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Is there anyone on the Verge that isn’t a hippy, that thinks all businesses should be limited in size to 50 people? 9-0 doesn’t happen unless it’s clear cut. It never should’ve gotten to this level. A contract violation is a contract violation.

8 days ago on Supreme Court rules in favor of Monsanto, says farmer violated seed patents 1 reply 2 recommends

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Just as soon as Al Jazeera starts listing the heights of all the tall buildings in the Middle East in feet.

11 days ago on Is One World Trade Center really the tallest building in the West?

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Because the 1368 is even more symbolic than the 1776. The 1368 is a “FU, you can’t get us down” statement and tribute to the original. Being tallest isn’t even as big a deal.

11 days ago on Is One World Trade Center really the tallest building in the West? 1 reply 1 recommend

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In general, in the long run with consoles, it doesn’t matter that much how much of a loss they take on the console, I’ve bought maybe 20-30 games for the 360, plus 7 years of XBox Live. MSFT could’ve taken a $300 loss on the console and still made money on me, easily.

But what I’m pointing out is that the article takes what the Sony CFO said and twisted it to mean something completely differrent. The CFO was comparing development costs, which have nothing to do with using the console as a loss leader.

12 days ago on Unlike the PS3, Sony isn't expecting to lose money on the PlayStation 4 1 reply

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Thank god it has an equally seemless way to hook in to the TV and play from the couch with only a simple controller as an interface, and fits into my living room so well.

Compute/graphics power is not the end-all/be-all of gaming. Consoles have their place due to accessibility and developer stability.

12 days ago on Unlike the PS3, Sony isn't expecting to lose money on the PlayStation 4 1 reply

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“Unlike PS3, we are not planning a major loss to be incurred with the launch of PS4” != Not expecting to lose money. They’re just planning a minor loss, maybe.

12 days ago on Unlike the PS3, Sony isn't expecting to lose money on the PlayStation 4 1 reply 1 recommend

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Actually, people on the internet should, in general, STFU.

Not because they aren’t completely knowledgeable about a subject, but because they typically don’t have a minimum amount of knowledge. Like the people that apparently think that 3D printing is a new technology and $150 HP 3D inkjet printers are just around the corner. (It’s been around for 27 years and they’re still several thousand dollars for actually competent machines.) Or that background checks and assault weapon bans would’ve prevented Sandy Hook. (The mother still would’ve passed background checks and pistols are more effective indoors than assault weapons.)

12 days ago on Lawmakers rush to ban 3D-printed guns, but enforcement options are murky 2 recommends

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It’s pretty much brand new, first saw it on TV yesterday. Might just be a matter of time.

12 days ago on Microsoft's crazy Windows 8 video campaign swaps watermelons for features

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There are other ads for that. These are for awareness.

12 days ago on Microsoft's crazy Windows 8 video campaign swaps watermelons for features 2 recommends

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You mean like this?

Super informative iPod ad

12 days ago on Microsoft's crazy Windows 8 video campaign swaps watermelons for features 2 recommends

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Thank you. The biggest problem, for example, WP8 has is that people don’t know that it exists. That’s what the wedding video is going after. And then once people are aware, then you start giving them information. A lot of MSFT’s issues is that they’ve tried to sell on merit alone. Apple long ago showed that it’s better to advertise with style over substance, MSFT is finally getting it.

12 days ago on Microsoft's crazy Windows 8 video campaign swaps watermelons for features 4 recommends

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Neither were ahead of their time in concept, both were ahead of time in what the hardware could offer. Difference is tablets were by 10 years while the iPhone was by one.

This is how Apple operates. A consumer smartphone was an obvious idea, and it’s not like having a grid of icons is groundbreaking. But you need to have the hardware to get a camera phone, iPod, email and web clients, touch screen, and somewhat reasonable app performance. 2.5G isn’t fast enough for a smartphone. 412MHz isn’t fast enough. 128MB isn’t fast enough. Only being able to do what the phone comes with (basically talk, text, email, camera, media, web,) isn’t enough. But a year later, the hardware had advanced enough to enable a true consumer smartphone. By that time Apple had established itself as THE consumer smartphone, and the 3G was an actual success rather than just a marketing effort for its replacement. They did the same thing with the iPad, iPod, and Airbook. Jump the gun on when hardware makes it practical by about a year, establish your name, and then sell.

MSFT just shot themselves in the foot with their first tablets, which were so far ahead of the hardware to make them useful that they just flopped and became a mockery.

14 days ago on Windows 8 passes 100 million license sales, Microsoft reflects on the six month stage 1 recommend

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Same with Win7. Moreso with Win7, actually because the compatibility issues between XP and 7 were much more significant and delayed corporate adoption much longer (like until the beginning of the refresh cycle that ended in XP EOL.)

14 days ago on Windows 8 passes 100 million license sales, Microsoft reflects on the six month stage

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…and they did the same for 7. It washes.

