Soon as I get two spare linux machines at work, I'm gonna tear them apart and try this Mosix stuff.. see if it can function in a software development environment.
Be neat to see if it works well enough that there's a net gain in efficiency.
Best part, it's free (which modern solutions aren't), so it's much easier to play with this sort of idea.
This sort of thing is very cool, and rather attractive. While I wager it isn't a drop-in solution that suddenly opens up a nirvana of computing, it *is* something that has been predicted (read about it on Slashdot a ways back, anyways), and would be cool to have come around.
Not only does this help average joe user (he can sell his CPU time to people who need to compile something), but think of it in a work place.
Where I work, everyone has a workstation. Problem is, everyone does their CPU-heavy work on a central server. Thus, these workstations are being under utilized. Sun (and a number of people) have this problem addressed halfway.. they have software that queues up tasks, and distributes them to idle CPU's as they free up.
What if we had a sort of "CPU NFS" in a way that individual instructions are handed off to remote machines, rather than entire jobs?
Mm, I want.
Of course, any such idea would be riddled with difficulties (I wager the complications would be like the ones NFS has, only worse), but the idea, again, is attractive.
Is this something Mojonation could expand to? They mention several times that you 'donate cpu cycles', but it never seems to directly state you can sell build time on your machine.
Last time I implanted the front grille of my car into a locust's left and right forewing first basalar flight muscles as I was cruising down the interstate, he didn't help my steering at ALL.
In fact, I only remember being annoyed when I had to remove the implants..
But really.. I do have a question. With this sort of thing possible, what kind of *practical* solutions could it be expanded to? I mean, while we might be able to steer a car with a locust, how are we going to teach it to use a GPS and maps.yahoo.com?
Is this sort of thing being done just for the sheer geekery of it? The bragging rights one gets by being able to say "I built a robot car steered by a locust"?
Unless of course, they could expand this by attaching paralyzed people to their wheelchairs, enabling them to motor around with simply activating a few certain neurons in their brain.
Look at the screenshot where Tux is cruising at 174 km/h.
Hot damn. Even on ice, anyone that can avoid bursting into flames when sliding on their stomach at that speed HAS to be the ruler.. of.. well, something.
Last time I gave a Windows CD that much friction, it wouldn't even install anymore (CD under tire, pop the clutch, we've all done stuff like that, right?).
And Vinod Khosla founded Sun in the early 80's, which is something the discography about him liked to point out several times.
Jobs? Over half the discussion of him details what he did for Apple BEFORE 1990.
Same deal with Gates.
Since the people who wrote the article were apparently willing to blur the lines a bit by focusing on so many past deeds, getting snippy and pointing out the actual creation date of the internet may not mean a whole lot.
As it is, Gore's infamous quote has only appeared within the past ten years, and to 99% of the world's population, the 90's *was* the birth of the internet.
Shouldn't Al Gore be on that list, for creating the internet?
I mean, all the stuff those other people did.. Berners-Lee, Levy, and Clark, would have been pretty pointless if good 'ol Gore hadn't created the internet for them.
I mean, look at their track record. Apple is one of those companies with trigger happy lawyers; they go after EVERYTHING. You can't even post pictures of upcoming hardware without getting in trouble with these guys.
Wouldn't it be hypocritical if Apple *didn't* license this from Amazon?
The absurdity of Amazon's patent isn't at issue here; it's the fact that when Apple goes after someone with legal letters, they're not just barking loudly. They mean it, and are willing to bite the bullet and tolerate the absurd if it keeps their record spotless.
Kind of a lame way to define integrity, but hey. In this world I guess you gotta take it from wherever you can.
..or are these people doing this just to make a joke of RIAA and MPAA?
Their case against people is so absurd, it almost seems like the whole CueCat thing came about to get the chance to prove in a court that, in the computer industry, IP means a very different thing than it used to.
I mean, even the timing of these guys is perfect to poke fun at the mp3 and DeCSS debate.
#include <stdIANAL.h>
And with that in mind.. would it be worth it to hurry up and push CueCat into a court so a precedent could be set? It'd be amusing to watch these guys lose. Then, turn around and use that against RIAA or MPAA.
