I've been a linux user for almost 6 years, and generally laughed at Macs (the whole one-button thing, etc.)
I wanted to find a nice laptop that would run linux, and even had a dell for a few days. Then, a friend of mine introduced me to Macs, and, in particular, the Tibook. You can see it yourself - overall, its probably the single best piece of hardware engineering imaginable.
And OS X really is awesome. I'm not into having the point-and-click interface myself, and love the console. But OS X really is nice to use. Its networking support is amazing, and works right out of the box. Support for sleep is great too.
Right now, from what I can see, the biggest problem with OS X is the lack of a decent DivX player. (4.11 tends to desync in about a second). Otherwise, it's awesome. And, if you really can't let go of blackbox or whatever (like me), there's the XDarwin project that lets you run X on top of OS X. So far, I've only tested the default twm, which runs fine. But using the apple developer tools you can compile any window that's been ported (I believe at least gnome and afterstep have been), and run it there.
Certain products are still not quite ready for OS X, but the situation is improving rapidly. I have to disagree with one of the posts below - its not about being "productive"; one could easily do that in Linux. (I refused to run IE, and will
NOT be getting Office). But it is a sincerely nice operating system to use, and the hardware is definitely going to be a computer legend.
Regards,
Don't expect too much. Civ 3 is very disappointing. It's Civ 2, sugarcoated with more bloat, better graphics...and an AI that looks like it was hacked together over one weekend on a broken lisp implementation by a person who never did learn the meaning of "functional programming".
Civ 1 probably had better AI. It's just prettier, but if you're expecting a major improvement, don't hold your breath. If they put in a fraction of the time they used on graphics to improve actual gameplay, this game might, in some derivative and shadowy way maybe start rising up to the level of Master of Orion...maybe. But I doubt it.
My advice, don't buy it. You have better things to do with your time.
Your argument is quite flawed in that you are confusing two incompatible realms. The CIA (which actually does not deal with border security, the DoJ does:-) and other agencies are responsible for maintaining security in the first place. So they obviously should not use full disclosure - if they find a problem it's their responsibility to fix it.
Remember the difference with the software industry. If the DoJ puts up another border post, this automatically protects everyeone from that vulnerability. A bug must be patched manually, and so must be announced to everyeone concerned. Your example is analogous to Microsoft finding their own vulenrabilities and (because they're in software) publishing the patch on the Net.
Conversely, Full Disclosure *would* work if private citizens published this info. For example, say I find out how to cross the border. If I announce this to the world, the DoJ would scramble to fix the problem, thereby improving security. If they keep it under their hat, they may not necessarily be motivated to fix it (no budget, didn't feel like making the order, etc., etc..) So, just like in the software industry, Full Disclosure would cause the security agencies to act very quickly.
Actually, even without full disclosure they would act quickly. Using the aforementioned example, if I (say) publicized a border vulnerability, I would be promptly clapped in jail. So the agencies would still work - it's just that they would not do quite what we would want.
Your attitude is the classic example of the thinking of weak-minded and brainwashed morons who automatically respond with the knee-jerk reaction of "WHAT? You gave hackers info on security? Die, traiterous scum!" Next time, try to logically follow your own argument instead of engaging in slashdot posting diarrhia. And moderators! Who modded that clueless individual up in the first place?
Oh sure...they deserve *LOTS* of credit. You missed a few points, though.
Let's look at the facts. Microsoft has been at this for...let's see, 22 years, roughly. In that time, they finally managed to make an OS that doesn't crash every five seconds. Let me ask you this: When was the last time you ran Netscape, a burner, and winamp together that windows did NOT crash? I don't remember one. When was the last time you made a frisbee on Linux? WHILE compiling gcc, X 4.1, and playing mp3's? Answer: never.
Linux did in 10 years what Microsoft could not do in 20. Linux was stable even before, if you didn't have two left hands and all thumbs.
So what's the point? Microsoft deserves credit for it's marketing - getting billions of dollars for shoddy, insecure software. They have not invented anything decently new (they mostly steal other companies' ideas), and they managed to ingratiate themselves with Big Brother, by providing backdoors for the NSA, and spreading said backdoors throughout the world. (See recent article on German gov't and linux).
Linus could really do some damage here - he could start a lawsuit about Microsoft not respecting his copyright, and get Redmont back with their own weapons. That would be incredibly cool.
Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus
Where the three-body problem is solved,
Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K,
And the cold virus never evolved. (chorus)
We eat algea pie, our vacuum is high,
Our ball bearings are perfectly round.
Our horizon is curved, our warheads are MIRVed,
And a kilogram weighs half a pound. (chorus)
If we run out of space for our burgeoning race
No more Lebensraum left for the Mensch
When we're ready to start, we can take Mars apart,
If we just find a big enough wrench. (chorus)
I'm sick of this place, it's just McDonald's in space,
And living up here is a bore.
Tell the shiggies, "Don't cry," they can kiss me goodbye
'Cause I'm moving next week to L4!
CHORUS: Home, home on LaGrange,
Where the space debris always collects,
We possess, so it seems, two of Man's greatest dreams:
Solar power and zero-gee sex.
