Whoah. If that wasn't a troll, I feel a little sorry for whoever wrote it. Using both "more then" and "one in the same" makes it seem very like a troll.
Plus, a "governing mind" is exactly what a government should be. Would people rather that it was a "directionless coma patient", as it often seems to be?
Well, I don't know what language you are referring to (looks like SQL pattern matching, but it makes no sense in that context), but I've used several different languages and understood the GP just fine. Perl and PHP at least both use dollar denoted variables.
That's exactly what I thought, he's just selling out! In the end, everyone has to eat, or pay for their mansions, or whatever it is that rich and/or famous people do.
Actually, I considered myself a good listener before I read the book, I helped one of my seriously depressed friends through some issues he was facing. I thought that offering occasional input was a way of showing that you were indeed paying attention and understanding. That's what guys tend to do (not saying all guys do it). The book explained that as the fact that guys generally only mention problems if they want solutions. I have observed enough of daily life to think about this hypothesis and I think it makes sense. I hadn't noticed before, but I was confused as to why my mum would think I wasn't "listening" to her just because I asked questions about what she was saying.
Your attitude of telling people to fuck off whenever you disagree with them is as bad to me as any perceived 'chauvinism' on my side. Just because I choose to recognise that there can be differences between men and women (I mean, duh, there are some pretty obvious differences in anatomy and chemistry, so why shouldn't there be differences in the way we think and communicate) does not make me a chauvinist. I did only state one side of things in that post so perhaps it's my own fault though. According to the book apparently women do like advice, but not when they're venting, they want the advice later, or apparently before they even mention that there is a problem (which a guy might stupidly take as an insult to his macho-ness). If you think a guy is chauvinistic for taking the time to read a book to try to properly understand women (rather than just how to sleep with them - I'm a virgin, and I'm happy being that way until I meet the right person) then you can go take a flying leap yourself.
Yes I know all those things, and in fact I have used my laptop with my TV via HDMI a few times, but that's why I mentioned the additional bits about hardware and the general purpose (and therefore bloated for a gaming machine) OS that isn't necessary on a console.
Despite the lightweight OS, the console can still do the majority of the useful things I do on my PC (as it has a web browser and USB for keyboard/mouse input), but it doesn't take forever to startup or switch off. I don't have to fiddle about with cables because it's already hooked up. It is also quieter than my laptop, and doesn't overheat when I try to play games for more than a couple of hours. You could blame that on my choice of laptop sure, but even if I had a gaming laptop, the whole convenience factor of having the console ready to go in seconds is awesome. Even when it comes to system or individual game updates, the process is pretty good. Yes, there can still be hiccups occasionally, but overall it's a lot better than the possible incompatibilities you get on a PC (where your soundcard and graphics card for some reason work fine apart, but just don't work together on your specific motherboard, etc, it happens).
I wouldn't mourn the loss of the current PC games industry if it means that there is then more space for small games companies to release more interesting games. In fact I've already given up on it, I've even got used to using joysticks for FPS games (though still hoping that someone will come out with something better).
IMO games companies probably will eventually end up releasing PC or even console tools to allow people to make mods for their console games. Companies like id will probably lead the way there, as they did on the PC. Everyone is still getting used to the idea of having net connectivity on consoles, and exploring the possibilities with things like Sony's Home. You just have to give it all time to mature a bit.
Zelda is indeed awesome, but most games I bought for the Wii were gimmicky and short-lived. Zelda is good just because it's a good game, not because you use the Wii remote. You will often find that the games that use the wii-remote best are only good for short amounts of play time or to show off the Wii to your frends, while the games that are best for playing long term are just normal console games with a little bit of motion sensing and pointing tacked on.
I own both a PS3 and a Wii, but I ended up leaving the Wii at my mum's house for my little sister to play. She got Wii Fit for it, it is pretty good to play occasionally when I go visit, but again it's not something I see myself using everyday. I do use my PS3 most days for watching movies or playing games though.
There are probably drivers out there for using the Wii-mote on Linux/Windos anyway for those that are interested. It only really makes sense somewhere where you have a lot of room and a very large monitor though (ie the living room). Good for presentations and perhaps some types of game - but for stuff like FPSes the mouse and keyboard combo is still better, believe me. I'm sure peripheral makers will crack it eventually, but that time has not yet come - and will probably require headsets so that you can turn your whole body and still see the screen.
