I wonder where you heard this from. In standard US public schools, we most definitely cover world history. The focus is overwhelmingly on Europe, especially within the last 500 years, but other parts of the world as well as antiquity are covered.
The problem is that world knowledge of most Americans tends to peak at this age. Once you graduate into the "real world", you find that most news doesn't cover world events, unless it's something sensational like war or terrorism.
If you've never watched mainstream American news broadcasts (CNN, MSNBC, or god help you, Fox) give it a try. I'm curious to see how well it might match up with your idea of American news.
What about the "run as administrator" option when you right-click on a program? I assumed (hopefully correctly!) that it was Vista's sudo equivalent.
Though of course, it has the drawback of not being able to right-click on a file and run its associated program as an admin - only the programs (and links) themselves have the option.
Maybe they wanted to be around fellow nerds, and figured there would be plenty of them at this addiction clinic. It must be a great place to go talk to fellow gamers... well, aside from the treatments and having to pay for it.
The Sims helps to build social skills? I've never played it, but from what I've seen it looks like a god game. In other words, watch your creations live out their lives with a certain degree of indirect influence.
The "eee-running-aero-yeh-right department" line says it all.
If computer usage were truly based on activities average people needed to get done on a daily basis - reading email, surfing, basic word processing, etc. - then I might be inclined to agree with the article.
However, software producers have an incentive to keep tacking on new features, some useful, some just bells and whistles. The new features mean that consumers will always have to keep upgrading their computer just to do basic things.
You never know, though. From TFA: "The first effects may already be being felt. Notably, last week Microsoft cut the cost of retail copies of Vista, apparently because people don't see it as a necessary upgrade at the prices charged."
Maybe people will smarten the fuck up a bit, to the point where they realize they don't have to get bloated "upgrades" requiring the latest and greatest hardware.
I'm very curious as to how someone is supposed to easily ctrl + and - on a tablet or a small gadget. Mouse+keyboard only works on devices with mice. 2 of the 3 device categories mentioned do not typically have mice, and the third (laptops) frequently do not - the one I am typing on right now does not. If I had a single standard way to zoom, move text around, etc. - like a scroll wheel on a mouse - I might be more inclined to use this laptop for my regular day-to-day activities. As it is, I'm only using it right now because I have to.
Then your mention of CAD is completely irrelevant. CAD requires a great deal of precision and control, and is not likely to be used often even on laptops, let alone the smaller devices. Reading an email, on the other hand, just needs a simple way to manipulate the screen. Who cares if it is a very coarse method of control, as long as it enables me to quickly get to what I want?
Laws are not enough. There must be a system in place to enforce those laws.
If you shoot someone, there is a pretty good chance you will be caught, tried, convicted, and put in prison.
If you try to patent something obvious, the worst that can happen is that it is rejected. You can always keep trying until it gets through, and many people and organizations do just this. What we need is a deterrent for such activities... until we have that, you should not expect people to change, no matter how big of a douchebag they may be.
It could also be that because Apple makes most of their money on their hardware, they don't need to charge for their dev tools - which are probably the same tools that they use to develop internal apps.
Just like it could be that Microsoft is giving their tools away for free for a different reason than the falling consumer confidence that they are experiencing.
However, you chose the "desperation" angle with Apple, and I wanted to show a jump to a similar conclusion with Microsoft. Granted, the degree of desperation may be different, but when you're at the top, you have a lot further to fall.
I think it has everything to do with MS having a strangle-hold on the computing platform market.
From what I can tell - I wasn't a business computer user back then, just gaming - in the 80s, applications were king. You wanted people to use your bizarre new computer or your fancy-pants OS? You had to woo the app developers, or write some good ones yourself. Applications were, and still are, the reason people use computers.
However, in the case of Windows, even though it's only an OS, it has come to represent much more. It means being able to run just about any program out there. And that means something to people. It's enough to make them pay for the "privilege" of writing Windows programs.
You overlook something - a culture's perception of desirable attributes is usually heavily dependent on the culture itself. And cultures usually tend to value the traits they exhibit as the most desirable.
I'm sure fundamentalist preachers in the USA pat themselves on the back and thank the good lord that they live in this country, instead of one of those "low on religion" Nordic countries.
Also, the Theory of Evolution doesn't imply improvement on some kind of absolute scale of goodness. It's a vehicle for producing the best traits given a particular environment.
Fault? I'm just saying not to ignore it. I'm not looking to place blame on this. GP gave an excellent response as to how the community is doing everything BUT ignoring the lack of important Windows-only applications. Please go back and re-read the post you were replying to.
Slashdot Mirror
Just curious... this sounds like a reference to some specific event. Is it?
I too have a system that works most of the time, and it's worth every penny that I never paid for it. :)
Errr... Linux, not a pirated copy of Windows, in case you were wondering.
Psst, you forgot to post anonymously. You know, so you can pretend like you aren't posting on /. when you actually are. ;)
I just used up all my mod points today, so OF COURSE you had to go and make this hilarious post.
By the way, if you don't adopt this as your sig within the next week, it officially becomes up for grabs. >.>
I wonder where you heard this from. In standard US public schools, we most definitely cover world history. The focus is overwhelmingly on Europe, especially within the last 500 years, but other parts of the world as well as antiquity are covered.
