Has anyone ever seen titanium computer tools? I have basically worn down every set of tools that I have ever owned. I believe someone in passing once mentioned to me that they owned a pair of titanium tools that were incredibly strong and never wore down. Has anyone seen anything like this? Are there any other tool sets that have held up extremely well (that are reasonably priced)?
BTW, a non-full-size tool set is a bit of a joke. This is nice just to have in your pocket, but for serious work, you will need a full-size tool set.
It is desirable to provide competitive microprocessors which are faster and less expensive than state of the art microprocessors yet are entirely compatible with target application programs designed for state of the art microprocessors running any operating systems available for those microprocessors.
Oh, boy, if they can truly do this, I'm want to be the first one to have one of these babies. Shudder.
BTW, all the memory and pointer stuff has to do with error correction and detecting. That way, it can detect overflows in a consistent manner.
What I want to know is how they can do this without sacrificing speed??? But, they have some of the brightest minds and money (Paul Allen's) in this company.
From what little I've read of it (actually now read most of it), it appears to be a way to allow for fast context switching between processor modes. Since everyone is speculating that their chip will emulate other chips (instead of providing their own ISA), this just goes in hand with that.
I also see a lot of stuff about pointer manipulations. Maybe this is at the core of how they will attempt this (i.e. keep all "processes" in memory with their own vm space and then "swap" 'em out when necessary).
In my rough perusal, I may have missed some very important details. =)
Just this morning, some bozo's scripts drove the load on an UltraSPARC-based web server up to ~38. No problem...I went in and killed his processes. The machine was still responsive, even under that kind of a load.
Uh, duh. This has nothing to do with Solaris and Sun. This is plain ol' UNIX. As much as Sun would like to think they invented UNIX, they didn't. (And they suck at what they did - NIS)
Solaris is still more scalable than Linux (although I prefer Linux for most uses these days).
Okay, on what platform? Let's see. Oh, yeah! SPARC! ONLY SPARC. Gee, who makes SPARC processors? Hmm, Sun! Give the man a bone. I bet if Intel and MS were merged together, they could have some neat scaling archs too. But, they aren't (luckily for us).
Sun makes a lot of good stuff. Yes, we have to make sure we don't get cornered by them or any other vendor, but to compare them with Microsoft is unfair, IMO
(I can't believe I'm going to say this...). In the grand scheme of things, Microsoft does not truly have dominance over anything anymore (they never had control over hardware a la Sun). What they do have is control over people who buy into their dogma (i.e. Windows). If you use Windows, you don't have much of a choice (but it is still a far better choice than Solaris's SW options). Microsoft will control you if you are part of their little cluster. If you are outside (i.e. in UNIX land), you can pretty much ignore Microsoft entirely.
That said, if Sun has their way, everyone would be in their "little" cluster. They would control everything from start to finish. (HW->OS->Browser,Prog. Languages, etc.) I'm a lot more scared of Sun screwing us than I am of Microsoft.
At least, I know what I'm dealing with when I buy a Microsoft product (something that should work and there will be fixes released EVENTUALLY). Sun is always revoking products (or ignoring them) because they decided that it no longer interested them - a la the defunct WABI, their Java IDEs, and I bet that Solaris/x86 won't be around much longer...)
What the hell are you talking about? "The war is over. We won." What???
Nobody won anything. One of RMS's key ideas is that we must be weary of "open source" companies retracting their code at some point leaving us "high and dry." This is a very real threat.
Actually, StarOffice really blows. I've used it more times than I care to admit. Each time I get a little more frustrated with it. IMHO, it is a poorly written program that needs to be hit over the head because it wants to do too much (don't copy %*$%& Office - you can't copy its feature set - they don't have the sheer number of people that MS does). And, StarOffice can't even do those things very well (or even passably well) on ANY platform (I've tried on Windows, Linux, and on Solaris).
Sun just bought StarDivision to placate some people in OSS community, then they will start charging through the nose for the software. Remember that Sun does not like giving away products. You DO know how much a Sun workstation costs? An Ultra-5 can easily run $5k. Their mid-level servers are about $100k. Their enterprise level servers are $1m and up. This is of course not including all of the software that you must buy. If you want their development studio (C++, etc with an IDE), it is about $5-6k as well. I have heard that it is very good, but it is very hard to justify the cost for it.
Sun was never going to buy StarDivision and keep it for free. They plan to make money (lots) off of it. Sun wants nothing more than to become the next MS.
