It was my assumption that the suit was over low end machines being labeled and sold as Vista capable when they shouldn't have been. Which would likely mean that the majority of people effected actually underpaid for what they were told was a Vista capable machine.
I was assuming that they would have to show that enough of the cases people purchased "Vista Capable" machines that were clearly not capable of running Vista in the marketed manner.
If they were trying to sell it to the judge as a matter of overpaying, I can see why it was tossed out. The only people who would have grounds in those cases would be the people who bought more expensive "Vista Capable" PCs before MS allowed manufacturers to label lower end machines as "Vista Capable", which would be significantly different than the other group of people who bought those low end machines that could not perform up to expectations.
Another drawback is that the system cannot cope with encrypted files. "Today, about 25 percent of BitTorrent traffic is encrypted," says Schulze. If such a tool became widely used, then anyone with something to hide would almost certainly switch to using encryption, he says.
If you make breathing illegal, only criminals with breath.
The very first response on to that google search is: "someone who is morally reprehensible; "you dirty dog""
On the first page you also see: "...a man habituated to immoral conduct", "A low-bred, presuming person; a mean, vulgar fellow, a seducer"
Seeing as how all of the definitions are pretty well defined as computer/technology related, some enzyme thing, proper nouns, and character insults, and in the original context the author was stating that a person was a cad, is it really that hard to figure out which definition applys?
Although, from what little I know of the situation, I disagree with the assertion that the judge is a cad. At face value it looks like he is doing the correct thing. He was presented with specific posts that are legally actionable and he is continuing the action on those posts.
Hah, we're what, 7 posts deep on a tangent far from the original topic. The only two people who will ever read this are you and me. I could see if we were in a hotly contested debate with high scored posts that you could make the claim of ego stroking. But honestly in this case I was attempting to have a conversation of some level of intellect about your claims.
It's okay if you don't want to defend your opinion. But the ad hominem attacks just make you look sad.
You're mistaking that just because Microsoft supplies everything for you in your OS, that they must be the ones that you have to get it all from.
That is not my belief. However, it is my expectation as a consumer that after spending $300 on an OS, that it will be capable of doing a minimum set of requirements out of the box. One of those requirements is the ability to browse the internet.
This is not a personal belief of mine, this is the belief of a consumer. Much as a consumer expects that when they buy a new car it will have gas in it. Or as a when a consumer buys a house, that it has electrical service. In none of these cases does the consumer expect those immediate offerings to be the 'end-all-be-all' solution. A car owner is going to have to buy more gas, a home owner is going to have to pay for more electricity, and a Windows owner is going to have to install software and add-ons. But they all expect to have functionality immediately.
Everywhere else, there's a separation between different suppliers and the overall package you receive.
Not necessarily. When was the last time you could buy a car with out a radio? Auto manufacturers have been bundling cars with radios for a long time. Even now with digital radio and satellite stations online, auto manufacturers are still bundling with traditional radios. There are some that offer satellite upgrades, but they are still bundled with the car from the manufacturer, not the dealer.
When you buy a PC, you should get the OS from Microsoft (perhaps:), the browser from Mozilla, the Word Processor from Sun, etc etc. The people who bundle that all together for you are the ones you buy the PC from- Dell, HP etc.
That works if you are willing to pay a premium for the assembly and bundling service. But there are a lot of home built PCs that will never see the Dell or HP bloat ware package. And many more that come from Dell/HP that immediately get imaged so that we don't have to deal with all the crap they put on.
For the majority though, you are correct, having Dell and HP bundle multiple browsers is fine. But that doesn't mean that IE shouldn't be bundled by Microsoft. For those customers who are building their own box, or rebuilding a Dell/HP box, they still have the expectation that they can get to the web as soon as the build is complete. Having IE bundled with Windows by Microsoft means less overhead for the assembly service (although it is pretty insignificant) and it guarantees that any consumer who installs MS is able to get onto the web with out any additional work.
It's been a while since I've built an Ubuntu, but I'm almost 100% positive that it comes bundled with Fire Fox. Sure, they could have left it out and made people install it themselves, but it is expected functionality. And when you are Ubuntu, striving for market share, or Microsoft, striving to make sales, you are going to do everything you can to ensure that your OS meets the expectations of the consumer.
In short, Browsers will always be required to be bundled with the OS so long as the consumer demands it.
Wow, and you're saying that I'm the one projecting?
There is a difference between projection and reaching a conclusion of another person's intent based on your own experiences. The later perfectly natural. I haven't walked a mile in your shoes, so I have no means of knowing exactly what your though process is. I have my own experiences, and I know that we both exist in relatively similar societies. So I can draw on my own experiences to make assumptions about your intent.
That is a social norm, we all do it, every day, every time we interact with each other, we make assumptions based on our previous experiences with that person, and with our previous experiences within the social context.
Besides, if I was going to project something, it wouldn't be pretentiousness.;)
If you'd like to continue the debate on bundling browsers with OSs, I'd be glad to continue. But if this conversation is going to center around a high school level understanding of psychology, I'll take my leave.