But I'd wager part of the "grandeur" of mp3.com's effort is the hilite the whole "internet" aspect of it all. I mean, how can you push a new frontier using old world habits and technologies?
I think by pushing the online methods of communication, mp3.com would hope to indicate that this whole internet thing is different, is very real, and doesn't want to be ignored.
Will it be effective? I'm not judging that. I'm just playing devil's advocate in coming up with reasons why an email rally could be a good idea.
To me, the grandeur of all this X11 stuff wasn't so much having the same desktop on every *nix box in existence, but having a toolkit that was. A couple years ago, it was so DAMN nice to be able to download an X app someone wrote for his linux box, and being able to get it to compile cleanly on the crusty Sparc 5 I used for a workstation.
By implementing this new server, these guys are totally ruining that. According to the article, anyways. It sounds like you have to jump through hoops to get any of that bad old "non standard" stuff to run. Dragging CDE into the mess seems even stupider to me. The X server didn't define "standards" on unix desktops; nor did the windows manager. It was Motif.. which is already widely spread among all breeds of unix. Us linux people call it Lesstif.
I guess the problem of a familiar UI across unices is a valid concern, but there's already an open-source port of CDE out there. If one wants to be "standard," the tools already exist. And they work ON TOP of existing, tried and true OSS.
In summary, these people are creating a problem so they can create a solution to solve that problem, and make a buck at it in the process.
By using the "we're industry standard" moniker, they're trying to fool people into buying their junk. And if one trusts the article, they're anything BUT standard. Sounds like a plot we've seen come out of Redmond several times before, actually..
"We've spoken to a couple people here who've made snarfy comments about us not using an MS server for b.net and we've ignored them."
Sounds a fair bit different than what Inside Mac Games reported, doesn't it? Sure, you can translate that to mean "M$ is unhappy", but he never actually SAID that. It's just people falling prey to a media organization (insidemacgames in this case) who are buttering up their stories with scandal and comments that scare people.
It increases page views (heck, how many of you visited the url given in the story?), and that's all they're trying to do.
> you really should get your facts straight before
> calling anyone else a moron
I was refering to humanity as a whole, really.;)
Us humans have at least 6000 years of recorded history, which would offer plenty of "facts" dictating how we, as a whole, can be complete dimwits.
A good number of the conflicts we've had in the past were based on a lack of communication. I was just borrowing this Google thing as a recent example, which to me, is the real issue. It's not the results given by a search engine that's bothersome; is the fact that people are displaying no inclination to communicate despite all the (good) reasons for attempting it.
Gee, I wonder how many problems in the world could be solved if people put out a little bit of effort into communicating with each other. Rather than asking Google what's up.. the guys in the story yesterday put MONTHS of effort into proving how they're getting shafted by Google's search engine. They make accusations.
Google hears about it via Slashdot, and in less than 24 hours, the real reason is revealed.
Kinda makes me wonder at humanity, when we're all so locked into our own little shells that we occupy ourselves trying to prove something that five minutes of talking could solve. Sort of like how most Americans never say hello to their neighbor, and can live next to them for years without ever exchanging niceties.
Cool idea, and glad to see more folks getting faster internet access.. but how susceptible is this going to be to weather effects?
Admittedly, they define this as using "radio waves", which seems like a fairly fault tolerant medium (compared to, say, a beam of some sort), but they DO say it requires a clear line-of-sight. What's going to happen to your game of Q3A when a tornado decides to rip through the area? Even radio is subject to static, which could be pretty painful for an internet connection.
From what I've experienced, the plains states can suffer some pretty crappy weather. Be it rain, thunder, dust storms, blizzards, or tornados. One wonders about the quality of service these people will get; the news article doesn't really explain this much.
I'm just one to trust a wire safely buried under dirt more than radio waves being flung about.
Which brings up another point.. how easy is it for other people to pick up these signals? Channel scanners, start your engines.
