It's not THAT bad!;-) If you understand the MSI database system, and use Orca frequently to verify the results, WIX can be quite useful for batch creation of MSI databases. The problem with MSI is that it's a database-based install system, and it's not really suitable for programming (although SOME things can be implemented in DLLs or scripts). WIX is only an XML encapsulation of the MSI database format, it does not provide any functionality beyond that.
there seems to be a problem with the turkish that live in.de. the 'head scarves' are creating problems in schools. is this not so?
There is an ongoing discussion on whether teachers are allowed to wear headscarves. It is because teachers are not allowed to promote a political agenda of any kind, because they're civil servants (IIRC). If an Islamic woman wears a headscarf, is that a political issue? That's what they're talking about.
In Turkey, a similar case caused controversy: Women were allowed to wear headscarves by the Turkish government. The Turkish military tries to remove the government from power for fears of desecularization and creation of a god-state.
I do hear about conflicts RE: muslims in.de not wanting to 'mix in' with the rest of society, there; and schools having problems in this same area.
This is being addressed by a relatively new Islamic council that has been created by our Minister of Inner Affairs, Mr. Schaeuble. The problem seems to be that there are various Islamic groups in Germany trying to push various agendas. To become an officially acknowledged religious community, they have to speak with one voice. Before that happens, Islam cannot be taught in schools.
Language barriers and other things have to be overcome as well. Language tests are now required of migrants.
In a few years, Islam will be just another official religion in Germany that is eligible to receive church tax.
The only "religious" community not acknowledged at all in Germany is Scientology, because it is regarded as a business scheme, not as a religion. Also, since it seeks to rule the world, the Constitution Protection Service (Verfassungsschutz) has to keep an eye on them, to see what they're doing and what they're up to. That's just a defensive measure taken by a democracy.
No, it's because we don't have such religious fanatics anymore in Christian groups in Germany. It took many centuries (and many dead people) to take the power off of the church. In the end, secularization won. Hitler also played his part in destroying the power of the Church. Before WWII, people were not questioning religion. But after WWII, things had changed. And not just because the Church didn't help to fight Hitler. The new democracy formed in 1949 keeps the Church off our backs, and I think the USA deserves similar attention. Talk to your local freemasonry lodge!
I've heard stories about what education is like in, say, bavaria. crosses in EVERY classroom. christian education is mandatory. (my SO was born and raised in.de and so she tells me a lot about what it was like to grow up there.) it sounds to me like bavaria is like our 'intellectual southern states'. and I'll just leave it at that, fwiw...
LOL!! But it's not against the law to hang a cross into a classroom or to teach religion. Most people in Germany are either Roman Catholic or Protestant, and thus religion is taught in schools and we're paying church tax. But nonetheless, religion is not above the law in Germany. I know, Bavaria almost didn't sign the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) in 1949, but they've become more modern over the decades. At least we're at peace with religion.
It must be wonderful to live in such a high-minded society. Unfortunately, what *some* people in the States fear is the rise of religious totalitarianism. Collect together a sufficiently large number of people with a particular set of opinions, and the will to impose those opinions on others, then you have the recipe for massive abuse on the scale of Nazism.
This is not an unrealistic scenario.
Religious organizations should not be above the law. In Germany, every citizen abides by the same rules and laws. There are no exceptions made for religious organizations. Religious organizations must follow the law.
I've read some time ago (I don't know if I remember it correctly) that in the USA, religious communities enjoy special freedoms. And that's perhaps the reason why they face such opposition.
I'm completely surprised by how religious and scientific movements are at battle in the USA.
The US government should also provide funds for elections. Because third-party funding of elections can lead to conflicts of interests, because lobbyist groups can pay for policies to be implemented on their behalf. Only after policy is free from third party influences, exceptions to the law made for religious groups can be eliminated.
Sir, isn't it true that in Germany, it is illegal to deny the holocaust? If this is the case, I don't believe you can honestly claim everyone is allowed to think what they want...
