DISQUS

Looks like something I wrote may soon be redundant:

THE END

Fade to desert scene.

EXT:  DESERT HOUSE.

A couple of Arabs looking at video camera.  Another one steps up to face it.  He is in full desert clothing.

                        ANON ARAB

All ready, mullah.

                        MULLAH

We do not wish to be enemies, Americans.  And that is why we have taken on the task you in your wealth, were too weak to consider.  We fight the terrorists - al Pentagon fi Iraq - here

(waves his arm around to indicate the land, beautiful in its austere way as deserts usually are)

so you will not have to fight them over there.

THE REAL END

I couldn't be more delighted.

The very first thing I thought about when I read the (hypothetical/postulated) news about the buy-out, was that Microsoft would be throwing money away. I didn't think the same would've also been true of Yahoo!

But that would have been equally true as well. (Terribile, isn't it, that when a company gets bought out, it winds up throwing most of its value away. Maybe that's 21.C innovation ... ;)

FWIW, Robert, in relation to your comment about Vista not being the next Win95, I've read some people saying it's actually Win ME II - and there are some pretty annoyed customers publishing stories about annoying experiences they had with MS Windows Vista. I'm sure Adam Barr would be ready to explain his problems with Vista if you called - he's certainly published them on his blog.
http://www.proudlyserving.com/archives/2007/04/...

Funny, when I go search for "Robert" on google, it's either Robert the Bruce, Robert the Second of Scotland that is, or Robert aka Wobert, the poodle in "Meet the Feebles". Comes of having different priorities, I suppose.

And as far as Microsoft goes, it's not bleeding red ink - yet. But SteveB seems to be focused on defining his mouth as a shoe, and inserting his foot whenever he's offered the chance. The closest analogy with Microsoft is of course, Pan Am. They were for all intents and purposes, fit and obnoxiously healthy in the early nineties, and then all of a sudden, they just weren't there any more.

Is Pan Am the _new_ Microsoft?

And this surprises you? Robert, I thought you might know a bit more history than that!

Back in the day, when IBM and Microsoft were duelling it out over OS/2 and MS Windows 3.x, I had OS/2 on my PC and approached Microsoft's local representatives about getting the Windows SDK - since OS/2 was the safest way to run MS Win3.x, for any sort of purpose.

They never got back to me.

Microsoft has an attitude problem - or should we say, an altitude problem - they think they're above everybody else, when half the time, the reason why they don't see anybody at their level, is because everybody's several thousand feet above them.

phill:j, you're not the only individual in the Western World, whatever that is, and however that is defined, who lacks an iPod.

Microsoft's problem is of course, its usual bull-at-a-gate charge at the (perceived) problem, shedding money like a snake its skin, and sense like a desperate maiden aunt at a too-readily available tradesman.

Perhaps if it took another look at the issue, and asked what other things a Zune could do, to integrate the Zune with the massive prior investment in computer software and hardware, its chances might look a little more hopeful.

What I'm thinking of, is this - how many of us have more than one computer? How many of us have sound cards, etc, for each computer? How many of us would rather have a single node for that function, networked to all the other computers and capable of connecting seamlessly to whatever operating system we are currently using?

And Microsoft hasn't seen that? I think that desperate maiden aunt comparison might be a trifle unfair to maiden aunts, who aren't usually that stupid - maybe a headless chicken is a better comparison.

Just my 0.02c - inflation again! ;)

Wesley Parish

Yep, if HP had shown a little bit more imagination, the computer world would today be a very different place.

Boring? Can't imagine why! ;)

Nah, I find blogging's just as slow and difficult a writing process as writing fiction, or any other non-fiction piece.

You need to gather your thoughts, then ensure you don't brainfart somewhere along the way, and then you've got the spelling cops to watch out for, and so on and so forth ...

The OS/2-WinNT connection is rather more tangled than the simplistic "OS/2 came before WinNT" - "But only by a year" ...

I heard the IBM people joking about WinNT being "Not There" at a time when Windows was strictly 3.1, and OS/2 was 2.0. OS/2 was partially sunk by IBM's rather bureaucratic ways of getting the message out, and of course by the "invincible IBM arrogance", which oversold itself. I watch Microsoft with Vista and am visited by deja vu - not a nice thing, no, not a nice thing at all.

One thing that Bill Gates did do, that probably helped sink OS/2, was to promise he'd release an OS/2 version of MS Office once the number of OS/2 users reached one million. I was still waiting when the number was well over that.

If he had bothered to follow up, he would have made more money than otherwise, MS Office would have had to satisfy a more rigorous environment than it seems the Win32 API offered, and we would not have had to tolerate such an interesting assortment of malware harrassment during the 90s.