I mean, I can reasonably deduct that anything from the 70's and earlier is going to be a good qualifier, but what other lines of machines can we expect to see?
Their website doesn't seem to go into much detail on it; would this include the first Macs that hit shelves? How about my old Amiga 500? An itty bitty Sun IPX?
What is classified as a "vintage" computer?:) For cars this is easy; anything over 30 years or so. But in the computing industry, where machines advance fast enough that something two-three years old is out of date, where is the line drawn?
I don't think it's quite so much an issue with the existing package formats as it is an issue with most of the Linux developers out there not really knowing what they want to do. It seems to me Linux is in this phase where a few leaders have been established, they're going their own way, and are becoming increasingly divergent.
It's basically a standards issue. I've used Slackware for a long time.. like it. Tar and gzip is all I need to install a package. But once stuff started creeping in that only came out in rpm.. I was forced to coax RPM work on my Slackware installation, or go RedHat. Maybe that's great for the l33t Linux hackers out there, as it gives them options, but for someone who's more concerned with getting software running on their machine, it's a hassle.
IMO, someone the entire Linux community trusts needs to answer some of these questions:
"Where do we install stuff?"
"What format should the distributed files be in?"
"How do we handle upgrades or patches to our software?"
Every answer to these questsions are subjective. This is why Debian and RedHat differ. I think that someone just needs to tell us how it's going to be, and let us start doing it. If it doesn't happen, in a few years, one really WILL be able to safely refer to Linux as "RedHat" or "Debian."
And I know some people out there are trying to answer these questions. But are they making ANY impact, whatsoever? The only reason the linux directory structure isn't complete spaghetti is because people kind of do what most other people are doing. That works great today.. but I think it's going to implode on us sometime in the future.
Now maybe good 'ol Torvalds doesn't want to take a dictatorship stance like that. I can understand that. But these questions of "standardized distribution schemes" will continue to rise as long as no one in authority stands up and makes a decision. Linux may truly only be the kernel.. but that's not how the world is viewing it.
I guess I'm okay with the issue remaining unsolved, but if that's going to be the case.. I think the community needs to start spreading that news. "No package standard is forthcoming, choose your favorite, live with it, and stop asking for something unified."
But of course, there's additional problems that appear with a statement like that..
It doesn't increase the range of vision at all.. it just stretches the original pixels to something MUCH wider than it used to be. Notice how the gun the guy is wielding takes up most of two monitors?:P
Now see, if it actually gave you periphrial vision.. or even if you could turn around in your chair and see what was behind you, THAT would be cool.
What will people at do tomorrow? Stop by and give a quick thanks for the work I do, or complain that the machine they granted me two hours to get out of the box and fully into production isn't ready yet?
"Special days" like this one don't mean much when the only time people pay attention to you is when something is broken.
(I've been permitted by my doctor one cynical post per year; glad I saved up for this one)
> does anyone think that people would stop using them?
My major complaint with the line of work I've selected is that I'm pretty much guaranteed to have either a pager stuck to my hip, or a cell phone stuck to my ear. Worst case, I'll have both.
I HATE, cell phones. When I leave my house, I want to be away from the world. If I'm in the car, I want to concentrate on driving. If I'm relaxing somewhere, I don't want a phone shrieking at me to answer it.
Thus, if I could use the logic that "cell phones cause brain damage" with my employer, I've have a very valid reason to avoid the things. I know of no company out there that is openly willing to face those kinds of risks, and my employer is going to force me to carry a cell phone unless they stand the chance to lose anything (money, mostly) from it.
Is it a deception? Potentially. But being constantly wired to the world is one thing I really detest about modern technology. When the clock hits 5pm, my work day is over, and anything job-related that happens after that serves as an irritant.
In summary, I'll use any excuse available to ditch that worthless pile of plastic.:)
I can't recall how many times people at my workplace (and at least one other; I could relate stories of one friend who suffers the same problems) CONTINUE to open up those damn Melissa-deriviative virus emails. They'll even open different copies of the SAME virus.. multiple times!
