I wonder, then, how the Gelson's grocery market can exist, with its wide stock of high-quality products, its always-immaculate shelves, its gleaming deli section, its muted, tasteful decor, and its air of apology if there is even one person ahead of you in line.
I get great service every time I go to Gelson's, and I don't pay much more than I do at a normal market. Needless to say, I go there often.
So why do we accept poor service from ISPs? I think because a lot of us want service when we travel, and that makes local companies a non-starter.
However, my ISP is UUNET, because I'm willing to pay more to get better service, and I do - I can get access to a qualified engineer to work on my problem within seconds. They're a big national company, but thank goodness they don't act like one. The only problem is they still have to deal with crummy local DSL providers - anyone try to deal with Covad lately? I switched to Rhythms, and they're a little better, but not much.
(1) Linux stocks were incredibly overhyped, just like Internet stocks. Just because the stocks crashed doesn't mean Linux - or the Internet - has no value.
(2) The value of Linux products is only loosely connected with the viability of Linux as an operating system. Linux revenues could go down to zero and people would still be using it and working on improvements. If Windows revenues decline, Microsoft, the sole source of Windows, is in serious trouble.
(3) Hot swapping and the like are hardware features, not software. It would not surprise me if Dell or Compaq came out with drives for their hot-swap devices.
(4) I do see MacOS X gaining as the best client operating system due to its fine synthesis of Apple user interface slickness and Unix internals. But that's only going to help people who can afford Macs. Many Linux programmers affluent enough to afford Macs are bound to switch to MacOS X because they can run mainstream applications on the same platform they hack on; this is a wonderful advantage, and has really not been an opportunity before. People who can't afford Mac hardware, or who are committed to the ideals of open source, have Linux. I think of this as a very nice competition that will benefit everyone. It's just too bad Jobs can't create a cheap Mac with a nice big high-resolution screen.
D
----
Re:Um, the world isn't quite so simple.
on
PDP-10 Revival
·
· Score: 2
Well, TOPS-20 probably had the most user-friendly command line around, although I understand it made even simple command line utilities a bear to program. Its cool interface lives on in Cisco routers, so you could say it's had a better run than most people remember.
Tis true that many of the ideas were replicated in Bash and other shells, but for some reason I never felt they had as cool a feel as TOPS-20 or Cisco.
Unix is a toy, but that's its greatest strength, actually: It can be disassembled and reassembled into anything you want. That's why it survived instead of TOPS-10, Multics or Lisp Machines, all of which I've used and (at the time, anyway) preferred to Unix.
I actually don't quite understand Lisp machine nostalgia - when I used one in the late 70s, it was slow as a pig. I hate to be anti-trendy, but I actually preferred using the old AI PDP-10 at the time.
D
----
It would be cool to see an ITS around again ...
on
PDP-10 Revival
·
· Score: 2
but I'm not sure where the money would come for such a thing, and of course we are all so paranoid with our script kiddies and suchlike that there may be no room in the world for the ITS culture anymore.
It is hard not to get hooked on the design of the G4 - even opening the box is an experience, courtesy of Master Showman Steve Jobs.
Using a Mac fixes the most serious long-standing problems with Linux:
* You have mainstream applications - X-native versions of Word, Photoshop, Illustrator, professional video editing software, etc, etc are all coming.
* It's a thing of beauty. Nobody can accuse X of being an aesthetic delight; even the Enlightenment window manager doesn't help as much as I would have hoped.
The main disadvantages are a reliance on pricey hardware and the lack of an open source GUI environment. But if you're more interested in getting work done than tampering with the GUI, that's fine. And if you consider that normally you would have to buy a Windows system and a Linux machine to do development, and with MacOS X you can ditch Windows entirely and run everything off one box, well, net-net you're probably spending about the same. And the hardware is really, really nice.
So I would say yes, MacOS X does threaten the Linux market share. Granted, not to a great extent, since most people don't want to pay for Apple hardware. But I hardly ever use my Linux machine at home anymore; I've switched to my shiny new Apple dual G4/450 under MacOS X, and I'm happy as a clam so far.
