Even under the PATRIOT act, there are still checks and balances...
Um, not enough checks, I fear. Just ask a certain Senator (*cough* Ted Kennedy *cough*) who was detained at airports because some terrorist with an apparent sense of humor decided to use his name as an alias. While in theory you're correct, you'd have to be blind to recent events to believe that the government wouldn't detain the innocent on the rare chance that they might be guilty. Guilt by association has become the rule, not the exception.
I find it rather troubling that, of all those arrested and detained for "connections to terrorism," our government has yet to gain a single conviction for terrorism - i.e. conspiracy to commit murder, etc... The best they've done so far is charge a handful of people with falsifying documents and various immigration violations. It makes you wonder if they really are "fighting a war against terrorism" or merely using the pretext of war as an excuse to stifle the expression of Islam in America.
If you don't encrypt your email and web traffic, you have no "reasonable expectation" of privacy. Apparently, "addressing information" - that is, packet headers - are not a part of confidential communications, and as such, it does not represent an invasion of privacy to read them.
While I understand his argument that PATRIOT merely made pre-existing wiretap laws apply to the internet, this fact alone doesn't make the existing laws right. For example, just knowing who called who when, even without revealing the details of content, does significantly invade one's privacy. In these times when someone can be detained simply because they "may have knowledge of a criminal act", divulging the websites a person visits is still too dangerous. Someone concerned about the rise of radical Islam could easily be detained as a "potential terrorist" simply because they did some independent research on Islam using the internet. Even scanning addressing information alone is too much power for a government in which the mere declaration that one is an "enemy combatant" can be used to arbitrarily deny one's civil liberties.
Just give up Windows? Then you could keep the Internet.
Seriously, for all the frustration these people have gone through, they could have installed Linux and put a permanent end to the problem.
Them: My Windows PC is broken - it's too slow and crashes all the time. I think I have a virus - how do I fix it?
Me: Install Linux.
Them: Um, I don't know how to do that - it sounds complicated. Can't I just download a fix or something?
Me: Yes, you could. And then you would have to reinstall all of your applications, install the latest service pack, install a firewall - block ports 23, 454.... (long list of ports)... but not 80, install antivirus software, install anti-spyware software. And then you'd have to do it all again in 6 months when you forgot to do your biweekly update and your machine gets infected again.
Them: Um, I have to do all that?!
Me: If you're going to stick with Windows, yes. Or you could just install Linux and let other people worry about viruses and spyware, etc...
The cards will generally add little to existing PC cards, Saunders said, but that's necessary to help ease the transition from CardBus, the current slot technology. The two are not compatible.[emphasis mine]
So, I'm expected to just upgrade for the joy of hardware troubleshooting?! Problem is, there is no compelling reason to break backward compatibility in this case - no new features, and the speed of existing cards generally isn't an issue.
That compatibility is expected to give ExpressCard a boost over prior PC cards in ease of installation and configuration with the Windows operating system...
Yeah, right. First of all, I'm no Windows fan, but it seems to me that PCMCIA was one of the few things that Windows did get right. If you had drivers for the device, Windows loaded them without hassle whenever you inserted the card. How much easier could it get?
Heck, even Linux works well with PCMCIA devices - to be honest, I don't even know which drivers my PCMCIA ethernet card uses because I've never had to figure it out. I just plug the card in, and it works.
Looks to me like a real flop. If you're going to break backward compatibility, you have to offer your customers a compelling reason to buy your product, i.e. better performance, new features, etc... I did RTFA, and it seems like the new Express architecture is little more than an excuse to keep engineers and programmers employed.
At this point I would actually welcome something like a drivers license for broadband access...
Why not require they run Linux instead?
Knowing most ISP's, they'd implement a "broadband drivers license" in such a manner that it refused a connection to anyone who wasn't running the latest version of Windows, with all the system-slowing anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-adware, firewalling software that is required of Windows users. Oh, and you can add DRM to that as requirement as well.
When it comes down to it, actions speak louder than words. Microsoft talks alot about enterprise class reliability, etc... but I've never seen a Microsoft network that was truly enterprise class. Perhaps I've had a spate of incompetent admins, but every Microsoft shop I've been in has had problems with security.
Case in point: a few days ago I received an email from a friend telling me not to send him emails with attachments anymore (They run Windows exclusively). Apparently, they are having such a problem with viruses that the company has just adopted a policy of firing (without warning, mind you) anyone who receives email attachments. While I don't like it, I'm not surprised; he's told me in the past that virus cleanup has cost this company millions of dollars per incident.
So because Microsoft can't be bothered to write secure systems, his corporate email is essentially useless to the company. How "Enterprise Class" is a mail system which costs the company a additional few million dollars with every virus outbreak? Where's the ROI on a mail system that, for all intents and purposes, doesn't work?
And we wonder why IBM can sell a mainframe with the computing power of a desktop PC for millions of dollars...
