Um, what? How will they lose their best people? Via layoffs? That's possible, but it's also possible they'll lose a chunk of dead weight in the middle layers.
A lot of the most talented people don't care who they work for, as long as the pay's good and the job's interesting. And Microsoft has a lot of cash.
Initiating a change to a stagnant or destructive corporate culture is a good thing. Whether the results will be beneficial or even more destructive remains to be seen.
Given how pro-patent the Federal Circuit has been in the past, this is noteworthy. Remember that it was the Federal Circuit who opened the gateway for software and business method patents.
I have a suspicion the supremes are a bit peeved at them right now for all the shitty decisions they've been making since the 90's, and they really are concerned that their authority will be undermined by the SCOTUS' recent decisions and the lower courts applying them.
The way I see it, this is basically them saying, "Hey everybody, we're still relevant!"
Math is big. It encompasses everything from continuous (calculus) to discrete (logic). It abstracts even from there into levels only mathematicians would understand.
People who don't know math think it's just calculus or just algebra or just linear algebra or just abstract algebra or some other high level mathematical discipline. They forget that working with integers is math. Set theory is math. Graph theory is math. Boolean logic is math.
Math is more than all those things combined. it is, at its core, the perfect application of rules unto objects. The rules can be arbitrary. Rules themselves can become objects by moving to a different level of abstraction. But it doesn't matter. It's all still math. As long as there's a rule and an object, it's math.
Anyone who has any relationship to a computer that doesn't understand this is not suitable for working with (but not necessarily on) computers. That is to say, it's like asking a car salesman to devise the final layout of the parts of a new car model. You might just end up with the brakes in the glove compartment.
Uh, no. Those aren't free. They're free for you the end user. But somebody pays for them. Just because it's not you doesn't make it automatically free.
In most cases, those people are called donors. Donors can be someone unaffilliated with the organization, or they could be the very same people providing the service. Likewise, donations can come in numerous forms like time, resources, goodwill, even money.
Sometimes, society pays, i.e. everybody pays. And when everybody pays so that only a few people benefit, that's when there are problems. Fortunately, none of those on your list fall into that category.
So no, those things you listed aren't free. To claim that they are free is to ignore the people who've paid for them so that they can be free for you.
Well yeah, they'll just collect all your phone's data and sell it to other companies instead.
I'll take an ad-encumbered game or an in-app purchase game that doesn't collect my info over one that has none of these but does. Of course, the ad-encumbered and in-app purchase required apps probably still collect my phone data for sale anyway.
MBA programs exist to line the school's coffers, which they then use to hire more administration (MBA grads). It's the biggest ongoing scam in education in the past 20 years.
I wouldn't be surprised if it is directly responsible for the soaring higher education costs.
Now, the Executive MBA program, that's different. That's where the new inductees into the ol' boy's club get to meet each other.
Another possibility is that the content providers the ISP's are throttling will eventually become ISP's themselves, especially Google.
Google's doing exactly this, and Google's quickly backing off supporting net neutrality. I wouldn't look to them to take the lead. In fact, I'd probably shy away from any relying on corporations. They only do what's in their best interest, which if we're lucky, aligns with public interest. The EFF does good work, but I think the EFF is not very visible and probably could use a new PR/marketing guy along with a ton more money.
Net neutrality would largely be moot if there wasn't government-granted monopolies on internet infrastructure everywhere, or if the communications was declared an essential public utility (like water, sewer, etc.), or if ISPs were even given common carrier status (like phone companies). None of these things happened during Clinton's deregulation-happy administration when ISPs were just starting up, and now we've got yet another big mess on our hands (not nearly as large as the other mess, but it's still pretty damn big).
You're mostly right, except that Warner Communications which owned both Warner Bros. Studio and Warner Music (Warner Bros. Records at the time) merged with Time Inc. to form Time Warner. They weren't bought; they're the "Warner" half of Time Warner, with Time Inc. being the other half.
But yeah, there were a ton of spin-offs and sales all through the 90's and 2000's.
Considering Miyajima is in the south, away from all the geological activity farther up north, the effect of the earthquakes will not be nearly as great.
Then again, volcanoes are an unpredictable thing. Even minor shifts of the crust can have major implications, if the shifting, however minor, is just right. Sometimes, it's a matter of when. But I'm sure there are instruments monitoring these things. If there was any change detected, it'd be on the news as well.
If yellowstone blows, the rest of the world would have the big problem. It'd basically start a nuclear winter. The last time one of those supervolcanoes blew, only something like 10% of the human population at that time survived.
