The pervasiveness of cell phones is a great boon to the homeless insane -- now they can hold a hand up to their ear while ranting and people can't tell if they're just on a cellphone or not. Shit, I live in LA, and I've seen a couple homeless guys who really DID have cellphones.
I shall gleefully point out the irony of posting a message decrying the breakdown of communications skills due to advancing technology... on a message board... on the Internet... using an electronic computer.
If you're feeling a little too paranoid, check out this link, where the threat of gray (or black) goo is analyzed a bit. It's not as bad as you think; blue goo should be able to protect us;)
(Quick reference:
gray goo = accidentally released nanobots that eat everything black goo = deliberately released nanobots that eat everything blue goo = counter-nanobots that prevent gray/black goo from eating everything)
I like the fact that you've still failed to provide any justification whatsoever that Faith's return is "obvious," aside from snide insults. If you had anything that even came within slaying distance of intellectual honesty, you'd have posted it by now, or owned up that you just got lucky enough to guess that Faith would be returning to Buffy (or, perhaps, had deluded yourself into thinking that you predicted it -- I can't really say, as I'm not psychic, like you are). Now, from what I can tell by reading your previous/. posts, you do have a tendency to think things are obvious without actually explaining why they are, so I'm inclined to think that you really are just too arrogant to be bothered with things like "evidence" or "proof," content to spew unsupported thoughts as if the proof were -- dare I say it? -- obvious. Please prove me wrong, because I really would like to know how you knew that Faith was returning to Buffy -- did I miss an episode last season?
It is also sad that you seem to think that the words of any individual/. reader (let alone me) somehow represent a magical "average Slashdot reader".
Incidentally, I believe that expletives can contribute to a particularly emphatic form of language, when used for proper emphasis. Claiming that all such usage is "stooping" is among the worst kind of disingenuous linguistic elitism. Of course, one also might be called a hypocrite for criticizing another's linguistic skills, and then subsequently taking offense at another's criticism of one's own linguistic skills. But I digress.
Your post indicates that you haven't got a leg to stand on, Buffy-wise, else you would have posted it by now. How do you expect anyone to take you seriously if all you can muster are insults, rather than anything resembling facts or logic? I'll admit, my own insults have been flying aplenty -- but you're the one making an entirely unsupported assertion. I'll admit my insults are not necessarily helpful (though they do make me feel better), but all you have are insults; at least I have logic on my side, so far.
You appear to be offended that I don't think about shows the same way you do. That's pretty sad, that you can't separate your own views from how others view things. You must be psychic to know so much about how I think, but I'll give you some actual insight: I DO think about the shows I watch, but I don't sit there trying to guess what will happen next. Wanna know why? I LIKE SURPRISES IN FICTION. You seem to think that this makes me some kind of generic TV zombie. Well, maybe your brain isn't capable of letting you think about what you've already watched, and keep you from predicting the future at the same time, but mine is.
"Perfect Television Land citizen," indeed. It's amazing how much you seem to know about me -- like the fact that watching only two TV shows (Buffy and Angel) somehow makes me one of the braindead, zombie-like Con-su-mers that are so often decried on Slashdot. Just because I don't sit there in a fanboy trance, hyperanalyzing whether Buffy's hemline indicates a change in her sexual mores, doesn't mean I'm stupid. (Note that I'm not saying you do, either, or that it's a bad thing to hyperanalyze Buffy's hemline...) Also, if you're going to bother to belittle someone for the way they choose to think, you could at least do them the service of making sure there aren't any typos in your post. "Genetalia," indeed.
Are you trying to tell me that you're a 'real fan' who's been done a disservice by having the obvious stated in an online news page?
No, I'm just a regular guy... who's been done a disservice by having a spoiler stated in an online news page, where I had no reasonable chance to avoid seeing it. When will you accept the idea that simply because it was obvious to you, doesn't mean it's obvious to the rest of us? In fact, you still haven't given any plausible reason why it's "obvious" that Faith would be returning to Buffy. You only mentioned that one jail scene with Angel visiting her. As I said, that's far more likely to indicate that she'd return to Angel, not Buffy. AND it was two seasons ago. Yeah, it HAD OCCURRED TO ME that Faith might come back some day, but you have yet to point out any evidence that she was ACTUALLY going to come back. So how is it "obvious" exactly? Be specific.
I'm sorry, but you're just not my kind of people.
