Yet I have been using Linux since 1994 and I found there are hardware problems, on most systems actually. I started to see them when I stopped becoming a Linux Zealot. I use the big 3 OS's (Linux, OS X, Windows) almost on a daily basis. They all have their pluses and minuses. One of Linux's minus is it lacks quality handling of modern video cards, hence not making it good for games, heck it barely runs the Windows managers when you want some of the modern effects on your system... I am sorry but I like a semi-transparent Terminal that shows the Windows behind it. And when I am using Linux I am willing to trade off the fact my windows get messed up after a couple of hours of use, but it shows off its faults with video. I can point out faults in other OS's 2 but the topic was about a game for Linux.
An other boring no-name game gets ported to linux in hope it will get popularity by attracting a niche market. Heck I can't even get Linux to properly display windows without all the graphics getting messed up.
What Unix war? There is the normal bantering from people saying their version of Unix is better then the rest (Which for the most part is normally the version of Unix they know the best) but a Unix war. I haven't heard anything about it. Other then OS X all the other Unixes are in heavy competition against Linux and Windows for its survival.
Well umm it depends on your output hardware. If you are using ASCII Line Printers then you can. Behold the Arch Or with other printers you can change the spacing so the characters be moved a few pixels in different direction.
Simple Apple is still selling Personal Computers... IBM isn't.
Why? IBM let Microsoft sell DOS to other manufactures. So there was a huge clone market once labeled IBM Compatible, which in time became more common as the PC, and IBM was only a bit player. Apple when it was at its lowest is when it tried to license it Mac OS to other companies. What happened, well people stopped buying Macs and went with other companies with the OS for a Mac Compatible computer.
Palm was trying to be compatible with iTunes, but they really did it in an unethical way. 1. Hired Rogue Apple Employees who knew company secrets. 2. Except for working with Apple and get permission to do so. They made a hack to the system to access the information. 3. Pushing the fact that it is compatible with iTunes without apple saying so.
I am sorry, Yes it is bad for competition and competition is good for the consumer. However in business you need to respect your competitors space and their rights. Otherwise you will get burned.
All "The Man" needs to do is modify the image. Which is rather common practice anyways.
1. Insuring images are scaled properly. 2. Reconverted so the images will fit in the Database. 3. Insure you just have the image not a hack. 4. lossy compression to save storage space.
Most games that work with Sprite images work for ascii. As it is in essence a bunch of sprites that are pre-made. You may not see the guy running but that doesn't effect game play.
Real Environmentalists understand tradeoffs exist for everything you do, and you need to weigh the benefit of with the tradeoff. Hippies or Psuto-Hyppies hear the science but don't understand it or see it in a big picture and give a big whine and fuss about everything, they treat science like a religion blindly following what it says, without thinking big picture.
What is the benefit of 1 billion houses, 1 Billion new energy efficient houses to replace the old non-energy efficient ones may be to a great advantage. WIth Proper Logging methods within 20 years all those trees will be back, and we get an overall benefit vs. the tradeoff.
Now if those 1 billion houses were just second homes for peoples excess then the cost could be worse then the tradeoffs.
I would expect the major part of the savings is the fact that they got a new software system which offers more of the savings then what ever license cost windows has to pay for. Now remember they were using Solaris before so the IT Guys were a bunch of Unix geeks anyways so switching to Linux is a very small learning curve. I think the choice to go to Linux was different then a way to try to directly save money with license costs or even have the availability of Linux source. But more to the fact that... A. You have a Unionized work force who knows Unix any ways. If you switched to Windows you will need to get windows administrators and keep the Unix guys doing nothing, because Unions make it hard for you to get employees to change. B. Linux has a wider and more stable drivers and works on more hardware then other Unix venders, so it assures that they are not necessarily stuck with HP. C. New hires, you have a better chance of Linux Experience then Unix experience nowadays.
That said if a couple of factors had changed they could have run their system off of windows with probably with just as much savings as with Linux. Choosing Linux is mostly an HR issue not a technical one.
Dag Nabbit. I am still furious that games are not longer played across Null Modem Serial Cables. This is wrong very wrong. Some parties they don't have Network connections only a serial cable and a couple of serial ports in the back on their computer.
