Re:I have been teaching computers for 20 years...
on
Natural Language CLIs?
·
· Score: 1
I agree completely, my sig file used to say "Windows hasn't increased computer literacy, it's just lowered the standard". If the powers that be in the computer industry would quit assuming that the general public are all morons and realize that they do have the comprehension level to learn this stuff, then actually create an OS that teaches the people how to use the computer, we would be alot better off. The people would be more efficient with the computer and would require tech support less. Furthermore I think this move by MS is bad for the CLI. People complain about having to type "mv a* foo" and that is much faster than the equivalent GUI way. What are they going to say when they have to type whole sentences? Sure figuring out what to tell the computer will be easier, but the GUI will be even easier, and faster. The advantage of the CLI will be gone. Besides, who wants to have to write shell books to replace all their shell scripts? Geez those things could get downright huge!;-)
Evil isn't what it used to be. Evil used to entail slowly robbing people of their Virgin Soul, and Iron Men killing the people that they once saved, now sadly evil is merely a man named Marilyn running around in women's leather lingerie!;-)
Sure a few fish would die dude, but just think of the Mondo surfing you could do on a Sonic Boom Wave! I don't know about you but I am like... totally stoked! hehe
My point wasn't that AMD is going to be putting Intel out of business anytime soon, my point was that if AMD comes out with a faster chip, than Intel will be pressured to top it. Then if Intel does top it AMD will be pressured to top that. When there is just one dominate company the evolution can happen much slower. That's not to say that Intel didn't do a great job of increasing computer speed before AMD came into the picture of course, just that now there is a bit more competition and a reason to push the technology even further, faster.
I was watching Silicon Spin on ZDTV a few days back. There was a guy on there (I forget who he was, I think maybe he had something to do with NEXT?) Anyhow he was saying that he knows some people that work in MS applications department that would like to see a split to get away from the politics of the OS department. According to him his friends would like to port Office and other products to other OS's.
I don't know how true this is, so take it with a grain of salt. But it doesn't seem all that far fetched to me. Being hired by MS doesn't automatically make one "evil". Especially if that person was hired before MS's inherent "evil" came to light.
Everyone seems to want Office for Linux, personally I just want to see Motocross Madness on linux and I'd be happy!;-)
I have a friend (who doesn't know very much about computers at all and only goes by what other people tell him) that won't buy anything but AMD. I have another friend who won't buy and AMD because someone told him there were compatibility problems. Either way AMD is making a name for itself and the result is that Intel can't go on uncontested. What that means is that we are going to see computers progress at an even faster rate. The race for the gigahertz machine, the race for the first computer above a gigahertz, etc.
This could be a great example of how competition actually gets things improved. Of course it could turn ugly if either one of them starts pushing products to market before they are ready, still if one does that we'll always have the other, right?;-)
I guess being mechanically inclined I am just more confortable with the idea of checking out the car myself. It's not a matter of whether the car was welded from two cars or not, but how well it was welded from two cars. I've seen people do amazing things with cars. In the custom scene alone they deliberately cut the car to pieces and weld it back together again!;-)
Well, the graphics at the time it came out were just unbelievable. Alot of my friends know very little about computers but still completely enjoyed the show. I don't think that a strong knowledge of computers was really required for the show at all. It helps of course, maybe provides a bit more insight into what was happening or could happen. All in all I think the big success factor for the show was revolutionary animation and a completely unexplored plotline. There had never been a show like it, besides, it's kinda fun to think that people are running around in you computer and playing your video games with you!;-)
The show is hard enough to understand for alot of the people I know anyhow, I was always explaining things to them. I think the DOS/Windows-centricness of it is merely because the target audience was a DOS/Windows-centric one. In order for a show to be successful the majority of the viewers have to understand it. Let's just be thankful that they made it as realistic as they did.
Most of the information that phone number lookup pages report on is publicly available and wouldn't be that hard to create a website around...in theory. What I want to know is how a site like carfax can claim to give detailed information on a car's history. Personally I did all the work on my car by myself, so there is no way they could know how much Bondo is on it or whether or not I set the odometer back, etc. To provide even a sliver of the information they claim to be able to provide they would have to have agreements with every auto repair shop in the country, which I don't think is all that likely either, and even if it was then they could only report as far back as when that relationship was formed. The only way they could really provide all the information they say is to spy on every car owner!
I have to wonder about sites such as that one and the so called "online private eye"-type sites that claim to be able to tell you more about a person than is in an easily databased public record. All of the stuff that the private eye sites claim to be able to get for you is public record of course, but I was trained as a Private Investigator and I'm not so sure that a web server would be given access to the information that they claim. Besides it's not that hard to gather the information yourself, if you've got the money. You might as well just skip the middle man and request the information straight from the government agencies themselves. There are plenty of publishers which sell books with the necessary addresses/procedures in them.