You see pretentiousness because you project it yourself. Others are often merely a mirror of yourself.
I'm more of a Pragmatist than Freudian. I find the blend of optimistic realism to be quite pleasant with out the delusions of some of the more harmonius philosophies nor as depressing as the ultra realist "we're all doomed you know" philosophies.
I see a phrase like "You honestly need to have a better understanding of metaphors before using them in the future." And read it as though the author is implying that he or she is better at the function than the reader. If the author were not trying to make such a implication, they would likely have qualified their statement by either noting their own condition or offering a scope to which the reader's skill should be comparable to.
And if you cannot see how the conversation came about, I suggest reading more carefully.
Back to the begining. You asserted that Microsoft should bundle no browser with the Windows software package. I asserted that doing so would not be practical as it would leave the product unable to fullfil the neeeds of the majority of their users. You then asserted that the integration of IE into the Windows OS was bad. I agreed with your assertion. You asserted that I did not agree with your stance that integrating IE into the OS was bad. And the conversation has continued devlolving from there.
Your initial assertion is what I have been attempting to debate with you. Your second assertion is irrelivant. Everything else is for entertainment value only.
No your assumption that a browser SHOULD be interweaved with an OS is retarded.
Where have I ever made such an assertion? I even said that the OS referencing IS was a poor technical design and retarded.
The OS should NEVER depend on the browser. Period. End of story. Good day sir!
Thus the reason for poking fun of your combined assertions that the integrated browser should be chosen by the user;)
Obviously, you do very little programming otherwise this concept would be quite easy for you to grasp.
"Very little" is a subjective term, so yes, I guess you could say I do "very little" programming. Especially when compared to a warehouse full of killer coding ninja monkeys. And to be honest, I do less coding now than I use to. I spend a bit more time in the architect and design roles these days, coupled with more time in test design and working on team standards and frameworks. Good stuff, but eats up a fair bit of former coding time.
See, I can be uncivilized in conversation too. Now should you choose to act like an adult in future conversations, I will address you as one. Speak rationally, not emotionally.
Jib for Jab. I find bullshit is often a great counter to pretentiousness.
It is obvious that you were not trying to imply that the OS should continue to depend on a browser of the user's choice, but your decision to bring a straw man into the conversation left me with limited response options. I could chase after the straw man, which would likely be fruitless as we are likely in agreement on that issue (although I believe some of the motivations may not be as you painted them). I could ignore it, but that is a rather boring option. Or, I could purposefully misinterpret it and respond with a heavy dose of snark to make the point that it was inconsequential to the conversation at hand.
Personally, I like the Snark. It keeps things lively.
Well to answer your question... No one cares what you care about. We care what HACKERS care about... and they care about accessing an insecure browser that has ROOT access to your system and can be accessed through your email, through a word doc, through an excel doc, etc etc etc.
Well now you're jumping to another argument, one that is debatibly a straw man at that. I agree with you that having a browser integrated into the OS is an extremely poor technical decision, but it doesn't effect the users in the sense of a typical monopoly. Again, the vast majority of users will never know, never care, and never be affected. And that was what I believe we were talking about.
When you said "...it can always be removed and supplanted by another browser of the users choice." I was assuming you were talking about the consumer experience. That the user can get to their web resources using which ever browser they choose. I did not assume that you were implying that they should be able to swap out the OS's interweaving with one browser for another... because that would be retarded. And silly me, I assumed you were not retarded.
Having Windows the OS reference IE's libraries is retarded. Having Windows the OS reference FF or Chrome libraries instead is equally retarded.
Having Windows the software package come with IE bundled (pre-installed, or 1-click install) is not retarded. Given the consumer's expectations of a PC, it effectively a requirement.
Having Windows the software package come with FF or Chrome bundled (pre-installed, or 1-click install) is also not retarded. Although as I mentioned above (may have been in a different thread though) I can see MS avoiding such a move for liability issues.
And no, a computers primary function is to 'compute'. A browsers primary function is to browse the web. A cars primary function is to travel... not play the radio
A car's or a computer's primary function is what ever the consumer determined it was when they parted ways with their hard earned cash. The vast majority of consumers do not buy computers to "compute". They buy them for access to the internet. And while I would agree that the vast majority of people purchase cars for the primary function of traveling, there are many cars in the world that have a non-transportation primary function.
I'll give ya one more metaphor before I go:
A forest may cloud my vision of a tree, but at the moment I think the inner lining of your large intestine is blocking your view of the world.
Which is why I stated above that the power can be put within the hands of the OEM as long as the browser is not HARD CODED as part of the OS; it can always be removed and supplanted by another browser of the users choice.
Who cares if it is hard coded? So long as I can hit my FF button and FF opens and works as intended, what do I care if some internal functions still reference IE?
To use a better metaphor, it would be like removing the default factory radio from your car and installing another or removing cable from your house and installing satelite TV. Thats a more valid metaphor.
