I've thought about that myself. Not that it wouldn't be nice to have no-bundling laws where I live, but seeing as we don't, or they don't apply to computers at least, it seems dumb to go after an OEM for the $30 or $40 they probably pay for a Windows license, when in actuality they are probably offering those computers cheaper because they don't have to support them as much, and god knows how much promotional money comes in on the back end. Even for small businesses, there's a lot more to it than just cost + markup = price.
They could have gone with a Windows install, though. I'd assume most of the people getting Linux knew they'd have to wrangle with a little bit if it was their first time. But then, maybe they didn't, they just liked the price, and Lenovo got sick of answering the inevitable phone calls?
I can't really muster up compassion for folks who demand a computer for a few hundred bucks and wonder why the hardware isn't what they expected, or there's no support. Not that Lenovo's stuff isn't good...it is. But I think about how everyone vilifies Dell. Their support, if you could call it that, was a disgrace. And they cut corners. But look...you buy cheap, you get cheap. You buy a machine with linux preloaded, you'd better know what a repository is.
At my school, once I got on using a particular MAC address, I was good...they didn't check OS config & anti-virus more than once.
At the time, I was pissed because they forced everyone to bring their computers down to IT to have Norton Corporate installed, but now that I'm an admin I know their pain:)
Also, I forgot to point out that the Windows licenses predate the explosion of VMWare and others.
In general we can say that Microsoft wants it to be one license for one machine (be it virtual or physical), with the majority of people having licenses that will not transfer to new hardware. People who absolutely need the flexibility can get VLKs through Open License. But it is not worth it for an individual or family, who might have a license or two and is trying to save a little money, to go that route. Among other things, there is a five license minimum.
It matters because of the license, and it matters to Microsoft. We can argue that it shouldn't, but them's the breaks. OEM copies these days are subject to the "System Builder" license, which is just as restrictive and crappy as the retail license (one license = one machine), but I think you can get away with a motherboard swap with the retail scenario. Note that I'm not referring to the copies used by Dell et al that look for a specific BIOS. I could be wrong but I don't think the regular OEM license is valid after a motherboard replacement.
Of course, if the licenses don't belong to a business, then you can do as you please...the BSA isn't going to waste time visiting an individual. Hopefully.
The Federalist Papers talk about the Constitution as a document which limits the government's power, rather than win concessions for the people. Hamilton and others argued that anything not in the Constitution was not given up by the people, and that it was dangerous to start listing rights because it would imply that anything not on the list would not be protected.
But the Anti-Federalists were not content to leave important rights up to common law, so promising the Bill of Rights was necessary to get everyone on board.
The Tenth Amendment is there because of that exact controversy: the feat that, by enumerating rights, we would think of rights as things that have to be in the Constitution to exist, when in fact the true purpose of the Constitution was to enumerate government powers. And many people today do not understand the difference...they believe that, for instance, the right to bear arms is granted to us by the Constitution. But as you point out, it's the opposite. The right exists naturally, and the government is forbidden from infringing it.
Looking at the words "Bill of Rights" gets you nowhere. Every time we see those words thrown around today, it's a sign that people are getting screwed over. Patient's Bill of Rights, etc. Even the Founding Fathers knew that, and were not afraid to say it. And like I just like some of them feared, there is a popular belief that rights are granted by the Constitution. This is what the OP is talking about, that in a perfect world, the Bill of Rights wouldn't have been strictly necessary. Of course, it's a damn good thing we have it.
The first two chapters in the first book of the Bible contradict each other in a a literal reading. Genesis 1: creation by word, and specifically says that man was created last. Genesis 2: physical creation, and the breath of life. Also, man is created while "no plant of the field had yet sprung up".
The Bible is wonderful but you have to understand that it is very hard for most people, especially non-Christians, to squeeze science out of the Bible when it is full of those sorts of contradictions.
I can't find a good link either, besides wikipedia's bio on the guy, but David Macht, who was a pioneer in pharmacology, published work in the 1950s where he pointed out that treif meats have higher levels of toxins than kosher meats.
The thing is, as far as the kosher laws go...some of them make dietary or scientific sense...many do not. The most plausible "scientific" explanation for them that I've heard is that they reinforced cultural boundaries. Cultures that don't eat the same things are less likely to intermarry.
I think he meant that since evolution and diversity of life are intertwined, losing one would be bad for the other. Not evolution as it applies to our specific species.
And I think he was talking about Joan Quigley, which seems to have been just some stupidity on Nancy's part that didn't get dealt with quickly enough. Probably not the huge deal it was made out to be afterward but...not really anything to be proud of either. And the lack of nuclear annihilation doesn't really mean she did a good job. Well, she did a good job at embarassing the country, I guess:)
Ah well, I've got karma to burn. Take it for what it is (one dude's opinion), but I when I read AS, which was some time ago now, I felt like what should have been the steamier passages were really cold and flat. Probably because the characters, like Dagny herself, are really idealized...they're either supermen/women or fatally flawed.
Great novel, great plot, but in my mind very simple philosophy and very simple characters, too "stiff" to be capable of believable sex. It was a crude attempt at humor but I guess it got modded "-1 Evader".
Also: you had to cover AS in 8th grade? That's nuts!
Biologists tend to avoid using the word goal at all, even in a neutered sense. There is a human tendency to bring teleology into things when answering the question of why something happens. But part of what separates modern science from the work of, say, the ancient Greeks, is the mechanistic vs. teleological approach.
Consider the difference here (practically, it's the same - philosophically, it's not): - Evolution happens so that life can continue to exist. - Life continues to exist because of evolution (genetic mutations + natural selection).