-- to Home on the Range
Ok, who modded that stinking piece of pro-American b.s. up to five? Go out, check your IQ, and verify that it is indeed smaller than your shoe size.
While I agree with the technical parts of the argument (after all, how useful is a spy sat if they (the opponents) know where it is), there's a great deal to be said about the rest of the nonsense.
Let's use an example... Say we're monitoring Iraq's ballistic missile development. They've bought orbital intel from the Chinese or Russians or whomever, on American and British spy-sats.
Let's start with the automatic assumption that China and Russia are the fountainheads of evil, and that America and Britain are the epitomies of good. Britain and American....let's see...these are the same countries that have done their best to divest their citizens of any thin shred of privacy, right? These are the oh-so-respectful of human rights more advanced nations that routinely exploit those third-world [countries]...with imperialist tendencies economically? (And if you think paying someone $10 a month for work that your own country's citizens wouldn't do for $10/hour *isn't* economic imperialism, you need to read a few econ books.) These are the same countries that have shuffled off all of their environmentally dirty industries to the same third-world countries, right?
To be honest, I'm shoked that you have the gall to complain about third world countries....with imperialist tendencies. Does Philippines, Panama, Hawaii, California mean anything to you? Study your own history first, before mouthing off about imperialism. Or is what Americans did in those territories ok because it was so long ago?
You're wrong about the other thing, too. Much of the world DID learn alot from WWI and WWII. It was America that DIDN'T.
This is one of those cases where they can't be allowed to learn them the hard way, no matter how much they complain.
And, I suppose, you think that America is just the country to do that, don't you? The good-old world-policeman ruse. And, naturally, to do your job well, you need good equipment, like....oh I don't know....lots of spy satellites? Echelon maybe? Need I go on?
Any country with the puritanical self-righteousness to assume that they know exactly what to do to solve all of the world's problems, will inevitably, and in short order, be proven wrong. This is known as a system controlled by positive reinforcement. The only possible outcome for such a system, is a disbalance that destroyes it. And next time, kindly keep your pro-American nonsense off the threads, or at least temper it to whatever meager extent you are able with intelligence and facts.
You bring up good points. However, you also missed something fairly important: namely that bullying is not news; expelling someone for an offhand comment is.
There should be official procedure, with the evidence being presented, and parents being notified more completely of the details. They can not expel someone because of some backroom meeting. It may be possible to sue the school for discrimination based on lifestyle choices - namely liking computers, or something along those lines. (I am not a lawyer, but nearly arbitrary discrimination suits are useful for harassing these morons).
Being involved in the PTA, which, in my experience, is a social club for equally brainless mothers is not going to alter much. So, short of becoming dean of discipline, there isn't much that can be done.
The practical thing is to give this case as much exposure as possible. For instance, public records - Sean's attendance, grades, disciplinary record are all available for public view. Certainly his teachers' books. If we can draw enough publicity, Sean and his parents may have the support to go and fight this thing, in court if necessary, to make the school's actions illegal. There is still a justice system, and one is still allowed to seek redress from public institutions. That's what needs to be done, and quickly, while protesting arbitrary decisions by lemming-minded, homophobic, political-correctness worshiping administrative lardasses is still legal here.
trurl
And you are getting your facts from....where?
Please check the numbers before spouting them.
The Russians lost 20 million people in the war. Stalin's efforts resulted in an unknown
number of deaths, with some people claiming 50 million, and others up to 120 million.
Second point. (which weren't in the best shape to begin with...) Once again it is suggested that reading a little history would help here. Hitler invaded Russian on June 22, 1941. At that time, his forces were the best organized and equipped in all of Europe. His air fighters were made of metal, when the Russians where still using wood-and-cloth construction. His troops were rested, and consisted of veterans. They were in very good shape. I agree, however, that the move was stupid - by invading Russia, Hitler opened a second front.
"cursed capacity for suffering" Ok, how much of the "long suffering Russian soul" crap do we have to hear? Where are you getting this? The Russian lit class you took recently? Every time someone takes one of those, they think they get a handle on how the Russian people think. You are taking impressions out of context, using a translated text. Once again, get the facts, don't spout opinions.
...and utterly hopeless... Is this supposed to be pity or something? Please spare it. Stalin was a dictator. But a dictatorship can only force people to do so much. The reason the Russians continued to fight was that they weren't doing it on Stalin's orders. They were fighting for their homeland. If the aforementioned lit class did any justice to the Russian culture, it should have mentioned the tremendous identification that these people have with their land. This is reflected in their songs, and yes, their literature (which was probably not translated, since it might portray Russians as normal human beings). So the fight was against an invader of their homeland, not because big, bad Stalin was standing over their heads cracking a whip.
I certainly don't mean to start a nationalistic bitch-fight here, but honestly, can you drop the high-handed discussions of a national struggle of absolutely gargantuan proportions, especially while being ignorant of the actual historical details? I doubt anyone will disagree if I say that Hollywood is far more interested in making money rather than presenting the actual events. Yes, Stalingrad happened. But it is pointless to pose as a critic of Russian military history based on one western movie, or a few books on which the Russians themselves are divided.
