They've already succeeded. It's been posted on Slashdot. What better indicator of sucess in a viral marketing campaign designed to attract attention and publicity do you need?
"Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad! Be assured, Baghdad is safe, protected!"
"We have retaken the airport. There are NO Americans there. I will take you there and show you. IN ONE HOUR!"
"We defeated them yesterday!"
For anyone wanting a quick eye-candy comparison, by a useful stroke of luck they both have 3D pics of Mount St. Helens as showcases on their respective web pages.
Yes, because that's clearly an excellent way to attract people to Linux, and not in the least eliteist.
"Switch! Linux is now a mature desktop solution! By the way, you're not allowed to download and run applications, no matter how trusted the provider; you just the raw source code, a "For Dummies" book on how programming works, a Bash prompt, a string of four-letter commands written on a scrap of paper that someone in a Linux forum gave you none of which bear the slightest resemblance to actual words, some repressed memories of using MS-DOS, and the comforting knowledge that Linux is now just as easy for the average person to use as Windows. Have fun!"
Does anyone else think it's possible that the whole Microsoft XML Paper Specification "PDF rival" was invented purely as a bargaining tool against Adobe -- something to threaten them with if Adobe don't agree to let them put PDF functionality into Office?
Think about the timing. They revealed that they were making XPS just before they needed to get the relevant permission from Adobe. If it's *not* just a bargaining stunt, then this is incredibly stupid timing by Microsoft - angering Adobe before having to beg their permission. I don't think MS is that stupid. If it is, then if MS they play their cards close to their chest, they can get the necessary permission from Adobe by offering to drop XPS -- permission that they might not have got otherwise.
Has anyone actually read the article? He's praising the sleep mode, but criticising Microsoft for making it far less prominent than 'shut down'.. In fairness, the part quoted in the story text is a bit out of context. From the article:
"It wants to teach you about what's best. It wants to make it harder for you to make a mistake. That's why it crafted the Shutdown area at the lower right-hand corner of the Start menu to make the large red Sleep button and the large blue Lock buttons very prominent. Meanwhile, the button that offers a pop-up menu with options like Switch User, Log Off, Restart and Shutdown is a teeny-tiny little arrow hanging off the edge of the Start menu. They know you'll find it there, but they're making it just a little harder for you to access by making the surface area so small that it's harder to click."
>Ungrateful gits. My parents paid many of their hard earned dollars in taxes to finance the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan
>provided nearly 267 billion postwar dollars in aid to Europe -- which equals over two trillion of today's dollars.
Don't know where you got your figures from, but they're way out. The Marshall plan provided $13 billion dollars to Europe (source: http://usinfo.state.gov/ the equivalent of $90 billion in today's money -- a figure, incidentally, nearly 100 times smaller than the current US national debt. Moreover, the money could only be used "to buy goods from the United States, and they had to be shipped across the Atlantic on American merchant vessels" (source: the US government website again).
Incidentally, you, with your "hard earned tax dollars", now contribute 100 times less to foregn aid (0.34% of GDP, the lowest out of 22 MEDCs in the ODA survey) than to defense (3.4% of GDP) - figures taken from *before* the Iraq war.
I do love them putting "OS stopped working" as the reason for system failure. Combined with the meaningless hex numbers listed in 'failure detail', it provides nearly as much information as "General Protection Fault"...
>...taking away the user's rights on their own machine doesn't make it "improved".
I could quote literally hundreds of Slashdot posts in almost any past thread about Windows criticising Microsoft for *giving* user's all (i.e. admin) rights on their own machines, in contrast with Linux, MacOS etc. Finally Microsoft agree and take them away (not an easy move considering that, since it'll be installed on the computers of people who have no idea how to use a computer, transparent ease of use has to be near the top of their priority list), and all anyone can do is complain about it.
I agree that the early implementationg (UAP) were severely flawed, but apparently that's one of the things that the beta 2 release much improves. Criticise them when they deserrve it (admittedly 95% of the time) but give them credit where it's due too.
"No Google ad or Google search box may be displayed on any domain parking websites, pop-ups, pop-unders, or in any email."