No, you are wrong. Lot's of things are "tangible" If I go to a movie that I could just as easily have downloaded a pirated copy of if I had the bandwidth and access too, that doesn't make it right. If I download software from a warez site that doesn't make it right. In this world there are products and there are services. Music as you define it falls under the "services" category. It's like going to a mechanic and not paying him to fix your car because the work isn't tangible. Furthermore while I am on the subject of warez let me say that the open source movement is NOT similar to downloading pirated MP3's. Lot's of people want to make the connection between free software and "free" (read: PIRATED) music. There is a vast difference between the two. Free software is about making your own version of a commercial product from scratch, not just stealing a copy of the commercial product itself.
But we are not paying for a SINGLE tone. We are paying for the artist's arrangment of multiple tones in a unique fashion. As far as saying that you don't want to hurt the artists but don't mind hurting the record companies, you have to realize that alot of the time you can't have one without the other. Like it or not, the record companies ARE the middle men. If you take money out of their pockets then you take money out of the bands pockets as well.
Music is more important to humanity than business. Music can improve your mood, calm you down, or make you want to dance.
So can drugs. Somehow I think that the cartels would be a bit less tolerant than the record industry if you stole drugs that they had produced. If you want to improve your mood, calm down or dance, grow your own, don't complain that others are charging money for product.
I'd bet you could sue a gun company IF they were selling guns illegally. That is to say they were skipping the registration process and knowingly selling to criminals. You see, buying a gun isn't illegal. Downloading copyrighted material is, so yes if a gun company behaved like Napster then yes you could sue them.
These seem like complaints of convenience to me. There are very few rock solid gaurantees in life. If I buy a movie ticket and hate the movie I can't get my money back, if I buy a car and decide that it doesn't handle good enough in the rain or wind I can't get my money back. If I buy a book and it bites the big one I can't get my money back. It's the consumers job to do the research before they buy the album. As far as being able to "test drive" the album, you haven't been to very many music stores recently have you? Wal-Mart for one allows you to listen to selected tracks at the store. CDNow and Deja both allow you to listen to samples of the tracks before you buy.
To be honest I don't think that Microsoft really expects most people to fire back with comments like that. They like to think of themselves as the bully and think that everyone will just fold over. It is especially arogant of them in light of recent and pending court cases against them however they haven't stopped trying to bully people (remember the gernman linux site having to take down "where do you want to go tommorow") or using dirty tactics. I would think that if they wanted a softer punishment from the governemt the least they could do is prove that they could be good on their own for at least a little while. Anyhow I am very interested in their response to this (although I doubt that there will be one)
I don't understand Tim's point on the forum. Is he really that stupid? I don't know much about him, but it would appears as though he has no clue as to what "operating system" means. He talks about how breaking up MS will send us back to the days of DOS when TCP/IP Stacks conflicted and Sound Cards all had to be coded seperately. The problem with DOS and TCP/IP and Sound Cards was that it was a new-ish technology that the OS hadn't been updated for. When the new OS (Windows) came out the problem was fixed. The definition of OS is a piece of software that provides a "glue" between applications and hardware. That includes the hardware's protocols such as TCP/IP. Any new technology such as TCP/IP and Sound Cards WOULD be coverd by the MS Operating System Company. No progress would be halted and no incompatabilities would arise because handling that stuff is what the OS is supposed to do. What the OS is NOT suppose to do is provide Web Browsers and Office suites which is what Windows does now. I'd really like to see what Tim's opinion would be if MS decided to release a 3d game engine with Windows as one of the people in the forum said. Let's see if he is as sympathetic to MS's cause when it is his company on the line. Oh, and if DirectX is such a superior gaming platform then what about Unreal Tourney for Linux and Mac? Maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist, but it seems as though maybe Bill has thrown a little money Tim's way to cause a complete 180 in the company's direction, no?
I don't know if it has been pointed out yet, but a good MS joystick costs almost $150. Are the REALLY going to be able to put out a complete system for that cost? Also like other people have said. The Playstation (the first one) is a 25 mhz machine. It is really really fast compared to a 25mhz x86. Comparing 300mhz to 1000mhz isn't a straight up comparison to begin with. Not to mention I have yet to see a 3d graphics card for x86 that can create the mind-boggling animation that I have seen for PSX2. Another point is that they will release patches. How will I get these patches? Does this mean that all X-Box users will have to pay $15/month to get an internet connection just so they can download patches, just to play games? Alot of people already have internet connections, and alot don't, it wouldn't be fair to those that don't if they had to get one just to play games. Which brings up another question. Will Microsoft's ISP of choice be mandatory? I can just see them coming out with automatic patch download and installation with the requirement of using thier "special" ISP.
