That wouldn't have anything to do with having more computers in the world NOW versus, you know, any other point in history?
That's essentially exactly what he said, and it's even mentioned in the summary: "Bill Gates gives the credit to accelerating consumer shift to digital lifestyles".
Many of you that don't come from big hunting areas won't understand why a blind person would want to go hunting, but those of us in hunting states (WI here) know that hunting is more about family and friends than just shooting an animal.
So what do we actually care about what he has to say about it? Bill doesn't work for or at MS any more and hasn't really had his head in the company for years. I know because I am a shareholder who is greatly disappointed at their miserable performance.
What? He's not giving up his day-to-day work until 2008, and even after that he'll still be the Chairman. And as for their miserable performance, as of right now:
Share Price: 29.47
52 Week High: 29.46
Greatly disappointing for you shareholders, I'm sure.
I doubt it. It's hard to see how faking a boarding pass can be considered some kind of "political speech," which is about the only kind of speech that has near-absolute protection under the First Amendment.
But he's not faking a boarding pass. He published a tool that allows it to be done in order to make a point about aviation security, which is regulated by the government. Sounds like political speech to me.
Whether that argument would hold up in court while he's being accused of helping terrorists is a different question.
Microsoft's DRM is fascist. If they could force you to pay a separate license for each ear for listening to music in stero rather than mono, they would.
Up here in the Pacific Northwest, the economy is so dependent on Micro$oft that most people are more than willing to accept any DRM M$ tries to shove down their throats. Gates and Steve "busted chair" Ballmer know this all too well, so we're always the first to get stuck with all the wretched, techno-crippling DRM coming out of MS "Research" (more like DRM FACTORY). There was a huge controversy a few months ago when Metro's entire bus system SHUT DOWN during rush hour because someone typed a prodkey wrong and WGA caused their routing computers (operating of course on WinBloze, which M$ graciously "donated") to blow up. My dad was stuck on the freeway for 4 hours while the boys in Redmond laughed all the way to the bank.
But it gets worse. M$ partnered with the local rap music radio station but then REQUIRED (in their "this is optional but if you don't we'll break your kneecaps" way) the major local car dealerships to install a secret device that listens to coded DRM signals from the radio and keeps track of what you listen to. Skip a commercial? Oops, BSOD when you get home. Try to listen to an iPod? Good luck listening to the football game when you're driving under power lines. When will these pathetic jokers learn?
Speaking of football last time I went to a Seahawks game they were handing out free Lofa Tatupu hats, sponsored by you guessed it, Micro$haft. Forget about the fact that I'd rather be dead than give free advertising to these techturds, these DRM-crazed fools just don't know when to stop. That's MY hat and MY head, and what right do the morons who brought you Clippy, Flight Simulator, and BackOffice have to tell me when I can and can't wear it and OPPRESS me with iron-fisted restrictions on how well my polo shirt has to match it or whether I can wear it sideways or with the bill flipped up. Just totally clueless and stupid. It's coming to infect all of you too, and you'll be living in the M$ jail before you even know you've been locked up.
A few years back, a kid I knew got expelled for the same sort of thing. Recognizing that he hadn't done anything on campus and the punishment was unjustified, I told him to call the ACLU. He did, and he won. (Here's the new link to the article mentioned in that post.)
FWI, you can't be found guilty of any of these things unless the other party proves they were somehow harmed by the slander or liable speech. If they can't prove it, you can still say it, even though its not true.
They took depositions from a number of the school's teachers for this trial, and systematically asked the same questions: Did you believe any of what was said about the assistant principal on the website? Did the website lower your opinion of him in any way? The answer in every case was, of course, no.
I remember checking programming books out of my elementary school library and copying the sample programs into my Apple IIC at home. And I did it because the programs were interesting to me. They extended the functionality of the machine, which, at the time, wasn't much.
Today, there's nothing a 10 year old can do in a few hours programming-wise that will seem worth it. Solitaire and Paint are vastly beyond anything I could have done at that time. If a kid wanted to create something along those lines now, there'd be so many levels of abstraction that he wouldn't even understand what he was doing. And that's ignoring the fact that, with everything else out there, programs on that level are hardly enough to hold the average preteen's interest.
When I started taking "real" programming classes in college, it was obvious that the vast majority of the people in the class didn't really understand what they were doing. A significant portion couldn't even finish the first assignment. But for the kids in elementary school today, even the hardcore geeks and tinkerers will end up working at a high enough level that there's no guarantee they'll pick up any of the logical thinking skills that are fundamental to programming.
Slashdot Mirror
That's essentially exactly what he said, and it's even mentioned in the summary: "Bill Gates gives the credit to accelerating consumer shift to digital lifestyles".
Share Price: 29.47
52 Week High: 29.46
Greatly disappointing for you shareholders, I'm sure.
Whether that argument would hold up in court while he's being accused of helping terrorists is a different question.
Up here in the Pacific Northwest, the economy is so dependent on Micro$oft that most people are more than willing to accept any DRM M$ tries to shove down their throats. Gates and Steve "busted chair" Ballmer know this all too well, so we're always the first to get stuck with all the wretched, techno-crippling DRM coming out of MS "Research" (more like DRM FACTORY). There was a huge controversy a few months ago when Metro's entire bus system SHUT DOWN during rush hour because someone typed a prodkey wrong and WGA caused their routing computers (operating of course on WinBloze, which M$ graciously "donated") to blow up. My dad was stuck on the freeway for 4 hours while the boys in Redmond laughed all the way to the bank.
But it gets worse. M$ partnered with the local rap music radio station but then REQUIRED (in their "this is optional but if you don't we'll break your kneecaps" way) the major local car dealerships to install a secret device that listens to coded DRM signals from the radio and keeps track of what you listen to. Skip a commercial? Oops, BSOD when you get home. Try to listen to an iPod? Good luck listening to the football game when you're driving under power lines. When will these pathetic jokers learn?
Speaking of football last time I went to a Seahawks game they were handing out free Lofa Tatupu hats, sponsored by you guessed it, Micro$haft. Forget about the fact that I'd rather be dead than give free advertising to these techturds, these DRM-crazed fools just don't know when to stop. That's MY hat and MY head, and what right do the morons who brought you Clippy, Flight Simulator, and BackOffice have to tell me when I can and can't wear it and OPPRESS me with iron-fisted restrictions on how well my polo shirt has to match it or whether I can wear it sideways or with the bill flipped up. Just totally clueless and stupid. It's coming to infect all of you too, and you'll be living in the M$ jail before you even know you've been locked up.
These guys are worse than Pearl Jam.
This is modded as funny, but it's true. That would be powerful, valuable information to have.
I remember checking programming books out of my elementary school library and copying the sample programs into my Apple IIC at home. And I did it because the programs were interesting to me. They extended the functionality of the machine, which, at the time, wasn't much.
Today, there's nothing a 10 year old can do in a few hours programming-wise that will seem worth it. Solitaire and Paint are vastly beyond anything I could have done at that time. If a kid wanted to create something along those lines now, there'd be so many levels of abstraction that he wouldn't even understand what he was doing. And that's ignoring the fact that, with everything else out there, programs on that level are hardly enough to hold the average preteen's interest.
When I started taking "real" programming classes in college, it was obvious that the vast majority of the people in the class didn't really understand what they were doing. A significant portion couldn't even finish the first assignment. But for the kids in elementary school today, even the hardcore geeks and tinkerers will end up working at a high enough level that there's no guarantee they'll pick up any of the logical thinking skills that are fundamental to programming.