I once attended a technical presentation about OSS, and I recalled some interesting facts.
Even during the most difficult of economic times, Microsoft has made billions.
Even when tech companies are in a slump, and businesses fold left and right, MS continues to rake in the dough.
So where does this money come from?
"IT CAME FROM YOU!" said the presenter.
Yes, while your companies are struggling to make a penny or two, MS just leeches off of you with their Windows licenses and forced upgrades. Face it, you get little in return for every new version of Windows you buy. Win2K->WinXP was just a hideous facelift.
Yet people still pay through the nose for Windows. It's inexplicable.
if they think they can charge more for movies than music, then forget about it because you can buy DVDs cheaper than CDs at most stores.
In Malaysia they charge a hell of a lot for DVD's. around 70-80 ringgit for a "hot" title. A music CD is only 40-45 ringgit. And it's way too expensive to buy, especially when most of it is crap. 1 ringgit is 3.8 USD, but to put things into an "afforability" perspective, a meal at a fast food chain (say McDonald's) cost around 8 ringgit for a burger, a drink and some fries. Would you be willing to pay 10 times as what you currently pay for a lunch, for a single crappy movie?
As an effort to crack down on piracy (which thrives - a pirated DVD costs only 8 ringgit), we have cheaper copies of the movie on VCD (lower res, fewer colours). But that's just wrong. VCD's and DVD's cost the same to manufacture. It's the same as "crippleware" (like Windows Starter Edition). Stupid market segmentation bullshit.
In fact I suspect if you had the sixteen year old Shakespeare or Einstein in school with you, they'd seem impressive
I remember reading that Einstein was considered a "slow learner" back in school, so he wouldn't have been terribly impressive. Of course, that just goes to show that it doesn't really matter how "slow" people say you are, only you can realize your own true potential (as corny as it sounds...).
"You can use Neverwinter Nights as an application development environment"
Indeed, my half-elf character class is "Application Developer". He was known for his programming prowess in all of Neverwinter, until his job got oursourced to dwarves in Waterdeep. Then he went all ballistic with a bow and arrow and has been chaotic evil ever since. It's sad.
If I can view the EULA online, for example, as with GPL'd software, then why shouldn't it be legal?
GPL'ed software has no EULA, and the GPL does not rely on contract law, rather it uses copyright law as it only covers distribution of the program, not how it is used.
Does this imply that reasonable steps should be taken by gun manufactures to prevents guns from being used for crimes?
Oh I'm sorry that's unconstitutional...
Well, guns only kill people. P2P software is an enabler for the far, far more heinious crime of stealing money from the RIAA/MPAA.
How many volkswagon beatles lined up side by side would be needed to encircle the Earth 12 times as is needed to match the height of stacked A380 planes from here to the moon?
Jessica Alba may be a fine piece of ass, but she is totally wrong for this film, as is the rest of the cast.
Feh, speak no ill of Lady Jessica! Her lovely ass may embrace any motion picture that she chooses. She could have been cast as Winston Churchill and I'd still pay to see it.
Once I started to really get into science fiction and started to read works by the likes of Asimov, Clarke and Niven I really had no time for what was really nonsense, in my mind.
Asimov had this much to say about Star Wars : he thought it was fun. "Leave your sophistication at the door and have a thrilling ride". The films are fun movies for kids, and they don't try to be anything more. He was less kindly to "Close Encounters", because it tried to pose as "real sci-fi". This offended Isaac more than the campy fun of Star Wars.
Seriously, Slashdot keeps trashing the prequels, saying you'll never see them coz they suck, yada yada yada... and yet that site got slashdotted quicker than lightspeed. Why do you even care? Do you genuinely dislike them, or s it just some kind of slashdot groupthink conformity that makes you bash something you don't have to see if you don't want to?
Now, I'm not defending George Lucas (I didn't think the prequels were great... nor did the acting make me want to care about any of the characters). But still, it wasn't horrible. I could still enjoy watching the story unfold into what we know happens in Episodes 4-6. It is backstory, but I admit I had fun discovering what happens to the galaxy as a whole before the empire. It's fun to know about the Jedi order in its heyday, talked about in the original trilogy.
Windows is an overly-bloated OS which is very GUI-oriented and is not modular or flexible for cluster node usage. Processing nodes usually don't even have a monitor or keyboard, much less a GUI and a mouse. Windows isn't much use there. Nor can you strip out the parts you don't need, or customize the kernel for performance. Plus, Microsoft's incredibly expensive and anal licensing makes a Windows cluster not worth the effort or money. I mean, Linux's licensing cost is 0, and 0 scales infinitely;)
Say what you like about Linux "not ready for the desktop", but Linux (and *nix in general) totally rules the clustering arena.
