Maybe we don't have trees to print books for all billions out there.
Maybe it's time for us to stop thinking a book is only something printed in paper.
Maybe we can spend more money creating better text-books if we don't have to print'em.
Maybe kids will be encouraged to read more complicated texts because looking up a word in a dictionary is just a matter of a right-click.
I was contrary to all of this idea up to some minutes ago, but after reading your comments I started thinking that things. And well, maybe it's a good idea after all...
Well, we could have general multi-platform gaming toolkits. So, game programmers would program against that toolkit, that would look the same for everyplatform. Just another layer of indirection to solve the problem.
I remember there was a time when all serious gamers would dual boot their windows 95 machines to run MS-DOS 6.22 so they could run games. Windows 95 was a crappy platform to run games, and it took a lot of time to DirectX to be really usefull and allow people to actually run decent games on windows.
Someone who can afford a Mac probably also prefers to buy a dedicated console (with its own tube-amplifiers, bose loudspeakers, ultra-mega-big LCD screen, and last but not least, it's own specially dedicated room with HEPA filters(for smokers) and state-of-the art air-conditioning and sound isolation)
I don't question your first sentence, but the rest of your post scared me.
Now, just telling that some thing is useless qualifies as hate-speak, is it what you mean?
A giant step for PC-speak, indeed.
Strange as it may seem, it is somewhat probable that Hiroshima bombing has saved more chinese people ally soldiers, and even japanese citizens than it has killed.
Japan would not surrender easily, and given would prefer to let their people die of starvation before surrending. Just compare the deaths on Stalingrad to the the death toll in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and you will agree that famine *is* the definitive weapon of mass destruction.
And without atom bombs, I believe that a global war between east and west would be inevitable. Actually, without atom bombs we would probably be living on the 50th year of WWIII right now with hundreds of millions of casualties.
And, BTW, I am a Brazilian, and while US politics are not always good for my country, I am glad to live in world where the US won the cold-war, instead of the USSR.
In the diplomatic world, we need to be pragmatic and I think that's what those canadian leaders being now. Even if they don't agree with all of american external politics, they are smart enough to see that an alliance with the US is good for them.
Read a book on history if you can't undertand it.
Canada was also a potential target for a hypothetical USSR atack, and also Canada was on the route of soviet ICBMs headed to USA. Consider also that the US is the most important commercial partner for Canada and you'll be able to understand why is so important for Canada and US to cooperate on airspace control.
Please note that while Russia and China are not plausible threats by now, they could become in short time in the event of drastical political changes in those two countries. Just figure out what a massive famine brought by some natural accident could have as an effect in internal russian politics, with all those hardliners eager to get back to power and you will see what I mean.
I think that this is the reason the base is not being decomissioned. It's wise to have it in nearly operational state.
It may sound paranoid. But if I came to you in 1985 and told you that by the 1990's there wouldn't be a USSR anylonger, probably you would laugh at my face. So, as long as we don't have crystal balls to predict the future, and while there are ICBMs around, I prefer to play safe.
I know it would just sound a bit paranoid, but, I ever had a fear of our planet being sucked by fscking black hole during my life.
Please someone tell me those MECO are not as nasty as black holes.
Good point.
Do you think that all those defections are the external sympthom of Vista having turned into a Death March Project [Yourdon]?
After reading your comment this was the first thing that came to my mind.
I see your point, and I agree with it also, but I still think this a part of the problem, and not the whole explanation. Surely the market has changed and things are different now from what they were some years ago. But, why their response is so blind and erratic? And that's where I think that my theory fits in. For a comparison, look at Apple. Instead of trying to be everywhere, everytime, they tried to do some few things well done. Instead of trying to compete with google, or yahoo, or whatever, they instead opted to fill a niche and to leverage their products. Look at iTMS and iPod, simple products, easy ideas, and a incremental approach, first music, then videos... What Microsoft would have done instead: Probably they would have a "vision" for digital media, overwhelming complex and extremely ambitious, that would cost a lot of money, and if they did a mistake, well... their new initiative would be tanted forever. There are very interesting things being done at Microsoft, things like the work with Software Factories, the innovations in C# 3.0. Surely, development tools are not even profitable for microsoft, but they have some fine brains working in it. Do you know what is the problem? The idea that every company should concentrate its efforts on its weakness, instead of concentrating on its strong points. This is the recipe for failure. Apple has seen its rebirth doing exactly the opposite. At a point where there several doubts if Apple would be able to survive, they turned the table by concentrating their efforts where they were clearly good. Having no much money surely helped them to have a so straightforward vision, because they could not afford to lose. Can you see, Microsoft has been wasting money trying to control the web, because someone told them that if they did it not, they would be swallowed. Some years later, is apple, who never seemed to care so much about the internet, that have a landmark online business with iTMS. Microsoft should go more simple, take smaller steps and adopt incremental approachs to new business. Think about like some kind of XP translated to business, something like eXtreme Management. Small steps, tests, listen to the feedback from customers and avoid by all means that stupid big upfront business strategy design. If they don't change, the smart guys will keep abandoning the ship.