This still doesn't address the fundamental problem of the draconian terms found in most EULA's. The fact that the user can now read the EULA prior to sale makes it all the more likely that even the worst terms of the EULA (especially those regarding no-resale, reverse engineering, etc..) will be enforceable in court.
Recently, Microsoft made available development tools with the restriction that the user not use them to develop any GPL or free software. In the future, a person who merely uses Windows may be prohibited from ever developing free software by "virtue" of the Windows EULA. Since these agreements are now on public display, it is even more likely that the courts would consider them valid, no matter how egregious the terms.
at a former employer. Company policy required managers to be present any time their employees were working overtime. As you can guess, we had to get management permission to work overtime, which was granted only when it was really needed. An interesting side effect is that our managers became very good at estimating the time needed for a project, and we were almost never late - with or without overtime.
Yeah, my Toshiba laptop is junk too. I've gone through two CDRW drives in less than a year. My current one is bound to be replaced soon, as it only "occasionally" works...
When it comes to enterprise class computing, these are the crucial factors:
Service: A good system vendor will support their product for as long as the customer uses it. I know of a certain company (*cough* Microsoft *cough*) which arbitrarily decided to stop supporting products older than 6 years, and requiring customers to upgrade after 2 just to maintain support contracts. This approach has hastened many a business to convert to Linux.
Stability: You cannot patch a production system at the drop of a hat. The ideal vendor is one who thoroughly tests their software before release, and places a high priority on maintaining backward compatibility with previous releases.
Security: Of course every system is secure in the eyes of the vendor, but does the vendor really understand the level of security you require? And how much effort is required to maintain that security - some systems claim to be secure, but only if the customer spends a great deal of time constantly applying patches. If the system isn't secure without constant patching, it isn't secure at all - because you can't constantly patch a production system without experiencing stability issues.
Reliability: The last thing your customers want to hear is that you can't complete their order because the server crashed or got a virus.
Scalability: How easy is it to add capacity? Can you add processing power without taking the system offline?
Robustness: How well can you expand the functionality of your existing systems when needed? A vendor which forces you into one particular programming paradigm is bound to cause headaches for you later on when either you or they want to move on.
Options and flexibility: Can you get the systems you need configured the way you want them, or does the vendor have a my-way-or-the-highway philosophy? If the vendor isn't willing to work with you to meet your needs before the sale, you can bet they won't care about you afterward.
Well, I hope this helps. I think the absolute worst criteria is performance, because any system in use for a substantial amount of time will receive an upgrade or two. If you don't have the performance now, you can always request it during the next upgrade. But if you don't have security, stability, or reliability from day one, you might not be around later to perform an upgrade...
If you're content to make a career out maintaining legacy code (COBOL, etc...), then just about any university will do, but:
If you'd like to do anything interesting - applications, operating systems, etc - you definitely need to pay attention to the school, because:
Your first job is determined largely by where you went to school. Some firms only recruit from one school, and if you aren't an alumni, you can forget being hired by them straight out of school.
Your first job also determines, to a large degree, your career path.
Regardless of how smart you actually are, you will acquire the reputation of your parent school - for instance, if it has a reputation for producing good COBOL programmers, you'll have companies that use COBOL beating a path to your door while the ones doing software development won't even bother looking at your resume.
Just a little side note: I went to a university known for having a good business and data processing curriculum. I took my first job writing in an obscure language for outdated mainframes. After about 2 years, I thought I'd look for a job doing what I really wanted to do, and the conversations with recruiters usually went like this:
Me: I'd like to start working as a game developer/engineer/etc...
Recruiter: Well, I see you've got many skills listed on your resume. But, what experience do you have as a developer/engineer/etc...?
Me: (sheepishly) Well, none - but it's something I'd really like to do. I've done some work on my own and read up on the subject quite a bit.
Recruiter: Well, that's nice and all, but my clients are going to want someone with solid experience... Would you be willing to take a job writing in COBOL instead?
You see, my mistake was twofold:
I didn't go to the right school, which meant that I had to:
Take a job doing something I really wasn't crazy about doing. Which led to people thinking of me as a "COBOL programmer" instead of a "Games Developer".
The perception problem is very real. If you stay at a lackluster school, you will neither get a good education, nor have a good career - at least not without a great deal of effort. Having a few years in an given technology tends to pigeon-hole your career prospects, and you might find yourself unable to find a position doing what you want to do if you don't get in with a good company right after graduation.
Okay, so Windows told you, "Please insert a disk into drive E:" So I guess that means that my experience of having Windows bluescreen when I removed a CD doesn't count, right? Did you stop to consider that perhaps I'm speaking from experience that spans several versions of Windows? Or that maybe I'm relating an experience that I've seen time and again across a wide variety of machines?
The fact that your machine behaves nicely doesn't mean that everyone with Windows experiences the same bliss that you do. I've seen this thing happen too many times to believe otherwise. Consider yourself lucky - you happened to find a hardware combination that Windows likes. Not everyone is so lucky, though, and the fact that your machine handles this gracefully doesn't mean that every Windows machine does.
