If it was indeed "microsoft sux" I would agree with you. But it wasn't, it was "user hostile". Calling a cast iron skillet "black" isn't flamebait, even if most people like their skillets painted.
I will agree that he would have done much better had he explained exactly why he considered Microsoft to be user-hostile, but he probably figured that it was self-explanatory.
I have paid for Windows, several times. I swore 98 was going to be the last time I paid for Windows until my daughter, trusting that a big corporation like Sony wouldn't install a rootkit on the music CD she bought at the record store she worked at, installed XCP. At the time the only cure for the XCP vandalism that nobody ever was incarcerated for was a reformat. The internet had no video drivers for my card, only XP drivers. If Linux could have read my D: drive (HD1) I'd have done away with Windows then and there.
I imagine whetever distro I DL next (most likelu Ubantu) will read the file system and I'll finally be free of Microsoft's clutches.
Not only that, but in at least one Windows 7 story the slightest criticism of Windows or Microsoft was downmodded, on-topic posts marked as offtopic, etc.
It saddens me that Microsoft is using the pie menu before open source did it. The pie menu is something I've been after for years. Perhaps we'll see it in Gnome or (preferably IMO) KDE before Windows 7 is ever released?
Unlike most of my fellow nerds, I go to bars. I have yet to see a bar without one of these small computers that exist solely to play games. There is almost always someone shoving dollar bills in them.
Far more people use touch screen computers than keyboards. Many of the folks playing MegaTouch don't even own computers.
They're in all the bars. Small one piece computers loaded with games, no keyboards. Older ones have CRTs, newer ones have flat screens. A very few have joysticks, most don't. The only input devices are a coin slot, a dollar bill slot, and a touch screen. Despite the fact that dozens of people a day have their hands all over the screen (since that's the only way to play them), they in fact don't have fingerprints on them.
BTW, they run Linux as their OS, as I saw one day when a bartender accidentally unplugged one.
I wonder if "megatouch" is where they git the "multitouch" name. It's the same thing, only Windows instead of Linux.
Yea, lets do something constructive like voting for a third party candidate in a two-party system!
The US Constitution says nowhere that it is a two party system. In fact it is NOT a two party system.
The election is set up as a two party system
Again, no it isn't. The last election I voted in was the primary, and you could choose Republican, Democrat, or Green party ballots. The last Presidential general election iirc had four Presidential candidates on my ballot. It is certainly NOT "set up as" a two party system.
and has no good way of deciding who wins if someone doesn't get a majority.
Again, no, you're wrong. Not just wrong but stupidly wrong. The candidate that garners the most votes wins, pure and simple. Counting votes has to do solely with numbers, not of percentages. You do realise that less than half of all eligible voters make it to the polls on any given election, don't you? That makes it methematically impossible for any candidate to get half of the possible votse, since less than half of the votes are even cast.
The corporate media would have you think that the non-voting voters are apathetic, when in fact thay are voting for "none of the above".
Do you know what bricks are made of? Mud. In this country, mud houses cost more than wooden ones, and are far less environmentally friendly because the mud has to be baked in a kiln.
We are for individual freedom. Are you still taking us seriously? Why not?
Note that I'm no mor a "big L" Libertarian than I am Republican or Democrat. I'm just rephrasing your comment to better fit reality.
I'm not a terminally ill cancer patient. Obama does indeed want to allow cancer patients access to pot, but he's not for decriminalizing it.
I agree that "The Federal actions against terminally ill cancer patients will likely go down as one of our darkest marks on history." Eventually, arresting simple drug users may go down as the authoritarianism gone wild it actually is.
Putting a pro-marijuana party in DC wouldn't change the day to day lives for the pot smokers who live in the 38 states that haven't decriminalized it.
Decriminalizing it at the state level doesn't change anything so long as the DEA is after you. Your state's decriminalization is meaningless so long as there is a Federal law against it.
I've always thought the liquor industry has a lot to gain from marijuana prohibition too.
That's possible, but if it is so then they're not too smart. It would go along with their present business perfectly.