Western USA would merely cease to exist.
On the other hand, it'd be just in time to counteract the effects of global warming.
Wow, TFS is copied almost verbatim from the first two paragraphs of TFA. The only difference is the awkward cutting and editing that ultimately contort and torture the prose in TFA.
Way to add value, editors!
How well did they do? You decide! From TFA:
It has been almost two years since AMD launched the FirePro W9000 and kicked off a new battle in the workstation GPU wars. Today, we're reviewing the company's FirePro W9100 -- a new card based on the same Hawaii-class GPU as the desktop R9 290 and R9 290X, but aimed at the workstation market and professional consumers. Does AMD's new card have what it takes to seize the professional performance crown?
The W9100 is a full Hawaii GPU with 2,816 stream processors, 320GB/s of memory bandwidth, and six mini-DisplayPorts, all of which support DP1.2 and 4K output. It carries more RAM than any other AMD GPU -- a whopping 16GB of GDDR5 on a single card. Even NVIDIA's top-end Quadro K6000 tops out at 12GB, which means AMD sits in a class by itself in this area. The W9000 and W9100 have one other major point of differentiation -- each offers support for up to six 4K displays using DisplayPort 1.2. NVIDIA's top-end Quadro K6000 tops out at just two DP 1.2 ports. You can still theoretically run more DisplayPort 1.2 displays if you use a hub, but if you want to hook everything up through the video card, AMD has a distinct advantage here.
Well, yes, if all we ever did with a Windows 8 laptop was turn it on to test our (pre-installed) application, then Windows 8 would have absolutely no problems. As such, our usages would constitute approximately 2% Windows and 98% our application.
And if Microsoft were to base their UI design goals on those use cases, they might as well have a machine that boots directly to the app and forget the Windows UI, entirely.
Which is to say, mods, that parent is about as informative as if I told you the desert would be very wet if only it rained.
If Microsoft (or whatever company) wants to do business in China, then yes, they are obligated to, and they have been compelled to do so in the past.
The best way to avoid this is to not do business in the US, which is a route many small businesses take.
Now, if say, a hypothetical online service provider was a complete non-US entity with no business ties to the US, and their only link to the US is that they currently have US users, then there's no obligation to follow US law. Of course, anybody employed at this company would be wise to stay away from the US, and may want to avoid countries with extradition treaties as well. Yet, somehow, I'm almost positive if this service gets too popular and annoys too many powerful people, the US will somehow find a way to get rid of it.
This is the one thing I simply don't understand with Metro (actually I do understand why they did it, but how they thought it'd fly is completely beyond me). There's something called a desktop. It does exactly what every phone interface does. With a bit of modification (expand the icon size and make it a widget of sorts), it does exactly what Metro aspires to do.
There's something called Programs (or All Programs) in the start menu. It lists every program out there with an icon and some text. Give it its own button outside of the start menu, and make the list show up on the desktop, and that's pretty much feature parity with every other mobile OS.
There's something called the taskbar. It can auto-hide. It also has a system tray to hold commonly-used icons. Google put a search box in the Windows taskbar. It's charms without the mess.
Sure, lock down the Programs menu so that only there are only links to applications and not to help files or pdfs. Sure, lock down the system tray so that only three or four of the most important system tray icons only show up. Or better yet, let the user decide whether they want to see the Microsoft-approved minimal interface or the customized clusterfuck interface.
But it's all there. Everything that Windows 8 purports to do, everything that's "different" about it, is just more of the same. Windows 8 hasn't redefined the interface goals. It's not revolutionary in what's exposed and what's hidden away. It's just harder for the user to get to the same places. And different. And harder. And incomplete, which makes it even harder to use. And the thing is, Windows doesn't need to change. It just needs to do what it's doing, but better. But they went ahead and changed it anyway. And it's worse (what would you expect?).
And here's what gets me. Why go through all this fuss about Metro? Why completely turn the Windows world on its head (by removing its namesake from the paradigm)? Why risk losing that userbase? Why test how strong Linux on the desktop currently is? There's a lot of risk for very little to no reward.
Is the few dollars made on integrated web services worth the entire Windows userbase taking a good hard look at Libre/OpenOffice on Linux? Is the few extra bucks on app royalties worth alienating a whole industry of device makers and PC builders, not to mention application developers who suddenly now have to pay the Windows tax? They had enough trouble getting people to upgrade from XP to 7 (let's not even bring up Vista). How did they think creating an inferior operating system with negative adoption incentives would stop or even slow OSS adoption? Did they think that the non-adoption of Winodws 8 was somehow going to lead to anything other than a non-adoption of Windows Phone? If anything, the stink from Windows 8/RT (especially RT) is spoiling Windows Phone.