Not only there, there's also this entry in their FAQ:
"Cybersquatting - Sites such as these are not allowed to run the AdSense ad code. Cybersquatting is using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. Typosquatting is a form of cybersquatting, based on the probability that a certain number of Internet users will mistype the name of a URL when surfing."
Quite hard to reconcile with: "Maximize revenue on parked pages! AdSense for domains allows domain name registrars and large domain name holders to unlock the value in their parked page inventory" [from the google domainpark page], isn't it?
So much for "do no evil". In my book, Hypocrisy == evil.
I've emailed Google adsense policy violation to ask about this; I'll post here if they respond.
One of the 'features' of capitalism is that, to vastly oversimplify it, rich people become richer and poor people become poorer. Precisely the same applies to companies. If you control a majority of a market, you can leverage that control to increase your majority to close to 100%, since whatever you decide automatically becomes the industry standard if you control the industry. This is exactly what Microsoft have been doing. It is a fundamental problem with a capitalist, company-based system; but since it seems to be the best system we have, it is thus desiarable - indeed, necessary - to limit the problem. That is the purpose of antimonoply legislation.
So you are not "punishing people from being good", you are preventing them from leveraging the position they acheived by being "good" to stifle the market. All power corrupts.
To use your farm analogy, if you had a "bumper crop", you would not be penalised; not would you if you had ten farmers working cooperatively. But if you ended up owning the vast majority of all farms in the world, and then used that advantage to try to prevent smaller, independant farms from continuing business (e.g. by refusing to sell to anyone who does not sign exclusive deals to buy only from you - which they have to since, as you own the majorit of the market, they cannot get the grain they need from only the independant farmers) then I think intervention would be entirely justified.
Slashdot Mirror
>Is this their new business model? Bribery and intimidation?
"New"?
They've already succeeded. It's been posted on Slashdot. What better indicator of sucess in a viral marketing campaign designed to attract attention and publicity do you need?
"Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad! Be assured, Baghdad is safe, protected!"
"We have retaken the airport. There are NO Americans there. I will take you there and show you. IN ONE HOUR!"
"We defeated them yesterday!"
For anyone wanting a quick eye-candy comparison, by a useful stroke of luck they both have 3D pics of Mount St. Helens as showcases on their respective web pages.
S rtm.jpg
Google:
http://earth.google.com/images/mtsth.jpg
Worldwind:
http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/images/b/b6/
> For Linux/BSD people, you provide the source.
Yes, because that's clearly an excellent way to attract people to Linux, and not in the least eliteist.
"Switch! Linux is now a mature desktop solution! By the way, you're not allowed to download and run applications, no matter how trusted the provider; you just the raw source code, a "For Dummies" book on how programming works, a Bash prompt, a string of four-letter commands written on a scrap of paper that someone in a Linux forum gave you none of which bear the slightest resemblance to actual words, some repressed memories of using MS-DOS, and the comforting knowledge that Linux is now just as easy for the average person to use as Windows. Have fun!"
Does anyone else think it's possible that the whole Microsoft XML Paper Specification "PDF rival" was invented purely as a bargaining tool against Adobe -- something to threaten them with if Adobe don't agree to let them put PDF functionality into Office?
Think about the timing. They revealed that they were making XPS just before they needed to get the relevant permission from Adobe. If it's *not* just a bargaining stunt, then this is incredibly stupid timing by Microsoft - angering Adobe before having to beg their permission. I don't think MS is that stupid. If it is, then if MS they play their cards close to their chest, they can get the necessary permission from Adobe by offering to drop XPS -- permission that they might not have got otherwise.
nd very much doesn't want.
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/ 264862/2/istockphoto_264862_flaming_hard_drive_2.j pg / 264865/2/istockphoto_264865_flaming_hard_drive_3.j pg e /264859/2/istockphoto_264859_flaming_hard_drive_1. jpg
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve
http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approv
Oh, the fun they had...
Has anyone actually read the article? He's praising the sleep mode, but criticising Microsoft for making it far less prominent than 'shut down'.. In fairness, the part quoted in the story text is a bit out of context. From the article:
"It wants to teach you about what's best. It wants to make it harder for you to make a mistake. That's why it crafted the Shutdown area at the lower right-hand corner of the Start menu to make the large red Sleep button and the large blue Lock buttons very prominent. Meanwhile, the button that offers a pop-up menu with options like Switch User, Log Off, Restart and Shutdown is a teeny-tiny little arrow hanging off the edge of the Start menu. They know you'll find it there, but they're making it just a little harder for you to access by making the surface area so small that it's harder to click."