At the risk of invoking Godwin (but what the hell it's an old thread)
First they came for the Copyright infringers but I was not a Copyright infringer so I said nothing. Then they came for the Pot smokers but I was not a Pot smoker so I said nothing. Then they came for the Violent video game players but I was not a Violent video game player so I said nothing. Then they came for the porn addicts but I was not a porn addict so I said nothing. Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to speak up for me.
You clearly are clueless. You've probably never even held a job, let alone run a business or supervised anyone.
You don't get fired from any job for anything but the most egregious actions, like embezzlement or not showing up without calling in (or in Disney World if you are a Pluto, lifting your leg at a fire hydrant or cursing in public).
First, unlike you teenagers, adults go to work to earn a living. Supervisors, unlike the corporations they work for, empathise with this. You don't deprive a person of their livelihood for something trivial.
Second, it costs the employer money to place a person in any given job. There are hiring costs and training costs, and then it takes time for a new employee to get up to speed. That's not to mention unemployment insurance benefits.
If the person's getting his job done, you don't fire him, you use lesser punishment.
Many (actually most I've worked at) jobs have slow periods and times where there is too much work to keep up with. When I worked in the merchandise division at Disney in the early '80s, for example, there would be a half hour of tedius, mind-numbing boredon followed by more "guests" (as Disney called their customers) than one could reasonably keep up with.
Other jobs have had days with nothing to do but read the paper, followed by overtime. Life doesn't always run on a smooth schedule, kid.
It's as close as you can get to reconstructing the real color from a series of monochrome images taken with different color filters
Meaning they are at least as accurate as photos from your digital camera, which work exactly the same way. The three primary colors combined to make up your digital color photo are made using color filters.
Phoenix and the American Flag on Mars This image, released on America's Memorial Day, May 26, 2008, shows the American flag and a mini-DVD on the Phoenix's deck, which is about 3 feet above the Martian surface. The mini-DVD from the Planetary Society contains a message to future Martian explorers, science fiction stories and art inspired by the Red Planet, and the names of more than a quarter million Earthlings.
The bits used for online banking are also free... you're confusing the value of data with the medium
In your example, the bits aren't the money, they merely count it. They have no value whatever to anyone but the banker. In a music CD, the bits are supposed to BE the money, completely unlike the data that flows between banks.
Actually their [the Golgafrinchans'] actions were quite rational, like farmers destroying crops to keep prices up.
There's nothing rational about destroying food when there are people starving. That's just self-serving evil. The kind of self-serving evil that mammon worshipers support. I do not subscribe to your religion.
The nature of the digital world leads to a tragedy of the commons, there is no loss to inviduals copying, but the net result of their actions unchecked is a degradation of the market to the point where the goods they download will no longer be made.
I want music to be neither "goods" nor a "market". Music will continue to not only be made, but be recorded. The indies put their music on the internet for free. When the RIAA dies there will still be music. When the "music industry" dies there will still be music.
The same goes for films. The cost of recording music has dropped to the point that anyone with the most modest budget can record music, yet industry continues to charge as if recordings were expensive to make and distribute.
The cost of making movies is likewise dropping. You can download an amateur-made movie that has better acting, directing, and special effects than many Hollywood films. There have been some real stinkers come out of the "industry", as anyone who has ever sat through a "B movie" knows.
For the US to base its future economic growth on movies and music is past insanity, even past stupidity. If we don't get rid of the bought and paid for politicians and get some statesmen, we as a society are doomed.
As to your "tragedy of the commons", the commons sustained itself for hundreds of years. "The tragedy of the commons" was a fiction put forth by landowners to grab the common lands for their own benefit. The true tragedy of the commons was that the commons were privatized, further impoverishing the commoners who had used those commons.
I keep wondering why it's called "trusted" computing twhen there is NO TRUST WHATEVER. Microsoft doesn't trust its customers and very few of its customers trust Microsoft. If there was any trust there would be no product activation, no forty digit code to type in on install, and no DRM (Dumbass Restrictions of Media).