Gee, isn't this the concept that the Dead used for so long?
Allow (even encourage) taping of the concerts. Then, allow free distribution of the tapes. The Dead created a huge demand for their concerts and they charged for them. Most fans didn't mind paying high fees (in reality, they weren't that high) because they had so many tapes and wanted to give something back to the band (and to peruse the drugs of course!).
IMHO, the GD were so successful because they realized this! It is too bad that not every artist realizes this.
Justin
P.S. Which band allows free distribution of MP3s? =)
As the subject says, I remember when Tom Petty released some of his songs on MP3, but his record company forced him to retract the MP3s.
Overall, in the music industry, I believe that the artists do not feel threatened by MP3s (in fact, most probably love the concept), but it is the record companies that are scared to death of them.
MP3s will not be commercially viable until someone can come up with a way to make money off of them. Until then, they will remain the currency of the underground.
If we look at NASA's recent history, we find a lot of distressing items (the Mars observer being lost comes to mind). The fact that they had all of the shuttles at the Cape when Floyd was about to hit wasn't a great idea (who in the world though to have all of the shuttles in one place...).
HOWEVER, if we look a little farther back, we find the Apollo missions. This is quite possibly the United States's crowning achievement. They reached the moon. No one else has ever done anything like this before or since (from our planet ). What has changed??
I believe that what has changed is that the fire has gone away at NASA. People are treating it as their jobs, not as "I'm so lucky to be here. I'm going to do the best I can." Maybe by taking the space program private would help in this regard. But, I'm not entirely sure. If people really, really truly love space, they will work for any amount of money to be close to their dream. The only thing privatization (which I can't spell) achieves is the fact that they could lure "better" people with their better pools of money. Not sure that that will help at all...
OTOH, if the private companies find people who want to work in space-related fields for about what NASA is paying them, with their high financial resources, they could very well spend more on the actual missions (i.e. state-of-the-art equipment). At the risk of sounding foolish, I think it would be quite cool if NASA would allow sponsors to their missions. You could have the Yahoo! mission (paint the shuttle purple and gold like the cabs). This could be a really cool infusion of cash to help NASA out. =)
IMHO, our government needs to restore funding to NASA so that they can return to their peak. Private industry is shaky in this aspect. A unified space project is the only way to go...
What??? Obsolete compiler? Obsolete kernel? What are you talking about?
While these are not the absolute latest version, they are fairly recent (RH6 uses 2.2.5 and egcs-1.1.2). Have you checked the uptime on these boxes? (I don't have access...). 2.2.11 and 2.2.12 came out only in the last couple of months or so. It is highly likely that the boxes haven't been restarted since then...(why should they be?)
AFAIK, there are no distros that come with SMP compiled into it out of the box. So, someone HAD to compile this SMP kernel. This was not a corporate maintained computer! Someone took the time to install the kernel.
The compiler is a fairly standard one (not the latest and great, but still it is within 3-4 months old). gcc-2.95 is out, but the differences are not groundbreaking. There are still tons of people using gcc 2.6 and lower out there. A lot of the changes have to do with Intel optimizations, not Alpha optimizations...
This is not supposed to be a development box, but rather a test box to showcase the hardware and a guide to help port some of the code to run on these screamers.
The X clients are disabled for security reasons. You do not need X in order to test compilation and porting. The X libraries have already been ported to Alpha and work rather well. This should not be the focus of any porting effort. The X libraries are just that - the provide a standard API to which to code.
It goes without mention why they can not see any box outside of dec.com. Duh. Security 101 will tell you why...
BTW, a dual Celeron will die in comparison to a duel Alpha. This is of course assuming an optimized compiler and code on both sides. The Alpha is 64-bit with tons of cache. The Celeron is a 32-bit processor with hardly any cache. There isn't a chance in hell that the crippled Celeron can keep up.
Crawl back from whence you came!
Justin
P.S. I know this is pure flamebait, but this person is a complete yutz!
I think we can all agree that id cards have been around for years (I have at least 5 or 6 "id" cards).
The fallacy in this particular situation is that it is tied to the SSN not some other arbitrary number. This is something that probably should not be the case. If they fixed this, then they may be able to escape the selling of SSNs. (Obfuscation, please!)
However, from another perspective, forcing everyone at a school to wear a name tag is kind of ridiculous in and of itself. But, this is quite inevitable due to the fact that we now accept id cards/badges in our workplaces and colleges. This is the next logical step.