Seriously though. If you have a LAN setup you normally have a good enough internet connection. If someone doesn't then they can hook up to your LAN and still play over the internet, As most peoples LANs have an internet gateway. Unless you just want to buy hundreds of dollars in equipment setup an infrastructure in you house. Just for something that happens once every couple of months and each month less and less people show up, because they can do it over the internet easier.
Now if say Blizzard went out of business what would happen? They just turn off all the servers an go home never to return. NO! they will sell it to an other company and they will maintain it, if not they will probably sell it, to someone who will.
Most companies when they go out of business especially one of any particular size they get bought out and sold to different companies/organizations. So if say Blizzard went out of business you may be able to setup a NFP Fund to buy BattleNet. for them and relicense it (You may not be able to GPL the code) or give it away to others. If a company is going out of business they are usually fairly open to selling stuff to you.
LAN Games have the problem with demographics now. Most people don't know when the LAN ends and the Internet begins, creating a support problem. Also it is not a heavily used feature as you said about LAN Parties are obsolete.
Lets jump to a conclusion that it is an easy to fix problem. And creating and deploying this would be cake. They may have the fix but have to manually go to the systems to fix them.
Wow what a demonstration of lack of knowledge of history and economics.
Money isn't real. It is imaginary, even gold back (As gold is a mineral which we really don't need to live.). Paper Notes and coins are just representations of this imaginary concept. Money is a system in where we don't need to barter objects as the barter system would be too complex and we will spend most of our time trying to barder everything vs actually doing work. Eg. I spend 4 hours programming for this I get 300 lbs of rice. Now I will need to find people who will take my rice say 50 lbs of it and replace it for cable service, however the cable company has enough rice but they want Apples so I have to find people selling apples and needs rice to trade them for it then I give them the apples.... In the end you will spend most of you awake life trying to get your goods that you need by trading for everything.
So that is why we came up with this money system. So we have a universally convertible method of trading our goods. Now we get in influx of 3 million people. Yes they need more but they can also do more. Because we now have 3 million more people doing work and asking for services that means an overall improvement in the economy. There might be a short term dip while they are trying to find their place but overall it is a good thing.
You view is based more of racism and nationalism then good thinking. The late 20th century is the period we had the greatest rise in the economy. Why Baby Boomers, the US had an influx in population and we finally had resources to keep them alive. So it greatly improved the economy. How is having a bunch of Americans being born vs. immigrants moving in is any different overall (Long term) to the economy, there isn't. It is just the immigrants have strange ways, different languages and funny accents, that makes us feel uncomfortable and then we say it will kill the economy so we don't look like a bunch of bigots.
That said there is still the issue of the short term, and effects on particular localities. That need to address too. But in the long term that would help the US economy not kill it.
Also don't forget the United States ranks 50th in population density. For the most part people need to drive from point A to B and Mass transit would be prohibitively expensive.
Being a manager doesn't make you stupid. Being a tech doesn't make you smart.
There are a lot of stupid techs, and many of them hate managers just because Dilbert tells them too, and will not bother asking why or even comprehend that there may be a good reason for doing something.
Yes there are a lot of stupid managers too that makes Dilbert seem like real life.
However there are a lot of good managers who know what they are doing and know what is going on. And there are some good techs who knows what is going on in a business level.
Being a tech can be fun because you get to use all the new technology and you are actually creating new and exciting things.
Being a manager can be fun because you have the authority and power to make decisions and give these new and exciting things directions and functionality.
Staying a tech means you will probably not get much involved in decision making and your Point of View is often limited to technical concerns.
Becoming a manager will mean you will have less time working directly with tech stuff, and more time with people. You wont be able to sit down for a full day and just code.
Simple, if you smile and pretend to be happy, you actually become more happy. When you are happy annoying people are less annoying and allows you to do service work more effectively.
If you fly a lot compare Southwest with American Air.
Southwest people are trained to smile and be cheerful. American Air doesn't.
Southwest has less delays and is more profitable and the passagers are better behaved and quiet and cuterious of others.
The interstate wasn't designed for bike riders, or farm equipment, or any thing that can't reach at least 45 miles per hour consistent speed. Unless there is a special permit to do so. It does stink though, I would love to bike to work however either I would need to bike across some unsavory areas of the city, take an extra couple miles detour up steep hills to go around the city. Or illegal ride on the interstate.