Except that with out a browser, to the vast majority of consumers, a computer is worthless. With out a radio a consumer can still use the car to perform the primary desired function. With out a browser, a consumer can not use a computer to perform the primary desired function.
Maybe a better analogy would be buying a car with out tires. That way, you could still use the car for all of its secondary functions, just like a computer with out a browser still has solitaire.
In the end: Windows simply doesn't need to come with IE bundled by Microsoft.
And cars don't need to come bundled with a tank of gas. You should be able to pick what type of gas your new car will run on! Even if that means taking a gallon tank to the dealership with you.
And houses don't need to come bundled with power lines. You should be free to skip the grid all together and just install solar/wind/tidal/zen crystals/what ever.
I'm sure car dealerships and realitors across the nation would see a dramatic increase in sales if only they would stop bundling this crap with their products...
Personally, I think Windows should come bundled with all of the major browsers, and the first time you open a browser session you get prompted for which browser you would like to use, just like the first time you use the search function in IE.
On the up side, it gets a wider variety of browser platforms into the market with no extra effort on the part of the new users and reduces the MS monopoly.
On the down side, it could introduce a liability to MS if one of the bundled browsers has a security vulnerability. You know that someone would sue them over support or losses due to FF or Chrome.
How about we just put more funding (and reform!) into education so we can reduce the number of people who get into this mess in the first place?
It's like arguing whether an abortion or adoption is better, why not just educate the people on the use of condoms and pregnancy so you wouldn't be stuck debating between two shitty options?
Long term though, I agree with you. We need to get our spending under control, and with our two current political parties, I believe the Democrats are the ones more likely to do so. Sure, they are tax and spend liberals. But, when you're raising taxes, there are a whole lot of people who will be putting up a fight and demanding that their money isn't being wasted. Republicans on the other hand are borrow and spend liberals. They'll spend every dime the Democrats will, but they'll get their money through federal bonds and international debt. And when the money is just appearing out of a black box, people are much less likely to be concerned or to object.
I mean what are the chances of sustaining a $10 billion a month war if you make the tax payers foot the bill? Slim to none. But if you get the Chinese and Japanese to buy the debt to fund the war, so no one in the US has to make a sacrifice, then hell yeah, bomb away!
So 7-15 years (depending on which Clinton act you are referring too) after Clinton opened up sub prime loans to Fannie and Freddie the market collapsed... If it was solely the fault of the Clinton effort, wouldn't we have seen F&F having significant issues much sooner? Why did people wait until a decade after they took a slightly higher risk loan to default?
And if Clinton's pressure on the F&F is to blame, why is it that those two entities were responsible for a only a tiny portion of the sub-prime market? Private firms were responsible for 84% of the sub-prime lending in 2006.
The major private lending organizations at root of the sub-prime/secondary market were not regulated. There were huge profit margins, and every one was diving in head first.
Most of the CRA (the ones you're blaming for the crash, from Fannie and Freddie, pushed by Clinton) loans actually had interest rates below what would be classified as a sub-prime. Even though they are for lower income households, they have actually been decently performing (well, as decent as one would hope for in the current market). The CRA program though has significant regulation and federal oversight.
The private sector though, enjoyed huge profits and almost no regulation at all. Which just urged them to push more and more loans and to come up with investment vehicles to hide their liabilities. Couple that with the commission based profits from the mortgage agents and realitors, and you have a perfect storm where everyone has an incentive to see housing prices inflate, sales complete regardless of the buyers qualifications, and arm loans with high profit margins. Everyone gets paid up front, and the liability gets wrapped up in a nice little package that eventually gets sold to the Japanese who we will reward handsomely with interest payments.
And when you look at the difficulties and TCO on a Citrix farm, you're really no better off than if you just had a 5 year technology replacement plan anyways.
And when you look at what Citrix is trying to do, centralizing application execution, compared to the rise of Web Apps and instant deployments (click-once and the like), there is really no big gain by going to Citrix unless you are locked in to proprietary software that only runs on Windows.
Honestly though, you are significantly better off sticking to a 5 year replacement plan and pushing for web and low impact distributable applications.
Remember, a high school student has less rights on school grounds than your average citizen. Hell, they are really only a baby step above inmates really.
The teacher (if they are in Illinois, or any nubmer of other states with similar laws) was completely within their rights to search the bag and confiscate the work. What the teach may not have been OK doing is destroying those articles.
In any case, take it to the principal, if you make no head way there, the school board, and if you still get nothing, the local media.
It's really a shame that some sleaze ball teachers like this is dragging down the entire field.
It's actually closer to 1/3rd of 1/4 of the population.
Roughly 10% of the population if you mash up all of the categories.
I don't see any reason why we should allow 10% of the population stand in the way of the other 90%. 64% of us already have Broad Band (according to the linked "survey") and the other 26% wants it but can't aford it, don't have access to it, or believe that their lifestyle will not allow for it.
This guy almost makes me feel good about the other news of the day (Microsoft to laying off 5,000).
