I don't know what's worse, the fact they spelled it wrong, or that the original title is spelled correctly. They cut and pasted the title, yet still managed to insert a new spelling error anyway!
"It is a lot of work, but the upshot is improved grammer and spelling skills that are lacking in the technical.
I just laughed out load at this one, given the vast amount of writing errors that preceded it. Maybe the troller is right, we do need better social skills to recognize a troll - and not even a particularly good one at that. Zero points for subtlety, but ten for knowing the target and it working despite that.
This sounds just like when artists go from print to the web. The first thing they want is for the entire site to be one huge JPG so this foofah can be 32 pixels from the gajooble and "it HAS to be 3pt comic sans otherwise it just won't work!!". It took some time for web designers to come out as a distinct subgroup that can take advantage of the uncertainty.
That's just word of mouth, not marketing. Viral marketing is when some MBA suit tries to invent word of mouth by lying: placing stickers on signs, graffiti, hiring hot chicks to drink your client's vodka in bars. It's still marketing, and it's extra evil because it's hiding lies inside of another lie.
Ohhh... there's nothing hotter than chicks wearing leotards in a temple, talking about quantum physics algorithms, on holiday. Send me the URL! God bless the internet for unique fetish development!
Right, it should left to a good real-time OS, but it's not.
All the things you mention (worms, WGA, services) don't apply on a small computer network isolated from the Internet, using fixed and custom hardware, running Windows 98. These are not desktop computers. They're more like servers, where they are put to work and run until they die.
Most of the world's software isn't off the shelf - it's custom apps written for in-house business use. You think off the shelf software is bad? Wait until you see a system that's only ever designed to run on a single set of hardware.
That doesn't necessarily make it bad from an economic view. If the control system works, doesn't kill people, and the makes the owners profit, then they're happy. It's just not generic desktop software.
Are you _really_ suggesting MS could save time by throwing the kernel out and replacing it with something else?
Many Windows program are really poorly behaved, and are utterly welded they are to every documented and undocumented aspect of every version of Windows ever written. Read Raymond Chen's blog - it's full of things that would blow your mind. App Z crashes in Windows X but not Windows X-1. Why? Well, it's using invalid memory after a free, and the allocator changed a bit between X and X-1 for other reasons (performance, relability, etc.) Rather than just say "fuck app Z, you deserve it" they go in add in special that detecs the crappy app and makes the allocator act specially just for it.
Repeat a billion times. Result: people can upgrade and keep their apps. Result: MS makes a ton of money. Result: a boatload of backwards compatability code.
OS X doesn't have this problem because they don't give a shit about backwards compatability and don't have very many programs otherwise. Nobody uses a Mac to run a custom application like a factory control system, and nobody will upgrade their version of Windows if it doesn't run the apps they want.
Apple has broken compatability a big way bunch of times - in the switch to Power, the switch to OS X, the switch to x86. Carbon Cocoa Pink Black Red. If I was a Mac developer, I'd be going NUTS. They're in a different siutation, a different market, and they can get away with it.
Yes, I'm aware of emulation. Sure, that works for toy applications without any sort of performance requirements. You'll find that the factory control system rolls over and dies because the code expects a certain latency by driver X on Windows. Poor programming? Probably. Does the business owner stamping out toilet seats care? Not at all. It either works or doesn't. If it doesn't he loses money.
You got it. I've been blessed with pretty good reliability from a few DSL providers. But, the times I've had to call I just simply pretend that I'm running Windows and IE. Keep repeating, yup, did that, nope didn't work.
My favorite BS line was this:
"Do you have the modem plugged into the will with the exact phone cable we shipped to you?" (as if phone cables are special in any way).
"No, it's not long enough. I swapped it with a slightly longer one."
"Oh, that's your problem there, these wires build up resistance over time and you have to get a new one."
Now, I don't know much about electrical stuff, but I do know that I've never had a phone wire go dead just from building up resistance -- only kinks, stretches, or cuts. The wires in the house are original from the eighties.
Of course, I swapped it with the wire that came with the kit, still in the orignal packaging. (If you're like me, you have a box of about a thousand spare cables: phone, ethernet, stereo, power, coax, etc.) No difference. It's always some sort of goof up at their end where their DNS or routing goes haywire.
