> It's rich when a MS employee criticizes > another company's business model.
WildTangent has a great business model. I'm sure they can come up with another great business model. They're a great company; I sent them a resume last time I was looking for work, but Microsoft moved first.
What I'm criticising is that when their business model isn't going to work as well in the near future, they point a public finger instead of concentrating on what their new business model needs to be.
> would have been a fine realization for MS > to have had
We had it and we did something about it. We did a lot. To quote Grand Moff Tarkin, "the last vestiges of the Old Republic have been swept away".
> You seem to define "the rest of the planet" > to mean "Microsoft".
WildTangent isn't the only company that makes its money offering software for download. Each and every one of those companies will have to stop and think about how the user experience differs in Vista, and what impact that will have on their bottom line. They'll make a decision, and they'll change their business model however they decide it needs to be changed.
Many of those companies won't care and will do nothing. Those who do something may gain an advantage over the other companies, and make more money. Those who don't may find that they can't make any money at all, and go out of business. That's how competitive business works. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Whinging that you don't want to lead and you don't like following pretty much narrows your choices.
> anything that might require all games > to have ESRB ratings is just plain stupid
Yes, but this isn't the case. Unrated games are controlled as unrated games. The parental controls let the administrative user decide what that handling is. If parental controls aren't enabled for a user, this means nothing.
> Please promise me that you will > never work on a project that has > a user interface!
But I'm not talking about security and usability. We're talking about business models. Alex is essentially complaining that with the new security features, the impulse download is a lot less likely. And that's true - so his business model can't depend so heavily on the impulse download. Basically, he can't play drug dealer anymore, where the first fix is free but next time you have to pay. That's a great business plan, if it works for your product - but it *doesn't* work for his product anymore. So he has to come up with a better plan. And that's not Microsoft's problem.
The "problems" Alex St. John identifies are essentially that his business model doesn't work so great when people have to click a couple extra buttons and type a password, and that he would really prefer it if children could install his products without parental involvement.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.
The real problem here is that the world is changing and WildTangent has to change with it. Yes, that's difficult. Yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it will cost money they didn't need to spend when they were targeting XP. And yes, they may actually need to give serious consideration to getting ESRB ratings. But these are the natural and normal cost of doing business in the modern world; if you can't evolve and grow and change with the rest of the planet, your business dies, and good riddance.
The whole article is just a bunch of FUD. Alex is basically claiming that Microsoft is trying to kill his business, because he doesn't know how to do business the way he needs to do it on Vista. He's afraid that consumers won't click two more buttons and enter a password to play his game. He's afraid that parents won't let their children play his games. But the answer to this problem isn't to reduce security, it's to make a better and more compelling game! Weren't you already trying to do that ANYWAY?
Don't get me wrong, I think there are still problems - the ESRB needs to better address the needs of casual game developers who produce fifty $10 games and generate about $200K in annual revenue. The current system is too heavily geared toward console and PC developers who have multi-million dollar budgets. But blaming Microsoft for everything is just a tired old excuse that invariably comes trotting out when someone is too damn lazy to read the direction of the wind and rig his sails accordingly.
> Why do people keep this meme that C/C++ is so insecure?
Because bugs don't belong to programmers, they belong to code.
Imagine the difference between "I fixed a Linux kernel bug", which earns you much respect from the community, and "I fixed one of Linus Torvalds' bugs" - which is a rather offensive thing to say.
So while the insecurity is the programmer, not the language, we can't blame the programmer. It's simply not acceptable.
> there is no proper way to make a personal decision
Then you have no right to criticise the way I made my decision. You can explain how you made yours, but it has no bearing on the validity of mine.
> How about you ask me a nice, easy, direct question
Okay. Why is it important that I work at Microsoft, when I don't have anything whatsoever to do with the Zune?
> You should hold yourself to such a standard
I do. Show me the fallacy in any logical argument I have advanced.
> How convenient for you. So you can reduce my argument to > "you're stupid", but I cannot reduce your argument to "you > work for Microsoft".
Yes. Consider Bob, a theoretical individual evaluating digital music players. He decides he would rather have a Zune than an iPod, because he believes Microsoft will provide better support for the Zune than Apple will provide for the iPod. Does Bob work for Microsoft?
Well, not necessarily. You cannot demonstrate through any preponderance of evidence that an individual who holds my opinions must necessarily work for or at Microsoft. That makes your argument definitively incorrect.
Now consider Joe, a theoretical individual who tells Bob that he is making a bad decision. To explain why, he appeals to the popularity and success of the iPod, while decrying Bob's decision as illogical.
But the popularity and success of the iPod are not logical factors in this decision. They represent the argumentum ad populam and argumentum ad crumenam fallacies, respectively. Therefore, Joe's decision is itself illogical. To justify this by claiming Bob also made an illogical decision is to commit the tu quoque fallacy. To justify it by questioning Bob's personal circumstances and motives is to commit the ad hominem fallacy. The list goes on, and on, and on.
And while fallacious reasoning is certainly common enough outside of formal debate, to use it in an objection to someone else's failure to make a logical decision is stupid. If I am required to use proper formal logic, then so are you. It is required either for all parties or for none. If it is required for all, you are not using it, which is stupid. If it is required for none, you have no cause to object, which is stupid.
