DesqView was a text-based product which was too late to matter. GUIs had already been annointed (largely thanks to Apple) as the wave of the future. As regards GEM, I assume you know that one of the main reasons it failed was because Apple sued DRI, forcing them to de-feature it:
... Apple Computer sued DRI in what would turn into a long dispute over the "look and feel" of the GEM/1 system, which was in fact an almost direct copy of the Macintosh (with some elements bearing a closer resemblence to those in the earlier Lisa). This eventually led to DRI being forced to change several basic features of the system.
Microsoft had no hesitation about overstepping laws
The tired excuse that MS overstepped laws (presumably by abusing their monopoly) simply does not apply. Many on these boards love to point to Microsoft's abuse of its monopoly power as the way it achieved desktop dominance. That is circular logic. Obviously they had to become dominant on the desktop *before* they could leverage that dominance. No, they simply outmaneuvered their competitors (and a lumbering, arrogant IBM).
I do agree with you that Microsoft did a much better job marketing their wares than the examples you cited. But the question is, of course, what was the nature of that marketing? It is my opinion that what Microsoft did better than anyone else was court (ie market to) 3rd party developers to create applications for their platform. They went out of their way to make it easy to develop for their platform because they recognized that applications ultimately would drive platform selections. And for that they have been rewarded handsomely.
Microsoft turned being dumb into an asset and a badge of honor amongst users
Another typical "argument" on these boards... anyone who uses Windows is "dumb". Funny though, as I remember it, it was Apple that was pushing the "computer for the rest of us" message, implying that computers running Microsoft operating systems were too difficult to use for non-technical people. That smacks alot more of "turning being dumb into an asset", don't you think? While I'm on this topic, this probably reveals another area where Microsoft's marketing and corporate strategy helped them immensely in the battle of the desktops. Microsoft did a much better job of appealing to businesses, whereas Apple did the opposite with ads like their famous 1984 commercial that depicted business users as dumb automotons. In retrospect, I think it's fair to say that Apple's counter-culture message ultimately backfired, relegating them to a small niche of the overall market.
... sparcstations and others did not take over the desktop a cheap PC with an MS system on it did instead despite being inferior to nearly every other option.
Windows was not inferior. Now I *might* grant you that it was technically inferior, but when the whole system is considered, buying your hardware from any number of competing, standardized vendors, and buying your OS from a pure software company with no vested interest in which hardware you bought was a compelling combination.
As far as the technical superiority of the competing choices, I am not ready to concede that point either. This is because I really appreciate the technical value and difficulty of loose coupling (especially between software and hardware, but also between software components), and in that respect Windows was vastly superior to anything out there at the time. For every other choice you were forced to buy the hardware and the OS from the same vendor - thereby locking you in - not only for future hardware purchases and upgrades, but also for software application purchases. I remember well the bad old days of $10,000 spreadsheet or word processing licenses for your unix-flavor-of-choice which would only run on your computer vendor's "workstations".
but I have the luxury of living in a country where they do not exist yet and people still point at the US patent system and laugh.
I live in the US. I point at *all* patent systems and cry.
PS3's and Wii's probably attract different kinds of people, but each attract a certain type of person.
That is exactly what occurred to me when I saw the article. When I think PS3 I think about photo-realistic frag-fests, fighting games, and some sports games (which are also very competitive). When I think Wii (or Nintendo in general) I think more about tamer, cartoon-like, youth-oriented games like the Mario series. It wouldn't seem to be much of a stretch that the personalities of many of the people buying these consoles would correlate at least somewhat with those "stereotypes".
This isn't a zero sum game... There's a huge portion of the population that isn't even playing or caring. A new idea won't steal mind share, it will bring new players to the table that otherwise wouldn't be interested.
Your comment is the most insightful statement in this thread. World poverty is an extremely complicated problem for which there isn't one simple solution. Clearly it requires a combination of actions. This program is one way (of many) to address educational aspects of the solution. As it happens this project appeals to a certain group of people (engineers, software types) and so, perhaps, draws them into the required worldwide effort to help people in developing nations.
There has been much written in this thread about the preference for teaching people to farm/fish versus simply giving them food/fish. Obviously this is an oversimplification and both actions are required. The former is about education; the latter is about helping people survive long enough to become educated. The laptops are one way to promote education, if for no other reason than to promote literacy. In my mind they are a part of the solution.
salvation can only come through becoming a fat out-of-shape office worker, typing in Word using a crumb covered keyboard.
and
embedded western psychological beliefs about how you need a nice western strong man/organistion/society (i.e. 'Hilter') to go and sort those foreigners out
It seems to me *these* are the kinds of statements racists make.