Hear that tiny, tiny, TINY little tinkling sound? That's the sound of me being crushed by the fact that I'm not "your kind of people," grammatically fraught as that is. Actually, the sound had to be magnified six hundred times to be audible, but I think you get the idea. At least, I WOULD think you'd get the idea, except you're probably convinced that I AM really crushed that you don't like me, since apparently you're psychic when it comes to how other people think and feel.
Relax and let life happen
You spend five (more) paragraphs belittling me because I don't think like you do, and then you have the fucking chutzpah to tell ME to RELAX? Holy fucking Christ.
Point taken. It's silly that there's laws restricting our right to bear arms at all. Why shouldn't I be able to own my own nuclear weapon or FAE, anyway?
Clearly, Prince continued partying like it was 1999, ignoring the impending Y2K bug, and failed to update his computer systems, causing them to automagically translate his messages into l33tspeak! And to think, people said the Y2K bug was overblown...
The episode where Angel visited Faith was, like, one episode after she turned herself in -- and it was in the 2nd season, well over a year ago. And if anything, it might make you think that Faith would be returning to ANGEL, not BUFFY! And guess what? Just because YOU saw it coming doesn't mean they weren't morons to post it. Some of us don't sit there trying to guess what a show is going to do next -- we like to be surprised. I deliberately DON'T think about what might happen next season.
Some of us were trying to avoid finding anything out about Buffy's upcoming season. Thanks a whole fucking lot for posting a spoiler right on the front page. God damn, you guys are fucking irresponsible some times. If it hadn't been for the Lone Gunmen thing, I might be willing to forgive it as a mistake, but you idiots should know better. Jesus fucking Christ.
Actually, the bit about $10,000 toilet seats -- I had read from a couple different sources that the reason you always hear about these hideously expensive toilets and hammers and so on was that the listed purchase price was based on a much larger order of items, including things that cost several hundred thousand, or millions of dollars. Take all the items in the list, divide into the cost, and the average cost per item was $10,000 (or whatever convenient number it was). So the $20 toilet seat cost $10,000, but so did the $5 million supercomputer. Basically, it was lazy government accounting.:)
Re:Well, I guess that's how Fascism takes root....
on
Want Freedom?
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· Score: 2
The most dangerous people are never in the public eye. The most dangerous people are people you've never heard of and never will hear of.
If we'll never hear of them, then I have to ask... where did you hear of them?
Re:Thankfully, this is no democracy
on
Want Freedom?
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· Score: 2
I have an honest question about Libertarianism.
From what I can tell, Libertarians want minimal government. Pursuant to this is utterly minimal (even nonexistent) regulation of economic matters. Now it seems to me that in markets without a certain level of enforced regulation, monopolies inevitably form, to the detriment of all involved (except the monopoly itself). Now my question is, does Libertarianism think that this does not happen? Or if it does, do they think it's a good thing? I honestly don't understand this facet of Libertarianism, even though I do agree with much of what it says.
Re:The Constitution doesn't need amending
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 2
Perhaps it's instructive that you managed to misquote the First Amendment, two paragraphs after you quoted it, saying "Congress shall pass no law..." instead of the actual phrasing, "Congress shall make no law..." I don't point this out to belittle you, but to make reference to the fact that there are probably only a small minority of American citizens who can actually quote the First Amendment. Most people have no real familiarity with the Constitution, and the freedoms it guarantees us. Most people take them for granted, and don't think about them. Even when we "lose" our freedoms to new, draconian laws, most people are not directly affected, so they don't really care.
When a large percentage of the population starts getting affected by these irrational laws, then we'll start seeing the massive moral outrage we all expect.
Or another lossless, free-as-in-speech format. When OGG 1.0 came out a couple months ago, I took the plunge and re-ripped all my CDs. (Lucky me, I only have about 80 CDs.)
Even if such a change as this (removing the exemption for personal-use decoders) wouldn't really affect me, there's such a thing as taking a stand against those who would abuse the rights they are granted.
If you can, switch to OGG. Rip all your new CDs in OGG. Encourage gaming companies to use the OGG format for the music in their games. And so on.
Some people respond to this by saying, "No! Let's all pool our resources and make one really GOOD [browser|OS|email client|whatever]." Others respond (or counter-respond) by saying, "Competition is a good thing! Part of the power of open source is that anyone can fork it if they don't like the way it's heading, etc."