The company called the new approach its "everyday Web" strategy and, in a complete turnabout, said it no longer had a dogmatic commitment to the PC platform.
What? This is the same company that dropped the Alpha from its NT2k build. Hmm. No commitment to the Intel world. Baloney. What a load of crock. I guess we could interpret this as to mean something web-centric not PC-centric? Hasn't this been tried many times before (the laughable NC) and failed each time? Sorry. This is insane. When will these "bright" companies wisen up and figure out that we don't want these stupid NCs. In two words, they suck. No control is given to the user at all with these boxes. They have their places, but it is not on my desktop (no matter what Ellison thinks).
About XML, I've worked with it before. It is servicable. But, the key idea behind XML is that everyone HAS to use it in order for it to succeed. I have sincere doubts about that. Microsoft's entering in to this arena makes it even more dubious that it will succeed on its own merits (or lack thereof).
As part of the OSS movement, the whole idea is that if something is missing you should act upon it and resolve the need. This seems to be the exact opportunity for some bright young Brazilians to come up with solid Portugese documentation for Linux.
I'm going to guess that man pages don't translate well into Portugese. How about Babelfishing them? Oy, that'd be a nightmare to try to comprehend its pigeon Portuguese.
As far as including $$$ products in distros, I believe that it just makes the prices of our favorite distros that much higher. I still can not comprehend why RedHat 6.0 is $89. I can get NT for less. What's the advantage of getting an "official" boxed copy here? However, as long as GPL lives, we cheap bastards can just download the latest version of RH for free.
Hey, you have a good point here. Maybe an interesting thing to do with a restricted budget is that the candidates will have to have a platform on which to make themselves known - instead of the advertising that attempts to distinguish the candidates today. What a change in philosophy! =)
However, this all goes to the debasement (err) of American society. We tend to look beyond the facts and attach to the glamour of the race. Style over substance. I don't know if anyone listened to Steve Forbes today on Meet The Press - he actually made some sense (but he'll never get elected). He was preaching responsibility (gasp) for our actions. Shouldn't these be ideals that we teach our kids? Again, it seems to have been lost in all of the shuffle.
Technically (so this post can be on topic), there is no real reason why we could not do Internet voting. If we already entrust our credit card numbers to the Internet (and 128-bit encryption), there is no reason why we wouldn't trust our nation's future to the same crypto standards. A very valid point is people care more about their privacy of the CC numbers on the Internet rather than who leads our nation for four more years...
Isn't this the exact scenario that RMS warned us about?
This is when a company decides that Open Source is cool, lures us in with the allure and then takes it away just as we most need it. Coming from AOL, though I am not really shocked that they are doing this...
Now, I am not familiar with which license AOL used, but I'll bet that it isn't GNU.
BTW, I'm one of the few who has never used AOL IM. Haha. You want instant messaging? SENDMAIL is your answer!
I figure that if I wanted to I could write this stupid virus in under 20 minutes (PLUS some other features). I've done enough stuff with VBA and MAPI to do this in my sleep. Guess I don't have the inclination to write a virii...
Virii aren't what everyone makes them out to be anymore. I remember old virii that were written in assembler (and used some pretty damn cool tricks), but now they are written using VBA (ROFL).
If the DOJ wins (or at the very least settles with favorable terms to them) as seems likely and hence forces the split of Microsoft, then this new layout will most likely be how the Baby Bills will work out (oy! Baby Bills!). Microsoft is just restructuring themselves on their terms rather than the DOJ's terms. I'd be scared to let the DOJ carve up Microsoft (witness the AT&T fiasco - stupid, stupid, stupid clueless government). It seems like a smart business move...
I think the biggest thing about Microsoft is that they have grown too big too quickly. They have been trying to be everyone's everything (three letters: IBM around the 1960s). This is a crucial mistake. Microsoft needs to refocus the company (either by their own volition or by the DOJs prodding). If Microsoft kept trying to beat everyone to smitherines instead of developing excellent products (as they are capable of doing), eventually some company is going to outwit them and bring them to their knees (again see IBM vs. Microsoft circa mid-1980s).
Hate to say it, but if the Office group is split from the OS group, what is to prevent them from developing Office for Linux (as has been speculated)?? Nothing - as a new company whose sole purpose is Office would have no allegience to Windows. They would be forced to choose the best operating system. Innovation is key (damn I'm sounding like Bill Gates here - nooooo). Is the best OS Linux? Maybe it is, but that is something that the marketplace must and will decide...