It looks good on paper. However this is what happens.
First lets stop and realize there is a deal of stress and frustration to have to deal with different people all the time (contractors) and it is generally easier and safer to deal with the same people (you know the level you can trust them and you know their quality of their work etc... All in all makes it easier to manage them). That said IT managers of government agencies really don't want to put stuff out to bid. As it is a lot of work for them, they have to battle with the Union first to make a case for their need (normally with all their staff saying I don't want to do this) for hiring outsiders to do the work. Then you need to make a full spec and then put it out to bid get the best bid and then when the people start they will start out slower because they don't know your work. (Turnover cost is about 150% more then using the same people)
So what happens? Well they make 1 or 2 actual completive bids for some small projects and see if they like the people. Once they know them and like them and get to know their skill sets for the next larger project they word the bid to match that persons skill sets so the person who meets the requirements is the person they look for. That is why if you look at these bids that come out there is a lot of very odd requirement say for a Web project asking for 13 years of Cobol Experience or Linux experience for making a Windows app. Then they used that canned bid over and over again to keep them there.
Why use contractors at all? Because the Union allows the people to say no to any job they don't want to do. And a lot of jobs are based on Bad Ideas which are very political, but really doomed to failure. So you get the contractor to do it. If it fails then it is the evil contractors fault. But you hire him again because you really know the project was doomed anyways. The contractor is fine to be the bad guy if you keep hiring him again.
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Yet I have been using Linux since 1994 and I found there are hardware problems, on most systems actually. I started to see them when I stopped becoming a Linux Zealot. I use the big 3 OS's (Linux, OS X, Windows) almost on a daily basis. They all have their pluses and minuses. One of Linux's minus is it lacks quality handling of modern video cards, hence not making it good for games, heck it barely runs the Windows managers when you want some of the modern effects on your system... I am sorry but I like a semi-transparent Terminal that shows the Windows behind it. And when I am using Linux I am willing to trade off the fact my windows get messed up after a couple of hours of use, but it shows off its faults with video. I can point out faults in other OS's 2 but the topic was about a game for Linux.
An other boring no-name game gets ported to linux in hope it will get popularity by attracting a niche market.
Heck I can't even get Linux to properly display windows without all the graphics getting messed up.
What Unix war? There is the normal bantering from people saying their version of Unix is better then the rest (Which for the most part is normally the version of Unix they know the best) but a Unix war. I haven't heard anything about it. Other then OS X all the other Unixes are in heavy competition against Linux and Windows for its survival.
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/7797/palm-hires-apples-former-head-of-mac-pr/
Heck you can google Palm Apple Employees
Isn't that OS X?
BSD isn't dead heck it has overtaken Linux by strides and is a serious contender to windows. Just just downplay the BSD roots of the OS.
Well umm it depends on your output hardware.
If you are using ASCII Line Printers then you can. Behold the Arch Or with other printers you can change the spacing so the characters be moved a few pixels in different direction.
Simple Apple is still selling Personal Computers... IBM isn't.
Why? IBM let Microsoft sell DOS to other manufactures. So there was a huge clone market once labeled IBM Compatible, which in time became more common as the PC, and IBM was only a bit player.
Apple when it was at its lowest is when it tried to license it Mac OS to other companies. What happened, well people stopped buying Macs and went with other companies with the OS for a Mac Compatible computer.
Palm was trying to be compatible with iTunes, but they really did it in an unethical way.
1. Hired Rogue Apple Employees who knew company secrets.
2. Except for working with Apple and get permission to do so. They made a hack to the system to access the information.
3. Pushing the fact that it is compatible with iTunes without apple saying so.
I am sorry, Yes it is bad for competition and competition is good for the consumer. However in business you need to respect your competitors space and their rights. Otherwise you will get burned.
well your obviously addicted to the internet. If you access Google USA. because everything you need is on Google China.
All "The Man" needs to do is modify the image. Which is rather common practice anyways.
1. Insuring images are scaled properly.
2. Reconverted so the images will fit in the Database.
3. Insure you just have the image not a hack.
4. lossy compression to save storage space.
Depending on who makes the poll questions and what the questions are you can get different answers from the same group of people.