I have been listening to these discussions for a decade now, and one thing they all have in common is a profound ignorance of the facts, and the high-handed pity and even contempt for what the Russians did in the war. So please, watch the movie, have fun, but have enough decency not to slur the memory of the millions of heroes who died to stop Hitler. You are not insulting only the Russians. You are insulting your own grandfathers who fought and died with them.
Whoever modded this should probably read the Moderator's Guidelines. If you don't happen to
agree with a person's point of view, that does not
mean their point of view is invalid.
In a way it does attack the author of the original article (Jack), but is amusing nonetheless. Offtopic has nothing to do with it.
Personally, I don't see what's the big deal. Yet another exhibition of the idiocy of the media...we haven't seen *that* one before. Outside of the various financial questions, why would anyone *want* to rebroadcast some guy lifting a large chunk of metal, or swimming through the water back and forth a couple of times.
I hold with Jerome K. Jerome: The Olympic gold medal indicates that someone did something absolutely useless to humanity better than everyone else.
The IOC doesn't want this tripe broadcast? Oh well. I guess the technological development of the Net will have to continue without them. I know it'll be hard....but I'm pretty sure we'll manage.
I can see it now: "Use CIA-IRC, the server used internally by the CIA!" Give the hackers a kickback, keep the rest of they money to fund black bag ops or something.
Wait a second, I though that fungus, being a life form required air to propogate
I'm not a bio major, but I'm pretty sure that
certain anaerobic bacteria/fungi don't need oxygen to survive.
As to whether they could exist in the vacuum of space...I don't have the URL's, but I recall reading somewhere that "they" have found bacteria that could live quite comfortably in vacuum. (Virulent little suckers:) ).
Lastly, in the article they mention that the bacteria are of the genera Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Cladesporium, bacteria found commonly on Earth.
So much for Crichton.:)
--
Prediction is difficult, especially of the future.
Niels Bohr
I believe this site summarizes the complaints against X (and a few other things) fairly well. There's a chapter on the X-windows disaster available in full-text. Even if some of it's claims are overexaggerated, it is still extremely amusing reading.
I didn't know that trolls were allowed to post on ZDnet....it's fascinating. I think this opens up whole new vistas for/.-tters. Now all they have to do is let OOG put a column there, and their journey to the dark side is complete....oh wait....OOG has something intelligent to say, most of the time....that would be out of character...
On to the article.... It's a dot-com-all hype and speculation and no fundamentals Define "fundamental" You mean something like a stupid "mission statement"? Clearly the GNU's Not That! Do you mean it has no vision? Clearly Linus doesn't, and hasn't known what he was doing for a while. Somehow 143,445 registered users (and roughly 14 million unregistered ones) are running on said "hype". (Come on, people! Slashdot http://counter.li.org!) But anyway.
The most important part of the browser is not it's unique blue interface. It's AOLS's obvious attempt to tie the browser to a bunch of for-profit proprietary services Since when is product-placement and advertising the most important part of *anything*? Clearly, such advertising belongs to the mysterious "fundamentals" that we've already mentioned.
...which may have tired of paying programmers to produce stuff that doesn't matter much anymore Hmm....so Netscape doesn't "matter much anymore"? And what, pray tell, matters now? The Internet Explorer. Last time I checked, it crashed if you attempted to look up the word "stability" on dictionary.com. You mean Mozilla still has bugs? So does every *released* Microsoft product. But this was already mentioned.
....they're very much down to earth right now. This means that they'll quickly have to expand beyond valuations centered on Linux. Uhm...the stock market took a dive not too long ago? Have you heard? But beyond that, just because the company's market value isn't over 200, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's doing something wrong. That may actually *be* the company's market price, instead of being horribly out of proportion to the company's actual worth, e.g. amazon.com. Furthermore, Linux is an OS - Not a specific type of service (e.g. making microwaves). The point of buying other companies may be to increase the base of programs that work on Linux. Or just good-ol' market capitalism. Most large corporations own subsidiaries that have nothing to do with their primary fields. (Specifics escape me at the moment, but I know that one conglomerate owns a tire company, oilfields, a car line, perfume, software, etc. This is done to prevent the conglomerate's failure through being *too specific*)
...open source is not geared to create but to critique. It's best at tearing apart the establishment because it consists of underappreciated programmers who suddenly have a vote. Read: Open Source is not geared to create but to critique (us). It's best at tearing apart the establishment (I got passed up for promotion to VP because I didn't see Linux's potential) because it consists of underappreciated programmers who suddenly have a vote (But not to worry, we'll have them back chained to their desks with whips cracking soon) Basically, John is reliving IBM's heroic past as the Evil Empire. He's pissed cause Microsoft stole the title. Otherwise, the comment is so purely assinine that it doesn't merit further bashing.
Put up some goods or your establishment will be ripped apart, too[like ours was] See, what'd I tell you? John must be forgetting the heady days of OS/2's success. Wait...what success?