I'm thinking they should have gone with 5,001.
"In an effort to restructure and reduce costs, Microsoft is cutting 5,001 positions world wide. One of those positions belongs to Hugh Griffiths, who was scheduled to have a really dumb press conference tomorrow."
I'm a rather happy MS stack user (Windows/IIS/.Net/SL), but this idea is about as smart as the time I bet my roomie he couldn't piss on the 3rd rail of the local metro line from the platform...
Believe it or not, the two are connected. It's not a coincidence that AQ has training camps throughout Afghanistan. It's no coincidence that Bin Ladin got his first taste of militant islamism in Afghanistan. Furthermore, when we invaded, the Taliban--the state-government of Afghanistan was ABSOLUTELY sponsoring AQ.
I'm not saying that the Taliban was innocent. The Taliban was the ruling party of a nation that has spent the last 50 years in a constant state of war. They have 2 primary exports: Opium and Military training. But the majority of the 9/11 actors, and their funding was almost entirely provided by Saudi Arabia.
Osama Bin Laden, and his family have extremely close ties to the ruling family of Saudi Arabia. That family has for the most part been very pro-American in their international policies. In a big part thanks to Bush Sr's push into Iraq after Saddam invaded Kuwait for stealing his oil. After 9/11, immediate relatives of Osama were flown out of the country back to Saudi Arabia even while the rest of the country's flights were still grounded. Not a big surprise, a few other important foreigners were also flown out of the country.
But at the time, there was a growing anit-American movement in Saudi Arabia. For the US to take any significant action against them, be it sanctions, extradition, invasion, etc... in response to the contribution SA made to the 9/11 attacks, it would have eroded much of the political capital that existed, forcing us to withdraw our troops from their country.
About the same time Iran elected a former militant activist (one of the men who held a former OIC of mine as a hostage in Beirut) who had pledged to wipe Isreal off the map and had been making rumblings of Nuclear power.
Saddam had been keeping Iran in check for the last couple of decades, but after years of sanctions and inspections, it was pretty clear that he was not the threat he once was. To his credit, his attempts to hold up the UN inspections were more to keep Iran in check than it was to piss off the US/UN. We all knew he didn't have long range capabilities, he wasn't going to start lobbing ICBMs around. But if he could keep Iran guessing about his short and mid range capabilities, they would likely remain well behaved.
Unfortunately, the whole deck of cards fell when we started the march towards war.
What ideally would have happened is simple: 1) We trounce Iraq in a 3-7 day war (check) 2) We stabilize the country and replace Saddam with a secular western friendly government (1/2 check) 3) We maintain a significant military presence in Iraq with the ability to quickly react to threats dealing with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Gaza, and Saudi Arabia. (1/2 check) 4) Pull troops out of SA to give the western friendly ruling party some political capital with the people. (check)
Unfortunately, we totally hosed the stabilization portion of the occupation. The 2 biggest mistakes were the de-Bathification and the release of the military. The damaging nature of the occupation, and the cost to our international political capital (between gitmo, abu grav, torture, no WMDs, etc...) crippled us from being able to put any significant pressure on Iran.
I believe that touting diplomacy with any of those countries as a way of finding any solution to Iraq is pretty silly--doesn't make any sense.
There was no problem with Iraq before the war. The war was not about Iraq, it was about Iraq's neighbors. Part of diplomacy is bribery, and another part is threat. The taking of Iraq was the treat portion of diplomacy. Having troups stationed in Iraq is a threat to all of Iraq's neighbors. And that threat, along with other motivating factors will all be used in diplomatic missions through out the Middle East.
But the primary reason for the invasion, Saudi Arabia and Iran, could have likely been handled through diplomacy along with a new status of forces agreement in Turkey.
in that only one website requires Silverlight to watch the inauguration, whereas YouTube and many others will be showing it in Flash video.
Have you seen the resolution MS is pushing through SilverLight? If you want a video feed that looks grainy at 320x200, sure, Flash is great. If you want a picture that looks closer to 720i, then Silver Light is the way to go. Check out the media libraries from the Dem's convention. That site was entirely silver light driving and the video quality is amazing.
When Flash/YouTube are willing to shell out for some decent video Codecs, maybe they'll be a viable competitor. But for now, if you're going high res in a web environment, SL is pretty awesome.
Slashdot Mirror
It was my assumption that the suit was over low end machines being labeled and sold as Vista capable when they shouldn't have been. Which would likely mean that the majority of people effected actually underpaid for what they were told was a Vista capable machine.
I was assuming that they would have to show that enough of the cases people purchased "Vista Capable" machines that were clearly not capable of running Vista in the marketed manner.
If they were trying to sell it to the judge as a matter of overpaying, I can see why it was tossed out. The only people who would have grounds in those cases would be the people who bought more expensive "Vista Capable" PCs before MS allowed manufacturers to label lower end machines as "Vista Capable", which would be significantly different than the other group of people who bought those low end machines that could not perform up to expectations.