Windows ME sorta made sense (old DOS codebase with 2K look and feel). Vista sorta made sense (XP but everything upgraded). Those two failed in the execution, but at least they had a noble purpose. But Windows 8 is just schizophrenic. They changed everything that shouldn't have been touched. They kept all of the UI aspects that should have been changed. They nailed everything down that should've been left customizable. And they allowed customization to the things that should've been nailed down (who the fuck thought it was a good idea to let app developers run wild with the Metro tiles?).
They should've scrapped Windows 8. Disowned it. Buried it in a landfill in the middle of the desert. Burned off its branches in the repository. They've done it before (Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 7.5, PlaysForSure, hell, even Windows RT). Revert to 7 and patch the good changes from 8 and call it 9. Sticking with the dysfunctional aspects of 8 just because they've suddenly become too stubborn to admit a mistake, that'll be worse than if they had used Microsoft Bob as the UI base of XP. Hell, they'd probably have better success using Microsoft Bob as the UI base of Windows 9. The way things are going, the year of Linux on the Desktop won't be too far off.
Consider that there are an infinite number of values between 0 and 1. While infinite, none of those values will be 2.
just because a thing is possible does not mean it will necessarily be actualized even given an infinite number of universes.
One statement does not follow the other. 2 cannot exist between 0 and 1. It is impossible. So your example is not relevant to the point you're trying to make.
If something is possible, it is probable. Given an infinite number of universes, the probable is reality in at least one (but likely more than one) of them. You cannot put limits on infinity.
You're trying to say that just because something is possible and therefore probable does not mean it'll happen. That's only true under the assumption of a finite domain.
Slashdot Mirror
It'll be much more real after the second pass. Why, you might feel as if you were there!
Or to put it another way, the more uninformed, the more obvious things are.
Um, what? How will they lose their best people? Via layoffs? That's possible, but it's also possible they'll lose a chunk of dead weight in the middle layers.
A lot of the most talented people don't care who they work for, as long as the pay's good and the job's interesting. And Microsoft has a lot of cash.
Initiating a change to a stagnant or destructive corporate culture is a good thing. Whether the results will be beneficial or even more destructive remains to be seen.
Given how pro-patent the Federal Circuit has been in the past, this is noteworthy. Remember that it was the Federal Circuit who opened the gateway for software and business method patents.
I have a suspicion the supremes are a bit peeved at them right now for all the shitty decisions they've been making since the 90's, and they really are concerned that their authority will be undermined by the SCOTUS' recent decisions and the lower courts applying them.
The way I see it, this is basically them saying, "Hey everybody, we're still relevant!"
Math is big. It encompasses everything from continuous (calculus) to discrete (logic). It abstracts even from there into levels only mathematicians would understand.
People who don't know math think it's just calculus or just algebra or just linear algebra or just abstract algebra or some other high level mathematical discipline. They forget that working with integers is math. Set theory is math. Graph theory is math. Boolean logic is math.
Math is more than all those things combined. it is, at its core, the perfect application of rules unto objects. The rules can be arbitrary. Rules themselves can become objects by moving to a different level of abstraction. But it doesn't matter. It's all still math. As long as there's a rule and an object, it's math.
Anyone who has any relationship to a computer that doesn't understand this is not suitable for working with (but not necessarily on) computers. That is to say, it's like asking a car salesman to devise the final layout of the parts of a new car model. You might just end up with the brakes in the glove compartment.
Unless you consider Ronald Reagan one of the founders
He's one of the founders of the current oligarchy, certainly.
Uh, no. Those aren't free. They're free for you the end user. But somebody pays for them. Just because it's not you doesn't make it automatically free.
In most cases, those people are called donors. Donors can be someone unaffilliated with the organization, or they could be the very same people providing the service. Likewise, donations can come in numerous forms like time, resources, goodwill, even money.
Sometimes, society pays, i.e. everybody pays. And when everybody pays so that only a few people benefit, that's when there are problems. Fortunately, none of those on your list fall into that category.
So no, those things you listed aren't free. To claim that they are free is to ignore the people who've paid for them so that they can be free for you.
Well yeah, they'll just collect all your phone's data and sell it to other companies instead.
I'll take an ad-encumbered game or an in-app purchase game that doesn't collect my info over one that has none of these but does. Of course, the ad-encumbered and in-app purchase required apps probably still collect my phone data for sale anyway.