Are you an open-source advocate or do you just not care? Let me know in the talkback below Actually, the whole thing is more like a flame than a troll - the troll is clever and catches suckers. A flame is just stupid, powerless bashing, and this one more so, because it begs a responce. Personally, if I was one of the execs at IBM, I'd fire this guy. For being an uninformed, partisaned bigot, who's become an embarassment to the company. Or simply for being a stupid ass, it doesn't matter which.
Babelfish sucks! Heute unterzeichneten die Partner ein sog. Which in Babelese renders as: Today the partners signed sucked.
Aside from that, however, there may be a few interesting implications of this. Last.First@Paris.fr? Last.First@New_York.us? Last.First@Your_home_town.foo.bar.district.whereve r? If this catches on, the words "global village" already far too cloying, will make you hurl. Everyone has their more or less established email addresses already..but if these are given by the state, they may become part of your official mandated identity. Imagine: all official gov't notifications being sent to your government granted (imposed) address. Sure, you can have another address...but for employment, education, taxes, whatever, you must use the official one? Whenever you fill out a form, it's the gov't address they want. Yeah, this may be slightly (or not so slightly) paranoid, but imagine the degree of control that this could grant. Today, the government can mandate an ISP to give out their records on a given address (I think). All complications disappear when the government IS the ISP. Forget Echelon. That has to spy on *other* systems. With this thing, they wouldn't even have to spy. Other, more creative people can insert their favorite conspiracy theory below. The point is, this can be a very cool and good thing...or, if too many bureaucrats get their sweaty little hands into it, a very, very scary thing.
On the bright side, if the government does decide to become the national ISP, their systems would run on Windows 2045 or whatever the lowest bidding two-bit company is at the time, so traditional ISP's would still have to exist to provide actual working connections and service!
Frankly, most of the good stuff has been hit. Here are some others that I've enjoyed quite a bit (I'll try not to repeat anything from the above).
Anything Heinlien.:-) I mean pretty much everything.
Clifford D. Simak - Goblin Reservation (I definitely recommend this for a 13-year old. It's the only story to my knowledge that blends fairy tales, fantasy, and sci-fi together. Simak is an unbelievably good author.)
Poul Anderson - Time Patrol Series (About 10 short stories, plus a novel The Sheild of Time, some of the best applied time-travel stuff ever written)
Poul Anderson - There will be time (Another excellent book)
Roger Zelazny - The Chronicles of Amber (For a 13-year old, this is heaven)
Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckly - If At Faust You Don't Succeed, Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming (Incredibly funny stories.)
Harry Harrison - Dragon Knight series (Very good and adventurous)
Terry Pratchett - Small Gods (I've only read that one novel, he has others in the Ringworld Series (I think that's what it's called) Anyway, very amuzing and sophisticated story. Certainly makes one think.)
Roger Zelazny - Changeling, Madwand (Novels about 2 parallel universes - one addicted to technology, the other to magic. Simply fantastic, even on the 10th reading!)
Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman - Dragonlance Chronicles and Dragonlance Legends (Yes, this is fantasy....but very fun, if you don't read all the other crap that came later. Only the original 6 books should be read. Don't even bother with Dragons of Summer Flame)
Some "special" books.
IF you can find this, Robert Sheckly's - The Status Civilization (In my opinion, one of the most poignant social commentaries. I'm not suggesting anything, but the last time they published it was in the 70's. Go figure!:-) )
Robert Heinlein - The Number of the Beast (This is Heinlein showing off how much he's read. If you pick up more than half the references, you should get a Ph.D. in Sci-Fi.)
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien - Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion (Also not sci-fi, but without them, no list is complete. JRRT is definitely the master of fantasy, hands down, no questions asked)
Most of the other stuff people have recommended on this page.
Again, this list was merely intended to supplement the one above, not replace it. There's really too much great stuff to list. I haven't even mentioned Silverberg, or Dick, or Gordon Dickson, or William Tenn. Others may disagree, but as a general rule of thumb, I've found that the most profound works in sci-fi were written back in the Golden Age of Sci-Fi, and I would suggest sticking with that (I'm not putting down Gibson or Stephenson, they are amazing, but a great deal of the modern crap is just atrocious.)
I'll stop the library listing now. Hope this helps.
Dear Anonymous coward. Before making assinine statements of that caliber, you should, perhaps, consider looking carefully at yourself and your co-workers. If your "co-workers" are as intelligent as you, they should have fired the lot of you a long time ago, and given your function over to house plants - I assure you, they would be far more effective than you at whatever job it is you do for a living. Also, posting curses anonymously does not serve as a further mark of intellect. If you want to call someone a moron, have the guts to sign your name to it.
Now, as to the nature of your comment. Jon really didn't introduce anything new. But he did present things in a logical manner. And I will venture to say he didn't go far enough. Either you truly are a moron with a 15 IQ, or you are one of the people who would be likely to use this technology for the fascist ends that it will very likely be used for. And I am fairly certain that in that case, your co-workers will be helping you.