-Rick
Someone should have spent more time Naval Gazing.
-Rick
Another drawback is that the system cannot cope with encrypted files. "Today, about 25 percent of BitTorrent traffic is encrypted," says Schulze. If such a tool became widely used, then anyone with something to hide would almost certainly switch to using encryption, he says.
If you make breathing illegal, only criminals with breath.
-Rick
The very first response on to that google search is: "someone who is morally reprehensible; "you dirty dog""
On the first page you also see: "...a man habituated to immoral conduct", "A low-bred, presuming person; a mean, vulgar fellow, a seducer"
Seeing as how all of the definitions are pretty well defined as computer/technology related, some enzyme thing, proper nouns, and character insults, and in the original context the author was stating that a person was a cad, is it really that hard to figure out which definition applys?
-Rick
http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=define%3A+cad
Although, from what little I know of the situation, I disagree with the assertion that the judge is a cad. At face value it looks like he is doing the correct thing. He was presented with specific posts that are legally actionable and he is continuing the action on those posts.
-Rick
and still you go on. Needing your ego stroked.
Hah, we're what, 7 posts deep on a tangent far from the original topic. The only two people who will ever read this are you and me. I could see if we were in a hotly contested debate with high scored posts that you could make the claim of ego stroking. But honestly in this case I was attempting to have a conversation of some level of intellect about your claims.
It's okay if you don't want to defend your opinion. But the ad hominem attacks just make you look sad.
Sad troll is sad.
-Rick
Go ahead and rethink your logic and consider that perhaps something happened, maybe even several times, that prompted the writer to write what he did.
He was dropped on his head as a child?
Disclaimer: I have not RTFA since their server is borked.
-Rick
You're mistaking that just because Microsoft supplies everything for you in your OS, that they must be the ones that you have to get it all from.
That is not my belief. However, it is my expectation as a consumer that after spending $300 on an OS, that it will be capable of doing a minimum set of requirements out of the box. One of those requirements is the ability to browse the internet.
This is not a personal belief of mine, this is the belief of a consumer. Much as a consumer expects that when they buy a new car it will have gas in it. Or as a when a consumer buys a house, that it has electrical service. In none of these cases does the consumer expect those immediate offerings to be the 'end-all-be-all' solution. A car owner is going to have to buy more gas, a home owner is going to have to pay for more electricity, and a Windows owner is going to have to install software and add-ons. But they all expect to have functionality immediately.
Everywhere else, there's a separation between different suppliers and the overall package you receive.
Not necessarily. When was the last time you could buy a car with out a radio? Auto manufacturers have been bundling cars with radios for a long time. Even now with digital radio and satellite stations online, auto manufacturers are still bundling with traditional radios. There are some that offer satellite upgrades, but they are still bundled with the car from the manufacturer, not the dealer.
When you buy a PC, you should get the OS from Microsoft (perhaps :), the browser from Mozilla, the Word Processor from Sun, etc etc. The people who bundle that all together for you are the ones you buy the PC from- Dell, HP etc.
That works if you are willing to pay a premium for the assembly and bundling service. But there are a lot of home built PCs that will never see the Dell or HP bloat ware package. And many more that come from Dell/HP that immediately get imaged so that we don't have to deal with all the crap they put on.
For the majority though, you are correct, having Dell and HP bundle multiple browsers is fine. But that doesn't mean that IE shouldn't be bundled by Microsoft. For those customers who are building their own box, or rebuilding a Dell/HP box, they still have the expectation that they can get to the web as soon as the build is complete. Having IE bundled with Windows by Microsoft means less overhead for the assembly service (although it is pretty insignificant) and it guarantees that any consumer who installs MS is able to get onto the web with out any additional work.
It's been a while since I've built an Ubuntu, but I'm almost 100% positive that it comes bundled with Fire Fox. Sure, they could have left it out and made people install it themselves, but it is expected functionality. And when you are Ubuntu, striving for market share, or Microsoft, striving to make sales, you are going to do everything you can to ensure that your OS meets the expectations of the consumer.
In short, Browsers will always be required to be bundled with the OS so long as the consumer demands it.
-Rick
Wow, and you're saying that I'm the one projecting?
There is a difference between projection and reaching a conclusion of another person's intent based on your own experiences. The later perfectly natural. I haven't walked a mile in your shoes, so I have no means of knowing exactly what your though process is. I have my own experiences, and I know that we both exist in relatively similar societies. So I can draw on my own experiences to make assumptions about your intent.
That is a social norm, we all do it, every day, every time we interact with each other, we make assumptions based on our previous experiences with that person, and with our previous experiences within the social context.
Besides, if I was going to project something, it wouldn't be pretentiousness. ;)
If you'd like to continue the debate on bundling browsers with OSs, I'd be glad to continue. But if this conversation is going to center around a high school level understanding of psychology, I'll take my leave.
-Rick
You see pretentiousness because you project it yourself. Others are often merely a mirror of yourself.