Personally, I think nothing is accomplished by anyone *saying* "Let's all pool our resources," since that is what is going to happen anyway. Most people DO want a good, solid, stable piece of software, and it is the nature of competition that competitors tend to get outcompeted, and disappear, eventually. Now, in a regular capitalistic marketplace, that's because there's not enough money to sustain too many competitors, so only the "most fit" will survive. In open source, however, since it's mostly done as a hobby, AND since the work is entirely open, if the people working on a particular project all quit from it, the source is all still there and someone else can pick up the reins. And as long as one person continues to want to use it, it's "alive".
If the OS "marketplace" trends, on its own, toward consolidation, I don't think that's a bad thing; whether it should be actively encouraged is debatable. In other words, is it a good idea for a site like/. to actively support one browser above all others? (I'm not saying it isn't, I'm asking because it's an open question.)
Similarly, in Julian May's Galactic Milieu saga, the office of Planetary Dirigent (more or less the highest public official on each planet) was only assigned to people who absolutely did not want to do it.
Of course, determining that factor was a lot easier in the books, since most people were metapsychics.:)
Okay, folks, can we PLEASE quit it with the "This is totally useless! Understanding sign language requires blah blah blah etc." comments? Just because YOU can't think of any reason to use it, doesn't mean there isn't valuable scientific knowledge being gained here. Maybe this will lead to a breakthrough in visual recognition systems. Who knows? Crapping on other peoples' work before much is even knows about it... great. What have YOU contributed to human progress?
Well, the last time I actually had to interact with a deaf person was about four years ago. Since then, I haven't run into any deaf people that I actually had to communicate with. Why should I learn sign? It's simply not worth my time, in the same way learning Chinese or Greek or Zulu is not worth my time. I simply would not have enough use for them to justify spending the time. (Saying that I should go find deaf, Chinese, Greek, or Zulu people to hang out with is not a justification.)
I'm not denigrating the languages; I'm sure there are plenty of people who would get great value from learning ASL, or Chinese, or Greek, or Zulu; I'm simply not one of them.
Re:Musical innovation is across the pond in Europe
on
Napster Not To Blame
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· Score: 2
And they all sound the same, with a mild execption for Pearl Jam for actually bringing some artistry to that sound.
That's funny, they all sound different to me. In fact, the fact that you lumped Coldplay in with the other bands as "sounding the same" leads me to think that you've probably never heard a Coldplay song -- they don't even sound REMOTELY like SOAD or Godsmack! (No, I don't REALLY think you've never heard Coldplay, but come on, choose your words more carefully when making gross generalizations.)
And again, with the possible execption for Pearl Jam, will all be forgotten in 10 years.
Statements like this are worthless. It makes you sound all prophetic, but you know what? You're not special. You are no better at predicting the future than anyone else is. And in 10 years, nobody (not you, not me) will remember this argument -- so claiming things like this will never add anything to the debate.
I'm not saying they all suck, I'm just saying there is nothing about them that would make people want to return to them.
Actually, you've made generalizations about entire genres of music (thus including all bands in them) numerous times. And if there's nothing about them that would make "people" want to return to them... then why do people keep returning to them?
You're kidding me, right? Notice how Greenday mellowed out it's punk rock roots to get airplay? Notice how the Foo Fighters were never able to live up to the're former abilities? [etc.]
Now, I would have written this as, "Notice how Green Day matured into one of the most creative and talented post-punk bands out there? Notice how the Foo Fighters have beautifully layered music with heartfelt lyrics? [etc]." See, you think that these bands suck, but I think they're great. The difference between us is that you are assuming that everyone agrees with you. I do not. I know very well that there are countless individuals out there who hate Green Day, Foo Fighters, etc. but you know what? I don't go around telling them their music sucks. When you can figure out why, you will be enlightened.
Alternative was an industry term for the genre. There were several; post modern, new rock, college rock, etc. The industry chose 'Alternitive', and shortly afterwords managed to alienate all of the genres root fanbase. The only thing that confused people was how quickly it started to suck.
Your main problem is that you keep making these absurd, overreaching generalizations. "...how quickly it started to suck." By "it" there, you mean "all alternative music," or more realistically, "all music I didn't like and heard a lot on the radio and it pissed me off." Are you kidding? You really think that EVERY "alternative" band from the 90s sucked, and EVERYONE thought so? (Excluding your precious Nirvana, who, yes, I like very much.)
I have been to most of them, but if that doesn't do it for you, take a look at the format play lists of the larger multi-market stations, and you'll notice they are pretty much the same.