Nothing in human history has pointed to the idea of humans learning from their mistakes. As an overused, but effective example: What was the first thing that nuclear science was used for? Medicine? Research? Cheap energy? No. It was used to kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians. What was the Internet developed for? So you could prove to everyone how laughable and pitiable your own lack of intelligence is? No, though unfortunately that's what wound up happenening. Original use was for the military. Historically, no scientific advance was actually used to benefit humanity - it was first used by the various governments and empires to kill and control others.
Given that, do you really believe this stuff won't be used to create the "Perfect Society"? By evoking the memories of Huxley and Orwell, Jon very poignantly reminds us that others, long ago, have already seen it. And they probably didn't see all of it. Reality is always more horrible than you can imagine it. Give it a few more years, with a few more advances in computer techonology, and you will find a future outlook that would scare even the most pessimistic analysts today.
In short, I don't know from what happy little ignorant bland middle-class suburban hoe favor swife world you crawled from, but please do everyone the favor of going back there and not bothering the/. readers with any more of your crap. Or at least get the guts to sign your name or something. Or start posting somewhere more suited to your intelligence...say alt.rec.dumb.schmuck.at.home.
John Bailey
-- I prefer the wicked to the foolish - the wicked sometimes rest. Alexander Dumas, fils
Slashdot Mirror
Many Congratulations to you both. May your lives be as happy and fulfilling as you both wish them to be.
;-)
(Ok, this is not the first post on this theme, but redundancy is good here
trurl
I've been a linux user for almost 6 years, and generally laughed at Macs (the whole one-button thing, etc.)
I wanted to find a nice laptop that would run linux, and even had a dell for a few days. Then, a friend of mine introduced me to Macs, and, in particular, the Tibook. You can see it yourself - overall, its probably the single best piece of hardware engineering imaginable.
And OS X really is awesome. I'm not into having the point-and-click interface myself, and love the console. But OS X really is nice to use. Its networking support is amazing, and works right out of the box. Support for sleep is great too.
Right now, from what I can see, the biggest problem with OS X is the lack of a decent DivX player. (4.11 tends to desync in about a second). Otherwise, it's awesome. And, if you really can't let go of blackbox or whatever (like me), there's the XDarwin project that lets you run X on top of OS X. So far, I've only tested the default twm, which runs fine. But using the apple developer tools you can compile any window that's been ported (I believe at least gnome and afterstep have been), and run it there.
Certain products are still not quite ready for OS X, but the situation is improving rapidly. I have to disagree with one of the posts below - its not about being "productive"; one could easily do that in Linux. (I refused to run IE, and will
NOT be getting Office). But it is a sincerely nice operating system to use, and the hardware is definitely going to be a computer legend.
Regards,
trurl
Don't expect too much. Civ 3 is very disappointing. It's Civ 2, sugarcoated with more bloat, better graphics...and an AI that looks like it was hacked together over one weekend on a broken lisp implementation by a person who never did learn the meaning of "functional programming".
Civ 1 probably had better AI. It's just prettier, but if you're expecting a major improvement, don't hold your breath. If they put in a fraction of the time they used on graphics to improve actual gameplay, this game might, in some derivative and shadowy way maybe start rising up to the level of Master of Orion...maybe. But I doubt it.
My advice, don't buy it. You have better things to do with your time.
Sorry I just had to
Remember the difference with the software industry. If the DoJ puts up another border post, this automatically protects everyeone from that vulnerability. A bug must be patched manually, and so must be announced to everyeone concerned. Your example is analogous to Microsoft finding their own vulenrabilities and (because they're in software) publishing the patch on the Net.
Conversely, Full Disclosure *would* work if private citizens published this info. For example, say I find out how to cross the border. If I announce this to the world, the DoJ would scramble to fix the problem, thereby improving security. If they keep it under their hat, they may not necessarily be motivated to fix it (no budget, didn't feel like making the order, etc., etc..) So, just like in the software industry, Full Disclosure would cause the security agencies to act very quickly.
Actually, even without full disclosure they would act quickly. Using the aforementioned example, if I (say) publicized a border vulnerability, I would be promptly clapped in jail. So the agencies would still work - it's just that they would not do quite what we would want.
Your attitude is the classic example of the thinking of weak-minded and brainwashed morons who automatically respond with the knee-jerk reaction of "WHAT? You gave hackers info on security? Die, traiterous scum!" Next time, try to logically follow your own argument instead of engaging in slashdot posting diarrhia. And moderators! Who modded that clueless individual up in the first place?
Someone mentioned ghostbusters.
Anyone recall this little ditty about the DOSfish? Talk about prophetic.
Oh sure...they deserve *LOTS* of credit. You missed a few points, though.
Let's look at the facts. Microsoft has been at this for...let's see, 22 years, roughly. In that time, they finally managed to make an OS that doesn't crash every five seconds. Let me ask you this: When was the last time you ran Netscape, a burner, and winamp together that windows did NOT crash? I don't remember one. When was the last time you made a frisbee on Linux? WHILE compiling gcc, X 4.1, and playing mp3's? Answer: never.
Linux did in 10 years what Microsoft could not do in 20. Linux was stable even before, if you didn't have two left hands and all thumbs.