I'm more of a Pragmatist than Freudian. I find the blend of optimistic realism to be quite pleasant with out the delusions of some of the more harmonius philosophies nor as depressing as the ultra realist "we're all doomed you know" philosophies.
I see a phrase like "You honestly need to have a better understanding of metaphors before using them in the future." And read it as though the author is implying that he or she is better at the function than the reader. If the author were not trying to make such a implication, they would likely have qualified their statement by either noting their own condition or offering a scope to which the reader's skill should be comparable to.
And if you cannot see how the conversation came about, I suggest reading more carefully.
Back to the begining. You asserted that Microsoft should bundle no browser with the Windows software package. I asserted that doing so would not be practical as it would leave the product unable to fullfil the neeeds of the majority of their users. You then asserted that the integration of IE into the Windows OS was bad. I agreed with your assertion. You asserted that I did not agree with your stance that integrating IE into the OS was bad. And the conversation has continued devlolving from there.
Your initial assertion is what I have been attempting to debate with you. Your second assertion is irrelivant. Everything else is for entertainment value only.
-Rick
No your assumption that a browser SHOULD be interweaved with an OS is retarded.
Where have I ever made such an assertion? I even said that the OS referencing IS was a poor technical design and retarded.
The OS should NEVER depend on the browser. Period. End of story. Good day sir!
Thus the reason for poking fun of your combined assertions that the integrated browser should be chosen by the user ;)
Obviously, you do very little programming otherwise this concept would be quite easy for you to grasp.
"Very little" is a subjective term, so yes, I guess you could say I do "very little" programming. Especially when compared to a warehouse full of killer coding ninja monkeys. And to be honest, I do less coding now than I use to. I spend a bit more time in the architect and design roles these days, coupled with more time in test design and working on team standards and frameworks. Good stuff, but eats up a fair bit of former coding time.
See, I can be uncivilized in conversation too. Now should you choose to act like an adult in future conversations, I will address you as one. Speak rationally, not emotionally.
Jib for Jab. I find bullshit is often a great counter to pretentiousness.
It is obvious that you were not trying to imply that the OS should continue to depend on a browser of the user's choice, but your decision to bring a straw man into the conversation left me with limited response options. I could chase after the straw man, which would likely be fruitless as we are likely in agreement on that issue (although I believe some of the motivations may not be as you painted them). I could ignore it, but that is a rather boring option. Or, I could purposefully misinterpret it and respond with a heavy dose of snark to make the point that it was inconsequential to the conversation at hand.
Personally, I like the Snark. It keeps things lively.
-Rick
Well to answer your question... No one cares what you care about. We care what HACKERS care about... and they care about accessing an insecure browser that has ROOT access to your system and can be accessed through your email, through a word doc, through an excel doc, etc etc etc.
Well now you're jumping to another argument, one that is debatibly a straw man at that. I agree with you that having a browser integrated into the OS is an extremely poor technical decision, but it doesn't effect the users in the sense of a typical monopoly. Again, the vast majority of users will never know, never care, and never be affected. And that was what I believe we were talking about.
When you said "...it can always be removed and supplanted by another browser of the users choice." I was assuming you were talking about the consumer experience. That the user can get to their web resources using which ever browser they choose. I did not assume that you were implying that they should be able to swap out the OS's interweaving with one browser for another... because that would be retarded. And silly me, I assumed you were not retarded.
Having Windows the OS reference IE's libraries is retarded. Having Windows the OS reference FF or Chrome libraries instead is equally retarded.
Having Windows the software package come with IE bundled (pre-installed, or 1-click install) is not retarded. Given the consumer's expectations of a PC, it effectively a requirement.
Having Windows the software package come with FF or Chrome bundled (pre-installed, or 1-click install) is also not retarded. Although as I mentioned above (may have been in a different thread though) I can see MS avoiding such a move for liability issues.
And no, a computers primary function is to 'compute'. A browsers primary function is to browse the web. A cars primary function is to travel... not play the radio
A car's or a computer's primary function is what ever the consumer determined it was when they parted ways with their hard earned cash. The vast majority of consumers do not buy computers to "compute". They buy them for access to the internet. And while I would agree that the vast majority of people purchase cars for the primary function of traveling, there are many cars in the world that have a non-transportation primary function.
I'll give ya one more metaphor before I go:
A forest may cloud my vision of a tree, but at the moment I think the inner lining of your large intestine is blocking your view of the world.
-Rick
Which is why I stated above that the power can be put within the hands of the OEM as long as the browser is not HARD CODED as part of the OS; it can always be removed and supplanted by another browser of the users choice.
Who cares if it is hard coded? So long as I can hit my FF button and FF opens and works as intended, what do I care if some internal functions still reference IE?
To use a better metaphor, it would be like removing the default factory radio from your car and installing another or removing cable from your house and installing satelite TV. Thats a more valid metaphor.
Except that with out a browser, to the vast majority of consumers, a computer is worthless. With out a radio a consumer can still use the car to perform the primary desired function. With out a browser, a consumer can not use a computer to perform the primary desired function.
