3 ms·

Let me guess: somebody near the top of Microsoft said, "Apple's kicking our butt. Time to copy^H^H^H^Her, I mean, try to catch up again." And somebody else said

Let me guess: somebody near the top of Microsoft said, "Apple's kicking our butt. Time to copy^H^H^H^Her, I mean, try to catch up again." And somebody else said, "Yes, boss." And the result: Windows 7. I haven't used it as much as I have Vista and XP, but from the amount I have it feels like that's what the case is again.

mkramlich 17y ago
Posting to HN is like playing roulette. Post a comment in one thread that you think is true and funny, bingo, gain 26 karma. Do it again in another thread, bang, lose 4. I never know ahead of time which case it will be. The net trend is positive, at least. On-topic: just went to Microsoft's site and read their Top 10 Reasons why Windows 7 is so cool, and, as I suspected previously, 90% of the gee-whiz features touted were already in Mac OS X. One could argue that Apple is historically treated by Microsoft as a sort of external, unwitting R&D arm. Except it's better than their internal R&D in one crucial area: Microsoft doesn't have to pay for it!
- j23tom 17y ago
  The problem is if r&d grows above 10% on desktop os market. They should punch apple now.
- jacobolus 17y ago
  > Posting to HN is like playing roulette. A hint: your comment that got dumped on here (1) has little/no useful content, (1a) is only barely related to the article, (2) is a tired cliché, (3) is snarky to the point of being mean spirited. I hope that even if you get a “positive net trend” with similar comments, it doesn’t encourage you. If you’re going to angle for “funny”, the joke has to be some combination of surprising, new, or especially relevant. Because most throw-away joke lines fail these criteria, they tend to get voted down: they’re mostly an uninteresting distraction from whatever other conversation is going on. Also, your second comment is just a repeat of the lame joke of the first comment.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    And, BTW, the maximize-when-dragged-to-top and normalize-when-dragged-out-of-top was lifted straight from Unixes (Gnome, I think, but it could have been done earlier somewhere else), not from OSX. OSX is an amazingly well-designed OS and has been a pleasure to use since the time it ran only on NeXT's black cubes, but it's not the source of all of Microsoft's ideas. To be fair, they come up with some good ones from time to time too.
    - mdg 17y ago
      > To be fair, they come up with some good ones from time to time too. Bing is a good example. I cant stress enough how much I enjoy using that site, whether its the infinite scrolling image search, mouse over video preview, or even just the new picture everyday.
  - gjm11 17y ago
    Useful heuristic: Can you imagine a reasonably intelligent and informed reader reading what you wrote and saying "Hmm, I never thought of that before?". If not, you're probably not adding much by posting it.
    - mkramlich 17y ago
      Thanks for advice! Unfortunately I think if I applied that standard to the main articles on Hacker News, for example, then most would fail. :)
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

mkramlich 17y ago

Posting to HN is like playing roulette. Post a comment in one thread that you think is true and funny, bingo, gain 26 karma. Do it again in another thread, bang, lose 4. I never know ahead of time which case it will be. The net trend is positive, at least. On-topic: just went to Microsoft's site and read their Top 10 Reasons why Windows 7 is so cool, and, as I suspected previously, 90% of the gee-whiz features touted were already in Mac OS X. One could argue that Apple is historically treated by Microsoft as a sort of external, unwitting R&D arm. Except it's better than their internal R&D in one crucial area: Microsoft doesn't have to pay for it!

j23tom 17y ago
The problem is if r&d grows above 10% on desktop os market. They should punch apple now.
jacobolus 17y ago
> Posting to HN is like playing roulette. A hint: your comment that got dumped on here (1) has little/no useful content, (1a) is only barely related to the article, (2) is a tired cliché, (3) is snarky to the point of being mean spirited. I hope that even if you get a “positive net trend” with similar comments, it doesn’t encourage you. If you’re going to angle for “funny”, the joke has to be some combination of surprising, new, or especially relevant. Because most throw-away joke lines fail these criteria, they tend to get voted down: they’re mostly an uninteresting distraction from whatever other conversation is going on. Also, your second comment is just a repeat of the lame joke of the first comment.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  And, BTW, the maximize-when-dragged-to-top and normalize-when-dragged-out-of-top was lifted straight from Unixes (Gnome, I think, but it could have been done earlier somewhere else), not from OSX. OSX is an amazingly well-designed OS and has been a pleasure to use since the time it ran only on NeXT's black cubes, but it's not the source of all of Microsoft's ideas. To be fair, they come up with some good ones from time to time too.
  - mdg 17y ago
    > To be fair, they come up with some good ones from time to time too. Bing is a good example. I cant stress enough how much I enjoy using that site, whether its the infinite scrolling image search, mouse over video preview, or even just the new picture everyday.
- gjm11 17y ago
  Useful heuristic: Can you imagine a reasonably intelligent and informed reader reading what you wrote and saying "Hmm, I never thought of that before?". If not, you're probably not adding much by posting it.
  - mkramlich 17y ago
    Thanks for advice! Unfortunately I think if I applied that standard to the main articles on Hacker News, for example, then most would fail. :)
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]