You've got that backwards. A Yugo with a 454 would run like the dickens, it would just be ugly, and quite scary to drive. What they are doing is something far worse. It's like putting a four-banger in a Barracuda. (or for you people that don't know alot about old cars and don't know what a Barracuda is, just pretend I said Viper)
Oh well I don't use AOL anymore and only used it for a day or so when I was having trouble getting Windows to work with my current ISP, so I wouldn't know about the ads. I would normally disagree and say that in the case of a magazine or something revenue from sales doesn't pay the bills and as space is needed, but AOL is the highest priced ISP I know of, I am fairly certain they can pay their bills without help from ads. I can totally relate to not being able to leave AOL, I left quite a few months ago and they called me up the other day. They tried to get me to come back and I said I can't run your software I have UNIX, to which they replied "I realize you might have another ISP and we are just asking that you consider us" hehe UNIX, an ISP? hehe. They really need smarter people to make these calls if they are going to sell anything.:)
In defense of them talking about nothing but the revenue they can make though I don't think it is pure greed, I think with a merger like this you need to sorta stroke the investors a little and get their intrests up, and investors intrests most of the time is greed. As I said before I really like Ted Turner and don't have any problems with Time-Warner, I think after the AOL-MS contract is up this will be a good thing.
Oh, I am sorry for jumping to conclusion and biting off your head like that. My Dirt Bike was stolen yesterday and I am a bit on edge. Plotting revenge and all that. I don't guess the slashdot readership knows of any high-tech death rays or anything, eh?:)
I think Ted Turner is probably the coolest rich guy. I mean Ted is real, ya know? Bill Gates is just a regurgitation of his own writers, pr men and spin doctors. And yes I was going to mention that Ted Turner who has significantly less money than Bill Gates gave $1 Billion dollars to the UN when they were in financial trouble. Bill Gates to the best of my knowledge has given $1 billion away before but it was to the Bill Gates foundation, so aside from being a tax write off he probably got most of it back. My cousin did a research paper for college and showed that almost all charities pocket most of the money. Like the Salvation Army santa's that used to get paid minimum wage to annoy people and collect no were near $5.25/hour. My mom had a friend that worked for them once, apparently this past christmas they were non-paid, so maybe the salvation army decided that making a profit is a good thing for a charity. I also like Turner's choice of purchases. I mean he buys cool stuff, like the Atlanta Braves, and the WCW. Stuff that you can't have a monopoly on, but is still pretty cool to own. Gates doesn't buy anything he can't try to crush competitors with. I can't wait until the AOL-MS deal is over and Steve Case, Bill Joy, and ah yes, Ted Turner take on Bill Gates. It'll be intersting to see when the new playstation comes out which is supposed to have a web browser how many people keep WebTV too. MS has to be scared right about now. Even without the DOJ intervention their days are numbered.
Slashdot Mirror
Furthermore I think this move by MS is bad for the CLI. People complain about having to type "mv a* foo" and that is much faster than the equivalent GUI way. What are they going to say when they have to type whole sentences? Sure figuring out what to tell the computer will be easier, but the GUI will be even easier, and faster. The advantage of the CLI will be gone.
Besides, who wants to have to write shell books to replace all their shell scripts? Geez those things could get downright huge!
I don't know how true this is, so take it with a grain of salt. But it doesn't seem all that far fetched to me. Being hired by MS doesn't automatically make one "evil". Especially if that person was hired before MS's inherent "evil" came to light.
Everyone seems to want Office for Linux, personally I just want to see Motocross Madness on linux and I'd be happy! ;-)
This could be a great example of how competition actually gets things improved. Of course it could turn ugly if either one of them starts pushing products to market before they are ready, still if one does that we'll always have the other, right? ;-)
All in all I think the big success factor for the show was revolutionary animation and a completely unexplored plotline. There had never been a show like it, besides, it's kinda fun to think that people are running around in you computer and playing your video games with you!
To provide even a sliver of the information they claim to be able to provide they would have to have agreements with every auto repair shop in the country, which I don't think is all that likely either, and even if it was then they could only report as far back as when that relationship was formed. The only way they could really provide all the information they say is to spy on every car owner!
I have to wonder about sites such as that one and the so called "online private eye"-type sites that claim to be able to tell you more about a person than is in an easily databased public record. All of the stuff that the private eye sites claim to be able to get for you is public record of course, but I was trained as a Private Investigator and I'm not so sure that a web server would be given access to the information that they claim. Besides it's not that hard to gather the information yourself, if you've got the money. You might as well just skip the middle man and request the information straight from the government agencies themselves. There are plenty of publishers which sell books with the necessary addresses/procedures in them.