Therefore, I submit that your real name is Joe. QED.
Okay, I'm amused again.
> Oh, right, no synonyms.
The problem is not that you chose a synonym, but that you chose an inappropriate synonym. The "no synonyms" argument you now advance is another straw man. You habitually use fallacy in your arguments. This in and of itself is evidence of ignorance, not stupidity, but your argument frequently accuses me of being illogical. And that's stupid. See above.
> would you please describe where "Apple chose to cut corners on the hardware"?
The injection molding process used to produce the iPod was a new and relatively untested process using a combination of plastics previously unusable in consumer hardware. (In fact, the iPod could not have been produced without this process.) It would have been prudent to perform a long-term test of the resulting product's real-world durability and performance, but no such test was performed. As a result, the propensity of the iPod to scratch was underestimated, and customers were unhappy.
And that's "cutting corners", but not "skimping". Quite the contrary - it was a cutting-edge process on the very forefront of manufacturing technology, and promised to provide a great many advantages over older processes. It wasn't cheap, either - which exactly matches your analysis that the iPod was over-engineered; it was. A lot of excellent minds worked on it from beginning to end, and the internals were intended to be the best money could buy. The problem is that not enough testing and analysis were done AFTER the iPod moved from the drawing board into reality.
Notice the very definition of the straw man argument here: you took an argument, twisted i
> I took issue with the logic that you used in your post.
How does that differ from a belief that I have not reached my decision properly?
You know, when I ask these questions, you never answer them. I can only assume that you're afraid to admit how stupid you are in public.
> when you post what others and I deem as illogical steps > to a conclusion on a message board, what do you expect?
I expect you to understand what logic is and how to use it. Primarily by avoiding fallacy. If you don't, you have no right to criticise my logic.
> Calling me names is part of a Type C Argument?
It's not part of the argument at all. An argument, as we all know from Monty Python, is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition. Calling you a retarded fuckwit simply amused me. It had no bearing whatsoever on the merits of our statements. It simply communicated what I perceived as the implication of your collected statements.
However, amusement is no longer coming out of this exchange, so I'm just going to concentrate on demolishing your stupidity. Nobody's watching anymore, so I don't have to be entertaining.
> So was calling me stupid part of your plan to make > my argument sound legitimate?
If your argument IS legitimate, it doesn't matter how it sounds. That's the beauty of logic: even if people don't agree with you, they can't claim you're wrong. They can only claim they disagree.
> Was calling me a fuckwit your attempt to engage > in "constructive discussion"?
No. You've never been interested in constructive discussion. You want to have a fight. More specifically, you want to WIN a fight, so you keep trying to change the playing field in a vain attempt to discover some way you can win. You're not very good at this.
> I'm still not sure where you see Apple skimping > on hardware on the iPod
I never said that. You just don't know how else they might "cut corners", so you're using the equivocation fallacy to build a straw man. This is bad logic. You're wrong before you even get started.
In a constructive discussion, you say "I don't understand; how can you say Apple 'cut corners' when the iPod clearly is not made from inferior components, does not have shoddy construction, and is better designed than any previous digital music player?"
But since you just want to fight, what you do instead is choose a clearly inappropriate synonym for the phrase you don't understand (using a thesaurus if necessary), and hope your opponent is too stupid to understand what happened.
Amusingly, Arnold Kling has a couple interesting bits in EconLog today about bias and avoiding truth. If you're interested.
In this case, my opinion doesn't happen to match yours. You don't think I came to my decision "properly", so you're avoiding the truth (I can form opinions however the hell I want) by looking for bias. It's a classic "Type M Argument" - focused on motives rather than consequences.
Regardless of my logic, or lack thereof, I'm making a "Type C Argument" (focused on the consequences). I believe that selecting the Zune has preferable results to selecting the iPod, because I'm examining the consequences of choosing a player that receives inadequate or undesirable support from the company that produces it.
Whether you agree that this is an important consideration is completely irrelevant to the type of argument it comprises. The consequences of choosing the wrong color media player are infinitesimal, while the consequences of a too-small screen are real medical problems. I'm still talking consequences, while the opposition is reduced to talking motives.
How many times do I have to say it? Apple chose to cut corners on the hardware, and Microsoft chose to cut corners on the software. Neither of these was a design decision; both were marketing decisions. It's inevitable that corners are cut, and it's inevitable that someone ends up complaining because the corner you chose to cut was important to them.
It's arguable (I'd even argue it myself) that until Apple's iTunes was available, the software was the most critical point. We had MP3 players before the iPod; they all sucked, on hardware and software alike, because nobody saw how you could possibly make money off digital music. Apple was the first company to successfully demonstrate that there was a revenue stream in this game, and without that, you couldn't get the attention of the music industry... and that's where we got the selection that caught the attention of the consumer.
> It's not my fault that you happen to like to post on > topics that involve the company that you work for.
It's not my fault that Microsoft produces so many best-of-breed products and services. We should all be so lucky; it's not like any of us are in this industry to make crap, or to work our eight hours and go home. If we're reading Slashdot, we actually give a shit. I've been here since long before I ever worked at Microsoft, and I'll be here regardless.