Actually, you need to things to suceed without a degree: a) Being fscking good, and at least, better than the average Comp Sci guy you are competing against. b) Find ways to bypass HR and get directly to the technical guys who are doing the selection. HR people can't grok the idea of someone who has not a CS degree being a good software engineer. And they are not to blame.
Mr Thurrot wants me to believe that:
He is not using a big-brand laptop that comes with a legit windows copy.
He actually assembles his machines from scratch and buys a copy of windows from some "discount" nigerian on-line retailer, because he needs to save every penny out of his meager salary.
He is so clueless that he would take one full week to figure this out.
While being a well know columnist he never keeps the machine he receives to review.
Microsoft doesn't supply him with endless licenses.
If a computer freezes while running defrag (or if it's accidentaly shut down) there's a really high probability that the files being "defraged" could get corrupted.
Actually you're lucky the corrupted files were windows DLLs, at least, those files can be reinstalled. IT would be a lot worse if the files that got corrupted were personal files for which you had no backup.
No. I mean in terms of businness itself. Business is about generating money from the resources you have in the best way you can, and also, this has to be sustainable over time and has to generate more value for the money than other options, or at least give your stakeholders that impression.
Do you know the kind of guy/girl that is intelligent, creative, but never finishes what he/starts? Microsoft looks just like that guy. They start a lot of initiatives, make up grandious strategies (do you remember when everything has.NET in his name, now it's time for "Windows Live";-) but they clearly lack the details and soon reality forces them to step back, and all the money they spent is lost forever.
They are in it for the money, of course, and that's right, but looks like they don't really now how to invest their money, they look like a Third World dictatorship that after the discovery of vast reserves of Oil in their subsoil, start building giant stadiums, try to build nuclear bombs and waste all the newly gained money with useless things for their people, just because they never had a coherent and intelligent vision of how to work with all that money.
Microsoft has been spoiled by market analysts that dumbly appraised every stupid move of them, just because that analysts thought that Microsoft could never get wrong. This has diminished their ability to think strategically, and all the money they had just made it worse for the dissident voices to be heard. They got intoxicated with their success, and what we see now is just the result of it.
(I've forgotten to finish my argument on the last post. Sorry.)
So, my point is that all those departures are a clear signal of that crises. Surely they are not leaving because of the money, but they are leaving because they had enough of that crisis and they clearly see where the company is heading, and they don't like what they see.
Microsoft no longer has a coherent vision or a clear strategy. They waste their time trying to attack on several fronts, and in the meantime, their core is abandoned. Vista could have been a technological brakthrough, but they let this opportunity slip. Instead of trying to innovate, they try to emulate others and have been failing miserably. In the past, if only rumor about Microsoft developing a MsPod emerged, this would have a clear effect on Apple stocks. Nowadays, they can formally anounce they are working in it and people will only nod their heads, because they are increasingly losing credibility.
They spent millions with IE, had sucessive legal problems because of it, not to mention the security problems, and still they can't face the fact that they could profit from internet making their OS better. Cisco makes money selling routers, why microsoft can't see that they can profit from the internet by having a rock solid, fast and easy-to-use OS? Why do they think that they need to "kill" google, or "kill" iPOd on their own arenas to survive? Instead they should have invested all this money making their core businness stronger, by making their OS the best OS for developers and user alike, by making people "wanting" to use Windows instead of people "Having" to run windows.
After that they could even afford the luxury of competing with the iPod or with Google, but not the way they are doing now.
Actually I would vote for custom Li-ION internal batteries (but, in that case, user-replaceable, of course).
Anyone knows if it's possible to have some kind of dual mode LCD, that could work either in full color mode, or in grayscale(and low power) mode?
The problem is that the students that NEED the money usually don't get it.
Looks like what we have in Brazil, where the better universities are public, but only the riches get in, because they studied on expensive schools before college.
That's what is wrong with subsidies: they never reach those who really need it, and indeed help those who are well-connected.
If they do so, aren't they using their position as OS providers to artificially push IE onto their customers?
Aren't they leveraging their power to have an unfair advantage over their competitors in the browser market?