Ron Garrett's on the money when he says: "Reality: No one gives a damn about your idea until you actually succeed and by then it's too late."

If you follow to my new blog, you'll find a dissection of one of Microsoft's latest-and-greatest legal stupidities. Hardware patents help give an investor confidence that their investment in hardware won't be wasted; software patents serve to inform potential friends and enemies that you've lost the plot. And your marbles.

@ paul — September 18, 2006:

"Robert, maybe we can take up a collection from all these new Web 2.0 millionaires and send you to the Moon."

No, No, and NO! He'll interview the first aliens he comes across and we'll be treated to a vlog or podcast of truly alien proportions! ;)

More facetiously: I don't have a blogging schedule set up, so I've left blogging alone for the time being. I've considered blogger and wordpress, and might reactivate my "anonymous" livejournal some time or other.

Besides, does anyone _really_ have an urgent need to read my every word? Some of my very best are already being published at antisf.com; and at a mere 500 or so words a story, it's a real bargain!

FWLIW, 9/11 2001 wasn't such a shock to me. This sort of thing happens to hundreds of people weekly, all around the world, and nobody thinks to remember them.

The day that I still have vivid memories of, was watching the fall of Saigon on TV, seeing people fighting to board the last remaining choppers lifting off from the US Embassy, the desperate people beseiging the Embassy compounds, the Marines with their service-issue assault rifles standing guard, the choppers landing on the US Navy carriers, then being lightened, smashed up then thrown off the flight deck to make room for yet more people ...

"Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman- a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going."

Thus Spake Zarathustra

@40, I'm worried that the rot has started already.

Groklaw - an independent FOSS-friendly law-focused blog - posted a couple of articles on this HP case yesterday. I go to Groklaw today and can't get to it.

Chilling effect?

FWIW, Steve did make conservation a topic of interest to thousands who would never have paid attention to it otherwise. He was larger than life to most of us - well, practically all of us - and made us sit up and pay attention.

He will be missed. People like him don't come with the morning paper.

Isn't the RC1 in MS Windows the first sign that the product is now in early Beta? And that it's no longer in Alpha?

Traditionally, isn't SP1 the first usable release of a software package for the PC? That was my experience with both MS Windows 3.x and IBM OS/2 2.x.

"It’s funny how those of us who point out the more than obvious shortcomings of various builds of Vista never seem to get any press. Nothing new mind you. This is a clique based business."

I would have thought it was equally a "cliche-based business", Iggy.

Microsoft and Innovation(TM). Microsoft and Grass Roots(TM) aka Pushing Up Daisies(TM).

It sounds like Vista is finally nearing its first Beta release - oops, that should be RC1. How many Alphas must a Microsoft product go through before it finally leaves RC-status and becomes Beta-quality? This is known - but not to mortal man ... far away, in another space and time, where the crawling chaos Azathoth ummm, crawls and dead Cthulhu dreams ... is whispered the answer to such questions ... but not to mortal man ...

I think it's partly due to such high-profile incidents as the Barkto Incident. 'softies went online very early on, and were supported in this by the company - http://lists.essential.org/1998/am-info/msg0152...

Google and Apple have traditionally - or so it seems to me - been content to let their users rave. IBM used to mumble - until they came up with a product a good many of their own employees loved - IBM OS/2 - and then they dropped the ball.

What's more interesting is the question of when did Microsoft's own products became so interesting to 'softies that they'd endure the scorn of the outside world - which knows MS software rather too well, in many cases - to boast about them? I don't recall any 'softie getting excited about MS DOS back in the early nineties; ditto about MS Word (DOS), or Multiplan.

Hysterics! Folks, just calm down!

Now, a little bit of history, since Brent is so hysterical - or should that be histerical?

Can anyone remember why the mullahs came to power in Iran? Does the name Mohammed Mossadeq ring any bells? The CIA were instrumental in his overthrow - he was the elected prime minister of Iran in the 1950s, and was responsible for attempting to nationalize oil production. Read about it on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Mossadegh

The disharmony between the US and Iran go back _a_ _lot_ further than 30 years - for that matter, disharmony between Iran and its customers goes back to the very beginning of the widespread use of oil for power.

Oops - "To suggest that Microsoft can do the same with its Windows Vista is to suggest that Microsoft is incompetent."

should read "To suggest that Microsoft can't do the same with its Windows Vista is to suggest that Microsoft is incompetent."

My bad.

One thing I fail to understand about this whole MS Windows Vista/LongHorn saga, and of course the whole MS Windows Legacy albatross-around-the-neck-thereof, is why Microsoft, being world-famous in Redmond for "innovation" (RT[F]M), hasn't done anything with virtual machines and emulation to solve its "can only run as administrator" albatross.