>Ungrateful gits. My parents paid many of their hard earned dollars in taxes to finance the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan
>provided nearly 267 billion postwar dollars in aid to Europe -- which equals over two trillion of today's dollars.
Don't know where you got your figures from, but they're way out. The Marshall plan provided $13 billion dollars to Europe (source: http://usinfo.state.gov/ the equivalent of $90 billion in today's money -- a figure, incidentally, nearly 100 times smaller than the current US national debt. Moreover, the money could only be used "to buy goods from the United States, and they had to be shipped across the Atlantic on American merchant vessels" (source: the US government website again).
Incidentally, you, with your "hard earned tax dollars", now contribute 100 times less to foregn aid (0.34% of GDP, the lowest out of 22 MEDCs in the ODA survey) than to defense (3.4% of GDP) - figures taken from *before* the Iraq war.
I do love them putting "OS stopped working" as the reason for system failure. Combined with the meaningless hex numbers listed in 'failure detail', it provides nearly as much information as "General Protection Fault"...
>...taking away the user's rights on their own machine doesn't make it "improved".
I could quote literally hundreds of Slashdot posts in almost any past thread about Windows criticising Microsoft for *giving* user's all (i.e. admin) rights on their own machines, in contrast with Linux, MacOS etc. Finally Microsoft agree and take them away (not an easy move considering that, since it'll be installed on the computers of people who have no idea how to use a computer, transparent ease of use has to be near the top of their priority list), and all anyone can do is complain about it.
I agree that the early implementationg (UAP) were severely flawed, but apparently that's one of the things that the beta 2 release much improves. Criticise them when they deserrve it (admittedly 95% of the time) but give them credit where it's due too.
>If you search for the meaning of life on Google, you get to a not-bad philosophy page.
Search for the exact phrase:
the answer to life, the universe, and everything
My favourite is:
/the answer to life, the universe and everything/
I can't believe this hasn't been highlighted more. That page ( http://www.google.com/domainpark ) is in direct and brazan contradiction to their stated AdSense policies at https://www.google.com/adsense/policies, which say:
"No Google ad or Google search box may be displayed on any domain parking websites, pop-ups, pop-unders, or in any email."
Not only there, there's also this entry in their FAQ:
"Cybersquatting - Sites such as these are not allowed to run the AdSense ad code. Cybersquatting is using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. Typosquatting is a form of cybersquatting, based on the probability that a certain number of Internet users will mistype the name of a URL when surfing."
Quite hard to reconcile with:
"Maximize revenue on parked pages! AdSense for domains allows domain name registrars and large domain name holders to unlock the value in their parked page inventory"
[from the google domainpark page], isn't it?
So much for "do no evil". In my book, Hypocrisy == evil.
I've emailed Google adsense policy violation to ask about this; I'll post here if they respond.
One of the 'features' of capitalism is that, to vastly oversimplify it, rich people become richer and poor people become poorer. Precisely the same applies to companies. If you control a majority of a market, you can leverage that control to increase your majority to close to 100%, since whatever you decide automatically becomes the industry standard if you control the industry. This is exactly what Microsoft have been doing. It is a fundamental problem with a capitalist, company-based system; but since it seems to be the best system we have, it is thus desiarable - indeed, necessary - to limit the problem. That is the purpose of antimonoply legislation.
So you are not "punishing people from being good", you are preventing them from leveraging the position they acheived by being "good" to stifle the market. All power corrupts.
To use your farm analogy, if you had a "bumper crop", you would not be penalised; not would you if you had ten farmers working cooperatively. But if you ended up owning the vast majority of all farms in the world, and then used that advantage to try to prevent smaller, independant farms from continuing business (e.g. by refusing to sell to anyone who does not sign exclusive deals to buy only from you - which they have to since, as you own the majorit of the market, they cannot get the grain they need from only the independant farmers) then I think intervention would be entirely justified.