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe we don't have trees to print books for all billions out there. Maybe it's time for us to stop thinking a book is only something printed in paper. Maybe we can spend more money creating better text-books if we don't have to print'em. Maybe kids will be encouraged to read more complicated texts because looking up a word in a dictionary is just a matter of a right-click. I was contrary to all of this idea up to some minutes ago, but after reading your comments I started thinking that things. And well, maybe it's a good idea after all...
It looks more like they are expelling some fine people and keeping only schwartz and gosling to close the show.
Well, we could have general multi-platform gaming toolkits. So, game programmers would program against that toolkit, that would look the same for everyplatform. Just another layer of indirection to solve the problem.
I remember there was a time when all serious gamers would dual boot their windows 95 machines to run MS-DOS 6.22 so they could run games. Windows 95 was a crappy platform to run games, and it took a lot of time to DirectX to be really usefull and allow people to actually run decent games on windows.
Someone who can afford a Mac probably also prefers to buy a dedicated console (with its own tube-amplifiers, bose loudspeakers, ultra-mega-big LCD screen, and last but not least, it's own specially dedicated room with HEPA filters(for smokers) and state-of-the art air-conditioning and sound isolation)
I don't question your first sentence, but the rest of your post scared me. Now, just telling that some thing is useless qualifies as hate-speak, is it what you mean? A giant step for PC-speak, indeed.
Strange as it may seem, it is somewhat probable that Hiroshima bombing has saved more chinese people ally soldiers, and even japanese citizens than it has killed. Japan would not surrender easily, and given would prefer to let their people die of starvation before surrending. Just compare the deaths on Stalingrad to the the death toll in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and you will agree that famine *is* the definitive weapon of mass destruction. And without atom bombs, I believe that a global war between east and west would be inevitable. Actually, without atom bombs we would probably be living on the 50th year of WWIII right now with hundreds of millions of casualties.
Considering that he goes with a girl there, that will make cheyenne mountain the most expensive motel ever created.
And, BTW, I am a Brazilian, and while US politics are not always good for my country, I am glad to live in world where the US won the cold-war, instead of the USSR. In the diplomatic world, we need to be pragmatic and I think that's what those canadian leaders being now. Even if they don't agree with all of american external politics, they are smart enough to see that an alliance with the US is good for them.
Read a book on history if you can't undertand it. Canada was also a potential target for a hypothetical USSR atack, and also Canada was on the route of soviet ICBMs headed to USA. Consider also that the US is the most important commercial partner for Canada and you'll be able to understand why is so important for Canada and US to cooperate on airspace control. Please note that while Russia and China are not plausible threats by now, they could become in short time in the event of drastical political changes in those two countries. Just figure out what a massive famine brought by some natural accident could have as an effect in internal russian politics, with all those hardliners eager to get back to power and you will see what I mean. I think that this is the reason the base is not being decomissioned. It's wise to have it in nearly operational state. It may sound paranoid. But if I came to you in 1985 and told you that by the 1990's there wouldn't be a USSR anylonger, probably you would laugh at my face. So, as long as we don't have crystal balls to predict the future, and while there are ICBMs around, I prefer to play safe.
I, for one, welcome our new strange grammar overlords
I know it would just sound a bit paranoid, but, I ever had a fear of our planet being sucked by fscking black hole during my life. Please someone tell me those MECO are not as nasty as black holes.
Good point. Do you think that all those defections are the external sympthom of Vista having turned into a Death March Project [Yourdon]? After reading your comment this was the first thing that came to my mind.
I see your point, and I agree with it also, but I still think this a part of the problem, and not the whole explanation. Surely the market has changed and things are different now from what they were some years ago. But, why their response is so blind and erratic?
And that's where I think that my theory fits in.
For a comparison, look at Apple. Instead of trying to be everywhere, everytime, they tried to do some few things well done. Instead of trying to compete with google, or yahoo, or whatever, they instead opted to fill a niche and to leverage their products. Look at iTMS and iPod, simple products, easy ideas, and a incremental approach, first music, then videos... What Microsoft would have done instead: Probably they would have a "vision" for digital media, overwhelming complex and extremely ambitious, that would cost a lot of money, and if they did a mistake, well... their new initiative would be tanted forever.
There are very interesting things being done at Microsoft, things like the work with Software Factories, the innovations in C# 3.0. Surely, development tools are not even profitable for microsoft, but they have some fine brains working in it.
Do you know what is the problem? The idea that every company should concentrate its efforts on its weakness, instead of concentrating on its strong points. This is the recipe for failure.
Apple has seen its rebirth doing exactly the opposite. At a point where there several doubts if Apple would be able to survive, they turned the table by concentrating their efforts where they were clearly good. Having no much money surely helped them to have a so straightforward vision, because they could not afford to lose.