Go to http://store.apple.com and select cheapest possible system, then load it up with memory and disk on your own.
I thought of doing that for my dual G4/450, but rumours of lousy Apple Store service stopped me, so I bought the standard package from a local store.
Unfortunately, I belive you can no longer upgrade cheapest possible to the highest end processor - they are reserving the 733mhz for the high-end systems:-(.
For MacOS X, the consensus among Macheads is that you should probably get the dual G4/533 for $2,500 instead of the G4/733 for $3,500 unless you need the DVD burner - the cheaper system will be faster under X.
When I wanted to buy a G4 dual 450, I went to MacUniverse, a small independent, instead of Fry's or CompUSA. I got better service and a slightly lower price.
I think many people feel the big boxes are cheaper just because they're big; in my experience, this is simply not true.
I do, however, love to go to Fry's, where I can find ten different brands of, say, PCMCIA ethernet cards all under one roof.
I think Jobs' frustration with Apple retailers is a legitimate topic for Slashdot, especially since retailing seems to have gone in the clueless "big box" direction for some time.
I don't care about Jobs' mouth; I do care about the problems with retail. He has my sympathy for them.
If you're willing to spend about $2,300 on a camcorder, you can get a three-chip MiniDV camcorder, which is significantly higher quality than Digital8. This isn't because of the format, but due to the three-chip CCD recording system - significantly superior to the single chip used by all Digital8 cameras. Recommended models are the Canon GL1 and Sony TRV900. These models will get you image quality which is very close to true professional formats like Digital BetaCam or BetaCam.
For about $3,000-4,500 you can get a high-end three chip camcorder like the Canon XL1 or Sony VX-2000 - those are semi-professional grade tools that will give you additional flexibility in operation. (The XL1, which I own, has interchangeable lenses and all sorts of cool features).
On the low-end, I think the big issue is small and light. The closest equivalent MiniDV camcorders to the Digital8 units are something like half or less the size and weight. For vacation photography and capturing images in difficult situations, this matters enormously - I've even been tempted to get my beautiful but large and heavy Canon XL1 a less pricey friend for exactly this reason.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are durability issues with the 8mm tapes. They are run at double their normal speed in a Digital8 camera. The older Hi8 format had dropout problems which were well known; tapes would survive unscathed for only a few plays. I don't know if Digital8 development has fixed this or not.
The biggest advantage of Digital8 is tape availability and price. You can buy tape usable in a Digital8 camera in a typical grocery or drug store. In my experience, MiniDV tapes are almost impossible to find outside of major urban centres. Even in the big city, you could have problems; in my trip to South Florida last year, I had to go to three different Circuit Cities to find even a single tape - and that was all they had available. So if you buy a MiniDV camcorder, you should stock up on tapes before travel.
I have a FAQ I wrote on Digital Video - it's a bit dated but there's still lots of good information. Visit http://www.amazing.com/dv/dv-faq.html .
I remember waiting ages for G4/500 systems to appear in the store, and judging by the rumours floating around, availability for this could be even worse, especially with all the rich geeks around who really, really need recordable DVD drives:-(.
Not that I wouldn't like one, of course; it would be really handy to be able to make DVDs instead of being stuck in the stone age with VHS.
My 770Z with the 1280x1024 screen has a fantastic display, but it's a bit sluggish to move windows around.
Still, I wouldn't trade it for anything but another ThinkPad. I wish the powerbooks had pointing sticks instead of those horrid touchpad things. I always wind up activating them by accident, ugh.
The actual price of the Apple Cinema Display is $3,999.
That being said, fans of slick and elegant design, both within the systems themselves and in the operating system software and applications aren't going to be impressed with your system. After all, it has to run Windows, Linux or BeOS; all three simply do not have the sleek elegance of the Mac operating system. (Be comes close but has virtually no applications).