So what's the point? Microsoft deserves credit for it's marketing - getting billions of dollars for shoddy, insecure software. They have not invented anything decently new (they mostly steal other companies' ideas), and they managed to ingratiate themselves with Big Brother, by providing backdoors for the NSA, and spreading said backdoors throughout the world. (See recent article on German gov't and linux).
Why don't you give them credit for that too?
Linus could really do some damage here - he could start a lawsuit about Microsoft not respecting his copyright, and get Redmont back with their own weapons. That would be incredibly cool.
$fortune -m"LaGrange"
Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus
Where the three-body problem is solved,
Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K,
And the cold virus never evolved. (chorus)
We eat algea pie, our vacuum is high,
Our ball bearings are perfectly round.
Our horizon is curved, our warheads are MIRVed,
And a kilogram weighs half a pound. (chorus)
If we run out of space for our burgeoning race
No more Lebensraum left for the Mensch
When we're ready to start, we can take Mars apart,
If we just find a big enough wrench. (chorus)
I'm sick of this place, it's just McDonald's in space,
And living up here is a bore.
Tell the shiggies, "Don't cry," they can kiss me goodbye
'Cause I'm moving next week to L4!
CHORUS: Home, home on LaGrange,
Where the space debris always collects,
We possess, so it seems, two of Man's greatest dreams:
Solar power and zero-gee sex.
-- to Home on the Range
Ok, who modded that stinking piece of pro-American b.s. up to five? Go out, check your IQ, and verify that it is indeed smaller than your shoe size.
While I agree with the technical parts of the argument (after all, how useful is a spy sat if they (the opponents) know where it is), there's a great deal to be said about the rest of the nonsense.
Let's use an example... Say we're monitoring Iraq's ballistic missile development. They've bought orbital intel from the Chinese or Russians or whomever, on American and British spy-sats.
Let's start with the automatic assumption that China and Russia are the fountainheads of evil, and that America and Britain are the epitomies of good. Britain and American....let's see...these are the same countries that have done their best to divest their citizens of any thin shred of privacy, right? These are the oh-so-respectful of human rights more advanced nations that routinely exploit those third-world [countries]...with imperialist tendencies economically? (And if you think paying someone $10 a month for work that your own country's citizens wouldn't do for $10/hour *isn't* economic imperialism, you need to read a few econ books.) These are the same countries that have shuffled off all of their environmentally dirty industries to the same third-world countries, right?
To be honest, I'm shoked that you have the gall to complain about third world countries....with imperialist tendencies. Does Philippines, Panama, Hawaii, California mean anything to you? Study your own history first, before mouthing off about imperialism. Or is what Americans did in those territories ok because it was so long ago?
You're wrong about the other thing, too. Much of the world DID learn alot from WWI and WWII. It was America that DIDN'T.
This is one of those cases where they can't be allowed to learn them the hard way, no matter how much they complain.
And, I suppose, you think that America is just the country to do that, don't you? The good-old world-policeman ruse. And, naturally, to do your job well, you need good equipment, like....oh I don't know....lots of spy satellites? Echelon maybe? Need I go on?
Any country with the puritanical self-righteousness to assume that they know exactly what to do to solve all of the world's problems, will inevitably, and in short order, be proven wrong. This is known as a system controlled by positive reinforcement. The only possible outcome for such a system, is a disbalance that destroyes it. And next time, kindly keep your pro-American nonsense off the threads, or at least temper it to whatever meager extent you are able with intelligence and facts.
There should be official procedure, with the evidence being presented, and parents being notified more completely of the details. They can not expel someone because of some backroom meeting. It may be possible to sue the school for discrimination based on lifestyle choices - namely liking computers, or something along those lines. (I am not a lawyer, but nearly arbitrary discrimination suits are useful for harassing these morons).
Being involved in the PTA, which, in my experience, is a social club for equally brainless mothers is not going to alter much. So, short of becoming dean of discipline, there isn't much that can be done.
The practical thing is to give this case as much exposure as possible. For instance, public records - Sean's attendance, grades, disciplinary record are all available for public view. Certainly his teachers' books. If we can draw enough publicity, Sean and his parents may have the support to go and fight this thing, in court if necessary, to make the school's actions illegal. There is still a justice system, and one is still allowed to seek redress from public institutions. That's what needs to be done, and quickly, while protesting arbitrary decisions by lemming-minded, homophobic, political-correctness worshiping administrative lardasses is still legal here. trurl
The Russians lost 20 million people in the war. Stalin's efforts resulted in an unknown number of deaths, with some people claiming 50 million, and others up to 120 million.
Second point. (which weren't in the best shape to begin with...) Once again it is suggested that reading a little history would help here. Hitler invaded Russian on June 22, 1941. At that time, his forces were the best organized and equipped in all of Europe. His air fighters were made of metal, when the Russians where still using wood-and-cloth construction. His troops were rested, and consisted of veterans. They were in very good shape. I agree, however, that the move was stupid - by invading Russia, Hitler opened a second front.
"cursed capacity for suffering" Ok, how much of the "long suffering Russian soul" crap do we have to hear? Where are you getting this? The Russian lit class you took recently? Every time someone takes one of those, they think they get a handle on how the Russian people think. You are taking impressions out of context, using a translated text. Once again, get the facts, don't spout opinions.