Do you think the individuals who use most of the bandwidth should be limited so you can afford cheaper bandwidth?
Do you think the government should put a limit on how much bandwidth you use?
Most ideas come with trade offs. Depending on the views of the poll writer you can get their bias in the questions.
Most games that work with Sprite images work for ascii. As it is in essence a bunch of sprites that are pre-made. You may not see the guy running but that doesn't effect game play.
Real Environmentalists understand tradeoffs exist for everything you do, and you need to weigh the benefit of with the tradeoff.
Hippies or Psuto-Hyppies hear the science but don't understand it or see it in a big picture and give a big whine and fuss about everything, they treat science like a religion blindly following what it says, without thinking big picture.
What is the benefit of 1 billion houses, 1 Billion new energy efficient houses to replace the old non-energy efficient ones may be to a great advantage. WIth Proper Logging methods within 20 years all those trees will be back, and we get an overall benefit vs. the tradeoff.
Now if those 1 billion houses were just second homes for peoples excess then the cost could be worse then the tradeoffs.
I would expect the major part of the savings is the fact that they got a new software system which offers more of the savings then what ever license cost windows has to pay for.
Now remember they were using Solaris before so the IT Guys were a bunch of Unix geeks anyways so switching to Linux is a very small learning curve. I think the choice to go to Linux was different then a way to try to directly save money with license costs or even have the availability of Linux source. But more to the fact that...
A. You have a Unionized work force who knows Unix any ways. If you switched to Windows you will need to get windows administrators and keep the Unix guys doing nothing, because Unions make it hard for you to get employees to change.
B. Linux has a wider and more stable drivers and works on more hardware then other Unix venders, so it assures that they are not necessarily stuck with HP.
C. New hires, you have a better chance of Linux Experience then Unix experience nowadays.
That said if a couple of factors had changed they could have run their system off of windows with probably with just as much savings as with Linux. Choosing Linux is mostly an HR issue not a technical one.
I am still waiting for what Microsoft Promised me for Windows 95.
Dag Nabbit. I am still furious that games are not longer played across Null Modem Serial Cables. This is wrong very wrong. Some parties they don't have Network connections only a serial cable and a couple of serial ports in the back on their computer.
Seriously though. If you have a LAN setup you normally have a good enough internet connection. If someone doesn't then they can hook up to your LAN and still play over the internet, As most peoples LANs have an internet gateway. Unless you just want to buy hundreds of dollars in equipment setup an infrastructure in you house. Just for something that happens once every couple of months and each month less and less people show up, because they can do it over the internet easier.
Now if say Blizzard went out of business what would happen? They just turn off all the servers an go home never to return. NO! they will sell it to an other company and they will maintain it, if not they will probably sell it, to someone who will.
Most companies when they go out of business especially one of any particular size they get bought out and sold to different companies/organizations. So if say Blizzard went out of business you may be able to setup a NFP Fund to buy BattleNet. for them and relicense it (You may not be able to GPL the code) or give it away to others. If a company is going out of business they are usually fairly open to selling stuff to you.
LAN Games have the problem with demographics now. Most people don't know when the LAN ends and the Internet begins, creating a support problem. Also it is not a heavily used feature as you said about LAN Parties are obsolete.
Lets jump to a conclusion that it is an easy to fix problem.
And creating and deploying this would be cake.
They may have the fix but have to manually go to the systems to fix them.
Wow what a demonstration of lack of knowledge of history and economics.
Money isn't real. It is imaginary, even gold back (As gold is a mineral which we really don't need to live.). Paper Notes and coins are just representations of this imaginary concept.
Money is a system in where we don't need to barter objects as the barter system would be too complex and we will spend most of our time trying to barder everything vs actually doing work.
Eg.
I spend 4 hours programming for this I get 300 lbs of rice. Now I will need to find people who will take my rice say 50 lbs of it and replace it for cable service, however the cable company has enough rice but they want Apples so I have to find people selling apples and needs rice to trade them for it then I give them the apples.... In the end you will spend most of you awake life trying to get your goods that you need by trading for everything.
So that is why we came up with this money system. So we have a universally convertible method of trading our goods.