But if I have to announce to everyone that I work at Microsoft, I will never be able to have a rational discussion here. Every time I say "hey, there's a flaw in this idea" people will jump up and say "you're just trying to shut down the project because Microsoft is afraid of competition". It gives everyone this big dumbass excuse to claim that whatever I say doesn't matter, and there's no arguing with those people.
> However, you can easily fact check
You didn't check the facts. You checked A fact. It was not the right fact.
The fact you WANTED to check was whether I go around promoting Microsoft's products and services over alternatives when an objectively superior product or service clearly exists. Since I have never stopped recommending that any and all public web servers use a LAMP stack, and that if someone offers to sell you the "Web Edition" of Windows Server you should run away screaming, this is clearly not the fact.
Another fact you might want to check is whether my recommendations of products and services have changed since taking a position at Microsoft. Another is whether those recommendations changed when I became a Microsoft partner. And another is whether I've deliberately ignored flaws in Microsoft products. These are all good facts to check, and you can either go check them, or take my word that none of them are facts. I don't care which.
I would, however, prefer that you use Windows Live Search instead of Google. Not because it's better, but just because I work at Microsoft. If there's no real objective reason to use one product over the other, HELL YES my recommendation is to use the Microsoft product. I'm honest, not stupid.
> I Googled "cdarklock microsoft" and immediately found > what I suspected that I would find - why would I keep > reading?
Because working at Microsoft doesn't make me untrustworthy any more than NOT working here would make me trustworthy. The fundamental question you are asking is not about where I work, it is about whether I say what I really think or just what I've been told to think. Google won't tell you that; you have to do some reading.
You ARE aware that guilt by association is a logical fallacy, right? I mean, as long as we're complaining about a lack of logic.
> I don't know what design choice you are talking about
Did I say "design choice"? No! I said "choice". Stop making shit up.
> People shouldn't have to Google to find out you work for MS
If you don't announce where you work, why should I? I'm using my real name, and I didn't click "Post Anonymously". Why isn't that good enough? Do you normally take the advice of complete strangers without checking them out? Because that's stupid. If you're stupid, that's not my problem.
> More like, you saw an opportunity to pimp the Zune
Don't try to guess why I do things. The confirmation hypothesis prevents you from being even CLOSE to correct.
> like I really went through and read all of your old posts
You searched for information and didn't read it? Wow. That's really stupid. Why am I not surprised?
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you made an honest mistake. Instead, it seems you've just completely invented a "sales" connection for a post that doesn't say anything at all about sales. Sorry for giving you so much credit there.
> You were comparing current model Zunes to past-model iPods
That's about the decisions made by the company that launched the product. Apple made certain decisions when they launched the iPod. Microsoft made certain decisions when they launched the Zune. I'm comparing the choices each company made. Apple chose to do the best job on the software; Microsoft chose to do the best job on the hardware. I like Microsoft's choice better.
> At least you finally admit bias.
Yes, I did in fact finally use the word "bias". You win. Of course, I was always offering an opinion, and bias is inherent in any opinion, and I never denied bias, and I outright stated that I wasn't making an impartial analysis. You just seem to have particular trouble connecting the dots if I don't say the exact word you want.
Which, in case you forgot, is because you're a retarded fuckwit.
> I criticized you for being rude to me,
And then you ran a search, where you undoubtedly discovered that I am universally rude to the stupid. No bias there.
> and for hiding an obvious bias
Where did I hide it again? On my public blog under my own name? Man! However did you think of THAT?!
> I just wanted to point out what I perceived as > some flaws in the logic
It wasn't more than two replies into that discussion when I told you that I only care about what matters to me, not what matters to you, and that other people should make up their own minds.
Which is fundamentally an admission of bias before you ever made the accusation. You simply weren't paying attention.
> in an earlier post you said that you were taking > future sales figures, of future Zunes, into account
No, I said I was taking future SUPPORT into account. I believe Microsoft will fix the problems with their software and give me the fixed versions for free. Apple, on the other hand, has a history of having HARDWARE problems which are "fixed" by releasing a whole new product... and as a valued customer, you get to pay full retail price for it.
Amusingly, that policy has the interesting side effect of inflating sales figures. Perhaps I'm not the one who needs to take stock of his decision process.
> Just don't expect everyone to be on board with that > sort of logic
Give me any rational and logical reason why the iPod is objectively better than the Zune, and I'll tell you exactly why that rational and logical reason either doesn't apply to my situation or isn't important to me.
There is no rational and logical reason why I should buy an iPod. There may be such a reason why YOU should buy an iPod, but don't confuse that with objective reality.
> I was using an extreme example to illustrate my point.
No, you were using the WRONG example. And now you're using another one! I've been here on Slashdot for years. I've only been at Microsoft for nine months - and that as a contractor. So what you're actually finding out is that since joining the community, a member has gone to work at Chevrolet. Is it in any way irrational to presume that he may POSSIBLY have a greater awareness of and respect for Chevrolet as a company? Would it be fair to claim that simply by taking this job, he has made himself unreliable as a source?
I don't think so. I think you have to identify a marked alteration in behavior before you can suggest that someone no longer deserves his reputation. I think before you start crying "conspiracy" and "astroturfing", you have a responsibility to run those claims through a few sanity checks.
> you haven't even bought a Zune!
Since I explicitly said I was "eyeing" the Zune, I fail to see how anyone was misled.