The thing is that it's all done automatically, with only one type of hardware. I want my games to be able to be patched too, that was one of my main problems with consoles before - no way to install mods and patch bugs. The OS itself boots in seconds, and can just be switched off with no shutdown. If I used my laptop all the time I'd have to wait for a couple of minutes to login and startup a game, and another minute after that to shutdown. Same for if I wanted to watch a movie. With the PS3 it's just switch on, start game/move, done.
Unless your 3-year old gets his hands on the games. Seriously, do you expect me to lock everything in a safe? He'd know the combination after watching me open it twice anyway...
Well, just don't let him get his hands on Monkey Island in the first place. Then he won't work out the best method of getting you to leave so he can work on the safe, even if he does know the combination! And if he does find out, make sure he isn't following you to the Dangerous Pointy Things drawer or your woman will get pissed at you.
Ever since I started using laptops I have always used NoCD cracks, which can be used to circumvent DRM, but I just wanted them to not have to have the flippin disk in the drive whenever I felt like playing. It's bearable having a pile of gaming disks next to your desktop, but nobody these days wants to carry around their whole gaming collection with their laptop - not to mention that it's a waste of power spinning up a disk just to authenticate, and you risk damaging it in some makes of drive if you're using the laptop on a relatively unstable surface like.. a lap.
Likewise, nobody wants to have a multitude of DRM rootkits gradually making their machine more and more sluggish as they install games over the years. We all know that DRM is only a hassle for the paying customers - it really makes no sense.
While I agree with your sentiment and that plenty of people are serious about boycotts, I think you're underestimating the amount of idiots who will buy Madden 2097: The Revenge of Athlete's Foot Expansion, and not give a toss about DRM, either because they are going to get the next iteration of the series next year, or because they are playing on a console. The console games market dwarfs the PC games market, so in the end even if all PC gamers quit EA games, it might not hurt them as much as you think - especially if it just means one less platform to develop for. In fact I've just done a little googling and it seems that EA already decided this year to release their sports lines for consoles only, so it appears that it already is more profitable to focus on the console market, for whatever reason. I hate playing devil's advocate sometimes, but there it is..
Personally I already moved to console gaming this year too, for mostly the same reasons as AKAImBatman outlined above. Despite the fact that I love mouse/keyboard for FPSes, I love the convenience of gaming in my living room - on my HDTV, with no bloated OS, no need to download the latest gaming API, latest drivers or buy the latest hardware - more. It just makes sense to me these days, and best of all it means I can happily use a non windows OS on my laptop without worrying about lack of gaming options:)
Strange. I haven't connected into OWA before from this install of Windows - it asked me about the security certificate, but nothing about ActiveX. This is running with IE 6 on XP SP3 running in a VM. Perhaps since it's a page on the intranet the security restrictions are lighter, but I don't think I've used IE on this install for anything but Windows Updates - the security settings should all be at default.
Well, OWA for Exchange 2003 doesn't ask to install any ActiveX components so I'm not so sure. Perhaps 2007 does use ActiveX. From later on in the same page the guy continued his excuses by talking about having lots of premium features that would need tweaked for them to work in other browsers, so I had thought it was more of a DOM issue.
I like to think of it as, "knowing that trying to solve something when pissed off often renders inferior insults, so getting the annoyance out of one's system, and then being fully capable to solve the problem without any input on the actual problem." That's not the same as "not caring about the problem.";)
True enough - I sometimes find when I've written a rant on slashdot, I can delete it and the process of writing things down has helped me to organise things in my head and puts the situation in a better perspective. Sometimes you just need to work out a bit of stress. I find that the book's talk of men having to go off into their "cave" rather than talk through things is something that I benefit well from though. I should have been taking more time to myself in my relationship, but I was spending pretty much every free minute with my girl. I'd often storm off in a huff at the most stupid things, but then force myself to go back and try to sort things out. I didn't realise that it could be healthy to spend some time alone occasionally - I used to think of that as quite a selfish notion..