I don't even try to help anymore. I used to say things like "I can ping this IP out on the net, so the connection and routing is good, it's just your DNS is not responding" and... not even a response. They have really no clue what any of that is.
2K actually had semi-working limited-user accounts, I ran one for a long time. How did I get around the occasional (read: every) errant application that wanted write access to some random place? ACLs. I figured out where Quicken and every app want to write, and gave them write permissions. It was actually not too hard.
Then I upgraded to XP home, when I bought a new box. XP doesn't have ACLs. Sorry, back to user accounts with Admin privs. I feel so dirty.
There's a big difference in IDEs. I've taught and intro to Java class that had no programming prerequistes, and so was not intended for CS majors. I had a choice - there were people who could barely use computers at all. What was I going to do, point them at the JDK, and expect them to learn how to use a command-line compiler and Notepad? We'd spent a month getting "Hello World" compile, and they'd wind up knowing nothing more about Java or programming at the end of it. Learning how a command-line works is not the same as learning how a programming language works.
So, I pointed them to a super-minimal shareware IDE. It had little more than an integrated editor and button that you can run the program, but that was enough. No form or GUI designers, so they can concern themselves with thinking algorithmically, and not what font to use on which button. The only stuff the IDE hid was the mechanics of compilation, the fileystem, and running.
Still, the IDE is not the point of the class. I'd never test them on keyboard shortcuts or anything similarly stupid. Anyone who wanted to buy a different IDE or go with notepad was perfectly free to do so.
It worked, some of the students really went from knowing nothing about computers at all, to actually writing working programs.
I would say to you "my car is working just fine; I don't need one." and not even bother looking. There are other cues to follow. If someone comes up to me off the street and says, "Hi! You need a new alternator! I just happen to have some!" I would be suspicious. You see, I didn't ask for an alternator, or for a pile of car parts. If I was buying a pile of car parts, I might go to a reputable parts store, instead of the homeless guy sitting on 42nd street with a bunch of greasy parts on blankets.
I just tell my parents that no banks or ebay or anything will ever send anything important over email. Always log into important sites with your bookmark. If the message was real and important, you'll find out by them calling, them sending snail-mail, or when you log in next.
Ergonomical? Is that an academical, aristocratical, or maybe a bureaucratical word for a device that prevents chronical pain? Perhaps I'm just being myopical or pedantical.
You'd think somebody was pretty ignorant to do that, right?
No, if someone called me a Massachusetts-uh, -ian, I would be amused that they thought I was born here though I'm really a New Yorker by birth and a Massawhatever by job, because in reality don't give a crap.
The US is much simpler. People are from a country (United States of America) are American, people from a state (E.g., New York) are New Yorkers, except nobody really thinks of themselves that way anymore. So we're just Americans.
There's a country near us called Canada, we can call them Canadians. There's a country near us called Mexico, and we can call them Mexicans. Good so far.
If it takes *five* pages to explain how it all works with the 37 exceptions, are you ignorant if you're occasionally wrong? I read the whole thing and I hope I can remember it all.
you should be able to copy and sell it without my permission?
Technically, yes - I should be able to use your work as a basis, even if you don't like it. What I should be required to do is pay you for the right to do so. This is called "compulsory license" and not a new idea.
why should anyone with a printing press be able to turn out copies unless I allow them?
Because you could say no, and hoard that entire idea from modification and transformation forever. That means you are stifling someone else's creativity. Any artist knows that creative works are all influenced by what we see around us to various degrees. It's impossible to create in a vaccuum. And before you say "well, just find another work to base yours off of", what happens when everyone has that attitude?
It always makes me laugh when people say they upgraded a system for less money and more power. Every time I upgrade my computer it's cheaper and I get a lot more power. That's just the way computers work.
Not in the land of government contracts, sir. It seems obvious to you and me, but to a typical bureaucrat running such a project, this is BIG NEWS!
Have you ever written a letter to a senator? You get the standard form letter response; paraphrased: "Thanks for your concern, but, I'm not changing my mind."
The letter only works when you put a check in the envelope.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know what's worse, the fact they spelled it wrong, or that the original title is spelled correctly. They cut and pasted the title, yet still managed to insert a new spelling error anyway!
"It is a lot of work, but the upshot is improved grammer and spelling skills that are lacking in the technical.