In this world there are products and there are services. Music as you define it falls under the "services" category. It's like going to a mechanic and not paying him to fix your car because the work isn't tangible.
Furthermore while I am on the subject of warez let me say that the open source movement is NOT similar to downloading pirated MP3's. Lot's of people want to make the connection between free software and "free" (read: PIRATED) music. There is a vast difference between the two. Free software is about making your own version of a commercial product from scratch, not just stealing a copy of the commercial product itself.
As far as saying that you don't want to hurt the artists but don't mind hurting the record companies, you have to realize that alot of the time you can't have one without the other. Like it or not, the record companies ARE the middle men. If you take money out of their pockets then you take money out of the bands pockets as well.
So can drugs. Somehow I think that the cartels would be a bit less tolerant than the record industry if you stole drugs that they had produced. If you want to improve your mood, calm down or dance, grow your own, don't complain that others are charging money for product.
I'd bet you could sue a gun company IF they were selling guns illegally. That is to say they were skipping the registration process and knowingly selling to criminals.
You see, buying a gun isn't illegal. Downloading copyrighted material is, so yes if a gun company behaved like Napster then yes you could sue them.
As far as being able to "test drive" the album, you haven't been to very many music stores recently have you? Wal-Mart for one allows you to listen to selected tracks at the store. CDNow and Deja both allow you to listen to samples of the tracks before you buy.
I would think that if they wanted a softer punishment from the governemt the least they could do is prove that they could be good on their own for at least a little while.
Anyhow I am very interested in their response to this (although I doubt that there will be one)
I play UT all the time on Linux.
I'd really like to see what Tim's opinion would be if MS decided to release a 3d game engine with Windows as one of the people in the forum said. Let's see if he is as sympathetic to MS's cause when it is his company on the line.
Oh, and if DirectX is such a superior gaming platform then what about Unreal Tourney for Linux and Mac? Maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist, but it seems as though maybe Bill has thrown a little money Tim's way to cause a complete 180 in the company's direction, no?
Also like other people have said. The Playstation (the first one) is a 25 mhz machine. It is really really fast compared to a 25mhz x86. Comparing 300mhz to 1000mhz isn't a straight up comparison to begin with. Not to mention I have yet to see a 3d graphics card for x86 that can create the mind-boggling animation that I have seen for PSX2.
Another point is that they will release patches. How will I get these patches? Does this mean that all X-Box users will have to pay $15/month to get an internet connection just so they can download patches, just to play games? Alot of people already have internet connections, and alot don't, it wouldn't be fair to those that don't if they had to get one just to play games.
Which brings up another question. Will Microsoft's ISP of choice be mandatory? I can just see them coming out with automatic patch download and installation with the requirement of using thier "special" ISP.
I can totally relate to not being able to leave AOL, I left quite a few months ago and they called me up the other day. They tried to get me to come back and I said I can't run your software I have UNIX, to which they replied "I realize you might have another ISP and we are just asking that you consider us" hehe UNIX, an ISP? hehe. They really need smarter people to make these calls if they are going to sell anything.
In defense of them talking about nothing but the revenue they can make though I don't think it is pure greed, I think with a merger like this you need to sorta stroke the investors a little and get their intrests up, and investors intrests most of the time is greed. As I said before I really like Ted Turner and don't have any problems with Time-Warner, I think after the AOL-MS contract is up this will be a good thing.
And yes I was going to mention that Ted Turner who has significantly less money than Bill Gates gave $1 Billion dollars to the UN when they were in financial trouble. Bill Gates to the best of my knowledge has given $1 billion away before but it was to the Bill Gates foundation, so aside from being a tax write off he probably got most of it back. My cousin did a research paper for college and showed that almost all charities pocket most of the money. Like the Salvation Army santa's that used to get paid minimum wage to annoy people and collect no were near $5.25/hour. My mom had a friend that worked for them once, apparently this past christmas they were non-paid, so maybe the salvation army decided that making a profit is a good thing for a charity.
I also like Turner's choice of purchases. I mean he buys cool stuff, like the Atlanta Braves, and the WCW. Stuff that you can't have a monopoly on, but is still pretty cool to own. Gates doesn't buy anything he can't try to crush competitors with.
I can't wait until the AOL-MS deal is over and Steve Case, Bill Joy, and ah yes, Ted Turner take on Bill Gates.
It'll be intersting to see when the new playstation comes out which is supposed to have a web browser how many people keep WebTV too. MS has to be scared right about now. Even without the DOJ intervention their days are numbered.