That's entirely correct. In this case, it is to remove grounds from anti-democratic movements. We have only a couple of such limitations, 1. Denying the Holocaust. 2. Using Nazi Symbols and Insignia. and 3. Reading "Mein Kampf" for other purposes than history lessons or research. I think that these limitations were imposed upon us by the Axis Powers, and I think it's fairly reasonable to do so, because there are still Neo-Nazi movements in Germany that seek to overthrow our democratic government. It proved difficult to weed them out (cf. history of the NPD ). I think that some day, when there's not an organized Nazi movement anymore, some of the restrictions might be lifted. After all, other anti-democratic literature or symbols are not banned, although anti-democratic political parties are (cf. history of KPD ). In these cases, the protection of the German democracy has been considered a higher priority than the right to speak freely (in public). In private, people are doing what they want anyway.;-)
Here in Germany, everyone is allowed to think what they want, because we've had trouble with that one in the past (cf. Nazism ). Kids are taught both religion and science in school (cf. German school system ). Teachers present their view of the world, and audiences are free to interpret it in any way they like.
In the public media, there's no competition between religion and science. If a German watches Discovery Channel, for instance, s/he might notice a strong bias for uncriticial conveyance of perceived "scientific facts" and sensationalism. Native German TV programmes about science (*) often have a very differentiated view on things. Media bias is important in judging the information being broadcast.
So, there's neither an "evolution movement" nor an "evolution-denial movement" in Germany.
Science is considered as something to be learnt for future employment, and whether it has any resemblance to reality is a matter of personal opinion.
(* = except when purchased from US-American sources, or privately owned channels trying to keep viewers watching by using sensationalism)
Well, you know what, you gave me new ammunition: From the Wikipedia article about the scientific theory: In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations, and is predictive, logical, and testable.
So, according to this definition, and following the simplest of logic, since the so-called "Theory of Evolution" is not testable, it's not a theory, but a hypothesis. There's absolutely no test that can prove that Evolution is real. (If there really is, name one! Preferably, one that I can conduct personally!)
Although the whole concept of Evolution over billions of years seems plausible, we don't have enough knowledge to postulate something like that and teach it to billions of people. Instead, dealing with hypothesis would be more reasonable.
Seriously, in other areas, scientific evidence is continously ignored, and laughed off, as in the so-called paranormal. People with paranormal experiences are not taken seriously. This also applies to "UFO sightings" and such. If there was an invasion by paranormal means, for instance, we would not recognize it, because we have not conducted enough research in these fields. When people reputedly have visions of the future and they happen, the concepts of the universe should be questioned. (In fact, many scientists believe now that the Universe is multidimensional, which is good.) Experiences like the Sixth Sense (the existence of which has been acknowledged) cannot be sufficiently explained. There are some leads that should lead to new hypothesis and theories. BTW, the CIA study into paranormal military applications had only a 25% success rate (as mentioned in a TIME article many years ago), but that is far beyond any rate of statistical error. If a medium can unscrew screws of remote submarines only by thinking about it, even if only occasionally, there must be some underlying principle that has to be found. Not pursuing such leads is highly unscientific.
Well, this was just a rough estimate, I did not bother to count them. Providing you with proof would require scouring hundreds of thousands of (potentially archived) spam e-mails that I received. But even in the roughly 10,000 or so in my more recent spam-flooded accounts, doing that by hand is impossible. I would have to write a program to search through the mail folders for Mac file extensions. I can only tell you and others that are using Macs to be careful, because I've seen many, many MacOS file attachments. I'm not a MacOS user, so all I wanted is to post a reminder that not everything's peachy in Mac-land.
Wasn't there something about expensive Qt licenses for development? What's the difference if a company has to pay for Qt development as opposed to paying for Motif development?
Mac viruses already make up a significant percentage of spam mail in my mailboxes (.hpx files and other fun stuff). To be blind to such threats is simply irresponsible, methinks.