The only operating system I like better than MacOS X is SGI, and unfortunately the software's too expensive. Better Photoshop on the Mac (especially with MacOS X versions coming out) than a four-version old Photoshop on SGI.
In all honesty, I think people focus too much of on money. In my view, the elegance makes Macs well worth the extra dough.
This seems unnecessarily shortsighted - March is only 2.5 months from now, and come that time, you'll kick yourself for not getting the MP system.
But The Register points out that the March intro date for OSX seems "suspicously" close to MacWorld NYC and the NEXT traditional Mac intro date. They speculate that we'll get multi-processor 733mhz machines then, so it would probably be best to wait until then to get your system if at all possible.
I have one of the G4/450 systems running dual boot MacOS 9 and X and I'm extremely pleased with it.
The actual reasons people start companies are complex and often involve personal satisfaction much more than making money. Consider Jim Clark of SGI, Netscape, Healtheon, etc as a good example - he had no need to work after he sold out of Netscape, but that didn't stop him from immediately starting another company.
Yes, corporations have to make money in order to survive, but in many cases it's the survival that's important, not the raw profit figures.
Finally, many people running corporations are proud of what they do and totally dedicated to the production of "cool" high-quality products as a mission every bit as important as the bottom line. Think of Apple Computer under Jobs as an excellent example of this.
Only a scam company is not going to want to please customers. On the whole, it's a lot easier to please a customer and get repeat business than it is to drum up new customers. Normally, a corporation's motiviation is thus to keep customers happy, however indirect it may appear.
Hmm, I go to bookstores and buy books on impulse all the time. That's why bookstores aren't as threatened by Amazon as one might think.
Of course if you know exactly what book you want, and just need to buy it now, Amazon is surely a lot easier than anything else. But there's a great appeal in visiting a massive Borders or Barnes & Noble, sitting down amid a massive pile of books, and digging in.
Interesting data point: I bought lingerie online for The Person Who Doesn't Want to be called my Girlfriend, per her advice, using her own shopping list. When it came time to check out, using two different browsers (IE on MacOS X and Netscape on MacOS 9), the purchase didn't work. It was only my obvious motivation to buy the lingerie that caused me to find IE on OS 9 worked. I'm sure this kind of thing is a major reason e-commerce sites are in trouble. Really, you have to experience some of them to believe how rotten they are.
My father was a Professor of Computer Science at MIT, but it took him an age to even get a terminal on his desk -- and even then, he made sadly little use of it.
He was always more interested in the theoretical implications of computing than the beasts themselves, something I always found sadly bewildering.
D
----
I write for epinions on occasion
on
Deja.com Vu!
·
· Score: 2
I quite like it - they are one of the few dotcom ventures I've ever seen that actually pays off on its promises. I'm not going to say I got rich or anything - I've earned about $600 in a year of reviewing on the site, and I know of people who spend oodles of time on it and get a few thousand bucks out of it.
The epinions system has two interesting advantages over Deja - they pay, and their community features (web of trust, convenient ways to check out people's interests) are very cool. The money got me curious, the community features make me stay.
D
(My account is daviddennis; note that I get paid if you create an account and read my reviews, but not if you don't).
It was actually the first computer I ever used. My father, a professor of computer science at MIT who did some development on the Multics virtual memory, got me an account.
Unfortunately, he agreed to pay for it. The Multics billing system was the most elabourate I've ever seen, before or since. You were billed for CPU minutes, connect time minutes and I think even a whole bunch of other minutes. As a result, I ran through $150 of computer time in three days, which is not exactly cost-effective, so he wound up getting me a free ITS tourist account.
I don't remember much about it anymore, since it's been years since I've had an account, but I do feel a little nostalgic now that it's gone. Pity no renegade hobbyist could put one together, as some individuals have with ancient PDP-10 systems. I have to assume that the cost of wiping classified data from the systems is sufficiently high that the recycler is the only realistic destination for these ancient systems.
