Slashdot Mirror

Full book, with original illustrations

You made a completly unsubstantiated statement and I called BS with a similar amount of proof as you had.

I would put a fully patched XP against any fully patched linux with a default install, and I'd be quite interested in the result. I don't know vista personally but I'd expect it to be about the same. BTW if you don't patch anything then it's a stupid test - I'm not talking about making esoteric configuration, just get updated patches for the OS. These days the security comparisons are getting nitpicky. Both linux & Windows are pretty decent thesee days until you start putting applications on them. Apple tho ... well not so great. When it comes to apple - the fanboys themselves are the biggest vulnerbility, they don't believe they NEED to patch.

Try looking here for some insight - and yes I know - there's a LOT of window, linux and BSD there too http://nvd.nist.gov/nvd.cfm

No OS is secure - Apple less so than some. The old claim that "apple is more secure" is turning out to be a modern version of The Emperor's New Clothes - only uttered by fanboys and the ignorant

Blast ... I wasn't going to offer evidence, oh well - the fanboys won't see any

Anybody remember the story of Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (or the more-recent Jackie Chan movie adaptation)? Admittedly, I don't b/c I never read it or saw the movie, but I'm looking at this from a historical context...

How long ago was it that getting around the world in 80 days was considered an incredible feat? 100 years ago? Given that people traveled by steamship, trains, and unreliable cars then (and only if one was rich, at that), roughly, yes.

And yet, here we are, with a person making a trip around the world not only in far less than 80 days, but in under 80 hours. In the time you spent doing a Stage 1 Gentoo install, Steve Fosset was able to fly around the entire planet.

Who, 100 years ago, would've likely believed it likely (possible, perhaps, but likely?)? :)

This is the way: http://jv.gilead.org.il/evans/illustr/pics/25-rokt .jpg

Or, for that matter - Edgar A. Poe's Ballon Hoax (1844) which preceded Verne by a good 20 years (From Earth to the Moon wasn't published until IIRC 1865).

Not sure if Verne had read Poe, by Poe did have a very good reputation in Europe, so it's highly likely.

The companies that were making real profits and had honest executives are either still around or were bought out to the benefit of their previous owners. The "new economy" investors that lost everything were primarily those who invested in companies run by con-artists.

However, it must be said the the biggest loss over those years was in telecommunications, not Internet start ups. Telecom is a real industry with real products that basically was over invested in and overleveraged (although the corrupt WCOM executives didn't help anything). Other than in the special case of Worldcom, it wasn't anyone's fault per say, just a lot of debt that was taken on to grow companies larger than their customers could support.

My mouse, on the other hand, makes a very audible *click* each time I use it, and while providing a pleasant tactile feedback, it keeps my girlfriend awake during my late-night work sessions.

You could always do like the prince did: marry her and put the mouse in a museum.

But seriously, are you living in a studio apartment or something? Add this to the long list of reasons that the computer should not be placed in the bedroom (I say this of course lounging on my bed with my laptop, but hey, I'm a bachelor, I'm allowed to do these things).

Jules Vernes has led the way to modern submarines with its "twenty thousands leagues under the sea" novel. Remember Captain Nemo? :)

Jules Verne wrote of life way beneath the surface of the Earth!!

Geez... some news flash... it's only 131 years late!

Can't the courts decide if a law follows the spirit of the constitution, so to speak? Yes, constitutionally Congress has the right to pass things like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act... but do you think preserving the copyright for a cartoon mouse created by a man who is long since dead is what our founding fathers had in mind? Copyright laws were created both to give the author/artist incentive to create new works *and* to ensure at some point new works could be created based on older stuff.

This is exactly how disney became so popular, by using the work of authors that had gone into the public domain! Snow White, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid are just a few examples of older works that Disney has used.

Now Disney, and other huge corporations like Sony etc. are trying to make sure that no one else can do what they have done. This, to me at least (I am not a Supreme Court Justice) goes against the spirit of the constitution. From the SFGate Story:The original decision made more than 200 years ago to limit the length of copyrights was deliberate and carefully considered. The goal, which was expressed at the time in letters written by Thomas Jefferson and others, was to allow newcomers to build on and improve works produced by others, but only after the original creators of those works were compensated fairly for their efforts. The reason: Human progress builds upon itself."

These companies are trying to stop progress, and trying to stop other from doing to them what they did to the brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, and Victor Hugo.

Well, I stumbled about the comment by JK, too. And I am not sure whether he is aware of that Jules Verne was French... And to just reply to your rude reply: Jules Verne also described the Russian, Hungarian, German and of course the French society. May be _you_ should read some more JV-books... Ever heard of Mathias Sandorf? Or Michel Strogoff? Look here and next time think before flaming a fellow Slashdotter.