Some protocols reveal the version (and host platform) of the server software. This information can be used to write specialized viruses that exploits security holes in those protocols. One example of this was the "sendmail" program that was used as a mail server program for a long time. Breaking in was done using the SMTP protocol. So, just by sending an e-mail to such a server, it was possible to break in. If the admin doesn't know about these vulnerabilities, then all sorts of trouble can ensue. (many companies feel content with employing relatively unskilled admins)
And server have soemthing called an administrator monitoring them usually It depends entirely on the quality of the administrator if s/he is able to detect and/or fend off threats.
the amount of linux server compared to the amout of windows client on the net is nil. That's true in principle, but just one infected server can infect all clients. It's no problem to write a virus that goes from a Windows client to a Linux server, and from there, to other Windows clients. An infected server (if it's a mail server, for instance) can send infected spam e-mail to all the mailboxes easily. An infected web server is even more dangerous, since it can serve infected web pages to Windows clients.
Linux server components are constantly being checked for vulnerabilities, but the "sendmail"-craze in the 90ies has shown that vulnerabilities in server software can have dire consequences. Just one exploited vulnerability can affect whole corporate networks. It doesn't help that some admins refuse to update their Un*x systems (because, sometimes, that's a lot of work). Automatic update features can alleviate that somewhat, if they're indeed being used.
once some black-hat does finally decide to attack the Macs Unfortunately, there are already hundreds of Mac viruses. I have some super-spammed e-mail accounts, that get hundreds of infected e-mails per day, and more often than not, viruses come with ".hpx" extensions and other MacOS file extensions. Ignoring these threats could have severe consequences for a Mac user, if they would click on such file.
Someone could say "yeah... but MacOS X is a Unix system, so the threat would be limited to the current user", but one should remember that MacOS X has a heavily modified BSD kernel, and custom executable formats that have some quirks. There is (or was) some well-known vulnerability in the executable file format.
How so?? AIX and Solaris both had (and have) Motif implementations (and CDE) that could (can) be used for application development. For Linux, there've been (and probably still are) commercially available versions (BTW, Qt is still a commercial widget set; why aren't you upset about that?).
Yes, but OS/2 came much later. OS/2 1.x didn't have a GUI. OS/2 2.x had a very good GUI, but it came in the mid-90ies, almost 10 years later than AmigaOS (just like Windows 95). AmigaOS was published first in 1985. OS/2 Warp 3 and 4 came after 1996. But I think it's sad than IBM canned OS/2 (although it lives on in eComStation).
Definitely!:-) Workbench has indeed some cool features that have not been duplicated yet on any other platform:
Icons are separate files with a ".info" file extension. Workbench by default displays only files with an associated icon. This provides less clutter for the user's desktop, since only the files they're supposed to see are being shown. Upon selecting the "Show All Files" menu item, every file is displayed.
Icons can be passed as arguments to an application. To do that, you can either double click on an icon, which passes it to an associated application, or you click on the application and then shift-click on the icons to be passed as arguments, then finally shift-double-click on the last icon.
Icons can have parameters: In the Tool Types editor (which is called by the "Info..." menu item), you can configure key/value pairs for every icon. Most applications document which key/value pairs they support, and Workbench itself also supports a couple. For example, you can configure an application's icon to always open the application on a specific public screen, at a specific location on the screen, and so on. Eat that, X-resources!;-)
The Commodities Exchange: Commodities are like demons in Unix or services in Windows. They have an input event broker component that listens on particular input events (that have been configured by the user, in the commodities' tool types). Commodities can have user interfaces. With the Commodities Exchange program, users can configure their commodities. Normally, you set up a keyboard shortcut for the Exchange, then you can easily access all the commodities. Popular commodities include stuff that changes the behavior of the user interface.
Screens: A feature of the underlying 'intuition.library' and 'graphics.library' are so-called 'screens'. They're used to group windows, much like multiple desktops on X. Every screen can have their own size and resolution, and the user can rearrange them, by switching or dragging. There are public screens and private screens.
Command line interpreter: The CLI provides a command-line shell much like those known from Unix. Except, AmigaOS CLI is based on TRIPOS, a minicomputer OS. It has a slightly different approach than the popular Unix shells. For example, every command has an argument template which can be queried by the user, using the "?" question mark after the command name. Then the template is displayed which already tells a lot about the arguments needed by the command. The argument mechanism provides for readable command semantics, like "copy file to target".