Before I wrap up, I'd like to address the question we often receive about why OWA Premium doesn't work in non IE browsers. The following is heavily plagiarized from others who have answered this question as well (thanks Kristian!), and if after reading this you are still unclear as to why Premium doesn't work on Firefox, please feel free to post your questions here and I'll do my best to answer them.
Shockingly, the decision to make OWA Premium only work on IE6+ has nothing to do with forcing people to use other Microsoft products (sorry to have to dispel the conspiracy, and just when Oliver Stone and Kevin Costner were starting pre-production on "OWA: The Movie "). The decision was made, simply enough, due to costs, time, and customer need.
The browser support we have for OWA Premium and OWA Light is due to usage share among our customers, and the development and test investment it takes to support additional browsers/versions. This doesn't mean the browser statistics for "browsers hitting OWA", which would be skewed based on our previous browser support. We look at the browser statistics for "browsers used on the Internet" and "browsers used within our customer organizations", as well as listening to what customers are asking for, since statistics, surveys, site logs, and research firms never tell the full story. The browser matrix of OWA is about where we allocate our investments, and the need of additional browser support as compared to the need for all the other OWA features our customers want. We have limited resources, limited time, and a very large set of potential features.
I understand it would be a PITA for them to add in support for 'premium' features in every browser, but FireFox has shown to be pretty popular in general. It's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy to say "we don't add in these features for other browsers because nobody is using those browsers for OWA". If they added in support for those features in firefox they'd probably find the percentage of users using firefox for OWA increases a lot. I know I used to fire up IE just to use OWA.
It works, but if you tried it on IE you'd notice that you get nicer stuff like fancy context sensitive right click menus.
It was the same with hotmail for a while. They've sorted the right click menus in Firefox now, but you still can't change the ratio of inbox to reading pane.
Not really - the "when they're feeling emotional" was a key element. They love getting unsolitited advice too apparently (makes them feel loved and like they're getting attention), just not when they're upset.
Secondly, you resurrected a three-day-old thread, which is about forty-eight hours past the life expectancy of a normal thread on Slashdot.
Oh, yeah I shouldn't ever look back over stories if I've been too busy with my life to browse slashdot at the weekend. FFS, get a life.
At no point have I 'backpedalled', my view of your original comment has always been exactly the same. I've been trying to be polite so far in the face of you being a fucktard, and I'll go over this one more time for you as simply as I can.
You made a suggestion about the preference of a group of people explicitly defined as "not-geeks". You then said that something makes sense if this person fits is in this group of people. Now, unless it makes less sense when the person is not in the group of people (ie is a geek), then your point is completely fucking redundant and there was no need to post a comment. So quit whining and trying to get out of the fact that - shock, horror! - some people pointed out that in some cases geeks do like appliance like devices as well. Logically your statement did encompass that view, but it also left space for the idea that geeks do not like appliance-like devices at all, making your own view on what geeks prefer ambiguous.
You say it wasn't ambiguous in context, but actually in context your view is moved more towards the side that no geek would like appliance like computers, when you yourself have claimed that your agree with those of us that responded saying some geeks can like appliance like devices.
If you still cannot understand, then I give up and will just file you under 'complete moron'.
On the contrary, the women don't mind talking through problems once they've calmed down. It's just that when guys tell another guy about a problem they are usually expecting a discussion about the problem - women just want the listening (at least until they have finished their rant, by which time they will probably feel better and not care about the problem). I know these are gross generalisations, and in fact the way the book describes relationships was sometimes the complete opposite of my experience. My girlfriend was rather strange though (I mean you'd have to be strange to like a geek like me in the first place).
The thing you have to realise is that most women just want a "listener" when they're feeling emotional. As long as you give occasional signs that you are paying attention, they'll believe you were "listening" more than if you actually try to have a real conversation with them. They don't want answers, they just want someone to be there. So talking to a distressed teenage girl is one of the easiest tests you could get.
That's what "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" says anyway. I tried not saying anything back one time when my mum got annoyed at me, and she totally thought I was "listening" to her more than usual! Before too many jokes about the only woman in my life being my mum, I must point out that I did have a girlfriend around that time, but I was faaaar too late in reading the book to save that relationship!