> And yet you continue to insist that you have no bias!
You are, as I have said repeatedly, a retarded fuckwit.
I AM NOT REQUIRED TO BE UNBIASED. That's not a denial of bias. It's a denial that bias is relevant. As you've said, EVERYONE is biased. The problem here is that YOU DON'T LIKE MY BIAS, so you want me to compensate for it by APPLYING A BIAS YOU LIKE BETTER.
This amounts to saying "I don't like your opinion, please have a different one". That is simply not rational. You demand reason and logic when they suit you, then ignore them when they don't.
And my point is that the BitTyrant client violates the neutrality of the BitTorrent network, so we could examine how that network behaves as an example of how such violations would affect other networks. It's the first suitable microcosm we've had that can accurately reflect the effects we might see on the internet at large.
I am truly concerned about your apparent inability to distinguish the BitTorrent network from your internet connection.
Where an ISP violates net neutrality by requiring more MONEY if you want better bandwidth, this client violates net neutrality by requiring more UPLOADS if you want better bandwidth. They're both payment for preferential treatment. They should both produce largely the same result.
It makes sense to me. It doesn't have to make sense to you.
> That you took such offense [...] is actually what tipped me > off that you must be a shill, or at least work for Microsoft.
Hey, if I didn't work for Microsoft, what exactly are the chances that you could tell me how to make my decisions?
NONE, you RETARDED FUCKWIT.
I don't need to consider sales figures when I buy something. The very idea that you can criticise my decision because I didn't make it the way you would is simply beyond reason.
> You seem to be taking offense that I would say you are biased
No, I'm taking offense that you don't understand the difference between a Congressman taking money from the industry he is charged to regulate, and an employee expressing a personal preference for a product his company makes.
> it certainly should prevent you from presenting yourself as a > neutral party.
Yeah, a neutral party who can't comment at length on "Plays For Sure" because of confidentiality, and who has a page and a half of Google search results admitting he works at Microsoft. Not to mention massive criticisms of open source dating back to 1993.
What's wrong with this analogy? It's a network. It gives preferential treatment to some clients over others. That will have an effect. Why exactly isn't that effect comparable to ISPs giving preferential treatment to certain customers?
> You can extrapolate any game theory > having to do with cliques
That's as may be, how are you going to explain that to Joe Idiot who doesn't even understand what "net neutrality" means? It seems to me that we could make a much more compelling argument with an experiment:
"A preference system was instituted on this network, very much like what ISPs are proposing to institute across the internet. The results sucked ass and made life worse for everyone except a tiny few people who already had it much better than the rest."
If you did this in a laboratory, everyone would complain it was rigged. But when you do it "in the wild", people are more likely to accept and appreciate the results.
Meanwhile, you're still trying to explain to Joe Idiot that game theory is a branch of economics that isn't really about games, but rather a contrasting system to market theory.
This may have a hidden silver lining, although I haven't RTFA. (Shut up, I admitted it.)
Isn't this essentially a P2P violation of net neutrality? Instead of treating all clients the same, we prioritise the ones we like at the expense of those we don't?
Could we examine its effects and scale them up to get an idea of what would happen without net neutrality?
> matters in which you have a conflict of interest
What conflict?
If the Zune fails miserably, guess what happens to me? Nothing.
If the Zune becomes the market leader, guess what happens to me? You got it - NOTHING.
I don't get anything if you buy a Zune. I don't lose anything if you don't. Your decision is completely irrelevant to me. Where exactly is there a conflict?
> All I did was criticize your analysis
But your criticism was retarded. I made an analysis of the things that mattered to me, and you came up to complain that those aren't the things that matter to other people. Guess what? I don't care. I don't choose things based on what other people want, I choose them based on what I want. You simply don't have any rational basis to disagree.
But, being a fuckwit, you just can't quite grasp this concept. You have completely missed the point. You started to get the idea earlier, when you noted we seem to be arguing entirely different things, but then you got retarded again. And here you are being ESPECIALLY retarded:
> If you didn't want an open discussion, then why on earth > did you post to a public forum instead of your blog?
My blog IS a public forum, idiot. And if I didn't want an open discussion, I wouldn't still be having one.
Where did I ever claim to be making an impartial analysis? This is my personal opinion of the Zune based on what matters to me. I've said that several times. I've even outright stated that if I were a jogger, I would not make the same choice.
> Then you start calling everyone a fuckwit
No, if you check, you'll find that this is a title I've reserved exclusively for you.
And it's RETARDED fuckwit.
> very nice reflection of your employer
I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer. I'm speaking for myself and nobody else. Your inability to understand this is not my problem.
Slashdot Mirror
> It's rich when a MS employee criticizes
> another company's business model.
WildTangent has a great business model. I'm sure they can come up with another great business model. They're a great company; I sent them a resume last time I was looking for work, but Microsoft moved first.
What I'm criticising is that when their business model isn't going to work as well in the near future, they point a public finger instead of concentrating on what their new business model needs to be.
> would have been a fine realization for MS
> to have had
We had it and we did something about it. We did a lot. To quote Grand Moff Tarkin, "the last vestiges of the Old Republic have been swept away".
Wait. Maybe that's a bad association...