I tell them "if you see an email with a.vbs attachment in it, don't open it." What do they do? They open it. I tell them how to turn off the scripting foo that runs these scripts. What do they do? They ignore it.
Basically, the ignorance of users would undermine any of the deviousness of your stated plan; it's too complicated for them.
The only way to get the attention of a luser is to beat them over the head with something. Erase their hard drive, and THEN they start to wake up. It's not their problem until they suffer data loss.
Or, at least, it was there when I was picking up a few new hubs for the suits around lunch time.;) They (they being the store I went to in Sunnyvale) had a fairly large display filled with the game, so if you get there soon enough after work closes this evening, you can prolly get lucky. Game *was* going fast, though, so unless you got lucky, it's prolly too late.
They cut through workers about as fast as they send data through a fiber circuit. Great bandwidth, horrible company (they bought out my last employer, please allow me to make my stabs wherever I can).
As to the latency questions a lot of people are asking about, Qwest's backbone (their American version anyways) freaking screams. When I worked for them, they could average a 70ms ping between SF and NYC. Before that, averages I was getting were around 90ms. At the time of me posting this, they're pulling 74ms.
I can only imagine that this feat over in Germany mimics that behavior.
Why in the heck does this need to become such a holy war? Much like the RIAA problems, is this something I'm gonna have to read "features" on for the next four months as they try to keep slashdot readers all riled up and angry?
Yes, some of M$'s requests were unreasonable. But not all of them. On slashdot.org, in that original thread, someone posted the source code M$ has a copyright for.
The license agreement, whether someone didn't read it due to using Winzip, or read it and ignored it, is still there. You can't get around that.
Just remove the source code, and you're in the clear. I don't see why this requires lawyers to understand.
But then, there always is that clause about human behavior that says we're required to make as much noise as we can about anything, whenever we can. Controversy is fun!
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, mod the post I'm replying to up. :)
Soon as I get two spare linux machines at work, I'm gonna tear them apart and try this Mosix stuff.. see if it can function in a software development environment.
Be neat to see if it works well enough that there's a net gain in efficiency.
Best part, it's free (which modern solutions aren't), so it's much easier to play with this sort of idea.
This sort of thing is very cool, and rather attractive. While I wager it isn't a drop-in solution that suddenly opens up a nirvana of computing, it *is* something that has been predicted (read about it on Slashdot a ways back, anyways), and would be cool to have come around.
Not only does this help average joe user (he can sell his CPU time to people who need to compile something), but think of it in a work place.
Where I work, everyone has a workstation. Problem is, everyone does their CPU-heavy work on a central server. Thus, these workstations are being under utilized. Sun (and a number of people) have this problem addressed halfway.. they have software that queues up tasks, and distributes them to idle CPU's as they free up.
What if we had a sort of "CPU NFS" in a way that individual instructions are handed off to remote machines, rather than entire jobs?
Mm, I want.
Of course, any such idea would be riddled with difficulties (I wager the complications would be like the ones NFS has, only worse), but the idea, again, is attractive.
Is this something Mojonation could expand to? They mention several times that you 'donate cpu cycles', but it never seems to directly state you can sell build time on your machine.
I'd like to see that.
Last time I implanted the front grille of my car into a locust's left and right forewing first basalar flight muscles as I was cruising down the interstate, he didn't help my steering at ALL.
In fact, I only remember being annoyed when I had to remove the implants..
But really.. I do have a question. With this sort of thing possible, what kind of *practical* solutions could it be expanded to? I mean, while we might be able to steer a car with a locust, how are we going to teach it to use a GPS and maps.yahoo.com?
Is this sort of thing being done just for the sheer geekery of it? The bragging rights one gets by being able to say "I built a robot car steered by a locust"?
Unless of course, they could expand this by attaching paralyzed people to their wheelchairs, enabling them to motor around with simply activating a few certain neurons in their brain.
Look at the screenshot where Tux is cruising at 174 km/h.
Hot damn. Even on ice, anyone that can avoid bursting into flames when sliding on their stomach at that speed HAS to be the ruler.. of.. well, something.