These programs sound pretty good though - the next steps after this are to integrate speech synthesis and recognition, then integrate them into computer games and you can have the computer opponents hurling abuse at you, or just talking about how your day went:)
Ah, good point. I very rarely ever see an original Beetle, so I assumed we were talking about the new variety here.. which I see fairly often. I live in the Scotland, perhaps we just have a low concentration of them around here. I see oldschool Minis around quite a lot, but not Beetles.. perhaps I'll start to notice them now that I've said that, though!
Wow. So you are going to be an ass about this. Fair enough.
If I was the only one that misunderstood your intent, then you may have a point. But plenty of others saw implication in your comment as well. Maybe we all just have poor reading comprehension. Let's think about it:
What you brought to the table was "This person treats computers like an appliance. That makes sense if she's not a geek". The fact you think this brings anything to the table shows that you assume if you hadn't said anything, people would be having trouble making sense of this statement - most importantly because we are on slashdot and it's assumed that most people here are geeks. You, in your very friendly way were just trying to point out that maybe she isn't a geek after all, so it makes sense that she would be a simpleton who can't understand an OS that is harder to operate than a washing machine. That was the assumption that kv9 and a lot of geeks (including you, it seems) seem to have. As it happened, several of us here geeks disagreed.
Does it shock you that Slashdot comments are not read by simple bots building a knowledge base of predicates for each individual comment from a starting point of nothing? Is it surprising that people take context and who you reply to (someone supporting the idea that there is nothing wrong with wanting things pre-made) into account too?
As I said it is often necessary to make assumptions, and the way you construct your sentences can convey part of your intended meaning - not just the purely logical content. Your sentences are read by humans who are used to interpreting what someone means. If people are debating two sides of an argument, and you then mention one side of the argument and say it makes sense in relation to one group of people (which you have even expressly defined as the antithesis of another group of people), you are in effect implying something about the other group unless you clarify your position.
Do you really not understand how other people can make (often correct) assumptions based on what you don't say at the same time as you are saying something else?
I already agreed with you that logically your statement said nothing about what geeks themselves prefer, so I don't see the point in you trying to give a demonstration of how it is logical. Nevertheless, let's rearrange your statement to look the same as the original comment:
"So she prefers to have maids and butlers? That makes sense if she's rich."
That clearly (to me and all the other that responded to you) implies that it does not make so much sense for poor people to prefer having maids and butlers. Regardless of whether that's true or not, it is implied. I actually showed your original comment (in context) to one of my friends when he asked what I was doing just now, and he agreed. He has demonstrated rather clearly his abilities in areas such as reading comprehension and reasonable assumptions: he has a law degree.
Besides, you said yourself that people jump the gun a lot. As someone who is aware of that fact, it is your own fault for only expressing your views on one half of this debate, as you should have had the mental capacity to work out what is implied in what you did not say as much as what you did say.
So you may understand logic flows and equations (hint: I and most of the other geeks who responded to you will have no problem with that either), but written language is a different context entirely. One which you don't seem to understand at all. If you really believe the bullshit you spouted about your content really not implying anything about geeks - which in my opinion just looks like you backpedalling because you were embarrassed at all the responses disagreeing with those implications - it just shows that you fail at communication. In that case you aren't likely to be any good at understanding poetry, or the subtle humour involved in for example Terry Pratchett novels or Shakespeare, because you will take everything at f
Me, I tend to think that those driving a Beetle don't know anything about cars, so are less likely to be good drivers than say someone with a BMW M3.
A Beetle is just the same chassis as a Golf, but the bodyshell is bigger (probably less aerodynamic too despite being curvy), heavier and more expensive than a Golf to buy. Then since it is heavier and less aerodynamic it will also get a lower MPG and cost more over time as well. So basically it makes no financial or practical sense - only people who are concerned with looking "fashionable" get them. Hence the term "hairdresser's car" (see also the first generation Audi TT).
Of course plenty of BMW drivers will just be trying to make some kind of statement with their car as well - but at least some people get BMWs because they are good driver's cars, so you can't be sure that all of them are just pricks trying to show off. My uncle likes his fast cars, but he refuses to get a BMW just because of the way people perceive them.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoah. If that wasn't a troll, I feel a little sorry for whoever wrote it. Using both "more then" and "one in the same" makes it seem very like a troll.