No, the XEROX Parc was the first with a GUI. Then came Apple with the Lisa, and finally the first Mac. And after that, the Atari ST and the Amiga. AFAIK, AmigaOS was the first OS like we know it today, with 32-bit, pre-emptive multitasking and GUI. A Mac was much too expensive for the general public. Until Mac OS X and the advent of cheap Macs, Macs were not for the general public.
With WGA in place, I guess pirating is not as easy any more as it used to be. It might hurt Windows sales and spread in the long run. Of course, OEM dealers still can get a Windows license for an apple and an egg, but those who build their own machines do already hesitate whether to shell out an additional couple hundred bucks for a license.
True that, except in those years, DOS/Windows licenses could be moved between machines. Not so anymore, starting with XP activation and WGA later on. No more "one Windows license per company". This might hurt Windows sales in the long run. And besides, nothing can beat the $0 license tag of a Linux or BSD (plus optional donation). We all need money, but the exaggerated license fees for XP and Vista won't do anything good for their spreading. With WGA, pirating Windows is not really feasible anymore for those who would do that, but pirating played a major part in spreading Windows. Microsoft could have easily used dongles (or ISA/PCI cards with ROMs), for instance, but instead they put lame copy protection schemes (or none at all) in their older DOS/Windows variants.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not THAT bad! ;-) If you understand the MSI database system, and use Orca frequently to verify the results, WIX can be quite useful for batch creation of MSI databases. The problem with MSI is that it's a database-based install system, and it's not really suitable for programming (although SOME things can be implemented in DLLs or scripts). WIX is only an XML encapsulation of the MSI database format, it does not provide any functionality beyond that.
Hey, why is Denmark no part of the Eurozone? Come, share our misery! ;-)
there seems to be a problem with the turkish that live in .de. the 'head scarves' are creating problems in schools. is this not so?
There is an ongoing discussion on whether teachers are allowed to wear headscarves. It is because teachers are not allowed to promote a political agenda of any kind, because they're civil servants (IIRC). If an Islamic woman wears a headscarf, is that a political issue? That's what they're talking about.
In Turkey, a similar case caused controversy: Women were allowed to wear headscarves by the Turkish government. The Turkish military tries to remove the government from power for fears of desecularization and creation of a god-state.
I do hear about conflicts RE: muslims in .de not wanting to 'mix in' with the rest of society, there; and schools having problems in this same area.
This is being addressed by a relatively new Islamic council that has been created by our Minister of Inner Affairs, Mr. Schaeuble. The problem seems to be that there are various Islamic groups in Germany trying to push various agendas. To become an officially acknowledged religious community, they have to speak with one voice. Before that happens, Islam cannot be taught in schools.
Language barriers and other things have to be overcome as well. Language tests are now required of migrants.
In a few years, Islam will be just another official religion in Germany that is eligible to receive church tax.
The only "religious" community not acknowledged at all in Germany is Scientology, because it is regarded as a business scheme, not as a religion. Also, since it seeks to rule the world, the Constitution Protection Service (Verfassungsschutz) has to keep an eye on them, to see what they're doing and what they're up to. That's just a defensive measure taken by a democracy.
That's a load of BS! Here, no-one cares if you say something like that. Some women would laugh at you perhaps.
No, it's because we don't have such religious fanatics anymore in Christian groups in Germany. It took many centuries (and many dead people) to take the power off of the church. In the end, secularization won. Hitler also played his part in destroying the power of the Church. Before WWII, people were not questioning religion. But after WWII, things had changed. And not just because the Church didn't help to fight Hitler. The new democracy formed in 1949 keeps the Church off our backs, and I think the USA deserves similar attention. Talk to your local freemasonry lodge!
I've heard stories about what education is like in, say, bavaria. crosses in EVERY classroom. christian education is mandatory. (my SO was born and raised in .de and so she tells me a lot about what it was like to grow up there.) it sounds to me like bavaria is like our 'intellectual southern states'. and I'll just leave it at that, fwiw...