I certainly don't mean to start a nationalistic bitch-fight here, but honestly, can you drop the high-handed discussions of a national struggle of absolutely gargantuan proportions, especially while being ignorant of the actual historical details? I doubt anyone will disagree if I say that Hollywood is far more interested in making money rather than presenting the actual events. Yes, Stalingrad happened. But it is pointless to pose as a critic of Russian military history based on one western movie, or a few books on which the Russians themselves are divided.
I have been listening to these discussions for a decade now, and one thing they all have in common is a profound ignorance of the facts, and the high-handed pity and even contempt for what the Russians did in the war. So please, watch the movie, have fun, but have enough decency not to slur the memory of the millions of heroes who died to stop Hitler. You are not insulting only the Russians. You are insulting your own grandfathers who fought and died with them.
(Note: Those who have not seen Johnny Mnemonic won't get this)
-=This space reserved for sig=-
Whoever modded this should probably read the Moderator's Guidelines. If you don't happen to agree with a person's point of view, that does not mean their point of view is invalid.
In a way it does attack the author of the original article (Jack), but is amusing nonetheless. Offtopic has nothing to do with it.
What would happen then? Would this finally be the Malthusian "Menace from Earth"? Or will humanity be threatened by "Methuselah's Children"?
Dodging dead wombats and rotting cabbage...
Trurl
I hold with Jerome K. Jerome: The Olympic gold medal indicates that someone did something absolutely useless to humanity better than everyone else.
The IOC doesn't want this tripe broadcast? Oh well. I guess the technological development of the Net will have to continue without them. I know it'll be hard....but I'm pretty sure we'll manage.
Trurl
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Fsck the fscking fsckers!
Very, very cool. This should get modded up; it's definitely one of the better trolls!
I can see it now: "Use CIA-IRC, the server used internally by the CIA!" Give the hackers a kickback, keep the rest of they money to fund black bag ops or something.
Wait a second, I though that fungus, being a life form required air to propogate :) ). :)
I'm not a bio major, but I'm pretty sure that certain anaerobic bacteria/fungi don't need oxygen to survive.
As to whether they could exist in the vacuum of space...I don't have the URL's, but I recall reading somewhere that "they" have found bacteria that could live quite comfortably in vacuum. (Virulent little suckers
Lastly, in the article they mention that the bacteria are of the genera Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Cladesporium, bacteria found commonly on Earth.
So much for Crichton.
--
Prediction is difficult, especially of the future.
Niels Bohr
When up into MIR I go, I
Sometimes find some violet fungi.
Then I linger, darkly brooding
On the poison they're exuding.
With apologies to Roguelet's ABC.
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Prediction is difficult, especially of the future.
Niels Bohr
I believe this site summarizes the complaints against X (and a few other things) fairly well. There's a chapter on the X-windows disaster available in full-text. Even if some of it's claims are overexaggerated, it is still extremely amusing reading.
I didn't know that trolls were allowed to post on ZDnet....it's fascinating. I think this opens up whole new vistas for /.-tters. Now all they have to do is let OOG put a column there, and their journey to the dark side is complete....oh wait....OOG has something intelligent to say, most of the time....that would be out of character...
...which may have tired of paying programmers to produce stuff that doesn't matter much anymore
....they're very much down to earth right now. This means that they'll quickly have to expand beyond valuations centered on Linux.
...open source is not geared to create but to critique. It's best at tearing apart the establishment because it consists of underappreciated programmers who suddenly have a vote. Read: Open Source is not geared to create but to critique (us). It's best at tearing apart the establishment (I got passed up for promotion to VP because I didn't see Linux's potential) because it consists of underappreciated programmers who suddenly have a vote (But not to worry, we'll have them back chained to their desks with whips cracking soon)
On to the article....
It's a dot-com-all hype and speculation and no fundamentals
Define "fundamental" You mean something like a stupid "mission statement"? Clearly the GNU's Not That! Do you mean it has no vision? Clearly Linus doesn't, and hasn't known what he was doing for a while. Somehow 143,445 registered users (and roughly 14 million unregistered ones) are running on said "hype". (Come on, people! Slashdot http://counter.li.org!) But anyway.
The most important part of the browser is not it's unique blue interface. It's AOLS's obvious attempt to tie the browser to a bunch of for-profit proprietary services
Since when is product-placement and advertising the most important part of *anything*? Clearly, such advertising belongs to the mysterious "fundamentals" that we've already mentioned.
Hmm....so Netscape doesn't "matter much anymore"? And what, pray tell, matters now? The Internet Explorer. Last time I checked, it crashed if you attempted to look up the word "stability" on dictionary.com. You mean Mozilla still has bugs? So does every *released* Microsoft product. But this was already mentioned.