Plus, a "governing mind" is exactly what a government should be. Would people rather that it was a "directionless coma patient", as it often seems to be?
Well, I don't know what language you are referring to (looks like SQL pattern matching, but it makes no sense in that context), but I've used several different languages and understood the GP just fine. Perl and PHP at least both use dollar denoted variables.
That's exactly what I thought, he's just selling out! In the end, everyone has to eat, or pay for their mansions, or whatever it is that rich and/or famous people do.
Actually, I considered myself a good listener before I read the book, I helped one of my seriously depressed friends through some issues he was facing. I thought that offering occasional input was a way of showing that you were indeed paying attention and understanding. That's what guys tend to do (not saying all guys do it). The book explained that as the fact that guys generally only mention problems if they want solutions. I have observed enough of daily life to think about this hypothesis and I think it makes sense. I hadn't noticed before, but I was confused as to why my mum would think I wasn't "listening" to her just because I asked questions about what she was saying.
Your attitude of telling people to fuck off whenever you disagree with them is as bad to me as any perceived 'chauvinism' on my side. Just because I choose to recognise that there can be differences between men and women (I mean, duh, there are some pretty obvious differences in anatomy and chemistry, so why shouldn't there be differences in the way we think and communicate) does not make me a chauvinist. I did only state one side of things in that post so perhaps it's my own fault though. According to the book apparently women do like advice, but not when they're venting, they want the advice later, or apparently before they even mention that there is a problem (which a guy might stupidly take as an insult to his macho-ness). If you think a guy is chauvinistic for taking the time to read a book to try to properly understand women (rather than just how to sleep with them - I'm a virgin, and I'm happy being that way until I meet the right person) then you can go take a flying leap yourself.
Yes I know all those things, and in fact I have used my laptop with my TV via HDMI a few times, but that's why I mentioned the additional bits about hardware and the general purpose (and therefore bloated for a gaming machine) OS that isn't necessary on a console.
Despite the lightweight OS, the console can still do the majority of the useful things I do on my PC (as it has a web browser and USB for keyboard/mouse input), but it doesn't take forever to startup or switch off. I don't have to fiddle about with cables because it's already hooked up. It is also quieter than my laptop, and doesn't overheat when I try to play games for more than a couple of hours. You could blame that on my choice of laptop sure, but even if I had a gaming laptop, the whole convenience factor of having the console ready to go in seconds is awesome. Even when it comes to system or individual game updates, the process is pretty good. Yes, there can still be hiccups occasionally, but overall it's a lot better than the possible incompatibilities you get on a PC (where your soundcard and graphics card for some reason work fine apart, but just don't work together on your specific motherboard, etc, it happens).
I wouldn't mourn the loss of the current PC games industry if it means that there is then more space for small games companies to release more interesting games. In fact I've already given up on it, I've even got used to using joysticks for FPS games (though still hoping that someone will come out with something better).
IMO games companies probably will eventually end up releasing PC or even console tools to allow people to make mods for their console games. Companies like id will probably lead the way there, as they did on the PC. Everyone is still getting used to the idea of having net connectivity on consoles, and exploring the possibilities with things like Sony's Home. You just have to give it all time to mature a bit.
Zelda is indeed awesome, but most games I bought for the Wii were gimmicky and short-lived. Zelda is good just because it's a good game, not because you use the Wii remote. You will often find that the games that use the wii-remote best are only good for short amounts of play time or to show off the Wii to your frends, while the games that are best for playing long term are just normal console games with a little bit of motion sensing and pointing tacked on.
I own both a PS3 and a Wii, but I ended up leaving the Wii at my mum's house for my little sister to play. She got Wii Fit for it, it is pretty good to play occasionally when I go visit, but again it's not something I see myself using everyday. I do use my PS3 most days for watching movies or playing games though.
There are probably drivers out there for using the Wii-mote on Linux/Windos anyway for those that are interested. It only really makes sense somewhere where you have a lot of room and a very large monitor though (ie the living room). Good for presentations and perhaps some types of game - but for stuff like FPSes the mouse and keyboard combo is still better, believe me. I'm sure peripheral makers will crack it eventually, but that time has not yet come - and will probably require headsets so that you can turn your whole body and still see the screen.