So you're making the point here that there's a homogeneity across many radio markets. Guess what? I completely agree. The degree of homogeneity in radio has increased since 1996. Do you know why? (I'm assuming not.) It's because the Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed restrictions on how many radio stations could be owned by a single entity. So then Clear Channel Communications decided to start buying them all up. They now own something like 35% of all radio stations in the USA, and 60% of stations in major markets.
And I think this is a bad thing. But there's a distinct difference between claiming that this makes all music suck. You're less likely to hear "good" stuff on the radio (unless you happen to really like what they play on the radio, and much to your chagrin, a lot of people do -- there's a REASON it's called "popular music"), because of CCC (and other companies), but that doesn't mean the music isn't there! There IS plenty of good music made by popular bands who are talented and aren't one-hit wonders -- it's just not being played on the radio.
I remember hearing some not so bad music either. Again, I'm not saying it all sucks, I'm just saying that it's not nearly as good as what the 'industry' put out in previous decades, and what the independant music scene was able to eek out in the 90s.
For the love of Bob Dylan, NO! The overall industry music output is NOT DIFFERENT THAN IT WAS IN PREVIOUS DECADES. The SAME proportion of stuff is overproduced, undertalented crap. The SAME (much smaller) proportion of stuff is good, talented, creative, etc. bands. THAT HASN'T CHANGED. It's only your insistence on ignoring reality that makes you think this.
Do you think that in 1978, people like you said, "Wow, it's so great there's all these great new bands out there these days?" NO! They said the exact same thing you're saying now: "All new music sucks! Where's all the great musicians, like the Beatles, and the Doors, and Elvis?!" People are ALWAYS saying this. The bands who we now consider great products of the 70s were NOT CONSIDERED GREAT IN THE 70S. They were early in their careers, and while they might have been considered promising, nobody with a brain would try to predict whether they'd still be around in 1998. In twenty years, there will still be people (probably you) saying, "All new music sucks! Where's all the great bands of the late 90s and '00s?!"
Get over it. You keep staring at the world through rose-colored glasses, but the last 5-10 years always have an anti-rose filter over them, no matter what year it is, so they look like crap when compared to the old days. There were huge numbers of worthless, stupid, copycat bands in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and every decade -- but it's been so long since they've been around, you've forgotten about them (or, if you weren't around then, you never heard of them). This doesn't mean things have gotten worse -- it means you're using selective memory.
Well, it goes like this: MS produces software of all kinds. Later, people discover that there's a bug in a particular piece of their software. We say, "Patch it!" If MS says, "No!" then they're lazy (or greedy). Even if they just take forever to do it, same deal. Instead, if MS says, "We can't, it'll break other stuff," then MS is incompetent for writing their software in such a way that it wouldn't be patchable later.
As long as MS has the domination they do, it will be more profitable for them to go lax on quality control, so that people will be forced to buy upgrades down the line that have the fixes that SHOULD have been released for free.
And yeah, we can be glad Larry Ellison doesn't have the kind of power Bill Gates does. I know I am. BG may be a megalomaniac, but LE is just a maniac.:)
Slashdot Mirror
The pervasiveness of cell phones is a great boon to the homeless insane -- now they can hold a hand up to their ear while ranting and people can't tell if they're just on a cellphone or not. Shit, I live in LA, and I've seen a couple homeless guys who really DID have cellphones.
Well, if we can't trust Stereolab, then who can we trust?
There really needs to be a "-1: Nostalgia Whore" moderation on Slashdot.
I shall gleefully point out the irony of posting a message decrying the breakdown of communications skills due to advancing technology... on a message board... on the Internet... using an electronic computer.
If you're feeling a little too paranoid, check out this link, where the threat of gray (or black) goo is analyzed a bit. It's not as bad as you think; blue goo should be able to protect us ;)
(Quick reference:
gray goo = accidentally released nanobots that eat everything
black goo = deliberately released nanobots that eat everything
blue goo = counter-nanobots that prevent gray/black goo from eating everything)
I like the fact that you've still failed to provide any justification whatsoever that Faith's return is "obvious," aside from snide insults. If you had anything that even came within slaying distance of intellectual honesty, you'd have posted it by now, or owned up that you just got lucky enough to guess that Faith would be returning to Buffy (or, perhaps, had deluded yourself into thinking that you predicted it -- I can't really say, as I'm not psychic, like you are). Now, from what I can tell by reading your previous /. posts, you do have a tendency to think things are obvious without actually explaining why they are, so I'm inclined to think that you really are just too arrogant to be bothered with things like "evidence" or "proof," content to spew unsupported thoughts as if the proof were -- dare I say it? -- obvious. Please prove me wrong, because I really would like to know how you knew that Faith was returning to Buffy -- did I miss an episode last season?