They did not actually switch to Solaris - they use NT for the front-end servers off an Oracle back-end database running a Sun Solaris server.
The reason is that they find it easier to do rapid application development on the Windows machines. So in theory they can keep their back-end solid via Unix while having the development tools on an easily mastered platform.
Personally, I think running the whole thing on Solaris would have been easier, but that is/was their rationale.
An amusing point - but perhaps a calming effect makes the setup and configuration easier on people. I don't think even hardcore gamers want to aggressively tackle the display asking what time zone you're in or whether you have Daylight Savings Time!
Or perhaps this is supposed to calm down the people waiting in lines at the stores? Well, if so, I guess it didn't work:-(.
I'm not going to disclose my total income last year, because it was embarassingly low. Let me just say for the record that, no, I was not subject to that limitation and had to pay the full 12.5% in social security taxes. This year, I won't.:-)
You're right. The Bush proposals don't go far enough in my view. Personally, I would like to see Social Security destroyed. However, unfortunately, I recognize that I have to be a realist here. Anything politicians can do to help me save for a real retirement instead of a chimera is a big plus for me. (I now make too much money to qualify for the Gore plan, in case you were going to mention that).
If you look at my original posting, you will see very clearly that I was addressing the self-employed - I was saying many Slashdot readers are self-employed, and they should recognize that at least Bush is attempting to start doing something about the SS mess.
Either way, even the 6% of income wage earners are paying for SS is way too much in relation to the pathetic benefits they might receive, assuming SS survives in anything like its current form.
We could continue citing leftist and rightist cant forever this evening, but I fear better debaters than you or I have done much better jobs with the remaining issues.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder, then, how the Gelson's grocery market can exist, with its wide stock of high-quality products, its always-immaculate shelves, its gleaming deli section, its muted, tasteful decor, and its air of apology if there is even one person ahead of you in line.
I get great service every time I go to Gelson's, and I don't pay much more than I do at a normal market. Needless to say, I go there often.
So why do we accept poor service from ISPs? I think because a lot of us want service when we travel, and that makes local companies a non-starter.
However, my ISP is UUNET, because I'm willing to pay more to get better service, and I do - I can get access to a qualified engineer to work on my problem within seconds. They're a big national company, but thank goodness they don't act like one. The only problem is they still have to deal with crummy local DSL providers - anyone try to deal with Covad lately? I switched to Rhythms, and they're a little better, but not much.
D
----
He fails to note some things:
(1) Linux stocks were incredibly overhyped, just like Internet stocks. Just because the stocks crashed doesn't mean Linux - or the Internet - has no value.
(2) The value of Linux products is only loosely connected with the viability of Linux as an operating system. Linux revenues could go down to zero and people would still be using it and working on improvements. If Windows revenues decline, Microsoft, the sole source of Windows, is in serious trouble.
(3) Hot swapping and the like are hardware features, not software. It would not surprise me if Dell or Compaq came out with drives for their hot-swap devices.
(4) I do see MacOS X gaining as the best client operating system due to its fine synthesis of Apple user interface slickness and Unix internals. But that's only going to help people who can afford Macs. Many Linux programmers affluent enough to afford Macs are bound to switch to MacOS X because they can run mainstream applications on the same platform they hack on; this is a wonderful advantage, and has really not been an opportunity before. People who can't afford Mac hardware, or who are committed to the ideals of open source, have Linux. I think of this as a very nice competition that will benefit everyone. It's just too bad Jobs can't create a cheap Mac with a nice big high-resolution screen.
D
----
Well, TOPS-20 probably had the most user-friendly command line around, although I understand it made even simple command line utilities a bear to program. Its cool interface lives on in Cisco routers, so you could say it's had a better run than most people remember.
Tis true that many of the ideas were replicated in Bash and other shells, but for some reason I never felt they had as cool a feel as TOPS-20 or Cisco.
Unix is a toy, but that's its greatest strength, actually: It can be disassembled and reassembled into anything you want. That's why it survived instead of TOPS-10, Multics or Lisp Machines, all of which I've used and (at the time, anyway) preferred to Unix.