The thing is that it's all done automatically, with only one type of hardware. I want my games to be able to be patched too, that was one of my main problems with consoles before - no way to install mods and patch bugs. The OS itself boots in seconds, and can just be switched off with no shutdown. If I used my laptop all the time I'd have to wait for a couple of minutes to login and startup a game, and another minute after that to shutdown. Same for if I wanted to watch a movie. With the PS3 it's just switch on, start game/move, done.
Unless your 3-year old gets his hands on the games. Seriously, do you expect me to lock everything in a safe? He'd know the combination after watching me open it twice anyway...
Well, just don't let him get his hands on Monkey Island in the first place. Then he won't work out the best method of getting you to leave so he can work on the safe, even if he does know the combination! And if he does find out, make sure he isn't following you to the Dangerous Pointy Things drawer or your woman will get pissed at you.
Ever since I started using laptops I have always used NoCD cracks, which can be used to circumvent DRM, but I just wanted them to not have to have the flippin disk in the drive whenever I felt like playing. It's bearable having a pile of gaming disks next to your desktop, but nobody these days wants to carry around their whole gaming collection with their laptop - not to mention that it's a waste of power spinning up a disk just to authenticate, and you risk damaging it in some makes of drive if you're using the laptop on a relatively unstable surface like.. a lap.
Likewise, nobody wants to have a multitude of DRM rootkits gradually making their machine more and more sluggish as they install games over the years. We all know that DRM is only a hassle for the paying customers - it really makes no sense.
While I agree with your sentiment and that plenty of people are serious about boycotts, I think you're underestimating the amount of idiots who will buy Madden 2097: The Revenge of Athlete's Foot Expansion, and not give a toss about DRM, either because they are going to get the next iteration of the series next year, or because they are playing on a console. The console games market dwarfs the PC games market, so in the end even if all PC gamers quit EA games, it might not hurt them as much as you think - especially if it just means one less platform to develop for. In fact I've just done a little googling and it seems that EA already decided this year to release their sports lines for consoles only, so it appears that it already is more profitable to focus on the console market, for whatever reason. I hate playing devil's advocate sometimes, but there it is..
Personally I already moved to console gaming this year too, for mostly the same reasons as AKAImBatman outlined above. Despite the fact that I love mouse/keyboard for FPSes, I love the convenience of gaming in my living room - on my HDTV, with no bloated OS, no need to download the latest gaming API, latest drivers or buy the latest hardware - more. It just makes sense to me these days, and best of all it means I can happily use a non windows OS on my laptop without worrying about lack of gaming options :)
Like I said, it works with hotmail in firefox..
Windows 7 - What do you want us to fsck up today?
You mean Windows 7 is like having a personal army of virtual mafiosos?
Strange. I haven't connected into OWA before from this install of Windows - it asked me about the security certificate, but nothing about ActiveX. This is running with IE 6 on XP SP3 running in a VM. Perhaps since it's a page on the intranet the security restrictions are lighter, but I don't think I've used IE on this install for anything but Windows Updates - the security settings should all be at default.
Well, OWA for Exchange 2003 doesn't ask to install any ActiveX components so I'm not so sure. Perhaps 2007 does use ActiveX. From later on in the same page the guy continued his excuses by talking about having lots of premium features that would need tweaked for them to work in other browsers, so I had thought it was more of a DOM issue.
I like to think of it as, "knowing that trying to solve something when pissed off often renders inferior insults, so getting the annoyance out of one's system, and then being fully capable to solve the problem without any input on the actual problem." That's not the same as "not caring about the problem." ;)
True enough - I sometimes find when I've written a rant on slashdot, I can delete it and the process of writing things down has helped me to organise things in my head and puts the situation in a better perspective. Sometimes you just need to work out a bit of stress. I find that the book's talk of men having to go off into their "cave" rather than talk through things is something that I benefit well from though. I should have been taking more time to myself in my relationship, but I was spending pretty much every free minute with my girl. I'd often storm off in a huff at the most stupid things, but then force myself to go back and try to sort things out. I didn't realise that it could be healthy to spend some time alone occasionally - I used to think of that as quite a selfish notion..
From http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/09/13/428901.aspx
Why doesn't Premium work on Firefox?