Microsoft's GUI has, from the beginning, given users the freedom to remove their disks without notice, recovering quite smoothly from the surprise events.
Um, hate to burst your bubble, but MS GUI does not recover smoothly from such events, unless one considers a BSOD smooth recovery. Since Windows 95, and still today in Windows XP, removing a CD or floppy from the drive before Windows is finished with it will result in the system hanging at best, and BSOD at worst. Not exactly what most people would consider smooth operation.
Neither Linux nor Apple nor Microsoft correctly address the problem of removable media:
The first problem is bad physical design: the same people who brought us a filesystem where a failed write ruins the disk (*cough* CD-R *cough*) previously brought us the brain-dead floppy drive, where a user could mechanically eject the disk in the middle of a disk access. Without the hardware facility to be notified of media change, there weren't any disk-change events for OS drivers to capture, which lead to:
OS designers didn't write drivers to correctly handle an eject event. Windows either doesn't listen for, or doesn't care about CD eject events. The result is that a CD or floppy can be ejected and the dumb OS attempts to continue as if the media were still present.
Iomega got it right - the zip disk drivers signal the OS that an eject has been requested, and then (theoretically, at least) the OS flushes the write queue, unmounts and ejects the media.
Until a time when people leave enough distance between them and the car in front of them to stop suddenly... Insufficient stopping distance is the #1 cause of over-braking (and accidents, too...)
From the company that brought us the CPU's that could double as toaster ovens, we now have the BTX. Let's see what improvements (ahem!) we can look forward to:
More heat: Rather than make the CPU run cooler, we'll redesign the motherboard to accommodate. Oh, and the design will *coincidentally* thwart faster processors by making the trace lengths unequal.
Fewer options: Windows is the dominate OS, so there's no need for more than one or two PCI cards. Who cares if the onboard peripherals don't support Linux - it's not like buyers would add a PCI card or two to improve performance or achieve interoperability...
This board is a non-starter. The PC overtook the Mac because of the fact that it was more customizable (even if it was technically inferior). If people wanted a big company to restrict which hardware they run, they'd buy an Apple.
Instead of asking why the American people voted for Bush, ask yourself why the Democrats couldn't come up with a better candidate than Kerry.
Because I'm still asking myself why the Republicans couldn't come up with a better candidate than Bush.
The reason why Democrats couldn't come up with a better candidate is because: (pick one or more)
With the deficit spending, PATRIOT act, etc... Bush already qualified as a de facto Democrat, but couldn't be nominated because he's still technically a registered Republican.
Howard Dean just wasn't cool enough.
Tom Daschle bent over backward so far on the PATRIOT act that he can't stand up straight.
Barak Obama was busy trying to figure out how Alan Keyes, a Republican from Maryland, could come to Illinois and give him lessons in logic during a televised debate.
Jesse Jackson demanded that if he didn't run, there would be "someone more liberal than Ted Kennedy" to take his place. After some initial confusion and disagreement over the issue, and questions of whether or not it was possible to be more liberal than Ted Kennedy, John Kerry stepped up and everyone realized just what Jackson was talking about.
No, science is not religion. But naturalism - the philosophy that states that everything can be explained in terms of the natural univers - is a psuedo-religion of sorts, and it finds particularly strong support among atheists and scientists. So you will often find proponents of naturalism using science to bolster their religious convictions, which often has the effect of blurring the distinction between science and religion.
The other is based on total ignorance and acceptance of something without questioning any of it.
As trollish as this might sound, I see this line of reasoning often repeated, so I think I should respond to it. Religion, especially Christianity, is based on both man's experiences and divine revelation. It is not merely the unquestioned acceptance of some nice fantasies. Divine revelation is truthful by definition (if it's not true, it didn't come from the one who is the truth). Contrast this with science in which axioms initially thought true can prove false with greater observation and understanding. One can never know with any degree of acceptable certainty if a scientific theory is true; one can know the observations, but continued observation could disprove earlier theories.
Now this is all fine and good when it comes to material things. Generally speaking, science provides a safe way to bet. But when it comes to things such as eternal destiny, the uncertainty of the scientific method is far from reassuring. Yes, I can trust a physicist to predict the Moon's orbit, but no, I wouldn't trust the same physicist with my eternal destiny.
Now as for man's experiences. Christianity arose from the largest body of scientific data ever assembled - namely, the Bible and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. This body of data far exceeds that of any other discipline - God has been the subject of more study than any other subject throughout history. Nor is reason contrary to faith - in fact, it is the light of reason which causes us to believe. Anyone who disagrees would do well to read Descarte, who found a reason to believe in God without ever mentioning a Bible verse.
We do not accept Christianity without question. Every mature Christian that I've known has, at some point, questioned their belief. And we always come back to the same place - that God does exist. To think otherwise would require simply ignoring some profound evidence:
Every major culture has had a concept of God, even those far isolated from each other.