LOL!! But it's not against the law to hang a cross into a classroom or to teach religion. Most people in Germany are either Roman Catholic or Protestant, and thus religion is taught in schools and we're paying church tax. But nonetheless, religion is not above the law in Germany. I know, Bavaria almost didn't sign the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) in 1949, but they've become more modern over the decades. At least we're at peace with religion.
It must be wonderful to live in such a high-minded society. Unfortunately, what *some* people in the States fear is the rise of religious totalitarianism. Collect together a sufficiently large number of people with a particular set of opinions, and the will to impose those opinions on others, then you have the recipe for massive abuse on the scale of Nazism. This is not an unrealistic scenario.
Religious organizations should not be above the law. In Germany, every citizen abides by the same rules and laws. There are no exceptions made for religious organizations. Religious organizations must follow the law.
I've read some time ago (I don't know if I remember it correctly) that in the USA, religious communities enjoy special freedoms. And that's perhaps the reason why they face such opposition.
I'm completely surprised by how religious and scientific movements are at battle in the USA.
The US government should also provide funds for elections. Because third-party funding of elections can lead to conflicts of interests, because lobbyist groups can pay for policies to be implemented on their behalf. Only after policy is free from third party influences, exceptions to the law made for religious groups can be eliminated.
Sir, isn't it true that in Germany, it is illegal to deny the holocaust? If this is the case, I don't believe you can honestly claim everyone is allowed to think what they want...
That's entirely correct. In this case, it is to remove grounds from anti-democratic movements. We have only a couple of such limitations, 1. Denying the Holocaust. 2. Using Nazi Symbols and Insignia. and 3. Reading "Mein Kampf" for other purposes than history lessons or research. I think that these limitations were imposed upon us by the Axis Powers, and I think it's fairly reasonable to do so, because there are still Neo-Nazi movements in Germany that seek to overthrow our democratic government. It proved difficult to weed them out (cf. history of the NPD ). I think that some day, when there's not an organized Nazi movement anymore, some of the restrictions might be lifted. After all, other anti-democratic literature or symbols are not banned, although anti-democratic political parties are (cf. history of KPD ). In these cases, the protection of the German democracy has been considered a higher priority than the right to speak freely (in public). In private, people are doing what they want anyway. ;-)
Here in Germany, everyone is allowed to think what they want, because we've had trouble with that one in the past (cf. Nazism ). Kids are taught both religion and science in school (cf. German school system ). Teachers present their view of the world, and audiences are free to interpret it in any way they like.
In the public media, there's no competition between religion and science. If a German watches Discovery Channel, for instance, s/he might notice a strong bias for uncriticial conveyance of perceived "scientific facts" and sensationalism. Native German TV programmes about science (*) often have a very differentiated view on things. Media bias is important in judging the information being broadcast.
So, there's neither an "evolution movement" nor an "evolution-denial movement" in Germany.
Science is considered as something to be learnt for future employment, and whether it has any resemblance to reality is a matter of personal opinion.
(* = except when purchased from US-American sources, or privately owned channels trying to keep viewers watching by using sensationalism)
Well, you know what, you gave me new ammunition: From the Wikipedia article about the scientific theory: In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations, and is predictive, logical, and testable.
So, according to this definition, and following the simplest of logic, since the so-called "Theory of Evolution" is not testable, it's not a theory, but a hypothesis. There's absolutely no test that can prove that Evolution is real. (If there really is, name one! Preferably, one that I can conduct personally!)
Although the whole concept of Evolution over billions of years seems plausible, we don't have enough knowledge to postulate something like that and teach it to billions of people. Instead, dealing with hypothesis would be more reasonable.
Seriously, in other areas, scientific evidence is continously ignored, and laughed off, as in the so-called paranormal. People with paranormal experiences are not taken seriously. This also applies to "UFO sightings" and such. If there was an invasion by paranormal means, for instance, we would not recognize it, because we have not conducted enough research in these fields. When people reputedly have visions of the future and they happen, the concepts of the universe should be questioned. (In fact, many scientists believe now that the Universe is multidimensional, which is good.) Experiences like the Sixth Sense (the existence of which has been acknowledged) cannot be sufficiently explained. There are some leads that should lead to new hypothesis and theories. BTW, the CIA study into paranormal military applications had only a 25% success rate (as mentioned in a TIME article many years ago), but that is far beyond any rate of statistical error. If a medium can unscrew screws of remote submarines only by thinking about it, even if only occasionally, there must be some underlying principle that has to be found. Not pursuing such leads is highly unscientific.