$200? I'd start at $400 and negotiate from there. Somebody's gotta pay for those rising medical care costs after all.
MBA programs exist to line the school's coffers, which they then use to hire more administration (MBA grads). It's the biggest ongoing scam in education in the past 20 years.
I wouldn't be surprised if it is directly responsible for the soaring higher education costs.
Now, the Executive MBA program, that's different. That's where the new inductees into the ol' boy's club get to meet each other.
The synergy will shock and burn you.
FTFY.
Another possibility is that the content providers the ISP's are throttling will eventually become ISP's themselves, especially Google.
Google's doing exactly this, and Google's quickly backing off supporting net neutrality. I wouldn't look to them to take the lead. In fact, I'd probably shy away from any relying on corporations. They only do what's in their best interest, which if we're lucky, aligns with public interest. The EFF does good work, but I think the EFF is not very visible and probably could use a new PR/marketing guy along with a ton more money.
Net neutrality would largely be moot if there wasn't government-granted monopolies on internet infrastructure everywhere, or if the communications was declared an essential public utility (like water, sewer, etc.), or if ISPs were even given common carrier status (like phone companies). None of these things happened during Clinton's deregulation-happy administration when ISPs were just starting up, and now we've got yet another big mess on our hands (not nearly as large as the other mess, but it's still pretty damn big).
Hilarity Ensues
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Now, if some domain squatter had taken over the name the moment the domain expired, that would be funny. Giving them 7 weeks is just ... well, sad.
You're mostly right, except that Warner Communications which owned both Warner Bros. Studio and Warner Music (Warner Bros. Records at the time) merged with Time Inc. to form Time Warner. They weren't bought; they're the "Warner" half of Time Warner, with Time Inc. being the other half.
But yeah, there were a ton of spin-offs and sales all through the 90's and 2000's.
Considering Miyajima is in the south, away from all the geological activity farther up north, the effect of the earthquakes will not be nearly as great.
Then again, volcanoes are an unpredictable thing. Even minor shifts of the crust can have major implications, if the shifting, however minor, is just right. Sometimes, it's a matter of when. But I'm sure there are instruments monitoring these things. If there was any change detected, it'd be on the news as well.
If yellowstone blows, the rest of the world would have the big problem. It'd basically start a nuclear winter. The last time one of those supervolcanoes blew, only something like 10% of the human population at that time survived.
Western USA would merely cease to exist.
On the other hand, it'd be just in time to counteract the effects of global warming.
Wow, TFS is copied almost verbatim from the first two paragraphs of TFA. The only difference is the awkward cutting and editing that ultimately contort and torture the prose in TFA.
Way to add value, editors!
How well did they do? You decide! From TFA:
It has been almost two years since AMD launched the FirePro W9000 and kicked off a new battle in the workstation GPU wars. Today, we're reviewing the company's FirePro W9100 -- a new card based on the same Hawaii-class GPU as the desktop R9 290 and R9 290X, but aimed at the workstation market and professional consumers. Does AMD's new card have what it takes to seize the professional performance crown?
The W9100 is a full Hawaii GPU with 2,816 stream processors, 320GB/s of memory bandwidth, and six mini-DisplayPorts, all of which support DP1.2 and 4K output. It carries more RAM than any other AMD GPU -- a whopping 16GB of GDDR5 on a single card. Even NVIDIA's top-end Quadro K6000 tops out at 12GB, which means AMD sits in a class by itself in this area. The W9000 and W9100 have one other major point of differentiation -- each offers support for up to six 4K displays using DisplayPort 1.2. NVIDIA's top-end Quadro K6000 tops out at just two DP 1.2 ports. You can still theoretically run more DisplayPort 1.2 displays if you use a hub, but if you want to hook everything up through the video card, AMD has a distinct advantage here.
Don't feed the troll. If the best counterargument to a logically stated position is simply "no", then there's no point in discussing this further.
Well, yes, if all we ever did with a Windows 8 laptop was turn it on to test our (pre-installed) application, then Windows 8 would have absolutely no problems. As such, our usages would constitute approximately 2% Windows and 98% our application.
And if Microsoft were to base their UI design goals on those use cases, they might as well have a machine that boots directly to the app and forget the Windows UI, entirely.
Which is to say, mods, that parent is about as informative as if I told you the desert would be very wet if only it rained.
If Microsoft (or whatever company) wants to do business in China, then yes, they are obligated to, and they have been compelled to do so in the past.