The oldest manuscripts mankind possess are of a religious nature. If God does not exist, why do 40 centuries of human thought (and history) insist otherwise? What was their fatal error in reasoning that prevented them from seeing the (supposed) truth?
Many of us have personally experienced small miracles - things that science simply could not explain. When one experiences a small miracle, the Gospel account of healing blind men presents no logical problem; it is simply God doing in a bigger way what he has already done in our own lives.
Granted, you might not be convinced of God's existence from what I've just written, but at least you should gather that religion, and Christianity in particular, is not opposed to reason. Rather, it is our faith and our reason working together which lead us to believe in God.
Faith and science are not necessarily opposed to each other, though a lot of atheists would like to think they are.
The problem I see is that atheists attempt to pervert science into "proving" that there is no God, as if the techniques of science are somehow suited to grappling with the metaphysical.
The other problem I see is that fundamentalist Christians are denying their faith in God. God - not science - is supposed to be the truth, but if your arguments for faith rest on scientific proofs, then you've supplanted God with Science as the ultimate arbiter of truth. Which is just self-defeating. If God is truth, and He said He created the world in seven days, then He did. End of story. Chasing after "scientific" proofs of Biblical stories only shows one's faith to rest not in God, but in science.
And then comes science. In the discovery of the marvels of our universe, we come to realize that it is ordered - the hallmark of a creative genius. No, it doesn't prove God exists - if it did, science (or logic), rather than God, would be the ultimate truth. It isn't. Not to say science doesn't serve a useful purpose - it does; but rather that it is a tentative explanation of nature. From a logical standpoint, science doesn't prove anything, but rather explains it.
And those who try to base their religion on science only show themselves to be foolish - whether they are the atheists using evolution to bolster their naturalist beliefs, or fundamentals using flawed reasoning to bolster their creastionist ones. In fact, I'd say that both camps have done more damage to the reputation of science than all of the scientific scandals in history (cold fusion, California's fictitious elements, etc...)
Faith is something that one discovers apart from science. And we all look like fools when we attempt to use the scientific method to "prove" what we suspect to be true about God. No amount of scientific proof will ever bring an atheist to salvation, nor will it convince a true believer that God doesn't exist.
Given that some people make car trips shorter than the average windows boot time, I don't think Microsoft should be putting anything in automotive electronics.
Given that most people expect their cars to work, I don't think Microsoft should even consider marketting to the dashboard computer.
Given that people and states tend to sue the manufacturer when car parts don't work, I don't believe Microsoft should put anything into a car. Unlike the anti-trust trial, lemon laws are fairly well established and have been successfully enforced against large corporations.
Microsoft may be pushing to sell, but Detroit's not buying. IIRC, earlier this year GM threatened to ditch Windows completely and run with Linux after the latest worm crippled nearly 100,000 of their workstations.
It's kind of hard to convince someone that your OS is worthy to be put in automobiles when it rendered their workstations useless. If Microsoft can't handle a desktop computer, how would they be able to manage a car or SUV? Microsoft has neither done anything right the first time, nor worked in an industry with substantial liability risk and lemon laws. Automakers know that to put Microsoft Windows behind the dash is just asking to be sued; unlike the desktop world, a car that fails to work is a lemon, and the automaker is required to fix it at their expense. The last thing GM and Ford want to do is push service packs with oil changes and issue recalls every time Microsoft discovers yet another security vulnerability.
Except when you're in the Chicagoland area. At our local grocers, the product placement and layout is horrible:
The jelly is next to the fruit juices, presumably because they're both fruit products.
The english muffins are next to the cereal in the breakfast aisle.
The coffee, however, is in the soup aisle, where you will also find outmeal next to the ramen noodles (both products require adding water...)
The peanut butter is next to the marinara in the dinner aisle, apparently because it is considered a 'sauce'
Salsa is split between two aisles - there's the good, Mexican salsa in the 'ethnic foods' aisle, and the American salsa in the junk food aisle next to the tortilla chips. But, you won't find the authentic Mexican tortilla chips in the 'ethnic foods' aisle - they're in the junk food aisle next to the Tostitos.
You might think you'd find lunchmeat next to the ground beef, or even next to the cheeses, but you'd be wrong. It's on the other side of the store next to the yogurt and frozen foods.
And speaking of dairy, apparently yogurt isn't considered a dairy product - it's on the far end of the refigerators, next to the frozen foods.
I'll spare you the rest, but when you've got 33 aisles of food arranged by an anal-retentive idiot, you'd appreciate having a cart tell you where things are.
When it's flushed down the drain as part of a natural cycle, it's just an embryo. When it is removed from this cycle, and stimulated to grow, it is no longer just an embryo, any more than you or I are embryos.