> You seem to define "the rest of the planet"
> to mean "Microsoft".
WildTangent isn't the only company that makes its money offering software for download. Each and every one of those companies will have to stop and think about how the user experience differs in Vista, and what impact that will have on their bottom line. They'll make a decision, and they'll change their business model however they decide it needs to be changed.
Many of those companies won't care and will do nothing. Those who do something may gain an advantage over the other companies, and make more money. Those who don't may find that they can't make any money at all, and go out of business. That's how competitive business works. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Whinging that you don't want to lead and you don't like following pretty much narrows your choices.
> anything that might require all games
> to have ESRB ratings is just plain stupid
Yes, but this isn't the case. Unrated games are controlled as unrated games. The parental controls let the administrative user decide what that handling is. If parental controls aren't enabled for a user, this means nothing.
> Please promise me that you will
> never work on a project that has
> a user interface!
But I'm not talking about security and usability. We're talking about business models. Alex is essentially complaining that with the new security features, the impulse download is a lot less likely. And that's true - so his business model can't depend so heavily on the impulse download. Basically, he can't play drug dealer anymore, where the first fix is free but next time you have to pay. That's a great business plan, if it works for your product - but it *doesn't* work for his product anymore. So he has to come up with a better plan. And that's not Microsoft's problem.
First, disclosure: I work on Vista at Microsoft.
The "problems" Alex St. John identifies are essentially that his business model doesn't work so great when people have to click a couple extra buttons and type a password, and that he would really prefer it if children could install his products without parental involvement.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.
The real problem here is that the world is changing and WildTangent has to change with it. Yes, that's difficult. Yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it will cost money they didn't need to spend when they were targeting XP. And yes, they may actually need to give serious consideration to getting ESRB ratings. But these are the natural and normal cost of doing business in the modern world; if you can't evolve and grow and change with the rest of the planet, your business dies, and good riddance.
The whole article is just a bunch of FUD. Alex is basically claiming that Microsoft is trying to kill his business, because he doesn't know how to do business the way he needs to do it on Vista. He's afraid that consumers won't click two more buttons and enter a password to play his game. He's afraid that parents won't let their children play his games. But the answer to this problem isn't to reduce security, it's to make a better and more compelling game! Weren't you already trying to do that ANYWAY?
Don't get me wrong, I think there are still problems - the ESRB needs to better address the needs of casual game developers who produce fifty $10 games and generate about $200K in annual revenue. The current system is too heavily geared toward console and PC developers who have multi-million dollar budgets. But blaming Microsoft for everything is just a tired old excuse that invariably comes trotting out when someone is too damn lazy to read the direction of the wind and rig his sails accordingly.
> Of course you have something to do with the
> Zune - you work at Microsoft.
I give up.
Seventy thousand people work here, and I not only know each and every thing they do, but automatically approve of and support it.
It's that whole Borg thing, you know.
> Why do people keep this meme that C/C++ is so insecure?
Because bugs don't belong to programmers, they belong to code.
Imagine the difference between "I fixed a Linux kernel bug", which earns you much respect from the community, and "I fixed one of Linus Torvalds' bugs" - which is a rather offensive thing to say.
So while the insecurity is the programmer, not the language, we can't blame the programmer. It's simply not acceptable.
> there is no proper way to make a personal decision
Then you have no right to criticise the way I made my decision. You can explain how you made yours, but it has no bearing on the validity of mine.
> How about you ask me a nice, easy, direct question
Okay. Why is it important that I work at Microsoft, when I don't have anything whatsoever to do with the Zune?
> You should hold yourself to such a standard
I do. Show me the fallacy in any logical argument I have advanced.
> How convenient for you. So you can reduce my argument to
> "you're stupid", but I cannot reduce your argument to "you
> work for Microsoft".
Yes. Consider Bob, a theoretical individual evaluating digital music players. He decides he would rather have a Zune than an iPod, because he believes Microsoft will provide better support for the Zune than Apple will provide for the iPod. Does Bob work for Microsoft?
Well, not necessarily. You cannot demonstrate through any preponderance of evidence that an individual who holds my opinions must necessarily work for or at Microsoft. That makes your argument definitively incorrect.
Now consider Joe, a theoretical individual who tells Bob that he is making a bad decision. To explain why, he appeals to the popularity and success of the iPod, while decrying Bob's decision as illogical.
But the popularity and success of the iPod are not logical factors in this decision. They represent the argumentum ad populam and argumentum ad crumenam fallacies, respectively. Therefore, Joe's decision is itself illogical. To justify this by claiming Bob also made an illogical decision is to commit the tu quoque fallacy. To justify it by questioning Bob's personal circumstances and motives is to commit the ad hominem fallacy. The list goes on, and on, and on.
And while fallacious reasoning is certainly common enough outside of formal debate, to use it in an objection to someone else's failure to make a logical decision is stupid. If I am required to use proper formal logic, then so are you. It is required either for all parties or for none. If it is required for all, you are not using it, which is stupid. If it is required for none, you have no cause to object, which is stupid.
Therefore, I submit that your real name is Joe. QED.
Okay, I'm amused again.
> Oh, right, no synonyms.