(Of course, that leads on to the deep and meaningful question of why Microsoft's application certification is so stuffed-up that as long as a program runs on MS Windows, it gets the certification, even if it poses a major security risk? But let's leave that to another day, shall we?)

In Linux I can run anything that demands super-administrator rights in a UML - User-Mode Linux. To suggest that Microsoft can do the same with its Windows Vista is to suggest that Microsoft is incompetent.

That could well be the truth. Who knows?

Nah. Couldn't be. Mini wears a paper bag over his head. Scoble doesn't. And you never noticed a little thing like that? ;)

Well, Vic, by far the worst thing is the tendency of some people, in particular the news media, to define "terrorism" by ethnicity and religion.

Not "certain members of such and such a religious or ethnic group have done this", but "[ethnic group] terrorism" or "[religious group] terrorism". I read up a little on Jewish history when I was younger, and that sounds so very, very familiar. (For what it's worth, I've also read up on Charlemagne's invasion of the Saxon confederation, and the modus operandi's exactly the same! Hang a dog as call him by a bad name.)

I much prefer to have people define terrorism by its actions:
"..activities that involve violent... ... that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and... appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and ......"

Taken, via wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_terr...
from "Chapter 113B of Part I of Title 18 of the United States Code".

Of course, the United States isn't at all serious about that particular definition, because that would define US military conduct in Iraq (Abu Ghraib) as terrorism; of course, Israel's habit of kidnapping Palestinians and imprisoning them without trial and torturing them, would also fall under that definition. You can't get more intimidating to a civilian population than to disappear them. Just ask your Argentinian and Chilean friends.

Which of course means that the US Feds are in serious violation of the law of the land of the United States of America. But that's not a big problem, as they'll find room for you in Gitmo, courtesy of the long-suffering US taxpayer, for having the temerity to criticise!

I read a recent edition, 12/6/2006, of New Scientist, the UK-based science mag. Regarding nuclear power and pollution, it had a very interesting article on the invisible part of the problem - the people living where the uranium mine tailings get stored.

And an interesting article on 'Captain William's great obsession' by Geoff Watts:
http://www.pol.ac.uk/home/documents/pol_new_sci...

Which has the interesting words:
"This long stretch of data provides clear evidence that sea level has been rising since the 18th century and that it began to accelerate during the second half of the 19th century - which is what you would expect if today's climate change is related to our output of greenhouse gases."

Food for thought. People aren't hungry?

Just to throw in a different POV, in New Zealand we recently had a week of bad weather. In the North Island that caused damage to the main line in to the major city, Auckland. And they lost power.

The Institute of Professional Engineers of New Zealand took the occasion to inform everybody that that was proof that New Zealand should be looking into Nuclear Power. You know, in case the only power line to the major city is damaged, we need Nuclear Power stations. (1)/(0) = ?

Accordingly I'm a little unsure about how seriously to take your comments, Robert. Are you asking the right questions?

I'm amused at the claim that Microsoft was "innovating" this WinFS. IBM's VM/ESA's had a database layer on top of a file system for ages now, aka the Shared File System. I've been wondering when they'll incorporate a decent logical database layer as well.

As far as web-based versus filesystem based applications go, most web-based applications turn out to be database-based, using the memo type or its equivalent; so WinFS is merely making that the standard practice for desktop application as well, blurring the lines between web-based and desktop applications.

I think Microsoft blew it. Microsoft doesn't need to show and tell anyone where this failure's lessons will be applied - anyone with any nous knows that already. You can tell, can't you?

As far as "innovation" goes, database layers on top of file systems is old hat.

Well, for what little it's worth, do you mind me not applying, Robert?

My problem isn't the "common name" syndrome already discussed above, it's the "uncommon name" syndrome. The last time I ego-surfed was 2000, and I was promptly floored by discovering "The Wesley Parish", an online Methodist magazine. For some strange reason, I find that extremely funny - it seems I've got a built-in pseudonym. But you don't find that with "Robert Scoble".

Seriously, what use would it be to scout for everybody on the Net, unless you already knew they had built up a presence, a discernable identity on it? If you look for me on the Net, I'm sure you'll find some very interesting things - like a prediction that Linux would subsume the Unix world; also some short short snippets of SF - circa 500 words or so. Go on, do it if you want to - you're hereby granted permission to publish any such short short story of mine that takes your fancy, on your blog, and discuss it - provided the usual courtesies of attribution, etc, are followed.

But it still doesn't mean a lot when it comes to recruitment.