While critical of Microsoft's procedures, your post seems to be soft on Microsoft as far as the quality of their software.
'very stable (dare I say mature) Vista codebase'? This sort of thing is simply not acceptable on/. Next you'll be telling us that you'd rather be running Windows than Linux. I am greatly disappointed.
As much as I'm part of the collective slobber all over Steve Jobs' shoes, methinks that Apple has a similar history of charging for upgrades disguised as new releases (although not all of the OSX releases have been minor).
To a certain extent, I think it's the nature of the beast. You need to continue making revenues off of your software and you can't continue to make changes to it without getting some return on the time it took to make those changes. Not saying that I like it one bit, but from their perspective it makes sense.
Hopefully MS will mull this one over and charge current Vista owners much less to upgrade to Windows 7 than buying it retail. Of course, then that might be tantamount to admitting their wrongs, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see...
I grew up playing the Atari 2400. Lots of the games we played contained violence and I have to say that I have been personally scarred by that. To this day, my anger flares and I have to try very hard not to go into a berserker rage whenever a brightly colored blob shoots a colored square at me. Luckily, I haven't had too many run-ins with such blobs, but as I get older and my eyesight worsens (from hours spent in front of a TV playing these games) I'm afraid that the world is getting 'blobbier' by the year and this may cause me to eventually lash out at anything within reach. This is an issue that is little addressed, but should be as the generation growing up on Atari games grows older for the sake of all the pixelated blobs out there.
An enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas is floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii.
Chris Parry with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco said the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has been growing a brisk rate since the 1950s, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.
The trash stew is 80 percent plastic and weighs more than 3.5 million tons.
"At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option," Parry said. "It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues."
Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step to reducing reliance on plastics, the newspaper said.
Source: http://www.physorg.com/news112248742.html
While I think that this is where we will end up before long (or at least something analogous to current utilities) reading your post sent shivers up my spine... I think seeing internet as utility is exactly the wrong direction to go, as utilities in the U.S. are so terrible as it is. Hopefully broadband access can break that mold and help to drag utilities out with it... I can dream, can't I?
How about the campaign that the NYPD started on the New York City subway system over a year ago? Apparently, entering the subway system alters ones constitutional rights and makes it ok for the police to illegally search your bags with no need for probable cause. You either submit to random searches of your bags or you are not allowed to ride the subway. Nevermind the fact that cops seem to be randomly placed in random subway stations on random days checking random people's bags... If I were a terrorist I would simply leave the station and walk a few blocks to the next one. Unless they have cops searching everyone who gets on the subway at any station along the line, this is all either theater or an agenda with ulterior motives (catching other types of criminals/contraband on the subway?). My fiance had her diaper bag searched when she was taking our toddler to the park, but when someone tried to steal her purse one night on the subway the cop _watching the whole thing go down_ told her that she "looked like she could handle herself".
I just feel I have to point out that you misspelled a key word in the summary. You wrote "coffee" while everyone here knows that it is spelled "mountain dew".
Personally, if there is a child molester outside my house browsing kiddie porn in his car, I'm going to be more concerned with my KID than my internet access. I don't think that the amount of data said pervert would get from my connection would warrant the gestapo kicking in my door and confiscating all of my equipment. Not that I'm saying I would be surprised to hear of such a thing happening, but don't we have better things to worry about?
Oh, and here I was thinking the name "UNG" was just them foreshadowing their user's responses, as in... "This new M$ OS is supposed to be like Unix, but UNG! it's worse than DOS!"
Yeah, and here's me thinking that Die Hard 4 was a bunch of BS. If you can tap into power grids via your iPhone, I guess you can jump from moving cars and send them up toll booth ramps to take out helicopters even when you're 50+ years old. I'm sorry, John McClane, my faith in you will never waver again...
I'll agree that there is a difference between a nuclear bomb and a "harmless" microwave ray. But if you're one to always believe what our government says and to always doubt what other governments say, I'm afraid you're the one who's going to diaf
When I first read the summary I was thinking... "So Iran gets lambasted and carefully watched for producing enriched uranium which they say is being used for nuclear power, but this tiny island nation wants to create Tesla's death ray and that's acceptable?"