Office on Linux would probably be a good thing - the majority of the known computer-literate world currently uses Office and those of us who want to work with colleagues who use Office need true Office compatibility. SO sucks - crashes more often than Windows. WP can't do everything (not including font issues out the wazoo). What's left? Applix? Come on... Gobe on BeOS is close, but it can't read Office files (yet).
If it isn't Office, what will be the killer app for Linux on the client side?
Yeah, but imagine what would happen if you had a college degree!
Last year, I was in a similar situation - left for college. No regrets and I am having a blast...
If you are good and if you have a degree (preferably CS), you can make more $$ than if you were good and did NOT have a degree (some places won't look at people w/o degrees). This is of course excepting people who start their own business (but they need to sell themselves to venture capitalists et al to start the company).
Isn't the sole purpose of the GPL is to keep all GPLed code GPLed? That way it can not be hidden inside of some non-GPL license (which could be source restricted).
If you use some GPLed code in your program, it only makes sense that your program MUST be GPLed as well. Granted at times, the GPL does seem a bit protectionist, but I believe RMS is scared to death of extremists who wish to lock up his code if there were any legal loopholes...
This "virus" (that IS what GPL is) makes perfect sense, and it seems as RMS's lawyers did a great job writing the GPL...
I love the MS Naturals (old style) - like most people here I won't use anything else. But good luck finding the old style. Most people who have one aren't going to give 'em up. (I HATE the elites - yuck - what is that diamond thing???). Pair this with my Logitech Trackman Marble and I am in ergo heaven.
The old Naturals are very good and pretty durable - large keys (HUGE space bar!). Only thing is that the paint on the keys may rub off after a while. If you are reading this, then you probably aren't the type who looks at the keys when they type.;-)
(Just as a note of caution: when I first saw it, I went eeehh, but after an hour or two I was in heaven).
IIRC, isn't it NOT the OS, but rather the FS that must be 64-bit? I know NTFS is 64-bit and can handle files over 4gig (I've seen it). And, we all know that NT isn't 64 bit (yet). How it does it I am not sure - need an NTFS reference manual OR the MS source code. Fat chance of that...
I kinda have to suggest this (shrug), but why couldn't we get the NTFS driver bulletproofed (r&w)?? Other than the anti-MS reason, NTFS isn't a bad FS (and is proven) and there is already substantial work done with it... It'd be great for that "Hey, NT admins, come to Linux?"
But, then again, if people like Tweedie from RH working on designing ext3, why bother with NTFS??;-) Who knows where they are?
This kid doesn't have a clue what an education means. While I agree that most colleges can't keep up with the technical aspects, that is NOT true for all colleges. Most computer science programs are easy, but let me say that there are some that are above the others.
Second of all, this kid knows HTML. HTML, pardon my french, is NOT programming (although some would like it to be). It's a language, but it does not require any major leaps in programming. Even Java for the most part is NOT programming (although it can certainly be), because most people do not use it as a true programming language. This 'geek' probably does not even understand what a reentrant linked list is or even an AVL tree (all subjects contained in the first year at U.C. Irvine - my university). I'll admit I have a bias being in college right now. But, that little piece of paper is worth SOOO much. I can not tell you all the people I've worked with who are in computers without a degree who have told me that the stupidest thing they did was NOT to pursue college. Without a degree (any type), they hit a glass ceiling at most places. With a degree, you will not see as many glass ceilings.
Now, the only rational way you could succeed without a degree (or being lucky) is to start your own business (i.e. consulting, web design, etc.). However, most businesses are flops. But, if you can make it, godspeed. You saved yourself your tuition. (BTW, for most successful 'geeks' $120k is a pittance and that is an absurdly HIGH figure - Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, MIT figures...)
Lastly, who said you had to study computer science at college? Study Shakespeare. College is a great place to broaden your horizons.
Slashdot Mirror
Has anyone ever seen titanium computer tools? I have basically worn down every set of tools that I have ever owned. I believe someone in passing once mentioned to me that they owned a pair of titanium tools that were incredibly strong and never wore down. Has anyone seen anything like this? Are there any other tool sets that have held up extremely well (that are reasonably priced)?
BTW, a non-full-size tool set is a bit of a joke. This is nice just to have in your pocket, but for serious work, you will need a full-size tool set.