The best way to avoid this is to not do business in the US, which is a route many small businesses take.
Now, if say, a hypothetical online service provider was a complete non-US entity with no business ties to the US, and their only link to the US is that they currently have US users, then there's no obligation to follow US law. Of course, anybody employed at this company would be wise to stay away from the US, and may want to avoid countries with extradition treaties as well. Yet, somehow, I'm almost positive if this service gets too popular and annoys too many powerful people, the US will somehow find a way to get rid of it.
This is the one thing I simply don't understand with Metro (actually I do understand why they did it, but how they thought it'd fly is completely beyond me). There's something called a desktop. It does exactly what every phone interface does. With a bit of modification (expand the icon size and make it a widget of sorts), it does exactly what Metro aspires to do.
There's something called Programs (or All Programs) in the start menu. It lists every program out there with an icon and some text. Give it its own button outside of the start menu, and make the list show up on the desktop, and that's pretty much feature parity with every other mobile OS.
There's something called the taskbar. It can auto-hide. It also has a system tray to hold commonly-used icons. Google put a search box in the Windows taskbar. It's charms without the mess.
Sure, lock down the Programs menu so that only there are only links to applications and not to help files or pdfs. Sure, lock down the system tray so that only three or four of the most important system tray icons only show up. Or better yet, let the user decide whether they want to see the Microsoft-approved minimal interface or the customized clusterfuck interface.
But it's all there. Everything that Windows 8 purports to do, everything that's "different" about it, is just more of the same. Windows 8 hasn't redefined the interface goals. It's not revolutionary in what's exposed and what's hidden away. It's just harder for the user to get to the same places. And different. And harder. And incomplete, which makes it even harder to use. And the thing is, Windows doesn't need to change. It just needs to do what it's doing, but better. But they went ahead and changed it anyway. And it's worse (what would you expect?).
And here's what gets me. Why go through all this fuss about Metro? Why completely turn the Windows world on its head (by removing its namesake from the paradigm)? Why risk losing that userbase? Why test how strong Linux on the desktop currently is? There's a lot of risk for very little to no reward.
Is the few dollars made on integrated web services worth the entire Windows userbase taking a good hard look at Libre/OpenOffice on Linux? Is the few extra bucks on app royalties worth alienating a whole industry of device makers and PC builders, not to mention application developers who suddenly now have to pay the Windows tax? They had enough trouble getting people to upgrade from XP to 7 (let's not even bring up Vista). How did they think creating an inferior operating system with negative adoption incentives would stop or even slow OSS adoption? Did they think that the non-adoption of Winodws 8 was somehow going to lead to anything other than a non-adoption of Windows Phone? If anything, the stink from Windows 8/RT (especially RT) is spoiling Windows Phone.
Windows ME sorta made sense (old DOS codebase with 2K look and feel). Vista sorta made sense (XP but everything upgraded). Those two failed in the execution, but at least they had a noble purpose. But Windows 8 is just schizophrenic. They changed everything that shouldn't have been touched. They kept all of the UI aspects that should have been changed. They nailed everything down that should've been left customizable. And they allowed customization to the things that should've been nailed down (who the fuck thought it was a good idea to let app developers run wild with the Metro tiles?).
They should've scrapped Windows 8. Disowned it. Buried it in a landfill in the middle of the desert. Burned off its branches in the repository. They've done it before (Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 7.5, PlaysForSure, hell, even Windows RT). Revert to 7 and patch the good changes from 8 and call it 9. Sticking with the dysfunctional aspects of 8 just because they've suddenly become too stubborn to admit a mistake, that'll be worse than if they had used Microsoft Bob as the UI base of XP. Hell, they'd probably have better success using Microsoft Bob as the UI base of Windows 9. The way things are going, the year of Linux on the Desktop won't be too far off.
I use bash.org to store my passwords.
Consider that there are an infinite number of values between 0 and 1. While infinite, none of those values will be 2.
just because a thing is possible does not mean it will necessarily be actualized even given an infinite number of universes.
One statement does not follow the other. 2 cannot exist between 0 and 1. It is impossible. So your example is not relevant to the point you're trying to make.
If something is possible, it is probable. Given an infinite number of universes, the probable is reality in at least one (but likely more than one) of them. You cannot put limits on infinity.
You're trying to say that just because something is possible and therefore probable does not mean it'll happen. That's only true under the assumption of a finite domain.
No, they're just hiding. Like ninjas.
especially if ... they are doing it at the limits of their budget.
You're attributing far too much value and putting far too much importance on money.