I just laughed out load at this one, given the vast amount of writing errors that preceded it. Maybe the troller is right, we do need better social skills to recognize a troll - and not even a particularly good one at that. Zero points for subtlety, but ten for knowing the target and it working despite that.
This sounds just like when artists go from print to the web. The first thing they want is for the entire site to be one huge JPG so this foofah can be 32 pixels from the gajooble and "it HAS to be 3pt comic sans otherwise it just won't work!!". It took some time for web designers to come out as a distinct subgroup that can take advantage of the uncertainty.
That's just word of mouth, not marketing. Viral marketing is when some MBA suit tries to invent word of mouth by lying: placing stickers on signs, graffiti, hiring hot chicks to drink your client's vodka in bars. It's still marketing, and it's extra evil because it's hiding lies inside of another lie.
Ohhh... there's nothing hotter than chicks wearing leotards in a temple, talking about quantum physics algorithms, on holiday. Send me the URL! God bless the internet for unique fetish development!
I had thought the chair jokes were dead, but you proved me wrong. Right on!!
Right, it should left to a good real-time OS, but it's not.
All the things you mention (worms, WGA, services) don't apply on a small computer network isolated from the Internet, using fixed and custom hardware, running Windows 98. These are not desktop computers. They're more like servers, where they are put to work and run until they die.
Most of the world's software isn't off the shelf - it's custom apps written for in-house business use. You think off the shelf software is bad? Wait until you see a system that's only ever designed to run on a single set of hardware.
That doesn't necessarily make it bad from an economic view. If the control system works, doesn't kill people, and the makes the owners profit, then they're happy. It's just not generic desktop software.
Are you _really_ suggesting MS could save time by throwing the kernel out and replacing it with something else?
Many Windows program are really poorly behaved, and are utterly welded they are to every documented and undocumented aspect of every version of Windows ever written. Read Raymond Chen's blog - it's full of things that would blow your mind. App Z crashes in Windows X but not Windows X-1. Why? Well, it's using invalid memory after a free, and the allocator changed a bit between X and X-1 for other reasons (performance, relability, etc.) Rather than just say "fuck app Z, you deserve it" they go in add in special that detecs the crappy app and makes the allocator act specially just for it.
Repeat a billion times. Result: people can upgrade and keep their apps. Result: MS makes a ton of money. Result: a boatload of backwards compatability code.
OS X doesn't have this problem because they don't give a shit about backwards compatability and don't have very many programs otherwise. Nobody uses a Mac to run a custom application like a factory control system, and nobody will upgrade their version of Windows if it doesn't run the apps they want.
Apple has broken compatability a big way bunch of times - in the switch to Power, the switch to OS X, the switch to x86. Carbon Cocoa Pink Black Red. If I was a Mac developer, I'd be going NUTS. They're in a different siutation, a different market, and they can get away with it.
Yes, I'm aware of emulation. Sure, that works for toy applications without any sort of performance requirements. You'll find that the factory control system rolls over and dies because the code expects a certain latency by driver X on Windows. Poor programming? Probably. Does the business owner stamping out toilet seats care? Not at all. It either works or doesn't. If it doesn't he loses money.
I was reading this comment wondering what the hell was going on, until I realized you said Bluth, not Knuth.
Oh come on, give Bush more a little credit than that! He knows that laws and rules are really just for other people to follow.
You got it. I've been blessed with pretty good reliability from a few DSL providers. But, the times I've had to call I just simply pretend that I'm running Windows and IE. Keep repeating, yup, did that, nope didn't work.
My favorite BS line was this:
"Do you have the modem plugged into the will with the exact phone cable we shipped to you?" (as if phone cables are special in any way).
"No, it's not long enough. I swapped it with a slightly longer one."
"Oh, that's your problem there, these wires build up resistance over time and you have to get a new one."
Now, I don't know much about electrical stuff, but I do know that I've never had a phone wire go dead just from building up resistance -- only kinks, stretches, or cuts. The wires in the house are original from the eighties.
Of course, I swapped it with the wire that came with the kit, still in the orignal packaging. (If you're like me, you have a box of about a thousand spare cables: phone, ethernet, stereo, power, coax, etc.) No difference. It's always some sort of goof up at their end where their DNS or routing goes haywire.
I don't even try to help anymore. I used to say things like "I can ping this IP out on the net, so the connection and routing is good, it's just your DNS is not responding" and... not even a response. They have really no clue what any of that is.