If the installed base of PCs was comprised of many different OSes each of comparable market penetration, this would require almost every OS vendor to make these changes -- assuming of course they all had something akin to the Windows Power control applet in the first place. In fact, this *could* be one of those times when having a monopoly desktop OS is a *good* thing.
... that Microsoft seems to be getting more and more into hardware. They have keyboards, mice, XBoxes, now Zunes. For a while there they were making routers and access points (don't know if they are still in this business). I half expect them to make phones and PDAs, but so far they have steered clear; perhaps the Zune will evolve in that direction. Then they will have the XBox to usurp the PC and the Zune to usurp the phone/PDA.
... paying ridiculous prices for bug ridden software with DRM restrictions,...
Uh, sorry to burst your bubble, but the vast majority of businesses are not opposed to their software infrastructure being "DRM infested" - in fact I suspect they prefer it. Believe it or not they would rather that their employees *not* spend all day listening to music or watching movies. And they are usually somewhat opposed to employees running P2P on their networks as well.
Umm, I understand how evolution works. There are myriads of random mutations. Some result in pro-creation advantages (due to providing survival advantages). That is all well established. My *point* was, many of these random mutations do not result in any advantage. Did you see the last question I asked in my post?
The interesting question is, did this dolphin pro-create, and if so, did its offspring have 4 fins?
Not *every* mutation is a step along an evolutionary path. Clearly if we find more of these 4-fin dolphins we have established a trait that is surviving and potentially spreading (or, conversely fading out). Either way, it would probably be valid to discuss such a trait in terms of evolution. But to ascribe that to a *single* instance of a mutation is, perhaps, being a bit over anxious, don't you think?
This is *one* 4-finned dolphin? Why isn't this just one of those random genetic mutations everyone is always talking about? Why does it have to be the start/end of an evolutionary path? The interesting question is, did this dolphin pro-create, and if so, did its offspring have 4 fins?
Forgive me for taking these out of order. I simply had to respond to your last slam first for obvious reasons.
Please review the history of this thread. Better yet, let me summarize (in chronological order) all of the unfortunate barbs that have been traded:
You (starting the name calling on 10-29):
Just how far up your ass does your head have to be to draw THAT conclusion from THAT chart?
I replied with an explanation, but no attacks on 10/30
You (on 10/30):
You do understand that the tilde (~) indicates "approximately", right?
and
Anyone waiting for some miracle to relieve the Bush fiscal nightmare is in complete la-la land.
I replied again with my views, no attacks.
You (11/01):
Honestly, your assessment is so slanted it's laughable.
Me (finally responding in kind on 11/1):
And here by repeating that tired left-wing mantra you reveal your partisanship as well.
and
Since I am not as biased as you I am not willing just to accept partisan projections as gospel truth.
You (11/3):
You can just cram that. Just who do you think you are?
And now my response to your eloquently phrased query:
I think the transcript speaks for itself. I believe I come off as a reasonable person interested in discussing the issues, and you come off as someone so driven by hate that they cannot think straight. I suspect I am wasting my time by reiterating what I have said, but I feel I need to do it because it appears by your accusations that you *think* I've said things that I simply have not written:
- I never said Clinton was a bad manager. Nor did I say he was "lucky" to reduce the deficit. I said the biggest (but not only) component of that deficit reduction was supply-side growth in federal revenues.
- I never said Bush was a good manager. I never said he was holding the line on spending. In fact I blamed him for the war.
- I pointed out that three of the major causes of the larger deficits (the 4th being the war that Bush chose) were 9/11 ($1T is one oft heard estimate of the costs), Katrina (hundreds of billions at least), and the bubble burst (I pointed out how federal revenues did not return to 2000 levels until 2005 - a loss of many hundreds of billions of tax revenues). [Incidentally, the tax cuts were in 2003 and they were an attempt to jumpstart an economy that was in recession following the bubble burst; the steep drop in federal revenues was initially caused by the severe drop in capital gains taxes, not by Bush policies. And the improving economy we are now seeing (with the attendant falling deficits) may in fact be due to those taxcuts (hard to say).].
- I explained that there are facts and there are projections. I treat the two differently. I am willing to wait to see with projections. I added that lately due to economic growth driving increased tax revenues, the projected deficits are dropping (not insignificantly).