The problem is not that you chose a synonym, but that you chose an inappropriate synonym. The "no synonyms" argument you now advance is another straw man. You habitually use fallacy in your arguments. This in and of itself is evidence of ignorance, not stupidity, but your argument frequently accuses me of being illogical. And that's stupid. See above.
> would you please describe where "Apple chose to cut corners on the hardware"?
The injection molding process used to produce the iPod was a new and relatively untested process using a combination of plastics previously unusable in consumer hardware. (In fact, the iPod could not have been produced without this process.) It would have been prudent to perform a long-term test of the resulting product's real-world durability and performance, but no such test was performed. As a result, the propensity of the iPod to scratch was underestimated, and customers were unhappy.
And that's "cutting corners", but not "skimping". Quite the contrary - it was a cutting-edge process on the very forefront of manufacturing technology, and promised to provide a great many advantages over older processes. It wasn't cheap, either - which exactly matches your analysis that the iPod was over-engineered; it was. A lot of excellent minds worked on it from beginning to end, and the internals were intended to be the best money could buy. The problem is that not enough testing and analysis were done AFTER the iPod moved from the drawing board into reality.
Notice the very definition of the straw man argument here: you took an argument, twisted i
> I took issue with the logic that you used in your post.
How does that differ from a belief that I have not reached my decision properly?
You know, when I ask these questions, you never answer them. I can only assume that you're afraid to admit how stupid you are in public.
> when you post what others and I deem as illogical steps
> to a conclusion on a message board, what do you expect?
I expect you to understand what logic is and how to use it. Primarily by avoiding fallacy. If you don't, you have no right to criticise my logic.
> Calling me names is part of a Type C Argument?
It's not part of the argument at all. An argument, as we all know from Monty Python, is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition. Calling you a retarded fuckwit simply amused me. It had no bearing whatsoever on the merits of our statements. It simply communicated what I perceived as the implication of your collected statements.
However, amusement is no longer coming out of this exchange, so I'm just going to concentrate on demolishing your stupidity. Nobody's watching anymore, so I don't have to be entertaining.
> So was calling me stupid part of your plan to make
> my argument sound legitimate?
If your argument IS legitimate, it doesn't matter how it sounds. That's the beauty of logic: even if people don't agree with you, they can't claim you're wrong. They can only claim they disagree.
> Was calling me a fuckwit your attempt to engage
> in "constructive discussion"?
No. You've never been interested in constructive discussion. You want to have a fight. More specifically, you want to WIN a fight, so you keep trying to change the playing field in a vain attempt to discover some way you can win. You're not very good at this.
> I'm still not sure where you see Apple skimping
> on hardware on the iPod
I never said that. You just don't know how else they might "cut corners", so you're using the equivocation fallacy to build a straw man. This is bad logic. You're wrong before you even get started.
In a constructive discussion, you say "I don't understand; how can you say Apple 'cut corners' when the iPod clearly is not made from inferior components, does not have shoddy construction, and is better designed than any previous digital music player?"
But since you just want to fight, what you do instead is choose a clearly inappropriate synonym for the phrase you don't understand (using a thesaurus if necessary), and hope your opponent is too stupid to understand what happened.
Unfortunately, I'm not stupid.
Amusingly, Arnold Kling has a couple interesting bits in EconLog today about bias and avoiding truth. If you're interested.
In this case, my opinion doesn't happen to match yours. You don't think I came to my decision "properly", so you're avoiding the truth (I can form opinions however the hell I want) by looking for bias. It's a classic "Type M Argument" - focused on motives rather than consequences.
Regardless of my logic, or lack thereof, I'm making a "Type C Argument" (focused on the consequences). I believe that selecting the Zune has preferable results to selecting the iPod, because I'm examining the consequences of choosing a player that receives inadequate or undesirable support from the company that produces it.
Whether you agree that this is an important consideration is completely irrelevant to the type of argument it comprises. The consequences of choosing the wrong color media player are infinitesimal, while the consequences of a too-small screen are real medical problems. I'm still talking consequences, while the opposition is reduced to talking motives.
Arnold Kling does not work for or at Microsoft.
> so what "choice" are you talking about?
How many times do I have to say it? Apple chose to cut corners on the hardware, and Microsoft chose to cut corners on the software. Neither of these was a design decision; both were marketing decisions. It's inevitable that corners are cut, and it's inevitable that someone ends up complaining because the corner you chose to cut was important to them.
It's arguable (I'd even argue it myself) that until Apple's iTunes was available, the software was the most critical point. We had MP3 players before the iPod; they all sucked, on hardware and software alike, because nobody saw how you could possibly make money off digital music. Apple was the first company to successfully demonstrate that there was a revenue stream in this game, and without that, you couldn't get the attention of the music industry... and that's where we got the selection that caught the attention of the consumer.
> It's not my fault that you happen to like to post on
> topics that involve the company that you work for.
It's not my fault that Microsoft produces so many best-of-breed products and services. We should all be so lucky; it's not like any of us are in this industry to make crap, or to work our eight hours and go home. If we're reading Slashdot, we actually give a shit. I've been here since long before I ever worked at Microsoft, and I'll be here regardless.
But if I have to announce to everyone that I work at Microsoft, I will never be able to have a rational discussion here. Every time I say "hey, there's a flaw in this idea" people will jump up and say "you're just trying to shut down the project because Microsoft is afraid of competition". It gives everyone this big dumbass excuse to claim that whatever I say doesn't matter, and there's no arguing with those people.