The problem is that world knowledge of most Americans tends to peak at this age. Once you graduate into the "real world", you find that most news doesn't cover world events, unless it's something sensational like war or terrorism.
If you've never watched mainstream American news broadcasts (CNN, MSNBC, or god help you, Fox) give it a try. I'm curious to see how well it might match up with your idea of American news.
What about the "run as administrator" option when you right-click on a program? I assumed (hopefully correctly!) that it was Vista's sudo equivalent.
Though of course, it has the drawback of not being able to right-click on a file and run its associated program as an admin - only the programs (and links) themselves have the option.
Maybe they wanted to be around fellow nerds, and figured there would be plenty of them at this addiction clinic. It must be a great place to go talk to fellow gamers... well, aside from the treatments and having to pay for it.
The Sims helps to build social skills? I've never played it, but from what I've seen it looks like a god game. In other words, watch your creations live out their lives with a certain degree of indirect influence.
I'd love to be proven wrong.
You need to prove yourself right first. I'd like to see some statistics that show that IT has destroyed more jobs than it has created.
The problem is not that we have too few jobs for unskilled workers. The problem is that we have too few skilled workers.
This is an old problem, but I don't think it is in the realm of CS ethics. It's a public policy and sociology issue.
Relax, he's just "enhancing the truth". ;)
Dracula X Chronicles!
:)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania:_The_Dracula_X_Chronicles
If you've got a PSP, you can get your hands on both Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night.
I think maybe you're focusing too much on the messenger and not enough on the message.
This needs to be said:
http://xkcd.com/397/
Now, granted, it's not science *news*. But it's still science.
The "eee-running-aero-yeh-right department" line says it all.
If computer usage were truly based on activities average people needed to get done on a daily basis - reading email, surfing, basic word processing, etc. - then I might be inclined to agree with the article.
However, software producers have an incentive to keep tacking on new features, some useful, some just bells and whistles. The new features mean that consumers will always have to keep upgrading their computer just to do basic things.
You never know, though. From TFA:
"The first effects may already be being felt. Notably, last week Microsoft cut the cost of retail copies of Vista, apparently because people don't see it as a necessary upgrade at the prices charged."
Maybe people will smarten the fuck up a bit, to the point where they realize they don't have to get bloated "upgrades" requiring the latest and greatest hardware.
I'm very curious as to how someone is supposed to easily ctrl + and - on a tablet or a small gadget. Mouse+keyboard only works on devices with mice. 2 of the 3 device categories mentioned do not typically have mice, and the third (laptops) frequently do not - the one I am typing on right now does not. If I had a single standard way to zoom, move text around, etc. - like a scroll wheel on a mouse - I might be more inclined to use this laptop for my regular day-to-day activities. As it is, I'm only using it right now because I have to.
Then your mention of CAD is completely irrelevant. CAD requires a great deal of precision and control, and is not likely to be used often even on laptops, let alone the smaller devices. Reading an email, on the other hand, just needs a simple way to manipulate the screen. Who cares if it is a very coarse method of control, as long as it enables me to quickly get to what I want?
Of course not. They'll put UNCRACKABLE rootkits on Blu-ray, and encode it with a 16-byte number that no one will ever figure out.
Laws are not enough. There must be a system in place to enforce those laws.
If you shoot someone, there is a pretty good chance you will be caught, tried, convicted, and put in prison.
If you try to patent something obvious, the worst that can happen is that it is rejected. You can always keep trying until it gets through, and many people and organizations do just this. What we need is a deterrent for such activities... until we have that, you should not expect people to change, no matter how big of a douchebag they may be.
It could also be that because Apple makes most of their money on their hardware, they don't need to charge for their dev tools - which are probably the same tools that they use to develop internal apps.
Just like it could be that Microsoft is giving their tools away for free for a different reason than the falling consumer confidence that they are experiencing.
However, you chose the "desperation" angle with Apple, and I wanted to show a jump to a similar conclusion with Microsoft. Granted, the degree of desperation may be different, but when you're at the top, you have a lot further to fall.
I think it has everything to do with MS having a strangle-hold on the computing platform market.
From what I can tell - I wasn't a business computer user back then, just gaming - in the 80s, applications were king. You wanted people to use your bizarre new computer or your fancy-pants OS? You had to woo the app developers, or write some good ones yourself. Applications were, and still are, the reason people use computers.
However, in the case of Windows, even though it's only an OS, it has come to represent much more. It means being able to run just about any program out there. And that means something to people. It's enough to make them pay for the "privilege" of writing Windows programs.
So what you're implying then is that Microsoft is becoming desperate.
It's probably advisable not to use this method on females that you have just met.
"Hey, what's a pretty girl like yourself doing on a google results page like this?"
You overlook something - a culture's perception of desirable attributes is usually heavily dependent on the culture itself. And cultures usually tend to value the traits they exhibit as the most desirable.
I'm sure fundamentalist preachers in the USA pat themselves on the back and thank the good lord that they live in this country, instead of one of those "low on religion" Nordic countries.
Also, the Theory of Evolution doesn't imply improvement on some kind of absolute scale of goodness. It's a vehicle for producing the best traits given a particular environment.
New people (well, growing old enough to use a computer anyway).
Developing countries.
The recovering Amish.