- I illustrated how the "rich" (depending on how you define that loaded word) pay a disproportionate share of the taxes in this country, so if you have a taxcut that reduces in a meaningful way federal taxes, you must by definition reduce the taxes of "the rich". To call it a "taxcut for the rich" is simply inflamatory and meant to drive a wedge between people. While technically accurate, it is certainly not helpful in promoting understanding and discussion.
You know, it's ironic how this whole thread started. Basically I made the seemingly innocuous statement that I don't believe we can properly judge the Bush presidency whilst in the middle of it. This should not be construed as a biased or partisan statement. It makes no judgement whatsoever about Bush's years in office. The idealogues on the left however would have no
It's amazing how the Republican Party and their joculators have managed to make the word "Liberal" a term of abuse in the US.
Actually I think liberals did it to themselves. Clearly liberals have fought for good and meaningful changes in society in the past. Unfortunately many liberals seem to live in that past, when businesses treated their employees like slaves and the employees had no recourse, when living conditions for most of the population were miserable and infrastructure was non-existent, when education was only accessible to the wealthy, etc. Now that those primitive times are behind us (thank you liberals of the past) they can't accept that, for the majority of Americans at least, many of the policies they now advocate seem destructive, and detrimental to the country. Of course I may just be echoing what was said about liberals during the civil rights movement, the labor movement, and the establishment of public education; it's always hard to make these judgments while you are in the middle of the storm.
"We are disappointed in the ruling," Massport spokeswoman Danny Levy said, "but [are] reviewing it carefully and weighing our options moving forward." Levy had no further comment.
As someone who has lived in "the cradle of liberty" for quite some time, it wouldn't surprise me if they started jamming.
And here by repeating that tired left-wing mantra you reveal your partisanship as well. Not that it was a mystery since the chart you referenced labeled the two gulf conflicts the "Oil Wars". Funny how your perspective is supposedly unbiased and fact-based, but anything I say is assumed to be slanted, partisan and delusional. I have written much in this thread about the "taxcuts for the rich" so I won't bother to repeat it here.
The numbers are the numbers. However, there are two kinds of numbers. There are those from the past, and projections for the future. The book on Clinton is closed; the national debt increased 45% during his 2 terms. Fact. So far Bush has increased the debt by 33%. Fact. *If* your highly partisan chart's projections are correct he will indeed have increased the debt by 66%. But that is a big if. In fact as the NYTime's articles I referenced indicate, the deficit is dropping rather quickly, so we will just have to wait and see where it all ends up. Since I am not as biased as you I am not willing just to accept partisan projections as gospel truth. Funny, you use a partisan projection to defend your position, but were quick to point out that the NYTimes numbers came from the White House (which they didn't, they came from the CBO). To quote you:
Incidentally, Bush routinely plays games with his deficit projections
Now why is one partisan projection suspect, but YOUR partisan projection the indisputable truth?
Clinton was just lucky
The only thing I said about this was that a major contributor to the deficit reduction during Clinton's terms was a huge increase in federal tax receipts, driven largely by the stock market bubble induced capital gains taxes. Do you really deny this is true? Is it so hard for you to admit that it was the "supply-side" that grew us out of the deficit much more than it was due to reduced spending? In fact spending went up every year of Clinton's administration. It's just that tax receipts went up faster, again due to capital gains. You do realize that the federal tax revenues peaked in 2000 (Clinton's last year) at $2.02T, and never again reached the $2T mark until 2005, right? http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/TaxFacts/TFDB/TFTem plate.cfm?Docid=200
I guess my point was that allowing a tax deduction for charity is just the US government saying they'll match every 3 of your dollars with one from the US treasury.
As you know the US tax policy is rife with these types of inducements, like the enormously costly mortgage deduction. Ditto for deductions for having children. The list is extremely long. While I for one would gladly sign up for a simple flat tax (with exclusions for lower income people) with no deductions (which would make doing your taxes a trivial 5 minute operation), I don't think those in Washington (nor for that matter the lobbies who have so much vested in our complicated tax system) would like such a system because then they couldn't easily buy votes by bribing various groups with promised tax windfalls. So, given all of that, I look at charitable deductions as a small way for us to steer where at least *some* of our tax dollars go.
Now wait a minute. Since the rich pay most of the taxes in this country, that would be a way to get the rich to underwrite this program. Trust me, if it's the "rich" folks who "can afford a $300 toy" that you are counting on, you won't get anywhere near your 100,000 goal. You need the masses to participate, and for them writing off the expense as a deduction makes it more affordable.
BTW, I agree that spending needs to be cut, but in a *substantive* way. 100,000*$200 in tax deductions is only $20M - which at the nominal rate of 15% is only $3M in lost federal revenues. And that assumes that revenue won't be recovered (again, out of the hides of the wealthier taxpayers).
