers from the Mozilla code (including the Mozilla suite and the stand-alone Netscape), as well as browsers by others, such as Apple's Safari and Opera Software's Opera."
First of all, it wasn't clear from the article what operating systems were being looked at. Since IE isn't available on anything but Windows, are they also looking at the number of non-Windows OSes and what browser they are using? (other than the mention of Apple) Any news story that doesn't tell you how the numbers were gathered, what controls were in place, etc. is pretty much useless.
Also, while this may be a "slowing," what it appears to be is a consolidation, which is a much bigger story. Now that Firefox has unified the non-IE users, they can start moving forward on making real in-roads into the great unwashed masses. Since Firefox couldn't have directly competed with IE until that happened, I would say this is just the milestone that marks the beginning of the end for IE.
Yes, even the articles explaining the problem have errors, but if you think about it, most modern workers are required to have a much broader skill set, vocabulary, and concept literacy than at any time in human history. We're only a few decades separated from being a manufacturing/agricultural society where a person would work 50 years in the same job and never do anything else. Now we have begun the transition to a service-based economy made possible by an ever increasing influx of technologies and concepts. Not only are we in jobs for a much shorter time, but more and more of us switch careers and/or industries.
/. types who keep coming up with new stuff and abandoning perfectly usable technologies in the name of "progress."
Take all that and add it on to the fact that by the time you learn anything to a significant degree, the technology has become obsolete and you have to start all over again, and it is no wonder that some people stick their fingers in their ears, shout "LALALALALALALALA, I'm not listening," and refuse to try to learn anything again.
I'm not saying this is the correct approach, but before we blame the luddites, perhaps we should recognize there is a combination of factors at work, and some of the blame can be fairly apportioned to us bleeding-edge
Please make a note not to live in any place that has:
- floods
- earthquakes
- wild fires / forest fires
- regular hurricanes and/or tornadoes
- blizzards / ice storms
- volcanoes
Hmm, I guess that leaves 1% of the land area of the planet worth living on.
Rather than bitch and moan about people living in the path of natural disasters, the money spent to rebuild, etc., why don't we try coming up with some real solutions.
The problem is not that New Orleans was destined to get obliterated at some point, as the same can be said about any major city. The problem is that between poor urban planning and poor emergency response planning, any city that gets struck by a catastophe (natural or man-made)is destined to become a cluster-fuck.
There is no such thing as a "safe" place to live, and in planning our cities and our responses to disaster, we need to recognize that and make plans accordingly. For example, if state and local governments spent a quarter of what they do for transportation on things like telecommuting, better designed cities, and other measures, when disasters do strike, their impacts would be much less.
Investigators are lazy and stupid! I'm surprised they could gather the energy to complain.
Microsoft was NEVER a good company. They have always been willing to do whatever they needed to make short term gains.
Compete or die!
The difference between how this applies to Microsoft and Google is in the end products and services each produces. Google's place in the market is the result of quality applications, a building of a trust relationship with its users, and a eye towards putting out the best software and services it can.
Microsoft on the other hand owes its place in the market to luck, the laissez-faire attitude of govt. during the early days of its development, and a focus on corporate marketing double-speak that focuses on the "message" rather than the quality of their products.
Google may be evolving into a corporate giant, but that doesn't equate with them being evil. They are far more similar to early Apple, but with better leadership.