Last time I gave a Windows CD that much friction, it wouldn't even install anymore (CD under tire, pop the clutch, we've all done stuff like that, right?).
And Vinod Khosla founded Sun in the early 80's, which is something the discography about him liked to point out several times.
:)
Jobs? Over half the discussion of him details what he did for Apple BEFORE 1990.
Same deal with Gates.
Since the people who wrote the article were apparently willing to blur the lines a bit by focusing on so many past deeds, getting snippy and pointing out the actual creation date of the internet may not mean a whole lot.
As it is, Gore's infamous quote has only appeared within the past ten years, and to 99% of the world's population, the 90's *was* the birth of the internet.
Does that qualify as basic understanding?
Shouldn't Al Gore be on that list, for creating the internet?
I mean, all the stuff those other people did.. Berners-Lee, Levy, and Clark, would have been pretty pointless if good 'ol Gore hadn't created the internet for them.
I think Apple is just playing by the book.
I mean, look at their track record. Apple is one of those companies with trigger happy lawyers; they go after EVERYTHING. You can't even post pictures of upcoming hardware without getting in trouble with these guys.
Wouldn't it be hypocritical if Apple *didn't* license this from Amazon?
The absurdity of Amazon's patent isn't at issue here; it's the fact that when Apple goes after someone with legal letters, they're not just barking loudly. They mean it, and are willing to bite the bullet and tolerate the absurd if it keeps their record spotless.
Kind of a lame way to define integrity, but hey. In this world I guess you gotta take it from wherever you can.
..or are these people doing this just to make a joke of RIAA and MPAA?
Their case against people is so absurd, it almost seems like the whole CueCat thing came about to get the chance to prove in a court that, in the computer industry, IP means a very different thing than it used to.
I mean, even the timing of these guys is perfect to poke fun at the mp3 and DeCSS debate.
#include <stdIANAL.h>
And with that in mind.. would it be worth it to hurry up and push CueCat into a court so a precedent could be set? It'd be amusing to watch these guys lose. Then, turn around and use that against RIAA or MPAA.
..snail mail would be much more effective.
But I'd wager part of the "grandeur" of mp3.com's effort is the hilite the whole "internet" aspect of it all. I mean, how can you push a new frontier using old world habits and technologies?
I think by pushing the online methods of communication, mp3.com would hope to indicate that this whole internet thing is different, is very real, and doesn't want to be ignored.
Will it be effective? I'm not judging that. I'm just playing devil's advocate in coming up with reasons why an email rally could be a good idea.
To me, the grandeur of all this X11 stuff wasn't so much having the same desktop on every *nix box in existence, but having a toolkit that was. A couple years ago, it was so DAMN nice to be able to download an X app someone wrote for his linux box, and being able to get it to compile cleanly on the crusty Sparc 5 I used for a workstation.
By implementing this new server, these guys are totally ruining that. According to the article, anyways. It sounds like you have to jump through hoops to get any of that bad old "non standard" stuff to run. Dragging CDE into the mess seems even stupider to me. The X server didn't define "standards" on unix desktops; nor did the windows manager. It was Motif.. which is already widely spread among all breeds of unix. Us linux people call it Lesstif.
I guess the problem of a familiar UI across unices is a valid concern, but there's already an open-source port of CDE out there. If one wants to be "standard," the tools already exist. And they work ON TOP of existing, tried and true OSS.
In summary, these people are creating a problem so they can create a solution to solve that problem, and make a buck at it in the process.
By using the "we're industry standard" moniker, they're trying to fool people into buying their junk. And if one trusts the article, they're anything BUT standard. Sounds like a plot we've seen come out of Redmond several times before, actually..
"We've spoken to a couple people here who've made snarfy comments about us not using an MS server for b.net and we've ignored them."
Sounds a fair bit different than what Inside Mac Games reported, doesn't it? Sure, you can translate that to mean "M$ is unhappy", but he never actually SAID that. It's just people falling prey to a media organization (insidemacgames in this case) who are buttering up their stories with scandal and comments that scare people.
It increases page views (heck, how many of you visited the url given in the story?), and that's all they're trying to do.