Can you see, Microsoft has been wasting money trying to control the web, because someone told them that if they did it not, they would be swallowed. Some years later, is apple, who never seemed to care so much about the internet, that have a landmark online business with iTMS.
Microsoft should go more simple, take smaller steps and adopt incremental approachs to new business. Think about like some kind of XP translated to business, something like eXtreme Management. Small steps, tests, listen to the feedback from customers and avoid by all means that stupid big upfront business strategy design. If they don't change, the smart guys will keep abandoning the ship.
Actually, you need to things to suceed without a degree:
a) Being fscking good, and at least, better than the average Comp Sci guy you are competing against.
b) Find ways to bypass HR and get directly to the technical guys who are doing the selection.
HR people can't grok the idea of someone who has not a CS degree being a good software engineer. And they are not to blame.
I also remember another guy gates, but this guy seems to been having problems with his Vista.
Mr Thurrot wants me to believe that: He is not using a big-brand laptop that comes with a legit windows copy. He actually assembles his machines from scratch and buys a copy of windows from some "discount" nigerian on-line retailer, because he needs to save every penny out of his meager salary. He is so clueless that he would take one full week to figure this out. While being a well know columnist he never keeps the machine he receives to review. Microsoft doesn't supply him with endless licenses.
If a computer freezes while running defrag (or if it's accidentaly shut down) there's a really high probability that the files being "defraged" could get corrupted. Actually you're lucky the corrupted files were windows DLLs, at least, those files can be reinstalled. IT would be a lot worse if the files that got corrupted were personal files for which you had no backup.
No. I mean in terms of businness itself. Business is about generating money from the resources you have in the best way you can, and also, this has to be sustainable over time and has to generate more value for the money than other options, or at least give your stakeholders that impression. Do you know the kind of guy/girl that is intelligent, creative, but never finishes what he/starts? Microsoft looks just like that guy. They start a lot of initiatives, make up grandious strategies (do you remember when everything has .NET in his name, now it's time for "Windows Live";-) but they clearly lack the details and soon reality forces them to step back, and all the money they spent is lost forever.
They are in it for the money, of course, and that's right, but looks like they don't really now how to invest their money, they look like a Third World dictatorship that after the discovery of vast reserves of Oil in their subsoil, start building giant stadiums, try to build nuclear bombs and waste all the newly gained money with useless things for their people, just because they never had a coherent and intelligent vision of how to work with all that money.
Microsoft has been spoiled by market analysts that dumbly appraised every stupid move of them, just because that analysts thought that Microsoft could never get wrong. This has diminished their ability to think strategically, and all the money they had just made it worse for the dissident voices to be heard. They got intoxicated with their success, and what we see now is just the result of it.
(I've forgotten to finish my argument on the last post. Sorry.) So, my point is that all those departures are a clear signal of that crises. Surely they are not leaving because of the money, but they are leaving because they had enough of that crisis and they clearly see where the company is heading, and they don't like what they see.
Microsoft no longer has a coherent vision or a clear strategy. They waste their time trying to attack on several fronts, and in the meantime, their core is abandoned. Vista could have been a technological brakthrough, but they let this opportunity slip. Instead of trying to innovate, they try to emulate others and have been failing miserably. In the past, if only rumor about Microsoft developing a MsPod emerged, this would have a clear effect on Apple stocks. Nowadays, they can formally anounce they are working in it and people will only nod their heads, because they are increasingly losing credibility. They spent millions with IE, had sucessive legal problems because of it, not to mention the security problems, and still they can't face the fact that they could profit from internet making their OS better. Cisco makes money selling routers, why microsoft can't see that they can profit from the internet by having a rock solid, fast and easy-to-use OS? Why do they think that they need to "kill" google, or "kill" iPOd on their own arenas to survive? Instead they should have invested all this money making their core businness stronger, by making their OS the best OS for developers and user alike, by making people "wanting" to use Windows instead of people "Having" to run windows. After that they could even afford the luxury of competing with the iPod or with Google, but not the way they are doing now.
Actually I would vote for custom Li-ION internal batteries (but, in that case, user-replaceable, of course). Anyone knows if it's possible to have some kind of dual mode LCD, that could work either in full color mode, or in grayscale(and low power) mode?
How I wish I had mod points... I am still laughing.
The problem is that the students that NEED the money usually don't get it. Looks like what we have in Brazil, where the better universities are public, but only the riches get in, because they studied on expensive schools before college. That's what is wrong with subsidies: they never reach those who really need it, and indeed help those who are well-connected.
If they do so, aren't they using their position as OS providers to artificially push IE onto their customers? Aren't they leveraging their power to have an unfair advantage over their competitors in the browser market?