People who complain or say "how hard can it be?" without having first-hand knowledge of a problem or area of work frequently fail spectacularly when put in a place of responsibility.
That makes sense. If you have working USB-A, then any USB ethernet adapter supported by FreeBSD should work right?
That’s actually a pretty big escape hatch for early development. It explains how you’d be able to get past having a nonfunctional keyboard pretty easily, for example.
If you're interested in how different creatures perceive the world, the book "An Immense World" by Ed Yong covers a very wide range of sensory experiences including echolocation.
Interestingly, Line originally was developed by Naver which is a South Korean company, although it's gone through several changes of corporate control since.
It's jointly owned by Naver and Softbank. A few months ago, there was a public outcry in Korea when the Japanese government threatened to twist Naver's arm to give up its share of Line, and South Korea's inexplicably pro-Japanese government stayed mum. With both governments enjoying abysmal public support, I have no idea how it will eventually be settled.
Why wouldn't Koreans care? We're talking about 50% ownership of a messaging platform that's de facto standard in multiple Asian countries. Imagine the UK government trying to force Google to sell DeepMind.
To add to this, if you're trying to learn a language, not being able to watch video in the original audio language AND with subtitles in that language is also problematic, as people don't have perfect pronunciation.
Heck, Americans watching British or other historically commonwealth shows turn on the subtitles half the time just to deal with the unfamiliar-to-them accents.
Frequently subtitles are available for every language except the original on many services... which seems insane.
>Frequently subtitles are available for every language except the original on many services... which seems insane.
I didn't even bother bringing up accessibility, since it's so laughably broken (if not outright ignored) with all current streaming services. It is, at best, an afterthought.
None get even close to matching the functionality of a plain old DVD.
Or, since we are in 2024 - an MKV file with multiple audio and subtitle tracks, which the pirates care about providing, and the streaming services do not.
_______
PS: if you're trying to learn a language, US companies often refer to subtitles in the language of the audio track as "closed captions" rather then "subtitles"[1], with the target audience being hearing impaired people.
Look for the "CC" button, or "accessibility" options, and you may find what you look for.
YouTube provides automatically generated subtitles for many videos (of varying quality) with the [CC] button in the video controls.
MS's main lock in is the MS Office file formats (the entire "open" standards process around this was co-opted and destroyed), and then the predatory bundling/extension (browsers, email, Teams) to knock out competitors.
Windows isn't the crown jewel - the real value is doc/xls/ppt that wrap people's data and bundling of everything into a MS license that marginalizes 3rd party entrants like Slack.
Microsoft has always been about selling software, nothing else.
Windows exists because they need to control a platform that is competitive enough to run their software and that cannot dictate their trajectory too much.
They are very happy to sell their software and most platforms and since they don't make much money selling hardware, they will even sell you ways to run Windows anywhere for software that requires it.
Microsoft has won because they were more competitive in bringing a desirable solution at a particular price, in other words they bring good value and even though some seem too ideologically tainted to understand it the whole world recognized it as such.
The open standard Office formats work fine and Microsoft supports them just fine. The real reason they still win is because their software is generally just better to use.
Many have used the competing open-source solution and end up paying for the Microsoft stuff because it is just a much worse experience that is not worth wasting your time for the very competitive pricing Microsoft offer.
They win because they provide more value than free stuff at the price they offer, it is just as simple as that.
You can see the bundling as predatory or you can see it as a competitive answer.
Microsoft has seen that there was a market for some types of software, duplicated a competitive enough solution and sell it cheaper in order to bring more value, that's pretty much it.
Even if they are legally prevented from bundling, I very much doubt it would change anything because they would just price the standalone solution in a competitive enough manner and would still win.
They largely do that by the way, you can get plenty of their stuff in a standalone way. Even in the age of cloud/SASS subscription, Microsoft still sells standalone Office suite that you can very well use for years on end with zero need to upgrade (exactly what I do for my grandma, because she likes Publisher).
And if the bundling legal precedent is set, their competitors like Apple and Google are in way more trouble because they abuse the bundling way more.
It's hilarious the irrational hate Microsoft gets when they are objectively not that bad. Sure, they have some terrible behavior like any big corp, but by those standards, Apple is so much worse it is really stunning to see the difference in treatment.
> It's hilarious the irrational hate Microsoft gets when they are objectively not that bad.
There's no hate going on, irrational or otherwise. They have been really bad, and Teams vs Slack is a good example of how they are still bad in some instances. Not illegal bad, although maybe that, but just bad for competition, kept in place not by evergreen product quality (unlike Apple) but by 100 million IT departments all with mouse-only skills who couldn't choose anything but Microsoft without putting themselves out of a job.
Japan also has very flexible zoning for residential and commercial uses, so nearly anyone can host a vending machine as a commercial enterprise, which would generally not be allowed in most other places with different laws.
Also, some of them are insanely thin, like 25cm depth for a cold drink machine, so they can fit nearly anywhere with a power outlet.
The vast majority of vending machines in Japan are allmost as deep as American counterparts. And even if not, maybe we could just have more thin vending machines here.
Also the zoning issue is just a very clear policy failure. I don't think even the most hardcore NIMBY suburbanites would complain about being able to get meat and dairy steps from their front door in an automated low traffic fashion.
Hardware seems to be one of those areas where there's both a race to the bottom for cost reasons on any mass-market parts used in a device (unless you entirely avoid outsourcing), and even then sometimes it just doesn't work out.
reply