I actually don't quite understand Lisp machine nostalgia - when I used one in the late 70s, it was slow as a pig. I hate to be anti-trendy, but I actually preferred using the old AI PDP-10 at the time.
D
----
but I'm not sure where the money would come for such a thing, and of course we are all so paranoid with our script kiddies and suchlike that there may be no room in the world for the ITS culture anymore.
:-(.
Sad, that
D
(former ITS user many years ago).
----
It is hard not to get hooked on the design of the G4 - even opening the box is an experience, courtesy of Master Showman Steve Jobs.
Using a Mac fixes the most serious long-standing problems with Linux:
* You have mainstream applications - X-native versions of Word, Photoshop, Illustrator, professional video editing software, etc, etc are all coming.
* It's a thing of beauty. Nobody can accuse X of being an aesthetic delight; even the Enlightenment window manager doesn't help as much as I would have hoped.
The main disadvantages are a reliance on pricey hardware and the lack of an open source GUI environment. But if you're more interested in getting work done than tampering with the GUI, that's fine. And if you consider that normally you would have to buy a Windows system and a Linux machine to do development, and with MacOS X you can ditch Windows entirely and run everything off one box, well, net-net you're probably spending about the same. And the hardware is really, really nice.
So I would say yes, MacOS X does threaten the Linux market share. Granted, not to a great extent, since most people don't want to pay for Apple hardware. But I hardly ever use my Linux machine at home anymore; I've switched to my shiny new Apple dual G4/450 under MacOS X, and I'm happy as a clam so far.
D
----
Go to http://store.apple.com and select cheapest possible system, then load it up with memory and disk on your own.
:-(.
I thought of doing that for my dual G4/450, but rumours of lousy Apple Store service stopped me, so I bought the standard package from a local store.
Unfortunately, I belive you can no longer upgrade cheapest possible to the highest end processor - they are reserving the 733mhz for the high-end systems
For MacOS X, the consensus among Macheads is that you should probably get the dual G4/533 for $2,500 instead of the G4/733 for $3,500 unless you need the DVD burner - the cheaper system will be faster under X.
D
----
When I wanted to buy a G4 dual 450, I went to MacUniverse, a small independent, instead of Fry's or CompUSA. I got better service and a slightly lower price.
I think many people feel the big boxes are cheaper just because they're big; in my experience, this is simply not true.
I do, however, love to go to Fry's, where I can find ten different brands of, say, PCMCIA ethernet cards all under one roof.
D
----
I think Jobs' frustration with Apple retailers is a legitimate topic for Slashdot, especially since retailing seems to have gone in the clueless "big box" direction for some time.
I don't care about Jobs' mouth; I do care about the problems with retail. He has my sympathy for them.
D
----
If you're willing to spend about $2,300 on a camcorder, you can get a three-chip MiniDV camcorder, which is significantly higher quality than Digital8. This isn't because of the format, but due to the three-chip CCD recording system - significantly superior to the single chip used by all Digital8 cameras. Recommended models are the Canon GL1 and Sony TRV900. These models will get you image quality which is very close to true professional formats like Digital BetaCam or BetaCam.
For about $3,000-4,500 you can get a high-end three chip camcorder like the Canon XL1 or Sony VX-2000 - those are semi-professional grade tools that will give you additional flexibility in operation. (The XL1, which I own, has interchangeable lenses and all sorts of cool features).
On the low-end, I think the big issue is small and light. The closest equivalent MiniDV camcorders to the Digital8 units are something like half or less the size and weight. For vacation photography and capturing images in difficult situations, this matters enormously - I've even been tempted to get my beautiful but large and heavy Canon XL1 a less pricey friend for exactly this reason.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are durability issues with the 8mm tapes. They are run at double their normal speed in a Digital8 camera. The older Hi8 format had dropout problems which were well known; tapes would survive unscathed for only a few plays. I don't know if Digital8 development has fixed this or not.