Trusted? What trust? Microsoft doesn't know the meaning of the word!
try to slip the product out before the hype wears off and everyone finds out it was a sham ad campaign.
Not all ad campaigns are shams!
"Chevy - Like a rock" (damned thing won't start) "At Ford, quality is job 1!" (They have their work cut our for them) "Pontiac - we build excitement" (bad brakes, handles poorly) "Microsoft - where do you want to go today?" (We don't care, you're going where we tell you to go, loser)
The current fortune cookie ("User hostile.") at the end of the page is somehow very fitting.
Offtopic? Look, Steve, stop wasting your mod points and go throw a chair. That comment hit the nail right on the head. What are you Microsoft shills worried about? I find all Microsoft programs to be user-hostile, especially the OSes.
Moving stuff that you knew where it was to somewhere you have to hunt for it, as Microsoft does with every new program and operating system, is as hostile as you can get. It's not just hostile, it's downright mean.
The incredibly long number you have to type in when you install a Microsoft OS (XP, Vista, presumably 7) is hostile. Having to activate is hostile. To demand that I trust you without your trusting me is hostile, would you put up with that from a human being?
The allow/disallow I keep reading about in Vista sounds hostile as all getout. Maybe they're reducing the user-hostility by ridding Windows 7 of it? I doubt that.
Why does Microsoft seemingly hate its customers? It is user-hostile as a company and as such can't possibly write non-user-hostile OSes or programs.
If I see that comment when I metamoderate, whoever modded it won't be getting any more mod points. The same goes for whoever modded a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=565875&cid=23568891">this comment offftopic as well. Are there any mods today that don't work for Microsoft? This is just too obvious.
They were constantly dropping features off the list, up to the point where there really were no technological advancements left in Vista.
What about the ability to slow down a computer to the point that you need a new computer, so you have to buy a new computer with another copy of Windows preinstalled?
Doesn't that count as a technological advancement?
That said, I still haven't read of a single feature of Vista that would compel me to shell out any more of my hard-earned money.
I wouldn't put a Sony set top box on my TV, or want to buy a TV with Sony proprietary patented technology inside. A company that would install a deliberately install a computer rootkit on a music CD cannot be trusted inside my home.
Besides that, I was a victim of their rootkit and don't want another penny of my money going to them either directly of indirectly. If Sony is getting patent fees for any devise whatever, I don't want that device.
Why is a Japanese company in negotiations with American broadcasters? Isn't Motorola or Apple or some other American company competent to do this? Would this company please go away, or at least stay in Japan?
And finally, why do we need "interactive TV" anyway? Computers are for interactivity, TVs are for passive watching. What's next, interactive movies? I thought those were called "video games"?
The IRS will then tally up the total and know that sm62704's Bar and Tavern did at least Y in sales.
Then their tally will be incorect. I often have two or three beers on a Sunday when the bank's closed and get change back.
Most of the proceeds of any local business is cash, which I was tongue-in-cheek replying to with my "credit card for the dope dealer" comment. Counting CC reciepts can't possibly help the IRS find tax cheats.
I don't know, but the larger the metropolitan area the higher the costs. My ex-wife's sister and her husband live in Litchfield, halfway between here and St Louis, and they paid only $25k for their property around 2000, and it's a big two story home with a basement and a very big yard.
Rather than ask why it's so cheap here, maybe you (and everyone else) should be asking why it's so expensive there?
the media conglomerates only care about one thing: eyeballs.
No, the one thing they care about is MONEY. The eyeballs are only a tool to obtain the money.
They'll give even their nastiest detractors exposure if it will bring in more viewers, readers, and listeners.
Only because their nastiest detractors are no threat. A drug company that can pull their ads (Libertarian) or an oil company that can pull their ads (Green) are the sort of threat that the media can't afford to ignore.
Put one of them on the air, and people tune away in droves.
How can you know until one of them actually gets seen on the air? Neither CNN nor Fox is giving them any coverage whatever. I have yet to see a single Libertarian or Green candidate on TV this election.