At the heart of the issue is the morality of using tissue intended to create human beings for matters of lesser dignity. In order not to trample on the rights of humans, we'd have to create something from an embryo which wasn't human. Think about that for a moment. How exactly would you draw the line between what constituted a human and what didn't? At what point of genetic alteration does human tissue, tissue with a purpose of reproduction, cease to be human? To be devoid of moral qualms, you would have to alter both the composition and the purpose of embryos - and this is not what researchers have in mind. Instead, they'd rather play with the genetic mechanisms that they may grow full humans in order that they may be "harvested" for their organs.
Actually, calling embryos merely a "ball of cells" is treating as equal things inherently unequal. I suppose we could justify killing by calling humans merely "highly-structured bundles of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen..." Technically, it is true, but it belies a lack of deeper understanding.
It is not the fact that this "ball of cells" is human, but rather that it is a fundamental part of a process, which will, if left uninterrupted, produce a human being. If we claim to value human life, we must certainly be bound to honor the process by which human life comes about.
Those in favor of embrionic stem cell research either blur this distinction, or dismiss it entirely; to them, there's no meaningful distinction between the types of cells which merely maintain an existing human body, and those that take part in the creation of a new one. They realize allowing this distinction would immediately introduce a moral question of the validity of their research. A scientist who values the pursuit of knowledge above the effect of his actions will certainly not object to blurring the lines here. However, a scientist genuinely working for the good of all people would recognize that we can't claim to have altruistic motives if we're willing to kill one class of humans for the sake of curing another. If we are really committed to helping humanity, we must settle the question of when life begins, because if left unanswered, we risk committing murder in the name of scientific research. And, as I've said before, calling it science doesn't make it right.
And given that humanity's best "scientific" thinkers believed the Earth to be the center of the Universe for nearly 2,000 years, I don't have much faith in science. The ultimate goal of science is the betterment of mankind, a goal it cannot achieve without considering the moral implications of the research it conducts. We cannot better mankind by creating ways of killing one class of humans to cure another. And unfortunately, this is exactly where embrionic stem cell research is headed. Once we have the capability to produce "cures" from embryos, fetuses, or even infants, it will be very difficult for someone with suffering relatives to see the moral problem in killing a nameless, faceless human being so their loved ones can be cured.
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Even under the PATRIOT act, there are still checks and balances...
Um, not enough checks, I fear. Just ask a certain Senator (*cough* Ted Kennedy *cough*) who was detained at airports because some terrorist with an apparent sense of humor decided to use his name as an alias. While in theory you're correct, you'd have to be blind to recent events to believe that the government wouldn't detain the innocent on the rare chance that they might be guilty. Guilt by association has become the rule, not the exception.
I find it rather troubling that, of all those arrested and detained for "connections to terrorism," our government has yet to gain a single conviction for terrorism - i.e. conspiracy to commit murder, etc... The best they've done so far is charge a handful of people with falsifying documents and various immigration violations. It makes you wonder if they really are "fighting a war against terrorism" or merely using the pretext of war as an excuse to stifle the expression of Islam in America.
If you don't encrypt your email and web traffic, you have no "reasonable expectation" of privacy. Apparently, "addressing information" - that is, packet headers - are not a part of confidential communications, and as such, it does not represent an invasion of privacy to read them.
While I understand his argument that PATRIOT merely made pre-existing wiretap laws apply to the internet, this fact alone doesn't make the existing laws right. For example, just knowing who called who when, even without revealing the details of content, does significantly invade one's privacy. In these times when someone can be detained simply because they "may have knowledge of a criminal act", divulging the websites a person visits is still too dangerous. Someone concerned about the rise of radical Islam could easily be detained as a "potential terrorist" simply because they did some independent research on Islam using the internet. Even scanning addressing information alone is too much power for a government in which the mere declaration that one is an "enemy combatant" can be used to arbitrarily deny one's civil liberties.
Just give up Windows? Then you could keep the Internet.
Seriously, for all the frustration these people have gone through, they could have installed Linux and put a permanent end to the problem.
Them: My Windows PC is broken - it's too slow and crashes all the time. I think I have a virus - how do I fix it?
.... (long list of ports)... but not 80, install antivirus software, install anti-spyware software. And then you'd have to do it all again in 6 months when you forgot to do your biweekly update and your machine gets infected again.
Me: Install Linux.
Them: Um, I don't know how to do that - it sounds complicated. Can't I just download a fix or something?
Me: Yes, you could. And then you would have to reinstall all of your applications, install the latest service pack, install a firewall - block ports 23, 454
Them: Um, I have to do all that?!
Me: If you're going to stick with Windows, yes. Or you could just install Linux and let other people worry about viruses and spyware, etc...
Linux. Because you like to use the internet.
So, I'm expected to just upgrade for the joy of hardware troubleshooting?! Problem is, there is no compelling reason to break backward compatibility in this case - no new features, and the speed of existing cards generally isn't an issue.
That compatibility is expected to give ExpressCard a boost over prior PC cards in ease of installation and configuration with the Windows operating system...