The biggest advantage of Digital8 is tape availability and price. You can buy tape usable in a Digital8 camera in a typical grocery or drug store. In my experience, MiniDV tapes are almost impossible to find outside of major urban centres. Even in the big city, you could have problems; in my trip to South Florida last year, I had to go to three different Circuit Cities to find even a single tape - and that was all they had available. So if you buy a MiniDV camcorder, you should stock up on tapes before travel.
I have a FAQ I wrote on Digital Video - it's a bit dated but there's still lots of good information. Visit http://www.amazing.com/dv/dv-faq.html .
Let me know if you have other questions.
D
----
But who knows when it will actually be available?
:-(.
I remember waiting ages for G4/500 systems to appear in the store, and judging by the rumours floating around, availability for this could be even worse, especially with all the rich geeks around who really, really need recordable DVD drives
Not that I wouldn't like one, of course; it would be really handy to be able to make DVDs instead of being stuck in the stone age with VHS.
D
----
How well does it run X?
My 770Z with the 1280x1024 screen has a fantastic display, but it's a bit sluggish to move windows around.
Still, I wouldn't trade it for anything but another ThinkPad. I wish the powerbooks had pointing sticks instead of those horrid touchpad things. I always wind up activating them by accident, ugh.
D
----
The actual price of the Apple Cinema Display is $3,999.
That being said, fans of slick and elegant design, both within the systems themselves and in the operating system software and applications aren't going to be impressed with your system. After all, it has to run Windows, Linux or BeOS; all three simply do not have the sleek elegance of the Mac operating system. (Be comes close but has virtually no applications).
The only operating system I like better than MacOS X is SGI, and unfortunately the software's too expensive. Better Photoshop on the Mac (especially with MacOS X versions coming out) than a four-version old Photoshop on SGI.
In all honesty, I think people focus too much of on money. In my view, the elegance makes Macs well worth the extra dough.
D
----
This seems unnecessarily shortsighted - March is only 2.5 months from now, and come that time, you'll kick yourself for not getting the MP system.
But The Register points out that the March intro date for OSX seems "suspicously" close to MacWorld NYC and the NEXT traditional Mac intro date. They speculate that we'll get multi-processor 733mhz machines then, so it would probably be best to wait until then to get your system if at all possible.
I have one of the G4/450 systems running dual boot MacOS 9 and X and I'm extremely pleased with it.
D
----
So it would take five years and a bunch of $1 million studies on the impact of new ideas on rat brains to get them approved?
I'm sorry. This has to be the stupidest thing I've ever read. As Slashdot proves every day, the best answer to bad speech is debunking speech.
D
----
The actual reasons people start companies are complex and often involve personal satisfaction much more than making money. Consider Jim Clark of SGI, Netscape, Healtheon, etc as a good example - he had no need to work after he sold out of Netscape, but that didn't stop him from immediately starting another company.
Yes, corporations have to make money in order to survive, but in many cases it's the survival that's important, not the raw profit figures.
Finally, many people running corporations are proud of what they do and totally dedicated to the production of "cool" high-quality products as a mission every bit as important as the bottom line. Think of Apple Computer under Jobs as an excellent example of this.
Only a scam company is not going to want to please customers. On the whole, it's a lot easier to please a customer and get repeat business than it is to drum up new customers. Normally, a corporation's motiviation is thus to keep customers happy, however indirect it may appear.
D
----
If that's true (about the corporate government), I can only blame it on the size of the country.
It strikes me that increasing the size of the House over the current 435 is going to make the system even more unwieldly than it is now.
If we need to increase the number of representatives to make our system fair, I think the best alternative would be to split up the country.
D
----
Hmm, I go to bookstores and buy books on impulse all the time. That's why bookstores aren't as threatened by Amazon as one might think.
Of course if you know exactly what book you want, and just need to buy it now, Amazon is surely a lot easier than anything else. But there's a great appeal in visiting a massive Borders or Barnes & Noble, sitting down amid a massive pile of books, and digging in.