Enterprises don’t adopt within the first year. Even if they start the process on day one, they’ll give it a year test window. Especially with the switch to 7 because there were so many changes over XP. Win8 will probably see faster corporate uptake because there will be less compatibility issues than there were with 7, and it will have added benefits of a common environment with tablet and mobile for those switching to WP8.

14 days ago on Windows 8 passes 100 million license sales, Microsoft reflects on the six month stage 1 reply

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How many people upgraded from WinXP to Vista or XP to 7 or even the much derided Vista to 7? The model for Windows is people keep the installed version. New sales are driven by new devices.

14 days ago on Windows 8 passes 100 million license sales, Microsoft reflects on the six month stage

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My corporation is still on Cisco Anyconnect 3.09.xxxxx. The head unit for 3.09.xxxx hadn’t been programmed to recognize Win8, because it didn’t exist, so when a remote user tries to connect with a Win8 machine it hangs. There’s a registry hack to remove the Win8 identifier to get around it, but if it doesn’t work I’m SOL in terms of working remotely from my laptop. This is why my copy of Win8 sits uninstalled on my laptop.

14 days ago on Windows 8 passes 100 million license sales, Microsoft reflects on the six month stage 1 recommend

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Linux is a very good OS with some strong usability upsides (RPM) and largely saddled with a poor ecosystem. It still has a Win2000-level UI, though, which is more than enough for its user base. It also doesn’t have the benefit of a massive corporation maintaining and improving it; at some point, you need the heads programming stuff, which for all the benefits of open source people might bring up, Linux can’t match.

It would be interesting to have twins and give one a Linux box and another a Windows machine and see what the learning curves were like. I suspect Windows would win out, but I wouldn’t feel like giving someone a Linux machine would be an automatic excercise in frustration anymore.

14 days ago on Windows 8 passes 100 million license sales, Microsoft reflects on the six month stage

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XP is dead in the corporate world at the end of the year. No big corporation will keep their IT hitched to an OS that’s unsupported. It’s why we went to Win7 just in time for the three year refresh cycle to get rid of all our XP machines.

And yes, my 220,000 person corporation is looking to start adoption this year, along with switching from BB to WP8. It’s being driven by mobile and tablets, but they want the same OS on desktops as tablets and the common architecture for mobile.

I am kinda hoping, though, that the first person to get Win8 will be the guy that sits next to me. Mid-60s and more resistant to change than anyone I know, and engineers are particularly resistant to change in general. Insists on keeping paper copies of emails because they switched email systems in the early 90s and lost his emails then, and is worried that they’ll do it again at some point and his Outlook/Word/Excel files will become useless. It’ll be entertaining. Although he might actually quit over it.

14 days ago on Windows 8 passes 100 million license sales, Microsoft reflects on the six month stage 3 replies 7 recommends

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Let’s reframe your argument.

SOPA was basically RIAA and MPAA vs. Google. SOPA was bad for Google. Google is bigger than RIAA and MPAA combined. Overall, the “against SOPA, for open internet, etc.” that you list is very much in Google’s business interests. They profit in the name of freedom.

They don’t fight for good. They lobby for profit, just like every other major corporation.

26 days ago on Google offers to advertise rival services to allay EU antitrust concerns 2 replies 2 recommends

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That’s because they consider the transaction to take place within the jurisdiction of the state it gets registered/titled in. Which is B.S., but the Supreme Court has long allowed the Commerce Clause to be trampled. I’d prefer that Congress not basically pass a single law that abdicates actual responsibility of interstate trade while they continue to use it to ban activities like growing marijuana for personal use.

29 days ago on Senate prepares to vote on nationwide online sales tax rules

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I didn’t say they didn’t have the right to do it at the federal level. I question the rationale behind overturning 224 years without tax on interstate sales, but mostly I’m pointing out that the issue isn’t internet driven.

29 days ago on Senate prepares to vote on nationwide online sales tax rules 1 reply

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THANK YOU. At least one other person in here gets that it isn’t an internet law, it’s a trade law.

29 days ago on Senate prepares to vote on nationwide online sales tax rules

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It’s not about the internet. Why should states have the right to tax interstate trade?

29 days ago on Senate prepares to vote on nationwide online sales tax rules 1 reply

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Not arbitrary when this is a Constitution-driven issue.

29 days ago on Senate prepares to vote on nationwide online sales tax rules 1 recommend

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Interstate mail order has never been taxed, because it’s interstate trade. Online should be no different.

29 days ago on Senate prepares to vote on nationwide online sales tax rules

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No, mail order was the same. You didn’t pay sales tax across states. It’s the Commerce Clause.

29 days ago on Senate prepares to vote on nationwide online sales tax rules 1 reply

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Online within a state, fine. In a store within a state, fine. Online crossing state boundaries, no. Over the phone with a store in a different state, no.

That’s the actual issue. It’s interstate trade, which the states don’t have any existing right to tax.

29 days ago on Senate prepares to vote on nationwide online sales tax rules 1 reply 2 recommends

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Not about online vs. offline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause

29 days ago on Senate prepares to vote on nationwide online sales tax rules 2 recommends