Maybe a better analogy would be buying a car with out tires. That way, you could still use the car for all of its secondary functions, just like a computer with out a browser still has solitaire.
-Rick
In the end: Windows simply doesn't need to come with IE bundled by Microsoft.
And cars don't need to come bundled with a tank of gas. You should be able to pick what type of gas your new car will run on! Even if that means taking a gallon tank to the dealership with you.
And houses don't need to come bundled with power lines. You should be free to skip the grid all together and just install solar/wind/tidal/zen crystals/what ever.
I'm sure car dealerships and realitors across the nation would see a dramatic increase in sales if only they would stop bundling this crap with their products...
Personally, I think Windows should come bundled with all of the major browsers, and the first time you open a browser session you get prompted for which browser you would like to use, just like the first time you use the search function in IE.
On the up side, it gets a wider variety of browser platforms into the market with no extra effort on the part of the new users and reduces the MS monopoly.
On the down side, it could introduce a liability to MS if one of the bundled browsers has a security vulnerability. You know that someone would sue them over support or losses due to FF or Chrome.
-Rick
How about we just put more funding (and reform!) into education so we can reduce the number of people who get into this mess in the first place?
It's like arguing whether an abortion or adoption is better, why not just educate the people on the use of condoms and pregnancy so you wouldn't be stuck debating between two shitty options?
Long term though, I agree with you. We need to get our spending under control, and with our two current political parties, I believe the Democrats are the ones more likely to do so. Sure, they are tax and spend liberals. But, when you're raising taxes, there are a whole lot of people who will be putting up a fight and demanding that their money isn't being wasted. Republicans on the other hand are borrow and spend liberals. They'll spend every dime the Democrats will, but they'll get their money through federal bonds and international debt. And when the money is just appearing out of a black box, people are much less likely to be concerned or to object.
I mean what are the chances of sustaining a $10 billion a month war if you make the tax payers foot the bill? Slim to none. But if you get the Chinese and Japanese to buy the debt to fund the war, so no one in the US has to make a sacrifice, then hell yeah, bomb away!
-Rick
So 7-15 years (depending on which Clinton act you are referring too) after Clinton opened up sub prime loans to Fannie and Freddie the market collapsed... If it was solely the fault of the Clinton effort, wouldn't we have seen F&F having significant issues much sooner? Why did people wait until a decade after they took a slightly higher risk loan to default?
And if Clinton's pressure on the F&F is to blame, why is it that those two entities were responsible for a only a tiny portion of the sub-prime market? Private firms were responsible for 84% of the sub-prime lending in 2006.
The major private lending organizations at root of the sub-prime/secondary market were not regulated. There were huge profit margins, and every one was diving in head first.
Most of the CRA (the ones you're blaming for the crash, from Fannie and Freddie, pushed by Clinton) loans actually had interest rates below what would be classified as a sub-prime. Even though they are for lower income households, they have actually been decently performing (well, as decent as one would hope for in the current market). The CRA program though has significant regulation and federal oversight.
The private sector though, enjoyed huge profits and almost no regulation at all. Which just urged them to push more and more loans and to come up with investment vehicles to hide their liabilities. Couple that with the commission based profits from the mortgage agents and realitors, and you have a perfect storm where everyone has an incentive to see housing prices inflate, sales complete regardless of the buyers qualifications, and arm loans with high profit margins. Everyone gets paid up front, and the liability gets wrapped up in a nice little package that eventually gets sold to the Japanese who we will reward handsomely with interest payments.
-Rick
Citrix is freaking expensive too!
And when you look at the difficulties and TCO on a Citrix farm, you're really no better off than if you just had a 5 year technology replacement plan anyways.
And when you look at what Citrix is trying to do, centralizing application execution, compared to the rise of Web Apps and instant deployments (click-once and the like), there is really no big gain by going to Citrix unless you are locked in to proprietary software that only runs on Windows.
Honestly though, you are significantly better off sticking to a 5 year replacement plan and pushing for web and low impact distributable applications.
-Rick
It wants its irrational fear of the web back.
Web apps are not new. We have seen numerous expensive catastrophes. And the trend is not reversing.
Hell we keep pushing more and more in the direction of SOA and chubby clients (thicker than thin, but thinner than thick).
-Rick
Remember, a high school student has less rights on school grounds than your average citizen. Hell, they are really only a baby step above inmates really.
http://www.illinoislegalaid.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.dsp_content&contentID=2594
The teacher (if they are in Illinois, or any nubmer of other states with similar laws) was completely within their rights to search the bag and confiscate the work. What the teach may not have been OK doing is destroying those articles.
In any case, take it to the principal, if you make no head way there, the school board, and if you still get nothing, the local media.
It's really a shame that some sleaze ball teachers like this is dragging down the entire field.
-Rick
It's actually closer to 1/3rd of 1/4 of the population.
Roughly 10% of the population if you mash up all of the categories.