Well, this was just a rough estimate, I did not bother to count them. Providing you with proof would require scouring hundreds of thousands of (potentially archived) spam e-mails that I received. But even in the roughly 10,000 or so in my more recent spam-flooded accounts, doing that by hand is impossible. I would have to write a program to search through the mail folders for Mac file extensions. I can only tell you and others that are using Macs to be careful, because I've seen many, many MacOS file attachments. I'm not a MacOS user, so all I wanted is to post a reminder that not everything's peachy in Mac-land.
Wasn't there something about expensive Qt licenses for development? What's the difference if a company has to pay for Qt development as opposed to paying for Motif development?
Mac viruses already make up a significant percentage of spam mail in my mailboxes (.hpx files and other fun stuff). To be blind to such threats is simply irresponsible, methinks.
Some protocols reveal the version (and host platform) of the server software. This information can be used to write specialized viruses that exploits security holes in those protocols. One example of this was the "sendmail" program that was used as a mail server program for a long time. Breaking in was done using the SMTP protocol. So, just by sending an e-mail to such a server, it was possible to break in. If the admin doesn't know about these vulnerabilities, then all sorts of trouble can ensue. (many companies feel content with employing relatively unskilled admins)
Linux server components are constantly being checked for vulnerabilities, but the "sendmail"-craze in the 90ies has shown that vulnerabilities in server software can have dire consequences. Just one exploited vulnerability can affect whole corporate networks. It doesn't help that some admins refuse to update their Un*x systems (because, sometimes, that's a lot of work). Automatic update features can alleviate that somewhat, if they're indeed being used.
Someone could say "yeah
Writing compilers is so hard! *sniffle*
How so?? AIX and Solaris both had (and have) Motif implementations (and CDE) that could (can) be used for application development. For Linux, there've been (and probably still are) commercially available versions (BTW, Qt is still a commercial widget set; why aren't you upset about that?).
Yes, but OS/2 came much later. OS/2 1.x didn't have a GUI. OS/2 2.x had a very good GUI, but it came in the mid-90ies, almost 10 years later than AmigaOS (just like Windows 95). AmigaOS was published first in 1985. OS/2 Warp 3 and 4 came after 1996. But I think it's sad than IBM canned OS/2 (although it lives on in eComStation).
You're right -- their first GUI-based computer was named the "Alto" (1973). The first commercially available one was called the "Star" (1981).
PC = Personal Computer! ;-)
No, the XEROX Parc was the first with a GUI. Then came Apple with the Lisa, and finally the first Mac. And after that, the Atari ST and the Amiga. AFAIK, AmigaOS was the first OS like we know it today, with 32-bit, pre-emptive multitasking and GUI. A Mac was much too expensive for the general public. Until Mac OS X and the advent of cheap Macs, Macs were not for the general public.
With WGA in place, I guess pirating is not as easy any more as it used to be. It might hurt Windows sales and spread in the long run. Of course, OEM dealers still can get a Windows license for an apple and an egg, but those who build their own machines do already hesitate whether to shell out an additional couple hundred bucks for a license.
True that, except in those years, DOS/Windows licenses could be moved between machines. Not so anymore, starting with XP activation and WGA later on. No more "one Windows license per company". This might hurt Windows sales in the long run. And besides, nothing can beat the $0 license tag of a Linux or BSD (plus optional donation). We all need money, but the exaggerated license fees for XP and Vista won't do anything good for their spreading. With WGA, pirating Windows is not really feasible anymore for those who would do that, but pirating played a major part in spreading Windows. Microsoft could have easily used dongles (or ISA/PCI cards with ROMs), for instance, but instead they put lame copy protection schemes (or none at all) in their older DOS/Windows variants.