> you really should get your facts straight before
;)
> calling anyone else a moron
I was refering to humanity as a whole, really.
Us humans have at least 6000 years of recorded history, which would offer plenty of "facts" dictating how we, as a whole, can be complete dimwits.
A good number of the conflicts we've had in the past were based on a lack of communication. I was just borrowing this Google thing as a recent example, which to me, is the real issue. It's not the results given by a search engine that's bothersome; is the fact that people are displaying no inclination to communicate despite all the (good) reasons for attempting it.
Gee, I wonder how many problems in the world could be solved if people put out a little bit of effort into communicating with each other. Rather than asking Google what's up.. the guys in the story yesterday put MONTHS of effort into proving how they're getting shafted by Google's search engine. They make accusations.
Google hears about it via Slashdot, and in less than 24 hours, the real reason is revealed.
Kinda makes me wonder at humanity, when we're all so locked into our own little shells that we occupy ourselves trying to prove something that five minutes of talking could solve. Sort of like how most Americans never say hello to their neighbor, and can live next to them for years without ever exchanging niceties.
Cool idea, and glad to see more folks getting faster internet access.. but how susceptible is this going to be to weather effects?
Admittedly, they define this as using "radio waves", which seems like a fairly fault tolerant medium (compared to, say, a beam of some sort), but they DO say it requires a clear line-of-sight. What's going to happen to your game of Q3A when a tornado decides to rip through the area? Even radio is subject to static, which could be pretty painful for an internet connection.
From what I've experienced, the plains states can suffer some pretty crappy weather. Be it rain, thunder, dust storms, blizzards, or tornados. One wonders about the quality of service these people will get; the news article doesn't really explain this much.
I'm just one to trust a wire safely buried under dirt more than radio waves being flung about.
Which brings up another point.. how easy is it for other people to pick up these signals? Channel scanners, start your engines.
What qualifies for this distinction?
:) For cars this is easy; anything over 30 years or so. But in the computing industry, where machines advance fast enough that something two-three years old is out of date, where is the line drawn?
I mean, I can reasonably deduct that anything from the 70's and earlier is going to be a good qualifier, but what other lines of machines can we expect to see?
Their website doesn't seem to go into much detail on it; would this include the first Macs that hit shelves? How about my old Amiga 500? An itty bitty Sun IPX?
What is classified as a "vintage" computer?
People should hurry up and make their submissions. This is a big chance for a lot of Slashdot readers to settle the dispute over who is "king".
Just imagine opening up this capsule in 50k years, reading the data, and finding something like this:
"FIRST POST!!!"
I don't think it's quite so much an issue with the existing package formats as it is an issue with most of the Linux developers out there not really knowing what they want to do. It seems to me Linux is in this phase where a few leaders have been established, they're going their own way, and are becoming increasingly divergent.
It's basically a standards issue. I've used Slackware for a long time.. like it. Tar and gzip is all I need to install a package. But once stuff started creeping in that only came out in rpm.. I was forced to coax RPM work on my Slackware installation, or go RedHat. Maybe that's great for the l33t Linux hackers out there, as it gives them options, but for someone who's more concerned with getting software running on their machine, it's a hassle.
IMO, someone the entire Linux community trusts needs to answer some of these questions:
"Where do we install stuff?"
"What format should the distributed files be in?"
"How do we handle upgrades or patches to our software?"
Every answer to these questsions are subjective. This is why Debian and RedHat differ. I think that someone just needs to tell us how it's going to be, and let us start doing it. If it doesn't happen, in a few years, one really WILL be able to safely refer to Linux as "RedHat" or "Debian."
And I know some people out there are trying to answer these questions. But are they making ANY impact, whatsoever? The only reason the linux directory structure isn't complete spaghetti is because people kind of do what most other people are doing. That works great today.. but I think it's going to implode on us sometime in the future.
Now maybe good 'ol Torvalds doesn't want to take a dictatorship stance like that. I can understand that. But these questions of "standardized distribution schemes" will continue to rise as long as no one in authority stands up and makes a decision. Linux may truly only be the kernel.. but that's not how the world is viewing it.