The FCC has banned computerized trading. The turnabout came after a group called We Don't Trust Trading Computers protested the vulnerability of electronic trading to fraud or manipulation.
And the FDIC has banned computerized banking, including ATM machines. The turnabout came after a group called We Don't Trust Banking Computers protested the vulnerability of electronic banking to fraud or manipulation.
And the FAA has banned computerized flight control. The turnabout came after a group called We Don't Trust Flight Control Computers protested the vulnerability of electronic flight control to terrorists' hacking or manipulation.
What next? Seriously, why is voting any different from these other very important uses of computers? Doesn't it make more sense to fix the problem rather than ban the machines?
Slashdot Mirror
Your assertion is circular logic. Please see my earlier post http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=208292&cid=169 84932
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_Environmen
The tired excuse that MS overstepped laws (presumably by abusing their monopoly) simply does not apply. Many on these boards love to point to Microsoft's abuse of its monopoly power as the way it achieved desktop dominance. That is circular logic. Obviously they had to become dominant on the desktop *before* they could leverage that dominance. No, they simply outmaneuvered their competitors (and a lumbering, arrogant IBM).
I do agree with you that Microsoft did a much better job marketing their wares than the examples you cited. But the question is, of course, what was the nature of that marketing? It is my opinion that what Microsoft did better than anyone else was court (ie market to) 3rd party developers to create applications for their platform. They went out of their way to make it easy to develop for their platform because they recognized that applications ultimately would drive platform selections. And for that they have been rewarded handsomely.
Another typical "argument" on these boards
As far as the technical superiority of the competing choices, I am not ready to concede that point either. This is because I really appreciate the technical value and difficulty of loose coupling (especially between software and hardware, but also between software components), and in that respect Windows was vastly superior to anything out there at the time. For every other choice you were forced to buy the hardware and the OS from the same vendor - thereby locking you in - not only for future hardware purchases and upgrades, but also for software application purchases. I remember well the bad old days of $10,000 spreadsheet or word processing licenses for your unix-flavor-of-choice which would only run on your computer vendor's "workstations". I live in the US. I point at *all* patent systems and cry.
There has been much written in this thread about the preference for teaching people to farm/fish versus simply giving them food/fish. Obviously this is an oversimplification and both actions are required. The former is about education; the latter is about helping people survive long enough to become educated. The laptops are one way to promote education, if for no other reason than to promote literacy. In my mind they are a part of the solution.
If the installed base of PCs was comprised of many different OSes each of comparable market penetration, this would require almost every OS vendor to make these changes -- assuming of course they all had something akin to the Windows Power control applet in the first place. In fact, this *could* be one of those times when having a monopoly desktop OS is a *good* thing.
... that Microsoft seems to be getting more and more into hardware. They have keyboards, mice, XBoxes, now Zunes. For a while there they were making routers and access points (don't know if they are still in this business). I half expect them to make phones and PDAs, but so far they have steered clear; perhaps the Zune will evolve in that direction. Then they will have the XBox to usurp the PC and the Zune to usurp the phone/PDA.
I don't have enough information to offer an intelligent answer.
Of course since you are in MA your ballot was like mine ... many of the candidates were running unopposed. Sad.
This is *one* 4-finned dolphin? Why isn't this just one of those random genetic mutations everyone is always talking about? Why does it have to be the start/end of an evolutionary path? The interesting question is, did this dolphin pro-create, and if so, did its offspring have 4 fins?
Please review the history of this thread. Better yet, let me summarize (in chronological order) all of the unfortunate barbs that have been traded:
You (starting the name calling on 10-29):
I replied with an explanation, but no attacks on 10/30
You (on 10/30):
and
I replied again with my views, no attacks.
You (11/01):
Me (finally responding in kind on 11/1):
and
You (11/3):
And now my response to your eloquently phrased query:
I think the transcript speaks for itself. I believe I come off as a reasonable person interested in discussing the issues, and you come off as someone so driven by hate that they cannot think straight. I suspect I am wasting my time by reiterating what I have said, but I feel I need to do it because it appears by your accusations that you *think* I've said things that I simply have not written:
- I never said Clinton was a bad manager. Nor did I say he was "lucky" to reduce the deficit. I said the biggest (but not only) component of that deficit reduction was supply-side growth in federal revenues.
- I never said Bush was a good manager. I never said he was holding the line on spending. In fact I blamed him for the war.