Justin
It is desirable to provide competitive microprocessors which are faster and less expensive than state of the art microprocessors yet are entirely compatible with target application programs designed for state of the art microprocessors running any operating systems available for those microprocessors.
Oh, boy, if they can truly do this, I'm want to be the first one to have one of these babies. Shudder.
BTW, all the memory and pointer stuff has to do with error correction and detecting. That way, it can detect overflows in a consistent manner.
What I want to know is how they can do this without sacrificing speed??? But, they have some of the brightest minds and money (Paul Allen's) in this company.
Watch out.
Justin
From what little I've read of it (actually now read most of it), it appears to be a way to allow for fast context switching between processor modes. Since everyone is speculating that their chip will emulate other chips (instead of providing their own ISA), this just goes in hand with that.
I also see a lot of stuff about pointer manipulations. Maybe this is at the core of how they will attempt this (i.e. keep all "processes" in memory with their own vm space and then "swap" 'em out when necessary).
In my rough perusal, I may have missed some very important details. =)
Justin
Woah, woah, woah. Wait a sec.
Just this morning, some bozo's scripts drove the load on an UltraSPARC-based web server up to ~38. No problem...I went in and killed his processes. The machine was still responsive, even under that kind of a load.
Uh, duh. This has nothing to do with Solaris and Sun. This is plain ol' UNIX. As much as Sun would like to think they invented UNIX, they didn't. (And they suck at what they did - NIS)
Solaris is still more scalable than Linux (although I prefer Linux for most uses these days).
Okay, on what platform? Let's see. Oh, yeah! SPARC! ONLY SPARC. Gee, who makes SPARC processors? Hmm, Sun! Give the man a bone. I bet if Intel and MS were merged together, they could have some neat scaling archs too. But, they aren't (luckily for us).
Sun makes a lot of good stuff. Yes, we have to make sure we don't get cornered by them or any other vendor, but to compare them with Microsoft is unfair, IMO
(I can't believe I'm going to say this...). In the grand scheme of things, Microsoft does not truly have dominance over anything anymore (they never had control over hardware a la Sun). What they do have is control over people who buy into their dogma (i.e. Windows). If you use Windows, you don't have much of a choice (but it is still a far better choice than Solaris's SW options). Microsoft will control you if you are part of their little cluster. If you are outside (i.e. in UNIX land), you can pretty much ignore Microsoft entirely.
That said, if Sun has their way, everyone would be in their "little" cluster. They would control everything from start to finish. (HW->OS->Browser,Prog. Languages, etc.) I'm a lot more scared of Sun screwing us than I am of Microsoft.
At least, I know what I'm dealing with when I buy a Microsoft product (something that should work and there will be fixes released EVENTUALLY). Sun is always revoking products (or ignoring them) because they decided that it no longer interested them - a la the defunct WABI, their Java IDEs, and I bet that Solaris/x86 won't be around much longer...)
Justin
What the hell are you talking about?
"The war is over. We won." What???
Nobody won anything. One of RMS's key ideas is that we must be weary of "open source" companies retracting their code at some point leaving us "high and dry." This is a very real threat.
Actually, StarOffice really blows. I've used it more times than I care to admit. Each time I get a little more frustrated with it. IMHO, it is a poorly written program that needs to be hit over the head because it wants to do too much (don't copy %*$%& Office - you can't copy its feature set - they don't have the sheer number of people that MS does). And, StarOffice can't even do those things very well (or even passably well) on ANY platform (I've tried on Windows, Linux, and on Solaris).
Sun just bought StarDivision to placate some people in OSS community, then they will start charging through the nose for the software. Remember that Sun does not like giving away products. You DO know how much a Sun workstation costs? An Ultra-5 can easily run $5k. Their mid-level servers are about $100k. Their enterprise level servers are $1m and up. This is of course not including all of the software that you must buy. If you want their development studio (C++, etc with an IDE), it is about $5-6k as well. I have heard that it is very good, but it is very hard to justify the cost for it.
Sun was never going to buy StarDivision and keep it for free. They plan to make money (lots) off of it. Sun wants nothing more than to become the next MS.
Face it, we lost. You just don't know it yet.
Justin
Gee, isn't this the concept that the Dead used for so long?