Slashdot Mirror
If it was indeed "microsoft sux" I would agree with you. But it wasn't, it was "user hostile". Calling a cast iron skillet "black" isn't flamebait, even if most people like their skillets painted.
I will agree that he would have done much better had he explained exactly why he considered Microsoft to be user-hostile, but he probably figured that it was self-explanatory.
How about voting for the lesser of two evils now
How about I vote my conscience regardles of that candidate's percieved chances of winning? I'd rather not vote for evil at all.
I have paid for Windows, several times. I swore 98 was going to be the last time I paid for Windows until my daughter, trusting that a big corporation like Sony wouldn't install a rootkit on the music CD she bought at the record store she worked at, installed XCP. At the time the only cure for the XCP vandalism that nobody ever was incarcerated for was a reformat. The internet had no video drivers for my card, only XP drivers. If Linux could have read my D: drive (HD1) I'd have done away with Windows then and there.
I imagine whetever distro I DL next (most likelu Ubantu) will read the file system and I'll finally be free of Microsoft's clutches.
Not only that, but in at least one Windows 7 story the slightest criticism of Windows or Microsoft was downmodded, on-topic posts marked as offtopic, etc.
I smell a mole.
It saddens me that Microsoft is using the pie menu before open source did it. The pie menu is something I've been after for years. Perhaps we'll see it in Gnome or (preferably IMO) KDE before Windows 7 is ever released?
Unlike most of my fellow nerds, I go to bars. I have yet to see a bar without one of these small computers that exist solely to play games. There is almost always someone shoving dollar bills in them.
Far more people use touch screen computers than keyboards. Many of the folks playing MegaTouch don't even own computers.
Ever play Megatouch?
They're in all the bars. Small one piece computers loaded with games, no keyboards. Older ones have CRTs, newer ones have flat screens. A very few have joysticks, most don't. The only input devices are a coin slot, a dollar bill slot, and a touch screen. Despite the fact that dozens of people a day have their hands all over the screen (since that's the only way to play them), they in fact don't have fingerprints on them.
BTW, they run Linux as their OS, as I saw one day when a bartender accidentally unplugged one.
I wonder if "megatouch" is where they git the "multitouch" name. It's the same thing, only Windows instead of Linux.
Yea, lets do something constructive like voting for a third party candidate in a two-party system!
The US Constitution says nowhere that it is a two party system. In fact it is NOT a two party system.
The election is set up as a two party system
Again, no it isn't. The last election I voted in was the primary, and you could choose Republican, Democrat, or Green party ballots. The last Presidential general election iirc had four Presidential candidates on my ballot. It is certainly NOT "set up as" a two party system.
and has no good way of deciding who wins if someone doesn't get a majority.
Again, no, you're wrong. Not just wrong but stupidly wrong. The candidate that garners the most votes wins, pure and simple. Counting votes has to do solely with numbers, not of percentages. You do realise that less than half of all eligible voters make it to the polls on any given election, don't you? That makes it methematically impossible for any candidate to get half of the possible votse, since less than half of the votes are even cast.
The corporate media would have you think that the non-voting voters are apathetic, when in fact thay are voting for "none of the above".
build a house for yourself out of mud
Do you know what bricks are made of? Mud. In this country, mud houses cost more than wooden ones, and are far less environmentally friendly because the mud has to be baked in a kiln.
We are for individual freedom. Are you still taking us seriously? Why not?
Note that I'm no mor a "big L" Libertarian than I am Republican or Democrat. I'm just rephrasing your comment to better fit reality.
I'm not a terminally ill cancer patient. Obama does indeed want to allow cancer patients access to pot, but he's not for decriminalizing it.
I agree that "The Federal actions against terminally ill cancer patients will likely go down as one of our darkest marks on history." Eventually, arresting simple drug users may go down as the authoritarianism gone wild it actually is.
Putting a pro-marijuana party in DC wouldn't change the day to day lives for the pot smokers who live in the 38 states that haven't decriminalized it.
Decriminalizing it at the state level doesn't change anything so long as the DEA is after you. Your state's decriminalization is meaningless so long as there is a Federal law against it.