THANK YOU! Wish I could mod you 10 times over.
2K actually had semi-working limited-user accounts, I ran one for a long time. How did I get around the occasional (read: every) errant application that wanted write access to some random place? ACLs. I figured out where Quicken and every app want to write, and gave them write permissions. It was actually not too hard.
Then I upgraded to XP home, when I bought a new box. XP doesn't have ACLs. Sorry, back to user accounts with Admin privs. I feel so dirty.
There's a big difference in IDEs. I've taught and intro to Java class that had no programming prerequistes, and so was not intended for CS majors. I had a choice - there were people who could barely use computers at all. What was I going to do, point them at the JDK, and expect them to learn how to use a command-line compiler and Notepad? We'd spent a month getting "Hello World" compile, and they'd wind up knowing nothing more about Java or programming at the end of it. Learning how a command-line works is not the same as learning how a programming language works.
So, I pointed them to a super-minimal shareware IDE. It had little more than an integrated editor and button that you can run the program, but that was enough. No form or GUI designers, so they can concern themselves with thinking algorithmically, and not what font to use on which button. The only stuff the IDE hid was the mechanics of compilation, the fileystem, and running.
Still, the IDE is not the point of the class. I'd never test them on keyboard shortcuts or anything similarly stupid. Anyone who wanted to buy a different IDE or go with notepad was perfectly free to do so.
It worked, some of the students really went from knowing nothing about computers at all, to actually writing working programs.
Didn't you know? Stop signs are optional if you've been around long enough to remember when it wasn't there. Grandfather clause.
I would say to you "my car is working just fine; I don't need one." and not even bother looking. There are other cues to follow. If someone comes up to me off the street and says, "Hi! You need a new alternator! I just happen to have some!" I would be suspicious. You see, I didn't ask for an alternator, or for a pile of car parts. If I was buying a pile of car parts, I might go to a reputable parts store, instead of the homeless guy sitting on 42nd street with a bunch of greasy parts on blankets.
I just tell my parents that no banks or ebay or anything will ever send anything important over email. Always log into important sites with your bookmark. If the message was real and important, you'll find out by them calling, them sending snail-mail, or when you log in next.
Ergonomical? Is that an academical, aristocratical, or maybe a bureaucratical word for a device that prevents chronical pain? Perhaps I'm just being myopical or pedantical.
But he didn't TAKE your car. Getting in is one thing, overriding all the engine-kill stuff and driving it away is another.
You'd think somebody was pretty ignorant to do that, right?
No, if someone called me a Massachusetts-uh, -ian, I would be amused that they thought I was born here though I'm really a New Yorker by birth and a Massawhatever by job, because in reality don't give a crap.
The US is much simpler. People are from a country (United States of America) are American, people from a state (E.g., New York) are New Yorkers, except nobody really thinks of themselves that way anymore. So we're just Americans.
There's a country near us called Canada, we can call them Canadians. There's a country near us called Mexico, and we can call them Mexicans. Good so far.
If it takes *five* pages to explain how it all works with the 37 exceptions, are you ignorant if you're occasionally wrong? I read the whole thing and I hope I can remember it all.
Solution: I'll just not call anybody anything.
Technically, yes - I should be able to use your work as a basis, even if you don't like it. What I should be required to do is pay you for the right to do so. This is called "compulsory license" and not a new idea.
why should anyone with a printing press be able to turn out copies unless I allow them?
Because you could say no, and hoard that entire idea from modification and transformation forever. That means you are stifling someone else's creativity. Any artist knows that creative works are all influenced by what we see around us to various degrees. It's impossible to create in a vaccuum. And before you say "well, just find another work to base yours off of", what happens when everyone has that attitude?
4. They picked the schools with the most money. (What, sue Backwater Community College & Laundromat in Pigbucket, Idaho?)
Not in the land of government contracts, sir. It seems obvious to you and me, but to a typical bureaucrat running such a project, this is BIG NEWS!
Have you ever written a letter to a senator? You get the standard form letter response; paraphrased: "Thanks for your concern, but, I'm not changing my mind." The letter only works when you put a check in the envelope.
Barring spoilers, you can't tell it's the same until after you've read it. Or, at least in this universe with forward-time and all.
Not if you glue his hands together. (I've been tempted...)