Yeah, right. First of all, I'm no Windows fan, but it seems to me that PCMCIA was one of the few things that Windows did get right. If you had drivers for the device, Windows loaded them without hassle whenever you inserted the card. How much easier could it get?
Heck, even Linux works well with PCMCIA devices - to be honest, I don't even know which drivers my PCMCIA ethernet card uses because I've never had to figure it out. I just plug the card in, and it works.
Looks to me like a real flop. If you're going to break backward compatibility, you have to offer your customers a compelling reason to buy your product, i.e. better performance, new features, etc... I did RTFA, and it seems like the new Express architecture is little more than an excuse to keep engineers and programmers employed.
Why not require they run Linux instead?
Knowing most ISP's, they'd implement a "broadband drivers license" in such a manner that it refused a connection to anyone who wasn't running the latest version of Windows, with all the system-slowing anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-adware, firewalling software that is required of Windows users. Oh, and you can add DRM to that as requirement as well.
When it comes down to it, actions speak louder than words. Microsoft talks alot about enterprise class reliability, etc... but I've never seen a Microsoft network that was truly enterprise class. Perhaps I've had a spate of incompetent admins, but every Microsoft shop I've been in has had problems with security.
Case in point: a few days ago I received an email from a friend telling me not to send him emails with attachments anymore (They run Windows exclusively). Apparently, they are having such a problem with viruses that the company has just adopted a policy of firing (without warning, mind you) anyone who receives email attachments. While I don't like it, I'm not surprised; he's told me in the past that virus cleanup has cost this company millions of dollars per incident.
So because Microsoft can't be bothered to write secure systems, his corporate email is essentially useless to the company. How "Enterprise Class" is a mail system which costs the company a additional few million dollars with every virus outbreak? Where's the ROI on a mail system that, for all intents and purposes, doesn't work?
And we wonder why IBM can sell a mainframe with the computing power of a desktop PC for millions of dollars...
Doesn't mean people aren't out to get you...
This still doesn't address the fundamental problem of the draconian terms found in most EULA's. The fact that the user can now read the EULA prior to sale makes it all the more likely that even the worst terms of the EULA (especially those regarding no-resale, reverse engineering, etc..) will be enforceable in court.
Recently, Microsoft made available development tools with the restriction that the user not use them to develop any GPL or free software. In the future, a person who merely uses Windows may be prohibited from ever developing free software by "virtue" of the Windows EULA. Since these agreements are now on public display, it is even more likely that the courts would consider them valid, no matter how egregious the terms.
at a former employer. Company policy required managers to be present any time their employees were working overtime. As you can guess, we had to get management permission to work overtime, which was granted only when it was really needed. An interesting side effect is that our managers became very good at estimating the time needed for a project, and we were almost never late - with or without overtime.
Yeah, my Toshiba laptop is junk too. I've gone through two CDRW drives in less than a year. My current one is bound to be replaced soon, as it only "occasionally" works...
When it comes to enterprise class computing, these are the crucial factors:
Well, I hope this helps. I think the absolute worst criteria is performance, because any system in use for a substantial amount of time will receive an upgrade or two. If you don't have the performance now, you can always request it during the next upgrade. But if you don't have security, stability, or reliability from day one, you might not be around later to perform an upgrade...
Because surely no criminal would ever break the law and carry a gun, right?!
Oops! I just got trolled... Sorry.
Just a little side note: I went to a university known for having a good business and data processing curriculum. I took my first job writing in an obscure language for outdated mainframes. After about 2 years, I thought I'd look for a job doing what I really wanted to do, and the conversations with recruiters usually went like this:
Me: I'd like to start working as a game developer/engineer/etc...
Recruiter: Well, I see you've got many skills listed on your resume. But, what experience do you have as a developer/engineer/etc...?
Me: (sheepishly) Well, none - but it's something I'd really like to do. I've done some work on my own and read up on the subject quite a bit.
Recruiter: Well, that's nice and all, but my clients are going to want someone with solid experience... Would you be willing to take a job writing in COBOL instead?
You see, my mistake was twofold:
The perception problem is very real. If you stay at a lackluster school, you will neither get a good education, nor have a good career - at least not without a great deal of effort. Having a few years in an given technology tends to pigeon-hole your career prospects, and you might find yourself unable to find a position doing what you want to do if you don't get in with a good company right after graduation.
Okay, so Windows told you, "Please insert a disk into drive E:" So I guess that means that my experience of having Windows bluescreen when I removed a CD doesn't count, right? Did you stop to consider that perhaps I'm speaking from experience that spans several versions of Windows? Or that maybe I'm relating an experience that I've seen time and again across a wide variety of machines?
The fact that your machine behaves nicely doesn't mean that everyone with Windows experiences the same bliss that you do. I've seen this thing happen too many times to believe otherwise. Consider yourself lucky - you happened to find a hardware combination that Windows likes. Not everyone is so lucky, though, and the fact that your machine handles this gracefully doesn't mean that every Windows machine does.