Before I wrap up, I'd like to address the question we often receive about why OWA Premium doesn't work in non IE browsers. The following is heavily plagiarized from others who have answered this question as well (thanks Kristian!), and if after reading this you are still unclear as to why Premium doesn't work on Firefox, please feel free to post your questions here and I'll do my best to answer them.
Shockingly, the decision to make OWA Premium only work on IE6+ has nothing to do with forcing people to use other Microsoft products (sorry to have to dispel the conspiracy, and just when Oliver Stone and Kevin Costner were starting pre-production on "OWA: The Movie "). The decision was made, simply enough, due to costs, time, and customer need.
The browser support we have for OWA Premium and OWA Light is due to usage share among our customers, and the development and test investment it takes to support additional browsers/versions. This doesn't mean the browser statistics for "browsers hitting OWA", which would be skewed based on our previous browser support. We look at the browser statistics for "browsers used on the Internet" and "browsers used within our customer organizations", as well as listening to what customers are asking for, since statistics, surveys, site logs, and research firms never tell the full story. The browser matrix of OWA is about where we allocate our investments, and the need of additional browser support as compared to the need for all the other OWA features our customers want. We have limited resources, limited time, and a very large set of potential features.
I understand it would be a PITA for them to add in support for 'premium' features in every browser, but FireFox has shown to be pretty popular in general. It's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy to say "we don't add in these features for other browsers because nobody is using those browsers for OWA". If they added in support for those features in firefox they'd probably find the percentage of users using firefox for OWA increases a lot. I know I used to fire up IE just to use OWA.
It works, but if you tried it on IE you'd notice that you get nicer stuff like fancy context sensitive right click menus.
It was the same with hotmail for a while. They've sorted the right click menus in Firefox now, but you still can't change the ratio of inbox to reading pane.
Not really - the "when they're feeling emotional" was a key element. They love getting unsolitited advice too apparently (makes them feel loved and like they're getting attention), just not when they're upset.
Secondly, you resurrected a three-day-old thread, which is about forty-eight hours past the life expectancy of a normal thread on Slashdot.
Oh, yeah I shouldn't ever look back over stories if I've been too busy with my life to browse slashdot at the weekend. FFS, get a life.
At no point have I 'backpedalled', my view of your original comment has always been exactly the same. I've been trying to be polite so far in the face of you being a fucktard, and I'll go over this one more time for you as simply as I can.
You made a suggestion about the preference of a group of people explicitly defined as "not-geeks". You then said that something makes sense if this person fits is in this group of people. Now, unless it makes less sense when the person is not in the group of people (ie is a geek), then your point is completely fucking redundant and there was no need to post a comment. So quit whining and trying to get out of the fact that - shock, horror! - some people pointed out that in some cases geeks do like appliance like devices as well. Logically your statement did encompass that view, but it also left space for the idea that geeks do not like appliance-like devices at all, making your own view on what geeks prefer ambiguous.
You say it wasn't ambiguous in context, but actually in context your view is moved more towards the side that no geek would like appliance like computers, when you yourself have claimed that your agree with those of us that responded saying some geeks can like appliance like devices.
If you still cannot understand, then I give up and will just file you under 'complete moron'.
On the contrary, the women don't mind talking through problems once they've calmed down. It's just that when guys tell another guy about a problem they are usually expecting a discussion about the problem - women just want the listening (at least until they have finished their rant, by which time they will probably feel better and not care about the problem). I know these are gross generalisations, and in fact the way the book describes relationships was sometimes the complete opposite of my experience. My girlfriend was rather strange though (I mean you'd have to be strange to like a geek like me in the first place).
We get Sally Suckomatics? Why wasn't I told about this before? Screw the babies! So to speak.
The thing you have to realise is that most women just want a "listener" when they're feeling emotional. As long as you give occasional signs that you are paying attention, they'll believe you were "listening" more than if you actually try to have a real conversation with them. They don't want answers, they just want someone to be there. So talking to a distressed teenage girl is one of the easiest tests you could get.
That's what "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" says anyway. I tried not saying anything back one time when my mum got annoyed at me, and she totally thought I was "listening" to her more than usual! Before too many jokes about the only woman in my life being my mum, I must point out that I did have a girlfriend around that time, but I was faaaar too late in reading the book to save that relationship!
