Re: "stable" platforms -- MIDRANGE-L



Jromeh wrote:

> Chris wrote...
>
> >After months of uninterrupted stability, an operator screwed up by
> >changing the settings. He turned the power switch to ON. Big mistake, but
> >I corrected the setting and the machine was again no trouble.
>
> This is funny! Sort of like the old joke about fixing a Ford with a can
> of gasoline.
>

I got a chuckle out of it also.  I'm going to pass it on to all of my M$ bigot
associates.

When I went to OS/2 the only thing they could could up with was "Oh yea, and 
what
apps are you going to run?"  I did admit the choices were slim, but how many 
word
processors does a person have to have?  And I got HTML extensions loooong before
Word or Word Perfect (my personal choice) had them.

To me it was like any other commodity item, pick a typewriter and learn how to
use it.  I guess I'm an IBM bigot because I still have my 1974 Selectric and it
still works just fine.  And it cost some real big bucks back then.  But talk
about getting your money's worth!

Now that I'm learning Linux for TCP/IP to set up communications
server/firewall/print serving, they bought me a pocket protector, tape for my
glasses and a mismatched pair of socks.  But my gum, I'll bet I can get a $49 OS
distribution to beat the socks off of a $250 package!  Multiply that by the
number of seats and we're talking about financing a really good company picnic!

O.K., time to switch subject matter:  what would that one be? SUBJECT(*SWITCH) ?

The other day I was... well what I was doing isn't important ... but I was
reviewing the questions I've been asked about why the Feds are all over Mr.
HappyFace (the same people that think that the leader of the free world dorking
someone young enough to be his daughter doesn't indicate that Jed and his clan
have moved to Beverly Hills..but I digress..)  and I went to the "other" zone 
and
imagined myself in front of the committee and started to tell this story:

Mr. Chairperson, let's use a change of industry to parallel the actions and test
if they are acceptable.  Let's say that we are talking about an industry that
manufactures radios for automobiles.  (I would have said cars but that doesn't
take up enough space on a page and I secretly suspect that governmental reports
are weighed instead of read so if you use longer words you use more paper,
etc...)

Now let's say that the consumer, at time of ordering a motor vehicle (I would
have said car, but .. you get the picture ...) could request any number of 
radios
as a standard item at no additional charge.  The consumer could choose from,
let's say Redmond Radio, Dr. Dynamo or maybe I Be Music.  Whichever radio was 
the
consumers choice the auto manufacturer would provide. It cost the manufacturer
pennies difference in cost for any radio choice the consumer made so there was 
NO
difference in the cost for a delivered vehicle.

Now one day Redmond Radio walks into a fossil fuel burning internal combustion
engine driven coach manufacturer and lays down a proposal: "Look, you're paying
$89 for each radio you put into your fossil fuel burning internal combustion
engine driven coach, so I've got a deal for you.  We'll only charge you $63 per
radio, on one little (really kind of minor, minuscule) condition.  You pay us
that $63 dollars for every fossil fuel..yadda, yadda..coach, and call it
"standard" equipment.  You get to charge the same for the vehicle, make the 
other
choices "additional charge options", and you increase YOUR bottom line! If they
choose a radio other than ours you can throw our radio in the trunk. Hey, they
payed for it!. How's that sound to you? We make a decent radio. We're like the
mounted police. We don't have no knobs. We don't need no knobs. We don't have to
show you no stinking knobs!  Oh, by the way, you have to sign this little piece
of paper that says you won't tell the Feds about hte details of this deal. 
O.K.?"

"Oh, did I mention the wheels? The wheels come with the radio.  Now the consumer
can put anyone's wheels on the fossil fuel burning....., but they have to have
our lug nuts.  Now the lug nuts aren't a part of the radio, but you have to keep
our wheels in the car, taking up space, or the replacement wheels won't work.  
As
a matter of fact, the radio breaks down and stalls the whole car if our lug nuts
aren't on the car and when you try to remove our wheels the lug nuts disappear."

In make it simple for you Mr. Chairperson, the radio is the OS and the wheels 
are
the web browser and the lug nuts are the .DLL's that COULD be packaged with the
OS, but Redmond Radio decided to use coercion to have their web browser on the
equipment.  Yes I know that Redmond Radio argues that these DLL's are important
to the OS (radio) and that it won't work without them,  but by some slick
packaging slight of hand they can require a nonessential web browser (wheel) to
stop your car from stalling as you head down that information super highway.  
And
by the way, why is it that I can buy a music CD for under $20 and everyone from
the songwriter on up turns a profit, yet I can acquire IIS for free on the
Internet (all 72Mb @ 28.8....you do the math) or pay $60 to buy it on a CD from 
a
store?  Where's the $40 difference going?  What's the "added" value?

Well that was just a daydream testimony.  Do you think that the people on the
"hill" would actually get the point?

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