I've always thought the liquor industry has a lot to gain from marijuana prohibition too.
That's possible, but if it is so then they're not too smart. It would go along with their present business perfectly.
At the risk of invoking Godwin (but what the hell it's an old thread)
First they came for the Copyright infringers but I was not a Copyright infringer so I said nothing.
Then they came for the Pot smokers but I was not a Pot smoker so I said nothing.
Then they came for the Violent video game players but I was not a Violent video game player so I said nothing.
Then they came for the porn addicts but I was not a porn addict so I said nothing.
Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to speak up for me.
IMO it should be illegal to contribute to more than one candidate in any race. That would remove even the perception of bribery.
You clearly are clueless. You've probably never even held a job, let alone run a business or supervised anyone.
You don't get fired from any job for anything but the most egregious actions, like embezzlement or not showing up without calling in (or in Disney World if you are a Pluto, lifting your leg at a fire hydrant or cursing in public).
First, unlike you teenagers, adults go to work to earn a living. Supervisors, unlike the corporations they work for, empathise with this. You don't deprive a person of their livelihood for something trivial.
Second, it costs the employer money to place a person in any given job. There are hiring costs and training costs, and then it takes time for a new employee to get up to speed. That's not to mention unemployment insurance benefits.
If the person's getting his job done, you don't fire him, you use lesser punishment.
Many (actually most I've worked at) jobs have slow periods and times where there is too much work to keep up with. When I worked in the merchandise division at Disney in the early '80s, for example, there would be a half hour of tedius, mind-numbing boredon followed by more "guests" (as Disney called their customers) than one could reasonably keep up with.
Other jobs have had days with nothing to do but read the paper, followed by overtime. Life doesn't always run on a smooth schedule, kid.
It's as close as you can get to reconstructing the real color from a series of monochrome images taken with different color filters
Meaning they are at least as accurate as photos from your digital camera, which work exactly the same way. The three primary colors combined to make up your digital color photo are made using color filters.
The bits used for online banking are also free... you're confusing the value of data with the medium
In your example, the bits aren't the money, they merely count it. They have no value whatever to anyone but the banker. In a music CD, the bits are supposed to BE the money, completely unlike the data that flows between banks.
Actually their [the Golgafrinchans'] actions were quite rational, like farmers destroying crops to keep prices up.
There's nothing rational about destroying food when there are people starving. That's just self-serving evil. The kind of self-serving evil that mammon worshipers support. I do not subscribe to your religion.
The nature of the digital world leads to a tragedy of the commons, there is no loss to inviduals copying, but the net result of their actions unchecked is a degradation of the market to the point where the goods they download will no longer be made.
I want music to be neither "goods" nor a "market". Music will continue to not only be made, but be recorded. The indies put their music on the internet for free. When the RIAA dies there will still be music. When the "music industry" dies there will still be music.
The same goes for films. The cost of recording music has dropped to the point that anyone with the most modest budget can record music, yet industry continues to charge as if recordings were expensive to make and distribute.
The cost of making movies is likewise dropping. You can download an amateur-made movie that has better acting, directing, and special effects than many Hollywood films. There have been some real stinkers come out of the "industry", as anyone who has ever sat through a "B movie" knows.
For the US to base its future economic growth on movies and music is past insanity, even past stupidity. If we don't get rid of the bought and paid for politicians and get some statesmen, we as a society are doomed.
As to your "tragedy of the commons", the commons sustained itself for hundreds of years. "The tragedy of the commons" was a fiction put forth by landowners to grab the common lands for their own benefit. The true tragedy of the commons was that the commons were privatized, further impoverishing the commoners who had used those commons.
"Trusted" Computing, anyone?
I keep wondering why it's called "trusted" computing twhen there is NO TRUST WHATEVER. Microsoft doesn't trust its customers and very few of its customers trust Microsoft. If there was any trust there would be no product activation, no forty digit code to type in on install, and no DRM (Dumbass Restrictions of Media).
Trusted? What trust? Microsoft doesn't know the meaning of the word!
try to slip the product out before the hype wears off and everyone finds out it was a sham ad campaign.