Um, hate to burst your bubble, but MS GUI does not recover smoothly from such events, unless one considers a BSOD smooth recovery. Since Windows 95, and still today in Windows XP, removing a CD or floppy from the drive before Windows is finished with it will result in the system hanging at best, and BSOD at worst. Not exactly what most people would consider smooth operation.
Neither Linux nor Apple nor Microsoft correctly address the problem of removable media:
Until a time when people leave enough distance between them and the car in front of them to stop suddenly... Insufficient stopping distance is the #1 cause of over-braking (and accidents, too...)
From the company that brought us the CPU's that could double as toaster ovens, we now have the BTX. Let's see what improvements (ahem!) we can look forward to:
- More heat: Rather than make the CPU run cooler, we'll redesign the motherboard to accommodate. Oh, and the design will *coincidentally* thwart faster processors by making the trace lengths unequal.
- Fewer options: Windows is the dominate OS, so there's no need for more than one or two PCI cards. Who cares if the onboard peripherals don't support Linux - it's not like buyers would add a PCI card or two to improve performance or achieve interoperability...
This board is a non-starter. The PC overtook the Mac because of the fact that it was more customizable (even if it was technically inferior). If people wanted a big company to restrict which hardware they run, they'd buy an Apple.Because the prison bus ride is definitely more scenic than the prison yard, right?
Some things, money can't buy. But if you want to get busted for copyright infringement on a shoestring budget, only Slashdot will do.
Because I'm still asking myself why the Republicans couldn't come up with a better candidate than Bush.
The reason why Democrats couldn't come up with a better candidate is because: (pick one or more)
No, science is not religion. But naturalism - the philosophy that states that everything can be explained in terms of the natural univers - is a psuedo-religion of sorts, and it finds particularly strong support among atheists and scientists. So you will often find proponents of naturalism using science to bolster their religious convictions, which often has the effect of blurring the distinction between science and religion.
The other is based on total ignorance and acceptance of something without questioning any of it.
As trollish as this might sound, I see this line of reasoning often repeated, so I think I should respond to it. Religion, especially Christianity, is based on both man's experiences and divine revelation. It is not merely the unquestioned acceptance of some nice fantasies. Divine revelation is truthful by definition (if it's not true, it didn't come from the one who is the truth). Contrast this with science in which axioms initially thought true can prove false with greater observation and understanding. One can never know with any degree of acceptable certainty if a scientific theory is true; one can know the observations, but continued observation could disprove earlier theories.
Now this is all fine and good when it comes to material things. Generally speaking, science provides a safe way to bet. But when it comes to things such as eternal destiny, the uncertainty of the scientific method is far from reassuring. Yes, I can trust a physicist to predict the Moon's orbit, but no, I wouldn't trust the same physicist with my eternal destiny.
Now as for man's experiences. Christianity arose from the largest body of scientific data ever assembled - namely, the Bible and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. This body of data far exceeds that of any other discipline - God has been the subject of more study than any other subject throughout history. Nor is reason contrary to faith - in fact, it is the light of reason which causes us to believe. Anyone who disagrees would do well to read Descarte, who found a reason to believe in God without ever mentioning a Bible verse.
We do not accept Christianity without question. Every mature Christian that I've known has, at some point, questioned their belief. And we always come back to the same place - that God does exist. To think otherwise would require simply ignoring some profound evidence:
Granted, you might not be convinced of God's existence from what I've just written, but at least you should gather that religion, and Christianity in particular, is not opposed to reason. Rather, it is our faith and our reason working together which lead us to believe in God.
Faith and science are not necessarily opposed to each other, though a lot of atheists would like to think they are.
The problem I see is that atheists attempt to pervert science into "proving" that there is no God, as if the techniques of science are somehow suited to grappling with the metaphysical.
The other problem I see is that fundamentalist Christians are denying their faith in God. God - not science - is supposed to be the truth, but if your arguments for faith rest on scientific proofs, then you've supplanted God with Science as the ultimate arbiter of truth. Which is just self-defeating. If God is truth, and He said He created the world in seven days, then He did. End of story. Chasing after "scientific" proofs of Biblical stories only shows one's faith to rest not in God, but in science.
And then comes science. In the discovery of the marvels of our universe, we come to realize that it is ordered - the hallmark of a creative genius. No, it doesn't prove God exists - if it did, science (or logic), rather than God, would be the ultimate truth. It isn't. Not to say science doesn't serve a useful purpose - it does; but rather that it is a tentative explanation of nature. From a logical standpoint, science doesn't prove anything, but rather explains it.
And those who try to base their religion on science only show themselves to be foolish - whether they are the atheists using evolution to bolster their naturalist beliefs, or fundamentals using flawed reasoning to bolster their creastionist ones. In fact, I'd say that both camps have done more damage to the reputation of science than all of the scientific scandals in history (cold fusion, California's fictitious elements, etc...)