But then I saw that the U.S. military was behind it and things became clear...
Now, IANAE (I am not an engineer) but I can see where you are coming from. But I have called support in the past because of connection issues and gotten some troubleshooting help from my carrier (t-mobile). They've diagnosed whether the problem was with my phone, my sim card, or the cell tower. They've also helped me out when I bought a non-supported phone and tried to set it up for voicemail and email alerts. Now granted, I had to edit seems on the phone myself, but the techs did point me in the right direction and were generally as helpful as they're allowed to be in those cases. Now, the average Joe may not end up getting an Android phone or doing anything with it that would require the use of tech support. Depending on how widely they deploy android enabled phones, though, I can easily see this type of scenario:
Joe User: Hi, I just got this phone and my email isn't working. How do I get it working?
CS Rep: What kind of phone is it?
JU: The new Nokia Super-Spiffy XYZ
CSR: Sorry sir, that is an Android-enabled phone and we do not offer support for that. Check online for the Android community's forums and see if they can help you.
JU: Huh? What's a droid? What forums?
CSR:
Of course, maybe you're right and they will just "support" these phones and not foist them on the unknowing. But I'm American, so when it comes to corporations or government I always expect the worst.
My thoughts exactly. How can we downsize our customer service department and make it look like a win for the customer? This might work for the hacker type who can build his own phone from scratch and doesn't need any input from Verizon, only service, but the average user is going to throw a fit when they find out their "supported" phone comes with no support.
Wouldn't it be cheaper, and easier, just to get them laid? I mean, don't all the pron downloads go to show that we're only on the internet because we're not getting laid?
They already offer a way to make donations, they're just appealing to all the various/.'s and selfish geeks who want to get their hands on one of these. They design features make more sense for a third world country because it was designed for use in third world countries. They're not selling points here because they're not meant to be sold here. They have been against making this device a commodity in the American market from the start. This is just a way of bootstrapping the project after politicians do what they do... make promises they can't keep. Yes, there are other charities. Yes, there are other laptops. But this initiative isn't about bringing schoolbooks or teachers to kids, it's about getting them on the internet and getting them using computers. Their very own computer, at that. And that super-wonderful PoC Walmart laptop won't get you that.
Also keep in mind that this is ultimately designed for children. If I give that cheap laptop to my kid, it'll be destroyed in days. My alternative is to buy him some kind of "laptop" toy that has three exciting games that bore the crap out of him in five minutes. Sure, there may be cheaper ways of building him a linux box he could beat up, but none of them will look as cool.
With a background in social science, I take offense at your "Psychologists, sociologists, eugenicists, data miners..." comment. So you're saying that social sciences cannot either create experimental data that is verifiable by peer review or that sociological data not derived from experiment is worthless? I agree that there is a lot of pseudo-science out there, but I would hardly discount the advances of the social sciences as pseudo-science.
So far, the researchers have achieved power densities of 1.5 kilowatts per kilogram in the supercapacitor version and tested it over 100 cycles of discharge and recharge, well short of the million or so typical for current commercial capacitors. They have only made one-inch square versions of the paper, but the unique composite structure already reduces the complexity of creating such devices as well as battery-capacitor hybrids--and it has been used to light up a tiny red light-emitting diode, among other devices.
Hmm, I was thinking more of a big dark thundercloud come to blow out all access to the files I need when their server goes down for maintenance or some such.
I do realize it. I don't believe it would be correct to call the current Vista "Ultimate" because what would they then call it when SP1 comes out? Vista Ultimate+1 perhaps? I thank you for your concern with my vocabulary, though.:)
IBM researches are excited, because if they can get it to sustain the 3 petaflops, they'll finally be able to switch on the new "Aero" feature of the Windows Vista Super-Penultimate Premium Advanced edition.
Slashdot Mirror
While critical of Microsoft's procedures, your post seems to be soft on Microsoft as far as the quality of their software.
'very stable (dare I say mature) Vista codebase'? This sort of thing is simply not acceptable on /. Next you'll be telling us that you'd rather be running Windows than Linux. I am greatly disappointed.