/. reader (let alone me) somehow represent a magical "average Slashdot reader".
It is also sad that you seem to think that the words of any individual
Incidentally, I believe that expletives can contribute to a particularly emphatic form of language, when used for proper emphasis. Claiming that all such usage is "stooping" is among the worst kind of disingenuous linguistic elitism. Of course, one also might be called a hypocrite for criticizing another's linguistic skills, and then subsequently taking offense at another's criticism of one's own linguistic skills. But I digress.
Your post indicates that you haven't got a leg to stand on, Buffy-wise, else you would have posted it by now. How do you expect anyone to take you seriously if all you can muster are insults, rather than anything resembling facts or logic? I'll admit, my own insults have been flying aplenty -- but you're the one making an entirely unsupported assertion. I'll admit my insults are not necessarily helpful (though they do make me feel better), but all you have are insults; at least I have logic on my side, so far.
Point taken. It's silly that there's laws restricting our right to bear arms at all. Why shouldn't I be able to own my own nuclear weapon or FAE, anyway?
Clearly, Prince continued partying like it was 1999, ignoring the impending Y2K bug, and failed to update his computer systems, causing them to automagically translate his messages into l33tspeak! And to think, people said the Y2K bug was overblown...
The episode where Angel visited Faith was, like, one episode after she turned herself in -- and it was in the 2nd season, well over a year ago. And if anything, it might make you think that Faith would be returning to ANGEL, not BUFFY! And guess what? Just because YOU saw it coming doesn't mean they weren't morons to post it. Some of us don't sit there trying to guess what a show is going to do next -- we like to be surprised. I deliberately DON'T think about what might happen next season.
Some of us were trying to avoid finding anything out about Buffy's upcoming season. Thanks a whole fucking lot for posting a spoiler right on the front page. God damn, you guys are fucking irresponsible some times. If it hadn't been for the Lone Gunmen thing, I might be willing to forgive it as a mistake, but you idiots should know better. Jesus fucking Christ.
Actually, the bit about $10,000 toilet seats -- I had read from a couple different sources that the reason you always hear about these hideously expensive toilets and hammers and so on was that the listed purchase price was based on a much larger order of items, including things that cost several hundred thousand, or millions of dollars. Take all the items in the list, divide into the cost, and the average cost per item was $10,000 (or whatever convenient number it was). So the $20 toilet seat cost $10,000, but so did the $5 million supercomputer. Basically, it was lazy government accounting. :)
I have an honest question about Libertarianism.
From what I can tell, Libertarians want minimal government. Pursuant to this is utterly minimal (even nonexistent) regulation of economic matters. Now it seems to me that in markets without a certain level of enforced regulation, monopolies inevitably form, to the detriment of all involved (except the monopoly itself). Now my question is, does Libertarianism think that this does not happen? Or if it does, do they think it's a good thing? I honestly don't understand this facet of Libertarianism, even though I do agree with much of what it says.
Perhaps it's instructive that you managed to misquote the First Amendment, two paragraphs after you quoted it, saying "Congress shall pass no law..." instead of the actual phrasing, "Congress shall make no law..." I don't point this out to belittle you, but to make reference to the fact that there are probably only a small minority of American citizens who can actually quote the First Amendment. Most people have no real familiarity with the Constitution, and the freedoms it guarantees us. Most people take them for granted, and don't think about them. Even when we "lose" our freedoms to new, draconian laws, most people are not directly affected, so they don't really care.
When a large percentage of the population starts getting affected by these irrational laws, then we'll start seeing the massive moral outrage we all expect.
"Brrraaaiinnssss..."
Considering the amount of empty space inside my head, they're going to be exploring a good long tiOOH SHINY!!
Or another lossless, free-as-in-speech format. When OGG 1.0 came out a couple months ago, I took the plunge and re-ripped all my CDs. (Lucky me, I only have about 80 CDs.)
Even if such a change as this (removing the exemption for personal-use decoders) wouldn't really affect me, there's such a thing as taking a stand against those who would abuse the rights they are granted.
If you can, switch to OGG. Rip all your new CDs in OGG. Encourage gaming companies to use the OGG format for the music in their games. And so on.
