Re Microsoft's 'Poor Products,' it's a large topic in itself. As an
involuntary Microsoft XP user, I note XP is none too stable and
if I am doing a lot of work I'm not surprised if it crashes ...again.
My impression is some their software hasn't been debugged and
updated since it first ran in their msdos; and how some of their
products run brings me to believe they're made in sphaghetti not
structured code. There is also the matter of their secret software
designed to explore in my machine and phone home what it finds
there. (What a gift and resource for Washington!) But those
details are not my topic here.
This posting brings up a few issues, none good.
There is first, its use of a Schestowitz post. I think those posts
pervert usenet, because they imitate a newspaper and stand in
the way of discourse. The goodness of usenet is that it is public
and offers a place for people all around the world to comment
and interact on matters concerning all of us, and the future. But
posts such as those from Schestowitz are like cinderblocks left
on a travelled road: cinderblocks have their proper uses, but as
they lie in the road, they terribly impede traffic. When I see this
in today's reality, I wonder if that's what they are there for and
who puts them there anyhow?
The second concerns spelling and grammar. People reading
text use the spelling and construction of the text to evaluate it
and its author. Mangling 'Microsoft' into multiple (perhaps slightly
obscene) variations may poorly illustrate the writer's opinion but
it also illustrates the writer. When I see such text I'm inclined to
ask myself, ...maybe that's all the poor guy can do, so what is his
opinion worth on the larger scale of things?
Finally, Microsoft has made itself and Bill Gates phenomenally
rich by taking advantage of a generation of people who want and
need to use computer technology, but who are ignorant of this
topic which is abstract, powerful, and potentially difficult. (It is
in fact, potentially easy but Microsoft hides that.) What is the
social context they accomplished this in? Does this tell us
something about our schools, if children often play with tech
that brings adults to sweat blood?
And as I watch (what passes for) news, am I actually seeing
today a covert fierce battle about who controls tomorrow's
computer technoloy? And if so, what ecological niche, what
potential power in it, makes it worth fighting over so? Are we
in fact, converging toward a 1984 scenario in which computer
machines watch most of the people most of the time, and the
verbal and conceptual vocabularies are controlled to prevent
people from thinking 'bad thoughts'?
Cheers -- Martha Adams [cola 2007 Mar 12]
"7" <website_has_email@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:JNdJh.3531$DX5.1497@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> Microsoft's meltdown
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | Forget your opinions about Microsoft. Ignore the industry politics,
>> | the legal manoeuvring and the arguments about innovation. The
>> | company has one core job to do ? produce competent products that
>> | do not hurt its customers.
>> |
>> | It is not doing that job.
>
> Micoshaft's only 'job' is to have thousands of departments with
> each department set up to thwart a competitor or its products.
> Anyone going against micoshaft needs many such departments
> to thwart each subversive unit in micoshaft.
>
>
|
|