Not all ad campaigns are shams!
"Chevy - Like a rock" (damned thing won't start)
"At Ford, quality is job 1!" (They have their work cut our for them)
"Pontiac - we build excitement" (bad brakes, handles poorly)
"Microsoft - where do you want to go today?" (We don't care, you're going where we tell you to go, loser)
Shampoo? Screw that, give me the real thing!
The current fortune cookie ("User hostile.") at the end of the page is somehow very fitting.
Offtopic? Look, Steve, stop wasting your mod points and go throw a chair. That comment hit the nail right on the head. What are you Microsoft shills worried about? I find all Microsoft programs to be user-hostile, especially the OSes.
Moving stuff that you knew where it was to somewhere you have to hunt for it, as Microsoft does with every new program and operating system, is as hostile as you can get. It's not just hostile, it's downright mean.
The incredibly long number you have to type in when you install a Microsoft OS (XP, Vista, presumably 7) is hostile. Having to activate is hostile. To demand that I trust you without your trusting me is hostile, would you put up with that from a human being?
The allow/disallow I keep reading about in Vista sounds hostile as all getout. Maybe they're reducing the user-hostility by ridding Windows 7 of it? I doubt that.
Why does Microsoft seemingly hate its customers? It is user-hostile as a company and as such can't possibly write non-user-hostile OSes or programs.
If I see that comment when I metamoderate, whoever modded it won't be getting any more mod points. The same goes for whoever modded a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=565875&cid=23568891">this comment offftopic as well. Are there any mods today that don't work for Microsoft? This is just too obvious.
They were constantly dropping features off the list, up to the point where there really were no technological advancements left in Vista.
What about the ability to slow down a computer to the point that you need a new computer, so you have to buy a new computer with another copy of Windows preinstalled?
Doesn't that count as a technological advancement?
That said, I still haven't read of a single feature of Vista that would compel me to shell out any more of my hard-earned money.
I wouldn't put a Sony set top box on my TV, or want to buy a TV with Sony proprietary patented technology inside. A company that would install a deliberately install a computer rootkit on a music CD cannot be trusted inside my home.
Besides that, I was a victim of their rootkit and don't want another penny of my money going to them either directly of indirectly. If Sony is getting patent fees for any devise whatever, I don't want that device.
Why is a Japanese company in negotiations with American broadcasters? Isn't Motorola or Apple or some other American company competent to do this? Would this company please go away, or at least stay in Japan?
And finally, why do we need "interactive TV" anyway? Computers are for interactivity, TVs are for passive watching. What's next, interactive movies? I thought those were called "video games"?
The IRS will then tally up the total and know that sm62704's Bar and Tavern did at least Y in sales.
Then their tally will be incorect. I often have two or three beers on a Sunday when the bank's closed and get change back.
Most of the proceeds of any local business is cash, which I was tongue-in-cheek replying to with my "credit card for the dope dealer" comment. Counting CC reciepts can't possibly help the IRS find tax cheats.
Wikipedia leave me clueless as to what a TIN is. Terrorist Identification Number?
I don't know, but the larger the metropolitan area the higher the costs. My ex-wife's sister and her husband live in Litchfield, halfway between here and St Louis, and they paid only $25k for their property around 2000, and it's a big two story home with a basement and a very big yard.
Rather than ask why it's so cheap here, maybe you (and everyone else) should be asking why it's so expensive there?
the media conglomerates only care about one thing: eyeballs.
No, the one thing they care about is MONEY. The eyeballs are only a tool to obtain the money.
They'll give even their nastiest detractors exposure if it will bring in more viewers, readers, and listeners.
Only because their nastiest detractors are no threat. A drug company that can pull their ads (Libertarian) or an oil company that can pull their ads (Green) are the sort of threat that the media can't afford to ignore.
Put one of them on the air, and people tune away in droves.
How can you know until one of them actually gets seen on the air? Neither CNN nor Fox is giving them any coverage whatever. I have yet to see a single Libertarian or Green candidate on TV this election.