I guess I'm okay with the issue remaining unsolved, but if that's going to be the case.. I think the community needs to start spreading that news. "No package standard is forthcoming, choose your favorite, live with it, and stop asking for something unified."
But of course, there's additional problems that appear with a statement like that..
It doesn't increase the range of vision at all.. it just stretches the original pixels to something MUCH wider than it used to be. Notice how the gun the guy is wielding takes up most of two monitors? :P
Now see, if it actually gave you periphrial vision.. or even if you could turn around in your chair and see what was behind you, THAT would be cool.
What will people at do tomorrow? Stop by and give a quick thanks for the work I do, or complain that the machine they granted me two hours to get out of the box and fully into production isn't ready yet?
"Special days" like this one don't mean much when the only time people pay attention to you is when something is broken.
(I've been permitted by my doctor one cynical post per year; glad I saved up for this one)
My major complaint with the line of work I've selected is that I'm pretty much guaranteed to have either a pager stuck to my hip, or a cell phone stuck to my ear. Worst case, I'll have both.
I HATE, cell phones. When I leave my house, I want to be away from the world. If I'm in the car, I want to concentrate on driving. If I'm relaxing somewhere, I don't want a phone shrieking at me to answer it.
Thus, if I could use the logic that "cell phones cause brain damage" with my employer, I've have a very valid reason to avoid the things. I know of no company out there that is openly willing to face those kinds of risks, and my employer is going to force me to carry a cell phone unless they stand the chance to lose anything (money, mostly) from it.
Is it a deception? Potentially. But being constantly wired to the world is one thing I really detest about modern technology. When the clock hits 5pm, my work day is over, and anything job-related that happens after that serves as an irritant.
In summary, I'll use any excuse available to ditch that worthless pile of plastic. :)
The problem with this: People are stupid.
.vbs attachment in it, don't open it." What do they do? They open it. I tell them how to turn off the scripting foo that runs these scripts. What do they do? They ignore it.
I can't recall how many times people at my workplace (and at least one other; I could relate stories of one friend who suffers the same problems) CONTINUE to open up those damn Melissa-deriviative virus emails. They'll even open different copies of the SAME virus.. multiple times!
I tell them "if you see an email with a
Basically, the ignorance of users would undermine any of the deviousness of your stated plan; it's too complicated for them.
The only way to get the attention of a luser is to beat them over the head with something. Erase their hard drive, and THEN they start to wake up. It's not their problem until they suffer data loss.
Or, at least, it was there when I was picking up a few new hubs for the suits around lunch time. ;) They (they being the store I went to in Sunnyvale) had a fairly large display filled with the game, so if you get there soon enough after work closes this evening, you can prolly get lucky. Game *was* going fast, though, so unless you got lucky, it's prolly too late.
Is employee turnover rate.
They cut through workers about as fast as they send data through a fiber circuit. Great bandwidth, horrible company (they bought out my last employer, please allow me to make my stabs wherever I can).
As to the latency questions a lot of people are asking about, Qwest's backbone (their American version anyways) freaking screams. When I worked for them, they could average a 70ms ping between SF and NYC. Before that, averages I was getting were around 90ms. At the time of me posting this, they're pulling 74ms.
I can only imagine that this feat over in Germany mimics that behavior.
Why in the heck does this need to become such a holy war? Much like the RIAA problems, is this something I'm gonna have to read "features" on for the next four months as they try to keep slashdot readers all riled up and angry?
Yes, some of M$'s requests were unreasonable. But not all of them. On slashdot.org, in that original thread, someone posted the source code M$ has a copyright for.
The license agreement, whether someone didn't read it due to using Winzip, or read it and ignored it, is still there. You can't get around that.
Just remove the source code, and you're in the clear. I don't see why this requires lawyers to understand.
But then, there always is that clause about human behavior that says we're required to make as much noise as we can about anything, whenever we can. Controversy is fun!
Gives you all the information you really want and none of that technical mumbo-jumbo.