Personally, I'm PresBYTErian.
Some people respond to this by saying, "No! Let's all pool our resources and make one really GOOD [browser|OS|email client|whatever]." Others respond (or counter-respond) by saying, "Competition is a good thing! Part of the power of open source is that anyone can fork it if they don't like the way it's heading, etc."
/. to actively support one browser above all others? (I'm not saying it isn't, I'm asking because it's an open question.)
Personally, I think nothing is accomplished by anyone *saying* "Let's all pool our resources," since that is what is going to happen anyway. Most people DO want a good, solid, stable piece of software, and it is the nature of competition that competitors tend to get outcompeted, and disappear, eventually. Now, in a regular capitalistic marketplace, that's because there's not enough money to sustain too many competitors, so only the "most fit" will survive. In open source, however, since it's mostly done as a hobby, AND since the work is entirely open, if the people working on a particular project all quit from it, the source is all still there and someone else can pick up the reins. And as long as one person continues to want to use it, it's "alive".
If the OS "marketplace" trends, on its own, toward consolidation, I don't think that's a bad thing; whether it should be actively encouraged is debatable. In other words, is it a good idea for a site like
Similarly, in Julian May's Galactic Milieu saga, the office of Planetary Dirigent (more or less the highest public official on each planet) was only assigned to people who absolutely did not want to do it.
:)
Of course, determining that factor was a lot easier in the books, since most people were metapsychics.
Okay, folks, can we PLEASE quit it with the "This is totally useless! Understanding sign language requires blah blah blah etc." comments? Just because YOU can't think of any reason to use it, doesn't mean there isn't valuable scientific knowledge being gained here. Maybe this will lead to a breakthrough in visual recognition systems. Who knows? Crapping on other peoples' work before much is even knows about it... great. What have YOU contributed to human progress?
I'm not denigrating the languages; I'm sure there are plenty of people who would get great value from learning ASL, or Chinese, or Greek, or Zulu; I'm simply not one of them.
And I think this is a bad thing. But there's a distinct difference between claiming that this makes all music suck. You're less likely to hear "good" stuff on the radio (unless you happen to really like what they play on the radio, and much to your chagrin, a lot of people do -- there's a REASON it's called "popular music"), because of CCC (and other companies), but that doesn't mean the music isn't there! There IS plenty of good music made by popular bands who are talented and aren't one-hit wonders -- it's just not being played on the radio.
For the love of Bob Dylan, NO! The overall industry music output is NOT DIFFERENT THAN IT WAS IN PREVIOUS DECADES. The SAME proportion of stuff is overproduced, undertalented crap. The SAME (much smaller) proportion of stuff is good, talented, creative, etc. bands. THAT HASN'T CHANGED. It's only your insistence on ignoring reality that makes you think this.Do you think that in 1978, people like you said, "Wow, it's so great there's all these great new bands out there these days?" NO! They said the exact same thing you're saying now: "All new music sucks! Where's all the great musicians, like the Beatles, and the Doors, and Elvis?!" People are ALWAYS saying this. The bands who we now consider great products of the 70s were NOT CONSIDERED GREAT IN THE 70S. They were early in their careers, and while they might have been considered promising, nobody with a brain would try to predict whether they'd still be around in 1998. In twenty years, there will still be people (probably you) saying, "All new music sucks! Where's all the great bands of the late 90s and '00s?!"
Get over it. You keep staring at the world through rose-colored glasses, but the last 5-10 years always have an anti-rose filter over them, no matter what year it is, so they look like crap when compared to the old days. There were huge numbers of worthless, stupid, copycat bands in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and every decade -- but it's been so long since they've been around, you've forgotten about them (or, if you weren't around then, you never heard of them). This doesn't mean things have gotten worse -- it means you're using selective memory.
Well, it goes like this: MS produces software of all kinds. Later, people discover that there's a bug in a particular piece of their software. We say, "Patch it!" If MS says, "No!" then they're lazy (or greedy). Even if they just take forever to do it, same deal. Instead, if MS says, "We can't, it'll break other stuff," then MS is incompetent for writing their software in such a way that it wouldn't be patchable later.
:)
As long as MS has the domination they do, it will be more profitable for them to go lax on quality control, so that people will be forced to buy upgrades down the line that have the fixes that SHOULD have been released for free.
And yeah, we can be glad Larry Ellison doesn't have the kind of power Bill Gates does. I know I am. BG may be a megalomaniac, but LE is just a maniac.