As much as I'm part of the collective slobber all over Steve Jobs' shoes, methinks that Apple has a similar history of charging for upgrades disguised as new releases (although not all of the OSX releases have been minor).
To a certain extent, I think it's the nature of the beast. You need to continue making revenues off of your software and you can't continue to make changes to it without getting some return on the time it took to make those changes. Not saying that I like it one bit, but from their perspective it makes sense.
Hopefully MS will mull this one over and charge current Vista owners much less to upgrade to Windows 7 than buying it retail. Of course, then that might be tantamount to admitting their wrongs, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see...
I grew up playing the Atari 2400. Lots of the games we played contained violence and I have to say that I have been personally scarred by that. To this day, my anger flares and I have to try very hard not to go into a berserker rage whenever a brightly colored blob shoots a colored square at me. Luckily, I haven't had too many run-ins with such blobs, but as I get older and my eyesight worsens (from hours spent in front of a TV playing these games) I'm afraid that the world is getting 'blobbier' by the year and this may cause me to eventually lash out at anything within reach. This is an issue that is little addressed, but should be as the generation growing up on Atari games grows older for the sake of all the pixelated blobs out there.
Unlike the Basque, whom we all know are just descendants of Atlantis.
Giant garbage patch floating in Pacific
An enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas is floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii. Chris Parry with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco said the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has been growing a brisk rate since the 1950s, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday. The trash stew is 80 percent plastic and weighs more than 3.5 million tons. "At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option," Parry said. "It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues." Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step to reducing reliance on plastics, the newspaper said. Source: http://www.physorg.com/news112248742.html
While I think that this is where we will end up before long (or at least something analogous to current utilities) reading your post sent shivers up my spine... I think seeing internet as utility is exactly the wrong direction to go, as utilities in the U.S. are so terrible as it is. Hopefully broadband access can break that mold and help to drag utilities out with it... I can dream, can't I?
How about the campaign that the NYPD started on the New York City subway system over a year ago? Apparently, entering the subway system alters ones constitutional rights and makes it ok for the police to illegally search your bags with no need for probable cause. You either submit to random searches of your bags or you are not allowed to ride the subway. Nevermind the fact that cops seem to be randomly placed in random subway stations on random days checking random people's bags... If I were a terrorist I would simply leave the station and walk a few blocks to the next one. Unless they have cops searching everyone who gets on the subway at any station along the line, this is all either theater or an agenda with ulterior motives (catching other types of criminals/contraband on the subway?). My fiance had her diaper bag searched when she was taking our toddler to the park, but when someone tried to steal her purse one night on the subway the cop _watching the whole thing go down_ told her that she "looked like she could handle herself".
I just feel I have to point out that you misspelled a key word in the summary. You wrote "coffee" while everyone here knows that it is spelled "mountain dew".
Personally, if there is a child molester outside my house browsing kiddie porn in his car, I'm going to be more concerned with my KID than my internet access. I don't think that the amount of data said pervert would get from my connection would warrant the gestapo kicking in my door and confiscating all of my equipment. Not that I'm saying I would be surprised to hear of such a thing happening, but don't we have better things to worry about?
Oh, and here I was thinking the name "UNG" was just them foreshadowing their user's responses, as in... "This new M$ OS is supposed to be like Unix, but UNG! it's worse than DOS!"
Yeah, and here's me thinking that Die Hard 4 was a bunch of BS. If you can tap into power grids via your iPhone, I guess you can jump from moving cars and send them up toll booth ramps to take out helicopters even when you're 50+ years old. I'm sorry, John McClane, my faith in you will never waver again...
I'll agree that there is a difference between a nuclear bomb and a "harmless" microwave ray. But if you're one to always believe what our government says and to always doubt what other governments say, I'm afraid you're the one who's going to diaf
When I first read the summary I was thinking... "So Iran gets lambasted and carefully watched for producing enriched uranium which they say is being used for nuclear power, but this tiny island nation wants to create Tesla's death ray and that's acceptable?" But then I saw that the U.S. military was behind it and things became clear...
