At least he is getting attention. It is far worse to be ignored than to be feared or hated. I don't even encounter microsoft in my daily life any more -- I'm sure it's in that ATM or airport kiosk, but I don't notice it. Other than that, it's rare to even see a 'winders' machine at a coffee shop or around town. Even my kid's school is all mac & iPad.

They're still minting money. But think about it: they are still minting money even though everything they've tried to do post W&O has failed[*]. Their cash cow is on autopilot -- not only within the company but outside too. Which means it has no mindshare, any more than the company that makes the concrete in my house foundation has mindshare. That's a pretty sucky place to be.

[*] when I mean failed I mean accumulated profits/losses are in negative territory for all other meaningful segments (bing, xbox, azure, surface). Keyboards and mice are profitable but don't move the needle on a company the size of MS.

I used to think so too, then they reduced the highlighting of the ads that surround the search results (so that people are more likely to click on them), then started pushing people to G+...

I do think they still try not to be evil, but as Upton Sinclair pointed out, when your salary depends on something you tend to start to decide it's OK .

You can easily implement this kind of thing if by running your own server. Google is quite unlikely to implement complicated features that few people would actually use.

OK, admittedly they implemented Google+ which is complicated and which O(0) people actually use, but I claim that’s the exception not the rule.

Or what about when Google steps the “unsubscribe” feature to 2.0, in which the marketer can bid on being able to send 1, 2, 3, n more messages before the “unsubscribe” takes effect?

Or v3.0 in which the sender can pay to have unsubscribe NOT appear or to have their mail “opt out” of any spam filtering?

You know it’s coming...

Apparently he is still the president of norks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

Once again the government acts like they're supposed to copy Terry Gilliam.

In this age of rent-seeking monopolies and cartels at least we can be sure that there is healthy competition for the title of "Worst Company in America".

That doesn’t sound very practical. Sure, it can help with your hydration issues, but how did you fit it in your wallet?

640K ought to be enough for anybody

This summary is needlessly breathless. For all we know, Google plans to use this chipset in the next rev glasses.

Usually I like to learn things, but this...... (shakes head).

I hope someone mods your post up.

IBM used to do this: you could pay different prices for different clock speeds; if you paid for an upgrade the technician would arrive and remove the "slow down" jumper.

Oddly enough people felt ripped off by this. Who'da thunk it?

Actually the end of the war was a slow and messy affair (the break in Japan was cleaner) and various successor movements do break out around Europe from time to time (look at the current government in Hungary for example, as well as some parties in the balkans, perhaps including, to reconnect to TFA, Breaking Dawn). Postwar by Tony Judt is a good summary.

In the US those other laws you talk about were passed and implemented, but reconstruction was rolled back after a change in government. It's a nice A/B experiment, actually.

Basically I agree strongly with what you wrote in both philosophy and practice. But I cut Germany some slack here, using the US as the example.

Nazism was a “philosphy” that was harnessed to the state within living memory. As a result there are plenty of remaining artifacts around from old driving licenses or professional certificates (e.g. Opticians) or marriage licenses that are still valid documents (old German driving licenses had no expiration dates) which bear swastikas and other nazi references. There are still old granddads who had fun shooting guns in the war. I know one friend’s dad, drafted at 17 in 1944, who's main memories are crazy russians running through hi farm trying to defect to the west. Plus learning to shoot. But every once in a while he uses an old aphorism from his childhood that's not only disturbing, but doesn't even agree with how he lived his life. I am sure there are living grandparents with stories they learned in school in the 30s and who were happy with those times. So since the wound is still fresh, this is a part of trying to heal it.

Compare that to the US. The civil war ended in 1865 but old southern racists survived well into the 1920s (even reaching the presidency, with Wilson) and the Jim Crow legacy continued into the 1960s and beyond. The reconstruction program which was killed early in the US was the equivalent of the reconstruction of Germany, which, in these laws, continues to this day.

I agree with Brandeis that "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants" so feel free speech should be extremely free. But the German's position shouldn't be rejected out of hand.

Oh they care about the people, don't worry about that! They care like the bull cares about the cow.