I'm here to let you all know the truth... Bill Gates' hero is Conan... thus the way he ran his business was by the three rules
to crush your enemies
to see them driven before you
to hear the lamentations of their women

Are you against any and all anti-dumping laws?

I don't really, if that makes you feel better. Not that that has anything to do with any MS "hate". MS has been pretty successful at killing off PC gaming with the 360. In fact I was once quite the MS "fanboy" believe it or not. Apple was for the artsy kids, MS was for the serious people, and Unix was for people stuck to the past and ivory tower academics.

PS. I lied I do have a vista liscence that was forced upon me when I bought this laptop, but I don't really use it. It's a pain to reboot everytime I do any kind of financial transaction over the web.

There is nothing wrong with the OP. MS fanboys get their hackles up the minute anything negative is said about MS. Blind love.

MS deserves to be where there are. There won't be there forever as all Empires eventually fall and sooner than most think. MS could be on skidrow faster than you may believe.

In the meantime they carry on as any company in that position would. Power corrupts.

As for charities I believe they can do more. A man with $1,000 to his name that gives $500 to charity is in my books a bigger man than one who gives $2billion out of $20billion.

European institutions were the only ones opposing Microsofts' policies.
The US would have been more than happy keeping an OS monopoly to themselves.


Now consider other indusries : oil, water, steel, cotton, etc.

It's even worse.


Whoever thinks MS is ethical is a morron.
Whoever thinks MS is worse than others is also a morron.

Idealists and cynics are just two sides of the same stupid face.

I really don't mind MS being attacked, but it's clear the ones doing the attack have an agenda when they only point out one thing. I rarely see Nintendo being attacked for their own anti-competitive behaviors in the past. And that's not even mentioning accusations against Sony of "labor and human rights violations" at their plants in developing nations. I mean, seriously, does anti-competitive behavior really warrant more scorn than fucking violations of human rights?

You do realise that bill gates does more for charity that all those rich middle eastern sheikhs, presidents, governments and organisations right? Being worth 50 billion doesnt mean u have 50 billion cash in hand a lot of that money is stocks in hand/assets etc.. not LIQUIDITY.

I really cant question his philantrophic side, no matter how much i despise his business arrogance. How much does steve jobs give to charity every year?

@dhummel

Really? All your philosphical name dropping and econ-technic language and you reveal yourself to be an Apple fanboy? Dissapointing.

This "namedropping" and "econ-technic language" stuff seems to have this subtle accusation of a tendency towards affectation on my part.

The "econ-technic language" may have come from that one time I got that degree in economics. I was walking around town one day, minding my own business, when this cult of ex-Milton Friedman (namedrop?) grad students shanghaied me. I was kept against my will and force fed a low-protein diet while they indoctrinated me with the quantity theory of money (econ-technic?). I have yet to fully recover and may never truly heal.

As for the dropping of names, I fear I am in desperate need of a reeducation in the art of name usage as I am having a hard time differentiating between the heinous and unjustifiable act of "namedropping" from the unfortunate necessity of occasionally using a proper noun -- or even, horror or horrors, two-- in a sentence for the greater good.

Ok, Rousseu and Hobbes are certainly names of philosophers I'll give you that, but not exactly obscure. Furthermore, I cannot think of anyone more associated with the articulation of the beliefs -- as well as the usual accompanied caricatures of beliefs -- many seem to be heavily influenced by and it was my opinion that this was unhealthily so. Hence, the aforementioned invocations don't seem to be entirely superfluous. So what's the litmus test? Is there any situation in which use of names in a message board post is acceptable?

I always hope for intelligent opposition. Oh well, I guess I'll keep looking around.

Best of luck with that.

I would love for you to specifically define what a "scam" is in your previous post.

Yes, legend said something similar, but much more colorfully. I had hoped people would be able to put this together themselves -- by reading or meditation or what-have-you -- but I guess it was not to be.

One party financially benefited from an intentional deception of two other parties to both their financial detriment in a legally dubious dealing that was eventually settled out of court for $1M. In my opinion this gets file under the "scam" header. Perhaps, since it was settled out of court you feel I should use alleged scam instead?

You may of course -- and rightly so -- protest that there is not a single definition in the previous paragraph much less a specific, rigorous, logically consistent definition. Quite frankly, I'm lazy and not particularly interested in that specific glass bead game (pretentious reference of a critique of the pretentious?). It seems clear enough to me and if I feel like writing a rigorous definition I am going to work on my thesis. In short, I leave this as an exercise to the reader.

You inject so much morality and prejudice into your posts

So this means either I'm not a bot or that I pass the Turing test (psuedo-CS-technic language). Or is there something exceptionally imbued with morality and prejudice that I've said recently?

it's hard to tell what you mean pejoratively and what you are actually saying.

Sorry?

Why would people attack Sony and Nintendo in a thread about Microsoft's uncompetitive behaviour? For the record, all mega-corps like MS, Sony, Nintendo, Apple, etc etc have indulged in some reprehensible behaviour, but to say someone has an agenda for pointing out MS's failings is a bit daft.

Governments account for the vast majority financially of the things people would probably classify as charity. Those sheikhs provide the funding to build a lot of mosques and the citizens of many of those countries (not to be confused with the people who work there) are provided with nice fat stipends just for being born (and if it makes them less critical of the regimes so be it).

Much like the guilded age robber barons, Gate's and Buffet's charities are politically necessary. Their public images affect their financial risk, influence, and power significantly. As astute political players, both with carefully crafted images, I'm sure they are not oblivious of this fact.