Now, IANAE (I am not an engineer) but I can see where you are coming from. But I have called support in the past because of connection issues and gotten some troubleshooting help from my carrier (t-mobile). They've diagnosed whether the problem was with my phone, my sim card, or the cell tower. They've also helped me out when I bought a non-supported phone and tried to set it up for voicemail and email alerts. Now granted, I had to edit seems on the phone myself, but the techs did point me in the right direction and were generally as helpful as they're allowed to be in those cases. Now, the average Joe may not end up getting an Android phone or doing anything with it that would require the use of tech support. Depending on how widely they deploy android enabled phones, though, I can easily see this type of scenario: Joe User: Hi, I just got this phone and my email isn't working. How do I get it working? CS Rep: What kind of phone is it? JU: The new Nokia Super-Spiffy XYZ CSR: Sorry sir, that is an Android-enabled phone and we do not offer support for that. Check online for the Android community's forums and see if they can help you. JU: Huh? What's a droid? What forums? CSR: Of course, maybe you're right and they will just "support" these phones and not foist them on the unknowing. But I'm American, so when it comes to corporations or government I always expect the worst.
My thoughts exactly. How can we downsize our customer service department and make it look like a win for the customer? This might work for the hacker type who can build his own phone from scratch and doesn't need any input from Verizon, only service, but the average user is going to throw a fit when they find out their "supported" phone comes with no support.
Wouldn't it be cheaper, and easier, just to get them laid? I mean, don't all the pron downloads go to show that we're only on the internet because we're not getting laid?
Well, hopefully it's sufficiently different from Vista or we'll all feel a bit run through after having to use it.
They already offer a way to make donations, they're just appealing to all the various /.'s and selfish geeks who want to get their hands on one of these. They design features make more sense for a third world country because it was designed for use in third world countries. They're not selling points here because they're not meant to be sold here. They have been against making this device a commodity in the American market from the start. This is just a way of bootstrapping the project after politicians do what they do... make promises they can't keep. Yes, there are other charities. Yes, there are other laptops. But this initiative isn't about bringing schoolbooks or teachers to kids, it's about getting them on the internet and getting them using computers. Their very own computer, at that. And that super-wonderful PoC Walmart laptop won't get you that.
Also keep in mind that this is ultimately designed for children. If I give that cheap laptop to my kid, it'll be destroyed in days. My alternative is to buy him some kind of "laptop" toy that has three exciting games that bore the crap out of him in five minutes. Sure, there may be cheaper ways of building him a linux box he could beat up, but none of them will look as cool.
Sure, but does the Walmart laptop
a) get you two laptops, one being for charity, and
b) allow you to write it off on your taxes?
With a background in social science, I take offense at your "Psychologists, sociologists, eugenicists, data miners..." comment. So you're saying that social sciences cannot either create experimental data that is verifiable by peer review or that sociological data not derived from experiment is worthless? I agree that there is a lot of pseudo-science out there, but I would hardly discount the advances of the social sciences as pseudo-science.
So far, the researchers have achieved power densities of 1.5 kilowatts per kilogram in the supercapacitor version and tested it over 100 cycles of discharge and recharge, well short of the million or so typical for current commercial capacitors. They have only made one-inch square versions of the paper, but the unique composite structure already reduces the complexity of creating such devices as well as battery-capacitor hybrids--and it has been used to light up a tiny red light-emitting diode, among other devices.
i cleID=61525146-E7F2-99DF-368134A7014B95DE&ref=rss
From this Scientific American article:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&art
Hmm, I was thinking more of a big dark thundercloud come to blow out all access to the files I need when their server goes down for maintenance or some such.
Blame It On Cthulhu...
I do realize it. I don't believe it would be correct to call the current Vista "Ultimate" because what would they then call it when SP1 comes out? Vista Ultimate+1 perhaps? I thank you for your concern with my vocabulary, though. :)
IBM researches are excited, because if they can get it to sustain the 3 petaflops, they'll finally be able to switch on the new "Aero" feature of the Windows Vista Super-Penultimate Premium Advanced edition.
I so cannot wait until 2030 when this comes out. I'm so going to be the first person on line with my pension check in hand to snatch this one up.