Allow (even encourage) taping of the concerts. Then, allow free distribution of the tapes. The Dead created a huge demand for their concerts and they charged for them. Most fans didn't mind paying high fees (in reality, they weren't that high) because they had so many tapes and wanted to give something back to the band (and to peruse the drugs of course!).
IMHO, the GD were so successful because they realized this! It is too bad that not every artist realizes this.
Justin
P.S. Which band allows free distribution of MP3s? =)
Isn't it funny when Slashdot readers are way ahead of the founders. =)
I am reminded of a famous Gandhi quote:
"There go my people: I have to go and run and catch up because I am their leader."
How apt. Still ROFL.
As the subject says, I remember when Tom Petty released some of his songs on MP3, but his record company forced him to retract the MP3s.
Overall, in the music industry, I believe that the artists do not feel threatened by MP3s (in fact, most probably love the concept), but it is the record companies that are scared to death of them.
MP3s will not be commercially viable until someone can come up with a way to make money off of them. Until then, they will remain the currency of the underground.
Justin
If we look at NASA's recent history, we find a lot of distressing items (the Mars observer being lost comes to mind). The fact that they had all of the shuttles at the Cape when Floyd was about to hit wasn't a great idea (who in the world though to have all of the shuttles in one place...).
HOWEVER, if we look a little farther back, we find the Apollo missions. This is quite possibly the United States's crowning achievement. They reached the moon. No one else has ever done anything like this before or since (from our planet ). What has changed??
I believe that what has changed is that the fire has gone away at NASA. People are treating it as their jobs, not as "I'm so lucky to be here. I'm going to do the best I can." Maybe by taking the space program private would help in this regard. But, I'm not entirely sure. If people really, really truly love space, they will work for any amount of money to be close to their dream. The only thing privatization (which I can't spell) achieves is the fact that they could lure "better" people with their better pools of money. Not sure that that will help at all...
OTOH, if the private companies find people who want to work in space-related fields for about what NASA is paying them, with their high financial resources, they could very well spend more on the actual missions (i.e. state-of-the-art equipment). At the risk of sounding foolish, I think it would be quite cool if NASA would allow sponsors to their missions. You could have the Yahoo! mission (paint the shuttle purple and gold like the cabs). This could be a really cool infusion of cash to help NASA out. =)
IMHO, our government needs to restore funding to NASA so that they can return to their peak. Private industry is shaky in this aspect. A unified space project is the only way to go...
Justin
What??? Obsolete compiler? Obsolete kernel? What are you talking about?
While these are not the absolute latest version, they are fairly recent (RH6 uses 2.2.5 and egcs-1.1.2). Have you checked the uptime on these boxes? (I don't have access...). 2.2.11 and 2.2.12 came out only in the last couple of months or so. It is highly likely that the boxes haven't been restarted since then...(why should they be?)
AFAIK, there are no distros that come with SMP compiled into it out of the box. So, someone HAD to compile this SMP kernel. This was not a corporate maintained computer! Someone took the time to install the kernel.
The compiler is a fairly standard one (not the latest and great, but still it is within 3-4 months old). gcc-2.95 is out, but the differences are not groundbreaking. There are still tons of people using gcc 2.6 and lower out there. A lot of the changes have to do with Intel optimizations, not Alpha optimizations...
This is not supposed to be a development box, but rather a test box to showcase the hardware and a guide to help port some of the code to run on these screamers.
The X clients are disabled for security reasons. You do not need X in order to test compilation and porting. The X libraries have already been ported to Alpha and work rather well. This should not be the focus of any porting effort. The X libraries are just that - the provide a standard API to which to code.
It goes without mention why they can not see any box outside of dec.com. Duh. Security 101 will tell you why...
BTW, a dual Celeron will die in comparison to a duel Alpha. This is of course assuming an optimized compiler and code on both sides. The Alpha is 64-bit with tons of cache. The Celeron is a 32-bit processor with hardly any cache. There isn't a chance in hell that the crippled Celeron can keep up.
Crawl back from whence you came!
Justin
P.S. I know this is pure flamebait, but this person is a complete yutz!
I think we can all agree that id cards have been around for years (I have at least 5 or 6 "id" cards).
The fallacy in this particular situation is that it is tied to the SSN not some other arbitrary number. This is something that probably should not be the case. If they fixed this, then they may be able to escape the selling of SSNs. (Obfuscation, please!)
However, from another perspective, forcing everyone at a school to wear a name tag is kind of ridiculous in and of itself. But, this is quite inevitable due to the fact that we now accept id cards/badges in our workplaces and colleges. This is the next logical step.