I don't see any reason why we should allow 10% of the population stand in the way of the other 90%. 64% of us already have Broad Band (according to the linked "survey") and the other 26% wants it but can't aford it, don't have access to it, or believe that their lifestyle will not allow for it.
-Rick
This guy almost makes me feel good about the other news of the day (Microsoft to laying off 5,000).
I'm thinking they should have gone with 5,001.
"In an effort to restructure and reduce costs, Microsoft is cutting 5,001 positions world wide. One of those positions belongs to Hugh Griffiths, who was scheduled to have a really dumb press conference tomorrow."
I'm a rather happy MS stack user (Windows/IIS/.Net/SL), but this idea is about as smart as the time I bet my roomie he couldn't piss on the 3rd rail of the local metro line from the platform...
-Rick
Believe it or not, the two are connected. It's not a coincidence that AQ has training camps throughout Afghanistan. It's no coincidence that Bin Ladin got his first taste of militant islamism in Afghanistan. Furthermore, when we invaded, the Taliban--the state-government of Afghanistan was ABSOLUTELY sponsoring AQ.
I'm not saying that the Taliban was innocent. The Taliban was the ruling party of a nation that has spent the last 50 years in a constant state of war. They have 2 primary exports: Opium and Military training. But the majority of the 9/11 actors, and their funding was almost entirely provided by Saudi Arabia.
Osama Bin Laden, and his family have extremely close ties to the ruling family of Saudi Arabia. That family has for the most part been very pro-American in their international policies. In a big part thanks to Bush Sr's push into Iraq after Saddam invaded Kuwait for stealing his oil. After 9/11, immediate relatives of Osama were flown out of the country back to Saudi Arabia even while the rest of the country's flights were still grounded. Not a big surprise, a few other important foreigners were also flown out of the country.
But at the time, there was a growing anit-American movement in Saudi Arabia. For the US to take any significant action against them, be it sanctions, extradition, invasion, etc... in response to the contribution SA made to the 9/11 attacks, it would have eroded much of the political capital that existed, forcing us to withdraw our troops from their country.
About the same time Iran elected a former militant activist (one of the men who held a former OIC of mine as a hostage in Beirut) who had pledged to wipe Isreal off the map and had been making rumblings of Nuclear power.
Saddam had been keeping Iran in check for the last couple of decades, but after years of sanctions and inspections, it was pretty clear that he was not the threat he once was. To his credit, his attempts to hold up the UN inspections were more to keep Iran in check than it was to piss off the US/UN. We all knew he didn't have long range capabilities, he wasn't going to start lobbing ICBMs around. But if he could keep Iran guessing about his short and mid range capabilities, they would likely remain well behaved.
Unfortunately, the whole deck of cards fell when we started the march towards war.
What ideally would have happened is simple:
1) We trounce Iraq in a 3-7 day war (check)
2) We stabilize the country and replace Saddam with a secular western friendly government (1/2 check)
3) We maintain a significant military presence in Iraq with the ability to quickly react to threats dealing with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Gaza, and Saudi Arabia. (1/2 check)
4) Pull troops out of SA to give the western friendly ruling party some political capital with the people. (check)
Unfortunately, we totally hosed the stabilization portion of the occupation. The 2 biggest mistakes were the de-Bathification and the release of the military. The damaging nature of the occupation, and the cost to our international political capital (between gitmo, abu grav, torture, no WMDs, etc...) crippled us from being able to put any significant pressure on Iran.
I believe that touting diplomacy with any of those countries as a way of finding any solution to Iraq is pretty silly--doesn't make any sense.
There was no problem with Iraq before the war. The war was not about Iraq, it was about Iraq's neighbors. Part of diplomacy is bribery, and another part is threat. The taking of Iraq was the treat portion of diplomacy. Having troups stationed in Iraq is a threat to all of Iraq's neighbors. And that threat, along with other motivating factors will all be used in diplomatic missions through out the Middle East.
But the primary reason for the invasion, Saudi Arabia and Iran, could have likely been handled through diplomacy along with a new status of forces agreement in Turkey.
The Iranian IRGC ha
in that only one website requires Silverlight to watch the inauguration, whereas YouTube and many others will be showing it in Flash video.
Have you seen the resolution MS is pushing through SilverLight? If you want a video feed that looks grainy at 320x200, sure, Flash is great. If you want a picture that looks closer to 720i, then Silver Light is the way to go. Check out the media libraries from the Dem's convention. That site was entirely silver light driving and the video quality is amazing.
When Flash/YouTube are willing to shell out for some decent video Codecs, maybe they'll be a viable competitor. But for now, if you're going high res in a web environment, SL is pretty awesome.
-Rick
I Love my n52. Couldn't play any number of games with out it now that I'm use to it.
Cables are a rip off, always will be. That $60 gold plated Belkin monitor cable wont work any better than the $5 el-cheapo Walmart special.
-Rick
The n52 has never had an analog d-pad. Although I do prefer my last generation to the newer version.
-Rick