> However, you can easily fact check
You didn't check the facts. You checked A fact. It was not the right fact.
The fact you WANTED to check was whether I go around promoting Microsoft's products and services over alternatives when an objectively superior product or service clearly exists. Since I have never stopped recommending that any and all public web servers use a LAMP stack, and that if someone offers to sell you the "Web Edition" of Windows Server you should run away screaming, this is clearly not the fact.
Another fact you might want to check is whether my recommendations of products and services have changed since taking a position at Microsoft. Another is whether those recommendations changed when I became a Microsoft partner. And another is whether I've deliberately ignored flaws in Microsoft products. These are all good facts to check, and you can either go check them, or take my word that none of them are facts. I don't care which.
I would, however, prefer that you use Windows Live Search instead of Google. Not because it's better, but just because I work at Microsoft. If there's no real objective reason to use one product over the other, HELL YES my recommendation is to use the Microsoft product. I'm honest, not stupid.
> I Googled "cdarklock microsoft" and immediately found
> what I suspected that I would find - why would I keep
> reading?
Because working at Microsoft doesn't make me untrustworthy any more than NOT working here would make me trustworthy. The fundamental question you are asking is not about where I work, it is about whether I say what I really think or just what I've been told to think. Google won't tell you that; you have to do some reading.
You ARE aware that guilt by association is a logical fallacy, right? I mean, as long as we're complaining about a lack of logic.
> I don't know what design choice you are talking about
Did I say "design choice"? No! I said "choice". Stop making shit up.
> People shouldn't have to Google to find out you work for MS
If you don't announce where you work, why should I? I'm using my real name, and I didn't click "Post Anonymously". Why isn't that good enough? Do you normally take the advice of complete strangers without checking them out? Because that's stupid. If you're stupid, that's not my problem.
> More like, you saw an opportunity to pimp the Zune
Don't try to guess why I do things. The confirmation hypothesis prevents you from being even CLOSE to correct.
> like I really went through and read all of your old posts
You searched for information and didn't read it? Wow. That's really stupid. Why am I not surprised?
Oh, yeah, because you're a retarded fuckwit.
> That's not how I read this post.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you made an honest mistake. Instead, it seems you've just completely invented a "sales" connection for a post that doesn't say anything at all about sales. Sorry for giving you so much credit there.
> You were comparing current model Zunes to past-model iPods
That's about the decisions made by the company that launched the product. Apple made certain decisions when they launched the iPod. Microsoft made certain decisions when they launched the Zune. I'm comparing the choices each company made. Apple chose to do the best job on the software; Microsoft chose to do the best job on the hardware. I like Microsoft's choice better.
> At least you finally admit bias.
Yes, I did in fact finally use the word "bias". You win. Of course, I was always offering an opinion, and bias is inherent in any opinion, and I never denied bias, and I outright stated that I wasn't making an impartial analysis. You just seem to have particular trouble connecting the dots if I don't say the exact word you want.
Which, in case you forgot, is because you're a retarded fuckwit.
> I criticized you for being rude to me,
And then you ran a search, where you undoubtedly discovered that I am universally rude to the stupid. No bias there.
> and for hiding an obvious bias
Where did I hide it again? On my public blog under my own name? Man! However did you think of THAT?!
> I just wanted to point out what I perceived as
> some flaws in the logic
It wasn't more than two replies into that discussion when I told you that I only care about what matters to me, not what matters to you, and that other people should make up their own minds.
Which is fundamentally an admission of bias before you ever made the accusation. You simply weren't paying attention.
How rude.
> in an earlier post you said that you were taking
> future sales figures, of future Zunes, into account
No, I said I was taking future SUPPORT into account. I believe Microsoft will fix the problems with their software and give me the fixed versions for free. Apple, on the other hand, has a history of having HARDWARE problems which are "fixed" by releasing a whole new product... and as a valued customer, you get to pay full retail price for it.
Amusingly, that policy has the interesting side effect of inflating sales figures. Perhaps I'm not the one who needs to take stock of his decision process.
> Just don't expect everyone to be on board with that
> sort of logic
Give me any rational and logical reason why the iPod is objectively better than the Zune, and I'll tell you exactly why that rational and logical reason either doesn't apply to my situation or isn't important to me.
There is no rational and logical reason why I should buy an iPod. There may be such a reason why YOU should buy an iPod, but don't confuse that with objective reality.
> I was using an extreme example to illustrate my point.
No, you were using the WRONG example. And now you're using another one! I've been here on Slashdot for years. I've only been at Microsoft for nine months - and that as a contractor. So what you're actually finding out is that since joining the community, a member has gone to work at Chevrolet. Is it in any way irrational to presume that he may POSSIBLY have a greater awareness of and respect for Chevrolet as a company? Would it be fair to claim that simply by taking this job, he has made himself unreliable as a source?
I don't think so. I think you have to identify a marked alteration in behavior before you can suggest that someone no longer deserves his reputation. I think before you start crying "conspiracy" and "astroturfing", you have a responsibility to run those claims through a few sanity checks.
> you haven't even bought a Zune!
Since I explicitly said I was "eyeing" the Zune, I fail to see how anyone was misled.