- I pointed out that three of the major causes of the larger deficits (the 4th being the war that Bush chose) were 9/11 ($1T is one oft heard estimate of the costs), Katrina (hundreds of billions at least), and the bubble burst (I pointed out how federal revenues did not return to 2000 levels until 2005 - a loss of many hundreds of billions of tax revenues). [Incidentally, the tax cuts were in 2003 and they were an attempt to jumpstart an economy that was in recession following the bubble burst; the steep drop in federal revenues was initially caused by the severe drop in capital gains taxes, not by Bush policies. And the improving economy we are now seeing (with the attendant falling deficits) may in fact be due to those taxcuts (hard to say).].
- I explained that there are facts and there are projections. I treat the two differently. I am willing to wait to see with projections. I added that lately due to economic growth driving increased tax revenues, the projected deficits are dropping (not insignificantly).
- I illustrated how the "rich" (depending on how you define that loaded word) pay a disproportionate share of the taxes in this country, so if you have a taxcut that reduces in a meaningful way federal taxes, you must by definition reduce the taxes of "the rich". To call it a "taxcut for the rich" is simply inflamatory and meant to drive a wedge between people. While technically accurate, it is certainly not helpful in promoting understanding and discussion.
You know, it's ironic how this whole thread started. Basically I made the seemingly innocuous statement that I don't believe we can properly judge the Bush presidency whilst in the middle of it. This should not be construed as a biased or partisan statement. It makes no judgement whatsoever about Bush's years in office. The idealogues on the left however would have no
Germany and Canada were not mentioned in the investigation of the 9-11 attacks ... oh wait
The numbers are the numbers. However, there are two kinds of numbers. There are those from the past, and projections for the future. The book on Clinton is closed; the national debt increased 45% during his 2 terms. Fact. So far Bush has increased the debt by 33%. Fact. *If* your highly partisan chart's projections are correct he will indeed have increased the debt by 66%. But that is a big if. In fact as the NYTime's articles I referenced indicate, the deficit is dropping rather quickly, so we will just have to wait and see where it all ends up. Since I am not as biased as you I am not willing just to accept partisan projections as gospel truth. Funny, you use a partisan projection to defend your position, but were quick to point out that the NYTimes numbers came from the White House (which they didn't, they came from the CBO). To quote you:
Now why is one partisan projection suspect, but YOUR partisan projection the indisputable truth?
The only thing I said about this was that a major contributor to the deficit reduction during Clinton's terms was a huge increase in federal tax receipts, driven largely by the stock market bubble induced capital gains taxes. Do you really deny this is true? Is it so hard for you to admit that it was the "supply-side" that grew us out of the deficit much more than it was due to reduced spending? In fact spending went up every year of Clinton's administration. It's just that tax receipts went up faster, again due to capital gains. You do realize that the federal tax revenues peaked in 2000 (Clinton's last year) at $2.02T, and never again reached the $2T mark until 2005, right? http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/TaxFacts/TFDB/TFTe
Partisan cuts both ways.
I assume it would be for $200, since you would be receiving $100 worth of value in the laptop.
Now wait a minute. Since the rich pay most of the taxes in this country, that would be a way to get the rich to underwrite this program. Trust me, if it's the "rich" folks who "can afford a $300 toy" that you are counting on, you won't get anywhere near your 100,000 goal. You need the masses to participate, and for them writing off the expense as a deduction makes it more affordable.
BTW, I agree that spending needs to be cut, but in a *substantive* way. 100,000*$200 in tax deductions is only $20M - which at the nominal rate of 15% is only $3M in lost federal revenues. And that assumes that revenue won't be recovered (again, out of the hides of the wealthier taxpayers).
... a tax deduction for the $200 difference would have been a help, at least in the U.S.
This story from Oct. 30th Boston Globe is interesting. It talks about how we may have missed detecting life on Mars back in 1976 during the Viking 1 and Viking 2 missions. http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/1 0/30/could_we_have_missed_life_on_mars/
The FCC has banned computerized trading. The turnabout came after a group called We Don't Trust Trading Computers protested the vulnerability of electronic trading to fraud or manipulation.
And the FDIC has banned computerized banking, including ATM machines. The turnabout came after a group called We Don't Trust Banking Computers protested the vulnerability of electronic banking to fraud or manipulation.
And the FAA has banned computerized flight control. The turnabout came after a group called We Don't Trust Flight Control Computers protested the vulnerability of electronic flight control to terrorists' hacking or manipulation.
What next? Seriously, why is voting any different from these other very important uses of computers? Doesn't it make more sense to fix the problem rather than ban the machines?