danacara
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Winner is: Year's dubious achievements
Tuesday, December 31, 2002 Posted: 11:27 AM EST (1627 GMT)
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SPECIAL REPORT
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Reader's Poll
Quiz: Are you a news junkie?
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(AP) -- Year's end traditionally brings a mood of reflection to journalists. It may be the melancholy of short days and long nights.
But it could also be the need to fill the space when nothing much is happening.
That said, herewith the annual CompuBug Dubious Achievement in Personal Computing awards.
The DLAPAPA (Designed Like A Picasso And Priced Accordingly) award goes to Apple Computer for the design of its latest iMac, the one that looks like half a round melon impaled with a bent easel. You have to shell out $1,499 to get one with a CD-RW drive, chugging along on a 700-megahertz processor.
The FPF (Fine Print Finesse) award goes to Compaq, now in the belly of HP, for offering a $399, 1.8 gigahertz minitower PC, where adding a monitor is listed under the "Customize" button on the company's Web site. There must be first-time buyer elitists who like to "customize" their PCs with a monitor, but the rest can certainly take advantage of a good price if they happened to be born with a video socket in the back of their head. (Yeah, it's not a bad deal if you're looking to upgrade an existing system, but why not say so?)
Microsoft is awarded a LUGLY trophy (Lawyers Universally Gotta Love You), for its never-ending saga of suing and being sued, the latest effort coming Christmas week as a British mobile phone corporation filed suit in federal court over intellectual property issues. That award is tied with the ...
WIP (Work In Progress) award for Windows XP, which if it doesn't whine about automatic updates available every three days or so, must be only because the software developers are so busy testifying that they didn't have time to patch the gaping holes in their code that have popped up over the last year. As this is written, our computer is refusing to hibernate, because, it says, the keyboard drivers may have problems. That the keyboard is a Microsoft product does not swell the heart with holiday cheer.
The ASAIS (Anything, So Long As It Sells) award goes to those publishers of PC and video console games who drench each adventure in gore, rape and mayhem. Or who feature anatomically improbably heroines whose outfits cover five yards on a hundred-yard field.
Not to be entirely negative, the DIW! Award (Doggone, It Works!) goes to those DSL and cable modem providers, Verizon and Comcast among them, who have actually delivered on the promise of easy broadband connectivity over ordinary phone lines. We don't appreciate this enough. Ten years ago, an engineer told that we could deliver 10 megabits-per-second over an ordinary twisted-pair phone line would have summoned the guys with the wraparound white-sleeve sportscoats. Twenty years ago, the Associated Press trumpeted its new, hot stock service that delivered at 9600-baud -- around 10,000 words a minute. Today, thanks to these pioneers, that's so antique it's painful (especially if you've been around long enough to remember it).
Finally, as always, the TAL (Thanks A Lot) award to the armies of publicists, entrepreneurs, readers and critics (and, perhaps, even, maybe, editors) who devote great amounts of time and attention to us seem brighter and more knowledgeable than God intended.
Happy New Year to all!
Tuesday, December 31, 2002 Posted: 11:27 AM EST (1627 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story Tools
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL REPORT
Overview
Gallery: Top 10 news stories
Reader's Poll
Quiz: Are you a news junkie?
Top Ten Stories in Asia
Special Report
(AP) -- Year's end traditionally brings a mood of reflection to journalists. It may be the melancholy of short days and long nights.
But it could also be the need to fill the space when nothing much is happening.
That said, herewith the annual CompuBug Dubious Achievement in Personal Computing awards.
The DLAPAPA (Designed Like A Picasso And Priced Accordingly) award goes to Apple Computer for the design of its latest iMac, the one that looks like half a round melon impaled with a bent easel. You have to shell out $1,499 to get one with a CD-RW drive, chugging along on a 700-megahertz processor.
The FPF (Fine Print Finesse) award goes to Compaq, now in the belly of HP, for offering a $399, 1.8 gigahertz minitower PC, where adding a monitor is listed under the "Customize" button on the company's Web site. There must be first-time buyer elitists who like to "customize" their PCs with a monitor, but the rest can certainly take advantage of a good price if they happened to be born with a video socket in the back of their head. (Yeah, it's not a bad deal if you're looking to upgrade an existing system, but why not say so?)
Microsoft is awarded a LUGLY trophy (Lawyers Universally Gotta Love You), for its never-ending saga of suing and being sued, the latest effort coming Christmas week as a British mobile phone corporation filed suit in federal court over intellectual property issues. That award is tied with the ...
WIP (Work In Progress) award for Windows XP, which if it doesn't whine about automatic updates available every three days or so, must be only because the software developers are so busy testifying that they didn't have time to patch the gaping holes in their code that have popped up over the last year. As this is written, our computer is refusing to hibernate, because, it says, the keyboard drivers may have problems. That the keyboard is a Microsoft product does not swell the heart with holiday cheer.
The ASAIS (Anything, So Long As It Sells) award goes to those publishers of PC and video console games who drench each adventure in gore, rape and mayhem. Or who feature anatomically improbably heroines whose outfits cover five yards on a hundred-yard field.
Not to be entirely negative, the DIW! Award (Doggone, It Works!) goes to those DSL and cable modem providers, Verizon and Comcast among them, who have actually delivered on the promise of easy broadband connectivity over ordinary phone lines. We don't appreciate this enough. Ten years ago, an engineer told that we could deliver 10 megabits-per-second over an ordinary twisted-pair phone line would have summoned the guys with the wraparound white-sleeve sportscoats. Twenty years ago, the Associated Press trumpeted its new, hot stock service that delivered at 9600-baud -- around 10,000 words a minute. Today, thanks to these pioneers, that's so antique it's painful (especially if you've been around long enough to remember it).
Finally, as always, the TAL (Thanks A Lot) award to the armies of publicists, entrepreneurs, readers and critics (and, perhaps, even, maybe, editors) who devote great amounts of time and attention to us seem brighter and more knowledgeable than God intended.
Happy New Year to all!
That was interesting, thanks.