Justin
The company called the new approach its "everyday Web" strategy and, in a complete turnabout, said it no longer had a dogmatic commitment to the PC platform.
What? This is the same company that dropped the Alpha from its NT2k build. Hmm. No commitment to the Intel world. Baloney. What a load of crock. I guess we could interpret this as to mean something web-centric not PC-centric? Hasn't this been tried many times before (the laughable NC) and failed each time? Sorry. This is insane. When will these "bright" companies wisen up and figure out that we don't want these stupid NCs. In two words, they suck. No control is given to the user at all with these boxes. They have their places, but it is not on my desktop (no matter what Ellison thinks).
About XML, I've worked with it before. It is servicable. But, the key idea behind XML is that everyone HAS to use it in order for it to succeed. I have sincere doubts about that. Microsoft's entering in to this arena makes it even more dubious that it will succeed on its own merits (or lack thereof).
Justin
As part of the OSS movement, the whole idea is that if something is missing you should act upon it and resolve the need. This seems to be the exact opportunity for some bright young Brazilians to come up with solid Portugese documentation for Linux.
I'm going to guess that man pages don't translate well into Portugese. How about Babelfishing them? Oy, that'd be a nightmare to try to comprehend its pigeon Portuguese.
As far as including $$$ products in distros, I believe that it just makes the prices of our favorite distros that much higher. I still can not comprehend why RedHat 6.0 is $89. I can get NT for less. What's the advantage of getting an "official" boxed copy here? However, as long as GPL lives, we cheap bastards can just download the latest version of RH for free.
Hey, you have a good point here. Maybe an interesting thing to do with a restricted budget is that the candidates will have to have a platform on which to make themselves known - instead of the advertising that attempts to distinguish the candidates today. What a change in philosophy! =)
However, this all goes to the debasement (err) of American society. We tend to look beyond the facts and attach to the glamour of the race. Style over substance. I don't know if anyone listened to Steve Forbes today on Meet The Press - he actually made some sense (but he'll never get elected). He was preaching responsibility (gasp) for our actions. Shouldn't these be ideals that we teach our kids? Again, it seems to have been lost in all of the shuffle.
Technically (so this post can be on topic), there is no real reason why we could not do Internet voting. If we already entrust our credit card numbers to the Internet (and 128-bit encryption), there is no reason why we wouldn't trust our nation's future to the same crypto standards. A very valid point is people care more about their privacy of the CC numbers on the Internet rather than who leads our nation for four more years...
Justin
Isn't this the exact scenario that RMS warned us about?
..
This is when a company decides that Open Source is cool, lures us in with the allure and then takes it away just as we most need it. Coming from AOL, though I am not really shocked that they are doing this.
Now, I am not familiar with which license AOL used, but I'll bet that it isn't GNU.
BTW, I'm one of the few who has never used AOL IM. Haha. You want instant messaging? SENDMAIL is your answer!
Ditto.
I figure that if I wanted to I could write this stupid virus in under 20 minutes (PLUS some other features). I've done enough stuff with VBA and MAPI to do this in my sleep. Guess I don't have the inclination to write a virii...
Virii aren't what everyone makes them out to be anymore. I remember old virii that were written in assembler (and used some pretty damn cool tricks), but now they are written using VBA (ROFL).
Justin
If the DOJ wins (or at the very least settles with favorable terms to them) as seems likely and hence forces the split of Microsoft, then this new layout will most likely be how the Baby Bills will work out (oy! Baby Bills!). Microsoft is just restructuring themselves on their terms rather than the DOJ's terms. I'd be scared to let the DOJ carve up Microsoft (witness the AT&T fiasco - stupid, stupid, stupid clueless government). It seems like a smart business move...
I think the biggest thing about Microsoft is that they have grown too big too quickly. They have been trying to be everyone's everything (three letters: IBM around the 1960s). This is a crucial mistake. Microsoft needs to refocus the company (either by their own volition or by the DOJs prodding). If Microsoft kept trying to beat everyone to smitherines instead of developing excellent products (as they are capable of doing), eventually some company is going to outwit them and bring them to their knees (again see IBM vs. Microsoft circa mid-1980s).