Uhm...the stock market took a dive not too long ago? Have you heard? But beyond that, just because the company's market value isn't over 200, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's doing something wrong. That may actually *be* the company's market price, instead of being horribly out of proportion to the company's actual worth, e.g. amazon.com. Furthermore, Linux is an OS - Not a specific type of service (e.g. making microwaves). The point of buying other companies may be to increase the base of programs that work on Linux. Or just good-ol' market capitalism. Most large corporations own subsidiaries that have nothing to do with their primary fields. (Specifics escape me at the moment, but I know that one conglomerate owns a tire company, oilfields, a car line, perfume, software, etc. This is done to prevent the conglomerate's failure through being *too specific*)
Basically, John is reliving IBM's heroic past as the Evil Empire. He's pissed cause Microsoft stole the title. Otherwise, the comment is so purely assinine that it doesn't merit further bashing.
Put up some goods or your establishment will be ripped apart, too [like ours was]
See, what'd I tell you? John must be forgetting the heady days of OS/2's success. Wait...what success?
Are you an open-source advocate or do you just not care? Let me know in the talkback below
Actually, the whole thing is more like a flame than a troll - the troll is clever and catches suckers. A flame is just stupid, powerless bashing, and this one more so, because it begs a responce.
Personally, if I was one of the execs at IBM, I'd fire this guy. For being an uninformed, partisaned bigot, who's become an embarassment to the company. Or simply for being a stupid ass, it doesn't matter which.
error - sigfault. Witticism dumped.
Heute unterzeichneten die Partner ein sog.
Which in Babelese renders as: Today the partners signed sucked.
If this catches on, the words "global village" already far too cloying, will make you hurl. Everyone has their more or less established email addresses already..but if these are given by the state, they may become part of your official mandated identity. Imagine: all official gov't notifications being sent to your government granted (imposed) address. Sure, you can have another address...but for employment, education, taxes, whatever, you must use the official one? Whenever you fill out a form, it's the gov't address they want. Yeah, this may be slightly (or not so slightly) paranoid, but imagine the degree of control that this could grant. Today, the government can mandate an ISP to give out their records on a given address (I think). All complications disappear when the government IS the ISP. Forget Echelon. That has to spy on *other* systems. With this thing, they wouldn't even have to spy. Other, more creative people can insert their favorite conspiracy theory below. The point is, this can be a very cool and good thing...or, if too many bureaucrats get their sweaty little hands into it, a very, very scary thing.
On the bright side, if the government does decide to become the national ISP, their systems would run on Windows 2045 or whatever the lowest bidding two-bit company is at the time, so traditional ISP's would still have to exist to provide actual working connections and service!
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Insert random philosophical quote here
Frankly, most of the good stuff has been hit. Here are some others that I've enjoyed quite a bit (I'll try not to repeat anything from the above).
Some "special" books.
Again, this list was merely intended to supplement the one above, not replace it. There's really too much great stuff to list. I haven't even mentioned Silverberg, or Dick, or Gordon Dickson, or William Tenn. Others may disagree, but as a general rule of thumb, I've found that the most profound works in sci-fi were written back in the Golden Age of Sci-Fi, and I would suggest sticking with that (I'm not putting down Gibson or Stephenson, they are amazing, but a great deal of the modern crap is just atrocious.)
I'll stop the library listing now. Hope this helps.
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"Insert Random Profound Quote Here"
Dear Anonymous coward.
Before making assinine statements of that caliber, you should, perhaps, consider looking carefully at yourself and your co-workers. If your "co-workers" are as intelligent as you, they should have fired the lot of you a long time ago, and given your function over to house plants - I assure you, they would be far more effective than you at whatever job it is you do for a living.
Also, posting curses anonymously does not serve as a further mark of intellect. If you want to call someone a moron, have the guts to sign your name to it.
Now, as to the nature of your comment. Jon really didn't introduce anything new. But he did present things in a logical manner. And I will venture to say he didn't go far enough. Either you truly are a moron with a 15 IQ, or you are one of the people who would be likely to use this technology for the fascist ends that it will very likely be used for. And I am fairly certain that in that case, your co-workers will be helping you.
Nothing in human history has pointed to the idea of humans learning from their mistakes. As an overused, but effective example: What was the first thing that nuclear science was used for? Medicine? Research? Cheap energy? No. It was used to kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians. What was the Internet developed for? So you could prove to everyone how laughable and pitiable your own lack of intelligence is? No, though unfortunately that's what wound up happenening. Original use was for the military. Historically, no scientific advance was actually used to benefit humanity - it was first used by the various governments and empires to kill and control others.
Given that, do you really believe this stuff won't be used to create the "Perfect Society"? By evoking the memories of Huxley and Orwell, Jon very poignantly reminds us that others, long ago, have already seen it. And they probably didn't see all of it. Reality is always more horrible than you can imagine it. Give it a few more years, with a few more advances in computer techonology, and you will find a future outlook that would scare even the most pessimistic analysts today.
In short, I don't know from what happy little ignorant bland middle-class suburban hoe favor swife world you crawled from, but please do everyone the favor of going back there and not bothering the /. readers with any more of your crap. Or at least get the guts to sign your name or something. Or start posting somewhere more suited to your intelligence...say alt.rec.dumb.schmuck.at.home.
John Bailey
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I prefer the wicked to the foolish - the wicked sometimes rest.
Alexander Dumas, fils