My friend and I theorized that under that dirty little loincloth of his, Gollum probably doesn't have much of his manhood left, having shrivelled up and dried off after centuries of disuse. Maybe we should write it up and send off our theory to the British Medical Journal too. I'd feel so erudite seeing my name published there.
I'm on an island right next to Sumatra (relatively), and there were huge tsunami's hitting us too. The last I heard 15 people died in the floods. It's not as bad as what people in Sri Lanka and India experienced, but still...
My mom felt the quake at around 9, I didn't notice anything though. I'm very thankful Malaysia is relatively safe from quakes, but I feel so sorry for all who were affected.
1) I see Saruman throwing fireballs. Now I believe Peter Jackson didn't want to make *that* kind of movie with wizards casting fireballs when I see the original theatrical releases, but now this? Come on. If they wanted awesome effects they could have gone with something that's actually *in* the books, like Gandalf casting lightning from his staff (Gandalf vs. 9 ringwraiths, on Weathertop).
2) This isn't The Return Of The King, it's "Half Of The Two Towers And The Return Of The King". They could have cut out most of the extraneous scenes from the TTT (like the Arwen ones) and kept stuff from TTT in TTT. Then they could use the Extended Release of ROTK to include the Scouring of the Shire. I realize the reason for not including it in the theatrical release (audience would get tired of a second battle etc.), but come on, the DVD release doesn't have those problems (after all, it's the fans who are gobbling up these Extended Editions).
That said, I welcome the new scenes. I always wanted to see the part where Aragorn calls up Sauron with the Palantir, and gives him the finger.
Slashdot Mirror
I once attended a technical presentation about OSS, and I recalled some interesting facts.
Even during the most difficult of economic times, Microsoft has made billions.
Even when tech companies are in a slump, and businesses fold left and right, MS continues to rake in the dough.
So where does this money come from?
"IT CAME FROM YOU!" said the presenter.
Yes, while your companies are struggling to make a penny or two, MS just leeches off of you with their Windows licenses and forced upgrades. Face it, you get little in return for every new version of Windows you buy. Win2K->WinXP was just a hideous facelift.
Yet people still pay through the nose for Windows. It's inexplicable.
if they think they can charge more for movies than music, then forget about it because you can buy DVDs cheaper than CDs at most stores.
In Malaysia they charge a hell of a lot for DVD's. around 70-80 ringgit for a "hot" title. A music CD is only 40-45 ringgit. And it's way too expensive to buy, especially when most of it is crap. 1 ringgit is 3.8 USD, but to put things into an "afforability" perspective, a meal at a fast food chain (say McDonald's) cost around 8 ringgit for a burger, a drink and some fries. Would you be willing to pay 10 times as what you currently pay for a lunch, for a single crappy movie?
As an effort to crack down on piracy (which thrives - a pirated DVD costs only 8 ringgit), we have cheaper copies of the movie on VCD (lower res, fewer colours). But that's just wrong. VCD's and DVD's cost the same to manufacture. It's the same as "crippleware" (like Windows Starter Edition). Stupid market segmentation bullshit.
Lightweights! Real men use vi with LaTeX to write their lasagna recipes. Donald Knuth would be so proud.
I will never see again thanks to this slashdot article!!!
Nah, that's just because you surfed for too much pr0n. I bet you have hairy palms too.
From TFA:
In fact I suspect if you had the sixteen year old Shakespeare or Einstein in school with you, they'd seem impressive
I remember reading that Einstein was considered a "slow learner" back in school, so he wouldn't have been terribly impressive. Of course, that just goes to show that it doesn't really matter how "slow" people say you are, only you can realize your own true potential (as corny as it sounds...).
"You can use Neverwinter Nights as an application development environment"
Indeed, my half-elf character class is "Application Developer". He was known for his programming prowess in all of Neverwinter, until his job got oursourced to dwarves in Waterdeep. Then he went all ballistic with a bow and arrow and has been chaotic evil ever since. It's sad.
...but does it run...Lin...uhhh... shoot.
Well, with the stability and reliability of Linux, Ashlee Simpson will never make a lip-sync gaffe again!
If I can view the EULA online, for example, as with GPL'd software, then why shouldn't it be legal?
GPL'ed software has no EULA, and the GPL does not rely on contract law, rather it uses copyright law as it only covers distribution of the program, not how it is used.
Standard disclaimer : IANAL
Does this imply that reasonable steps should be taken by gun manufactures to prevents guns from being used for crimes? Oh I'm sorry that's unconstitutional...
Well, guns only kill people. P2P software is an enabler for the far, far more heinious crime of stealing money from the RIAA/MPAA.
Everyone keeps saying PostgreSQL is better than mySQL, but where does it stand in comparison to Oracle? Anyone know?
almost the length of an American football field
How many volkswagon beatles lined up side by side would be needed to encircle the Earth 12 times as is needed to match the height of stacked A380 planes from here to the moon?