Now we get in influx of 3 million people. Yes they need more but they can also do more. Because we now have 3 million more people doing work and asking for services that means an overall improvement in the economy. There might be a short term dip while they are trying to find their place but overall it is a good thing.
You view is based more of racism and nationalism then good thinking.
The late 20th century is the period we had the greatest rise in the economy. Why Baby Boomers, the US had an influx in population and we finally had resources to keep them alive. So it greatly improved the economy. How is having a bunch of Americans being born vs. immigrants moving in is any different overall (Long term) to the economy, there isn't. It is just the immigrants have strange ways, different languages and funny accents, that makes us feel uncomfortable and then we say it will kill the economy so we don't look like a bunch of bigots.
That said there is still the issue of the short term, and effects on particular localities. That need to address too. But in the long term that would help the US economy not kill it.
Quite, He either wants geek cred points or is trying to get his PHD with this. If they know this is already out he could loose his grants
Also don't forget the United States ranks 50th in population density. For the most part people need to drive from point A to B and Mass transit would be prohibitively expensive.
Maybe. But not really.
Most distributions of Linux follow a lot of common standards.
Similar directory structure. Similar Apps installed...
If you just take the Linux Kernel then just build an OS on top of that you would have something dramatically different then a Linux Distribution.
Lets look at OS X. OS X is based off a Unix Kernel. But it isn't much of Unix Distribution. Apple just left Unix compatibility so they can market it.
In truth that what it really comes down to.
Being a manager doesn't make you stupid.
Being a tech doesn't make you smart.
There are a lot of stupid techs, and many of them hate managers just because Dilbert tells them too, and will not bother asking why or even comprehend that there may be a good reason for doing something.
Yes there are a lot of stupid managers too that makes Dilbert seem like real life.
However there are a lot of good managers who know what they are doing and know what is going on.
And there are some good techs who knows what is going on in a business level.
Being a tech can be fun because you get to use all the new technology and you are actually creating new and exciting things.
Being a manager can be fun because you have the authority and power to make decisions and give these new and exciting things directions and functionality.
Staying a tech means you will probably not get much involved in decision making and your Point of View is often limited to technical concerns.
Becoming a manager will mean you will have less time working directly with tech stuff, and more time with people. You wont be able to sit down for a full day and just code.
Simple, if you smile and pretend to be happy, you actually become more happy. When you are happy annoying people are less annoying and allows you to do service work more effectively.
If you fly a lot compare Southwest with American Air.
Southwest people are trained to smile and be cheerful. American Air doesn't.
Southwest has less delays and is more profitable and the passagers are better behaved and quiet and cuterious of others.
The interstate wasn't designed for bike riders, or farm equipment, or any thing that can't reach at least 45 miles per hour consistent speed. Unless there is a special permit to do so. It does stink though, I would love to bike to work however either I would need to bike across some unsavory areas of the city, take an extra couple miles detour up steep hills to go around the city. Or illegal ride on the interstate.
It looks good on paper. However this is what happens.
First lets stop and realize there is a deal of stress and frustration to have to deal with different people all the time (contractors) and it is generally easier and safer to deal with the same people (you know the level you can trust them and you know their quality of their work etc... All in all makes it easier to manage them).
That said IT managers of government agencies really don't want to put stuff out to bid. As it is a lot of work for them, they have to battle with the Union first to make a case for their need (normally with all their staff saying I don't want to do this) for hiring outsiders to do the work. Then you need to make a full spec and then put it out to bid get the best bid and then when the people start they will start out slower because they don't know your work. (Turnover cost is about 150% more then using the same people)
So what happens? Well they make 1 or 2 actual completive bids for some small projects and see if they like the people. Once they know them and like them and get to know their skill sets for the next larger project they word the bid to match that persons skill sets so the person who meets the requirements is the person they look for. That is why if you look at these bids that come out there is a lot of very odd requirement say for a Web project asking for 13 years of Cobol Experience or Linux experience for making a Windows app. Then they used that canned bid over and over again to keep them there.
Why use contractors at all? Because the Union allows the people to say no to any job they don't want to do. And a lot of jobs are based on Bad Ideas which are very political, but really doomed to failure. So you get the contractor to do it. If it fails then it is the evil contractors fault. But you hire him again because you really know the project was doomed anyways. The contractor is fine to be the bad guy if you keep hiring him again.