Faith is something that one discovers apart from science. And we all look like fools when we attempt to use the scientific method to "prove" what we suspect to be true about God. No amount of scientific proof will ever bring an atheist to salvation, nor will it convince a true believer that God doesn't exist.
Given that some people make car trips shorter than the average windows boot time, I don't think Microsoft should be putting anything in automotive electronics.
Given that most people expect their cars to work, I don't think Microsoft should even consider marketting to the dashboard computer.
Given that people and states tend to sue the manufacturer when car parts don't work, I don't believe Microsoft should put anything into a car. Unlike the anti-trust trial, lemon laws are fairly well established and have been successfully enforced against large corporations.
Microsoft may be pushing to sell, but Detroit's not buying. IIRC, earlier this year GM threatened to ditch Windows completely and run with Linux after the latest worm crippled nearly 100,000 of their workstations.
It's kind of hard to convince someone that your OS is worthy to be put in automobiles when it rendered their workstations useless. If Microsoft can't handle a desktop computer, how would they be able to manage a car or SUV? Microsoft has neither done anything right the first time, nor worked in an industry with substantial liability risk and lemon laws. Automakers know that to put Microsoft Windows behind the dash is just asking to be sued; unlike the desktop world, a car that fails to work is a lemon, and the automaker is required to fix it at their expense. The last thing GM and Ford want to do is push service packs with oil changes and issue recalls every time Microsoft discovers yet another security vulnerability.
Except when you're in the Chicagoland area. At our local grocers, the product placement and layout is horrible:
- The jelly is next to the fruit juices, presumably because they're both fruit products.
- The english muffins are next to the cereal in the breakfast aisle.
- The coffee, however, is in the soup aisle, where you will also find outmeal next to the ramen noodles (both products require adding water...)
- The peanut butter is next to the marinara in the dinner aisle, apparently because it is considered a 'sauce'
- Salsa is split between two aisles - there's the good, Mexican salsa in the 'ethnic foods' aisle, and the American salsa in the junk food aisle next to the tortilla chips. But, you won't find the authentic Mexican tortilla chips in the 'ethnic foods' aisle - they're in the junk food aisle next to the Tostitos.
- You might think you'd find lunchmeat next to the ground beef, or even next to the cheeses, but you'd be wrong. It's on the other side of the store next to the yogurt and frozen foods.
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And speaking of dairy, apparently yogurt isn't considered a dairy product - it's on the far end of the refigerators, next to the frozen foods.
I'll spare you the rest, but when you've got 33 aisles of food arranged by an anal-retentive idiot, you'd appreciate having a cart tell you where things are.When it's flushed down the drain as part of a natural cycle, it's just an embryo. When it is removed from this cycle, and stimulated to grow, it is no longer just an embryo, any more than you or I are embryos.
At the heart of the issue is the morality of using tissue intended to create human beings for matters of lesser dignity. In order not to trample on the rights of humans, we'd have to create something from an embryo which wasn't human. Think about that for a moment. How exactly would you draw the line between what constituted a human and what didn't? At what point of genetic alteration does human tissue, tissue with a purpose of reproduction, cease to be human? To be devoid of moral qualms, you would have to alter both the composition and the purpose of embryos - and this is not what researchers have in mind. Instead, they'd rather play with the genetic mechanisms that they may grow full humans in order that they may be "harvested" for their organs.
Actually, calling embryos merely a "ball of cells" is treating as equal things inherently unequal. I suppose we could justify killing by calling humans merely "highly-structured bundles of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen..." Technically, it is true, but it belies a lack of deeper understanding.
It is not the fact that this "ball of cells" is human, but rather that it is a fundamental part of a process, which will, if left uninterrupted, produce a human being. If we claim to value human life, we must certainly be bound to honor the process by which human life comes about.
Those in favor of embrionic stem cell research either blur this distinction, or dismiss it entirely; to them, there's no meaningful distinction between the types of cells which merely maintain an existing human body, and those that take part in the creation of a new one. They realize allowing this distinction would immediately introduce a moral question of the validity of their research. A scientist who values the pursuit of knowledge above the effect of his actions will certainly not object to blurring the lines here. However, a scientist genuinely working for the good of all people would recognize that we can't claim to have altruistic motives if we're willing to kill one class of humans for the sake of curing another. If we are really committed to helping humanity, we must settle the question of when life begins, because if left unanswered, we risk committing murder in the name of scientific research. And, as I've said before, calling it science doesn't make it right.
And given that humanity's best "scientific" thinkers believed the Earth to be the center of the Universe for nearly 2,000 years, I don't have much faith in science. The ultimate goal of science is the betterment of mankind, a goal it cannot achieve without considering the moral implications of the research it conducts. We cannot better mankind by creating ways of killing one class of humans to cure another. And unfortunately, this is exactly where embrionic stem cell research is headed. Once we have the capability to produce "cures" from embryos, fetuses, or even infants, it will be very difficult for someone with suffering relatives to see the moral problem in killing a nameless, faceless human being so their loved ones can be cured.