Hate to say it, but if the Office group is split from the OS group, what is to prevent them from developing Office for Linux (as has been speculated)?? Nothing - as a new company whose sole purpose is Office would have no allegience to Windows. They would be forced to choose the best operating system. Innovation is key (damn I'm sounding like Bill Gates here - nooooo). Is the best OS Linux? Maybe it is, but that is something that the marketplace must and will decide...
Office on Linux would probably be a good thing - the majority of the known computer-literate world currently uses Office and those of us who want to work with colleagues who use Office need true Office compatibility. SO sucks - crashes more often than Windows. WP can't do everything (not including font issues out the wazoo). What's left? Applix? Come on... Gobe on BeOS is close, but it can't read Office files (yet).
If it isn't Office, what will be the killer app for Linux on the client side?
My $.02, Justin
Yeah, but imagine what would happen if you had a college degree!
Last year, I was in a similar situation - left for college. No regrets and I am having a blast...
If you are good and if you have a degree (preferably CS), you can make more $$ than if you were good and did NOT have a degree (some places won't look at people w/o degrees). This is of course excepting people who start their own business (but they need to sell themselves to venture capitalists et al to start the company).
But, also remember to go to good college as well!
Later,
Justin
Isn't the sole purpose of the GPL is to keep all GPLed code GPLed? That way it can not be hidden inside of some non-GPL license (which could be source restricted).
If you use some GPLed code in your program, it only makes sense that your program MUST be GPLed as well. Granted at times, the GPL does seem a bit protectionist, but I believe RMS is scared to death of extremists who wish to lock up his code if there were any legal loopholes...
This "virus" (that IS what GPL is) makes perfect sense, and it seems as RMS's lawyers did a great job writing the GPL...
My 2 cents... - Justin
I love the MS Naturals (old style) - like most people here I won't use anything else. But good luck finding the old style. Most people who have one aren't going to give 'em up. (I HATE the elites - yuck - what is that diamond thing???). Pair this with my Logitech Trackman Marble and I am in ergo heaven.
;-)
The old Naturals are very good and pretty durable - large keys (HUGE space bar!). Only thing is that the paint on the keys may rub off after a while. If you are reading this, then you probably aren't the type who looks at the keys when they type.
(Just as a note of caution: when I first saw it, I went eeehh, but after an hour or two I was in heaven).
Later,
Justin
IIRC, isn't it NOT the OS, but rather the FS that must be 64-bit? I know NTFS is 64-bit and can handle files over 4gig (I've seen it). And, we all know that NT isn't 64 bit (yet). How it does it I am not sure - need an NTFS reference manual OR the MS source code. Fat chance of that...
;-) Who knows where they are?
I kinda have to suggest this (shrug), but why couldn't we get the NTFS driver bulletproofed (r&w)?? Other than the anti-MS reason, NTFS isn't a bad FS (and is proven) and there is already substantial work done with it... It'd be great for that "Hey, NT admins, come to Linux?"
But, then again, if people like Tweedie from RH working on designing ext3, why bother with NTFS??
L8r,
Justin
This guy has it sooo wrong.
This kid doesn't have a clue what an education means. While I agree that most colleges can't keep up with the technical aspects, that is NOT true for all colleges. Most computer science programs are easy, but let me say that there are some that are above the others.
Second of all, this kid knows HTML. HTML, pardon my french, is NOT programming (although some would like it to be). It's a language, but it does not require any major leaps in programming. Even Java for the most part is NOT programming (although it can certainly be), because most people do not use it as a true programming language. This 'geek' probably does not even understand what a reentrant linked list is or even an AVL tree (all subjects contained in the first year at U.C. Irvine - my university).
I'll admit I have a bias being in college right now. But, that little piece of paper is worth SOOO much. I can not tell you all the people I've worked with who are in computers without a degree who have told me that the stupidest thing they did was NOT to pursue college. Without a degree (any type), they hit a glass ceiling at most places. With a degree, you will not see as many glass ceilings.
Now, the only rational way you could succeed without a degree (or being lucky) is to start your own business (i.e. consulting, web design, etc.). However, most businesses are flops. But, if you can make it, godspeed. You saved yourself your tuition. (BTW, for most successful 'geeks' $120k is a pittance and that is an absurdly HIGH figure - Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, MIT figures...)
Lastly, who said you had to study computer science at college? Study Shakespeare. College is a great place to broaden your horizons.
Later,
Justin
pre-4 isn't on the US mirror yet and ftp.kernel.org is full...
Wonder how long it takes to replicate (if it's out)...
Justin