Easy, just have marketing gussy it up as a "feature", not a bug.
Powerbook G5! Not only does it have a 64-bit CPU, it makes you fried eggs and barbequed sausages for breakfast! Automatically!
Wasn't Ballmer the one who spewed things like "Linux is a cancer"?
I wouldn't say Ballmer is "gentle". More like, uhm... big, loud, incoherent and jumps up and down a lot?
Jessica Alba may be a fine piece of ass, but she is totally wrong for this film, as is the rest of the cast.
Feh, speak no ill of Lady Jessica! Her lovely ass may embrace any motion picture that she chooses. She could have been cast as Winston Churchill and I'd still pay to see it.
10-foot pole" in a discussion on porn isn't a term I'm going to touch with a...
...kumquat?
People have such strange fetishes.
The explanation we were all waiting for! Bill Gates' demo failed because...
:)
"Service Unavailable"
That makes it all clear in just 2 short words! Great summary
Go grab the patches. They're commited into the BK repositories already. Sheesh.
:p
Patches for 2.4 can be found in this changeset.
Patches for 2.6 can be found in this changeset.
Click on the little "diff -Nur style" link for a an actual usable patch.
In the course of a few hours, you have the fixes already. Yay for open source.
Btw, nice troll
Wasn't there a Turgon too?
Yeah but he didn't like to eat tuna.
Turion sounds like some person or place from The Silmarillion.
:)
Sounds like "Turin" got mixed up with some other person whose name ended with "-ion"
Once I started to really get into science fiction and started to read works by the likes of Asimov, Clarke and Niven I really had no time for what was really nonsense, in my mind. Asimov had this much to say about Star Wars : he thought it was fun. "Leave your sophistication at the door and have a thrilling ride". The films are fun movies for kids, and they don't try to be anything more. He was less kindly to "Close Encounters", because it tried to pose as "real sci-fi". This offended Isaac more than the campy fun of Star Wars.
Seriously, Slashdot keeps trashing the prequels, saying you'll never see them coz they suck, yada yada yada... and yet that site got slashdotted quicker than lightspeed. Why do you even care? Do you genuinely dislike them, or s it just some kind of slashdot groupthink conformity that makes you bash something you don't have to see if you don't want to?
Now, I'm not defending George Lucas (I didn't think the prequels were great... nor did the acting make me want to care about any of the characters). But still, it wasn't horrible. I could still enjoy watching the story unfold into what we know happens in Episodes 4-6. It is backstory, but I admit I had fun discovering what happens to the galaxy as a whole before the empire. It's fun to know about the Jedi order in its heyday, talked about in the original trilogy.
But hey, this is Slashdot. Continue your bashing.
Windows is an overly-bloated OS which is very GUI-oriented and is not modular or flexible for cluster node usage. Processing nodes usually don't even have a monitor or keyboard, much less a GUI and a mouse. Windows isn't much use there. Nor can you strip out the parts you don't need, or customize the kernel for performance. Plus, Microsoft's incredibly expensive and anal licensing makes a Windows cluster not worth the effort or money. I mean, Linux's licensing cost is 0, and 0 scales infinitely ;)
Say what you like about Linux "not ready for the desktop", but Linux (and *nix in general) totally rules the clustering arena.
My friend and I theorized that under that dirty little loincloth of his, Gollum probably doesn't have much of his manhood left, having shrivelled up and dried off after centuries of disuse. Maybe we should write it up and send off our theory to the British Medical Journal too. I'd feel so erudite seeing my name published there.
I'm on an island right next to Sumatra (relatively), and there were huge tsunami's hitting us too. The last I heard 15 people died in the floods. It's not as bad as what people in Sri Lanka and India experienced, but still...
My mom felt the quake at around 9, I didn't notice anything though. I'm very thankful Malaysia is relatively safe from quakes, but I feel so sorry for all who were affected.
1) I see Saruman throwing fireballs. Now I believe Peter Jackson didn't want to make *that* kind of movie with wizards casting fireballs when I see the original theatrical releases, but now this? Come on. If they wanted awesome effects they could have gone with something that's actually *in* the books, like Gandalf casting lightning from his staff (Gandalf vs. 9 ringwraiths, on Weathertop).
2) This isn't The Return Of The King, it's "Half Of The Two Towers And The Return Of The King". They could have cut out most of the extraneous scenes from the TTT (like the Arwen ones) and kept stuff from TTT in TTT. Then they could use the Extended Release of ROTK to include the Scouring of the Shire. I realize the reason for not including it in the theatrical release (audience would get tired of a second battle etc.), but come on, the DVD release doesn't have those problems (after all, it's the fans who are gobbling up these Extended Editions).
That said, I welcome the new scenes. I always wanted to see the part where Aragorn calls up Sauron with the Palantir, and gives him the finger.