These programs sound pretty good though - the next steps after this are to integrate speech synthesis and recognition, then integrate them into computer games and you can have the computer opponents hurling abuse at you, or just talking about how your day went :)
Meh - they'll come crawling back when they want babies.
Ah, good point. I very rarely ever see an original Beetle, so I assumed we were talking about the new variety here.. which I see fairly often. I live in the Scotland, perhaps we just have a low concentration of them around here. I see oldschool Minis around quite a lot, but not Beetles.. perhaps I'll start to notice them now that I've said that, though!
Wow. So you are going to be an ass about this. Fair enough.
If I was the only one that misunderstood your intent, then you may have a point. But plenty of others saw implication in your comment as well. Maybe we all just have poor reading comprehension. Let's think about it:
What you brought to the table was "This person treats computers like an appliance. That makes sense if she's not a geek". The fact you think this brings anything to the table shows that you assume if you hadn't said anything, people would be having trouble making sense of this statement - most importantly because we are on slashdot and it's assumed that most people here are geeks. You, in your very friendly way were just trying to point out that maybe she isn't a geek after all, so it makes sense that she would be a simpleton who can't understand an OS that is harder to operate than a washing machine. That was the assumption that kv9 and a lot of geeks (including you, it seems) seem to have. As it happened, several of us here geeks disagreed.
Does it shock you that Slashdot comments are not read by simple bots building a knowledge base of predicates for each individual comment from a starting point of nothing? Is it surprising that people take context and who you reply to (someone supporting the idea that there is nothing wrong with wanting things pre-made) into account too?
As I said it is often necessary to make assumptions, and the way you construct your sentences can convey part of your intended meaning - not just the purely logical content. Your sentences are read by humans who are used to interpreting what someone means. If people are debating two sides of an argument, and you then mention one side of the argument and say it makes sense in relation to one group of people (which you have even expressly defined as the antithesis of another group of people), you are in effect implying something about the other group unless you clarify your position.
Do you really not understand how other people can make (often correct) assumptions based on what you don't say at the same time as you are saying something else?
I already agreed with you that logically your statement said nothing about what geeks themselves prefer, so I don't see the point in you trying to give a demonstration of how it is logical. Nevertheless, let's rearrange your statement to look the same as the original comment:
"So she prefers to have maids and butlers? That makes sense if she's rich."
That clearly (to me and all the other that responded to you) implies that it does not make so much sense for poor people to prefer having maids and butlers. Regardless of whether that's true or not, it is implied. I actually showed your original comment (in context) to one of my friends when he asked what I was doing just now, and he agreed. He has demonstrated rather clearly his abilities in areas such as reading comprehension and reasonable assumptions: he has a law degree.
Besides, you said yourself that people jump the gun a lot. As someone who is aware of that fact, it is your own fault for only expressing your views on one half of this debate, as you should have had the mental capacity to work out what is implied in what you did not say as much as what you did say.
So you may understand logic flows and equations (hint: I and most of the other geeks who responded to you will have no problem with that either), but written language is a different context entirely. One which you don't seem to understand at all. If you really believe the bullshit you spouted about your content really not implying anything about geeks - which in my opinion just looks like you backpedalling because you were embarrassed at all the responses disagreeing with those implications - it just shows that you fail at communication. In that case you aren't likely to be any good at understanding poetry, or the subtle humour involved in for example Terry Pratchett novels or Shakespeare, because you will take everything at f
Me, I tend to think that those driving a Beetle don't know anything about cars, so are less likely to be good drivers than say someone with a BMW M3.
A Beetle is just the same chassis as a Golf, but the bodyshell is bigger (probably less aerodynamic too despite being curvy), heavier and more expensive than a Golf to buy. Then since it is heavier and less aerodynamic it will also get a lower MPG and cost more over time as well. So basically it makes no financial or practical sense - only people who are concerned with looking "fashionable" get them. Hence the term "hairdresser's car" (see also the first generation Audi TT).
Of course plenty of BMW drivers will just be trying to make some kind of statement with their car as well - but at least some people get BMWs because they are good driver's cars, so you can't be sure that all of them are just pricks trying to show off. My uncle likes his fast cars, but he refuses to get a BMW just because of the way people perceive them.