Interesting data point: I bought lingerie online for The Person Who Doesn't Want to be called my Girlfriend, per her advice, using her own shopping list. When it came time to check out, using two different browsers (IE on MacOS X and Netscape on MacOS 9), the purchase didn't work. It was only my obvious motivation to buy the lingerie that caused me to find IE on OS 9 worked. I'm sure this kind of thing is a major reason e-commerce sites are in trouble. Really, you have to experience some of them to believe how rotten they are.
D
D
----
My father was a Professor of Computer Science at MIT, but it took him an age to even get a terminal on his desk -- and even then, he made sadly little use of it.
He was always more interested in the theoretical implications of computing than the beasts themselves, something I always found sadly bewildering.
D
----
I quite like it - they are one of the few dotcom ventures I've ever seen that actually pays off on its promises. I'm not going to say I got rich or anything - I've earned about $600 in a year of reviewing on the site, and I know of people who spend oodles of time on it and get a few thousand bucks out of it.
The epinions system has two interesting advantages over Deja - they pay, and their community features (web of trust, convenient ways to check out people's interests) are very cool. The money got me curious, the community features make me stay.
D
(My account is daviddennis; note that I get paid if you create an account and read my reviews, but not if you don't).
----
It was actually the first computer I ever used. My father, a professor of computer science at MIT who did some development on the Multics virtual memory, got me an account.
Unfortunately, he agreed to pay for it. The Multics billing system was the most elabourate I've ever seen, before or since. You were billed for CPU minutes, connect time minutes and I think even a whole bunch of other minutes. As a result, I ran through $150 of computer time in three days, which is not exactly cost-effective, so he wound up getting me a free ITS tourist account.
I don't remember much about it anymore, since it's been years since I've had an account, but I do feel a little nostalgic now that it's gone. Pity no renegade hobbyist could put one together, as some individuals have with ancient PDP-10 systems. I have to assume that the cost of wiping classified data from the systems is sufficiently high that the recycler is the only realistic destination for these ancient systems.
D
----
If you didn't notice, .NET appears to use an intermediate language in a similar way to P-code. So it's not native either.
D
----
Same company, though. It's surely the Microsoft philosophy as a whole that makes their servers vunerable.
D
----
They did not actually switch to Solaris - they use NT for the front-end servers off an Oracle back-end database running a Sun Solaris server.
The reason is that they find it easier to do rapid application development on the Windows machines. So in theory they can keep their back-end solid via Unix while having the development tools on an easily mastered platform.
Personally, I think running the whole thing on Solaris would have been easier, but that is/was their rationale.
D
----
An amusing point - but perhaps a calming effect makes the setup and configuration easier on people. I don't think even hardcore gamers want to aggressively tackle the display asking what time zone you're in or whether you have Daylight Savings Time!
:-(.
Or perhaps this is supposed to calm down the people waiting in lines at the stores? Well, if so, I guess it didn't work
D
----
I'm not going to disclose my total income last year, because it was embarassingly low. Let me just say for the record that, no, I was not subject to that limitation and had to pay the full 12.5% in social security taxes. This year, I won't. :-)
You're right. The Bush proposals don't go far enough in my view. Personally, I would like to see Social Security destroyed. However, unfortunately, I recognize that I have to be a realist here. Anything politicians can do to help me save for a real retirement instead of a chimera is a big plus for me. (I now make too much money to qualify for the Gore plan, in case you were going to mention that).
If you look at my original posting, you will see very clearly that I was addressing the self-employed - I was saying many Slashdot readers are self-employed, and they should recognize that at least Bush is attempting to start doing something about the SS mess.
Either way, even the 6% of income wage earners are paying for SS is way too much in relation to the pathetic benefits they might receive, assuming SS survives in anything like its current form.
We could continue citing leftist and rightist cant forever this evening, but I fear better debaters than you or I have done much better jobs with the remaining issues.
D
----