> And yet you continue to insist that you have no bias!
You are, as I have said repeatedly, a retarded fuckwit.
I AM NOT REQUIRED TO BE UNBIASED. That's not a denial of bias. It's a denial that bias is relevant. As you've said, EVERYONE is biased. The problem here is that YOU DON'T LIKE MY BIAS, so you want me to compensate for it by APPLYING A BIAS YOU LIKE BETTER.
This amounts to saying "I don't like your opinion, please have a different one". That is simply not rational. You demand reason and logic when they suit you, then ignore them when they don't.
And my point is that the BitTyrant client violates the neutrality of the BitTorrent network, so we could examine how that network behaves as an example of how such violations would affect other networks. It's the first suitable microcosm we've had that can accurately reflect the effects we might see on the internet at large.
I am truly concerned about your apparent inability to distinguish the BitTorrent network from your internet connection.
You're missing the point.
Where an ISP violates net neutrality by requiring more MONEY if you want better bandwidth, this client violates net neutrality by requiring more UPLOADS if you want better bandwidth. They're both payment for preferential treatment. They should both produce largely the same result.
Sure they are. They're paying with uploads. How do you not see that?
> That does not make any sense, not on any level
It makes sense to me. It doesn't have to make sense to you.
> That you took such offense [...] is actually what tipped me
> off that you must be a shill, or at least work for Microsoft.
Hey, if I didn't work for Microsoft, what exactly are the chances that you could tell me how to make my decisions?
NONE, you RETARDED FUCKWIT.
I don't need to consider sales figures when I buy something. The very idea that you can criticise my decision because I didn't make it the way you would is simply beyond reason.
> You seem to be taking offense that I would say you are biased
No, I'm taking offense that you don't understand the difference between a Congressman taking money from the industry he is charged to regulate, and an employee expressing a personal preference for a product his company makes.
> it certainly should prevent you from presenting yourself as a
> neutral party.
Yeah, a neutral party who can't comment at length on "Plays For Sure" because of confidentiality, and who has a page and a half of Google search results admitting he works at Microsoft. Not to mention massive criticisms of open source dating back to 1993.
> why not just use any analogy that's convenient?
What's wrong with this analogy? It's a network. It gives preferential treatment to some clients over others. That will have an effect. Why exactly isn't that effect comparable to ISPs giving preferential treatment to certain customers?
Where's Kevin Mitnick?! It's a conspiracy!
> You can extrapolate any game theory
> having to do with cliques
That's as may be, how are you going to explain that to Joe Idiot who doesn't even understand what "net neutrality" means? It seems to me that we could make a much more compelling argument with an experiment:
"A preference system was instituted on this network, very much like what ISPs are proposing to institute across the internet. The results sucked ass and made life worse for everyone except a tiny few people who already had it much better than the rest."
If you did this in a laboratory, everyone would complain it was rigged. But when you do it "in the wild", people are more likely to accept and appreciate the results.
Meanwhile, you're still trying to explain to Joe Idiot that game theory is a branch of economics that isn't really about games, but rather a contrasting system to market theory.
This may have a hidden silver lining, although I haven't RTFA. (Shut up, I admitted it.)
Isn't this essentially a P2P violation of net neutrality? Instead of treating all clients the same, we prioritise the ones we like at the expense of those we don't?
Could we examine its effects and scale them up to get an idea of what would happen without net neutrality?
> matters in which you have a conflict of interest
What conflict?
If the Zune fails miserably, guess what happens to me? Nothing.
If the Zune becomes the market leader, guess what happens to me? You got it - NOTHING.
I don't get anything if you buy a Zune. I don't lose anything if you don't. Your decision is completely irrelevant to me. Where exactly is there a conflict?
> All I did was criticize your analysis
But your criticism was retarded. I made an analysis of the things that mattered to me, and you came up to complain that those aren't the things that matter to other people. Guess what? I don't care. I don't choose things based on what other people want, I choose them based on what I want. You simply don't have any rational basis to disagree.
But, being a fuckwit, you just can't quite grasp this concept. You have completely missed the point. You started to get the idea earlier, when you noted we seem to be arguing entirely different things, but then you got retarded again. And here you are being ESPECIALLY retarded:
> If you didn't want an open discussion, then why on earth
> did you post to a public forum instead of your blog?
My blog IS a public forum, idiot. And if I didn't want an open discussion, I wouldn't still be having one.
> very nice reflection of your employer.
You know, I just wanted to revisit this.
If you work at Microsoft, YOU CANNOT WIN.
If you speak clearly and effectively and offend nobody, you're a corporate marketroid with no ideas of your own.
If you just say what you think without concern or regard for the party line, anyone you offend will blame your employer anyway.
And if you don't offend anyone, you can't possibly be saying anything of substance.
> some really lame attempt to look impartial
Where did I ever claim to be making an impartial analysis? This is my personal opinion of the Zune based on what matters to me. I've said that several times. I've even outright stated that if I were a jogger, I would not make the same choice.
> Then you start calling everyone a fuckwit
No, if you check, you'll find that this is a title I've reserved exclusively for you.
And it's RETARDED fuckwit.
> very nice reflection of your employer
I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer. I'm speaking for myself and nobody else. Your inability to understand this is not my problem.