Right now the wikipedia article on teleology sums it up as function following form rather than vice versa. The point being that, not is only evolution not conscious, it has no goals. Not even the preservation of life.
That said, it does seem like life tries pretty damn hard to perpetuate itself, doesn't it? But there is no scientific basis for assigning a goal to evolution. We do ourselves a disservice by seeing something and declaring that it has to be that way.
I think they're only related in the sense that they attempt to predict and control phenomena. However, science goes the extra step of trying to explain it.
You're right, but don't forget that the DMCA was written with that in mind. If they want safe harbor, they can't afford to screw up. They don't have the same worries on the side of removing legitimate material. If anything, it's better...they're still serving ads on those pages, just not content.
They have to do what's in the DMCA, which means taking down everything that has a claim against it. The law itself was written to favor copyright holders and the prevention of potential infringement. I don't agree with it, but it's not up to Google. Heads should be rolling in Congress, but they're not...I think DMCA abuses just aren't something most Americans care about.
Unfortunately sometimes you just have to build it. If you're only ever relying on what other people have built for other systems, you're going to run across compatibility problem sometimes. I had an experience like he had with Lightscribe drivers.
This is why people rail against binary blobs. Everyone replies with "what's the harm?"...but everyone's going to get bitten hard by a situation like that, and most of the time it's because they didn't have option of just building from source.
Which, by the way, usually completely painless. You don't have to be a coder or anything.
The LSB looks pretty promising though. I don't have much experience with it, and it sounds pretty business/ISV oriented ("get certified d00ds!"), but maybe we'll see more packages being built against it.
This is the kind of stupid fragmentation that doesn't make sense that Linux does not need right now.
C'mon, it's not a war. If every linux developer jumped ship tomorrow, the code would still be there. And the linux style of package management has its history and its advantages. Not that there aren't improvements to be made, but if the OP wants Windows, he should install Windows. MSIs are nice, but prior to Windows installer, installing software was pretty crappy and inconsistent. Uninstalls, if they were even possible, depended solely on the app author to work correctly.
There's more than just Ubuntu out there. Distros like Vector, Arch and Puppy are pretty slim. Arch doesn't even install with X, so you can really tailor things to what you want. Including using lighter login & window managers.
I hope people don't just look at linux as "fast windows". It's Unix-y, it's open...there's a lot more to it than just performance.
Not if you read the article, or have an understanding of how the thing works. Granted, saying it's unclonable is false in a the very strict sense of "anything's possible", but the summary has unclonable in quotes. You might say that it's more like a SecureID than a traditional RFID tag. And no, those aren't perfect either, but they're used in plenty of places, every day.
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I've thought about that myself. Not that it wouldn't be nice to have no-bundling laws where I live, but seeing as we don't, or they don't apply to computers at least, it seems dumb to go after an OEM for the $30 or $40 they probably pay for a Windows license, when in actuality they are probably offering those computers cheaper because they don't have to support them as much, and god knows how much promotional money comes in on the back end. Even for small businesses, there's a lot more to it than just cost + markup = price.
They could have gone with a Windows install, though. I'd assume most of the people getting Linux knew they'd have to wrangle with a little bit if it was their first time. But then, maybe they didn't, they just liked the price, and Lenovo got sick of answering the inevitable phone calls?
I can't really muster up compassion for folks who demand a computer for a few hundred bucks and wonder why the hardware isn't what they expected, or there's no support. Not that Lenovo's stuff isn't good...it is. But I think about how everyone vilifies Dell. Their support, if you could call it that, was a disgrace. And they cut corners. But look...you buy cheap, you get cheap. You buy a machine with linux preloaded, you'd better know what a repository is.
At my school, once I got on using a particular MAC address, I was good...they didn't check OS config & anti-virus more than once.
:)
At the time, I was pissed because they forced everyone to bring their computers down to IT to have Norton Corporate installed, but now that I'm an admin I know their pain
Also, I forgot to point out that the Windows licenses predate the explosion of VMWare and others.
In general we can say that Microsoft wants it to be one license for one machine (be it virtual or physical), with the majority of people having licenses that will not transfer to new hardware. People who absolutely need the flexibility can get VLKs through Open License. But it is not worth it for an individual or family, who might have a license or two and is trying to save a little money, to go that route. Among other things, there is a five license minimum.
It matters because of the license, and it matters to Microsoft. We can argue that it shouldn't, but them's the breaks. OEM copies these days are subject to the "System Builder" license, which is just as restrictive and crappy as the retail license (one license = one machine), but I think you can get away with a motherboard swap with the retail scenario. Note that I'm not referring to the copies used by Dell et al that look for a specific BIOS. I could be wrong but I don't think the regular OEM license is valid after a motherboard replacement.
Of course, if the licenses don't belong to a business, then you can do as you please...the BSA isn't going to waste time visiting an individual. Hopefully.
Depends on how old she is, I guess.
The Federalist Papers talk about the Constitution as a document which limits the government's power, rather than win concessions for the people. Hamilton and others argued that anything not in the Constitution was not given up by the people, and that it was dangerous to start listing rights because it would imply that anything not on the list would not be protected.
But the Anti-Federalists were not content to leave important rights up to common law, so promising the Bill of Rights was necessary to get everyone on board.
The Tenth Amendment is there because of that exact controversy: the feat that, by enumerating rights, we would think of rights as things that have to be in the Constitution to exist, when in fact the true purpose of the Constitution was to enumerate government powers. And many people today do not understand the difference...they believe that, for instance, the right to bear arms is granted to us by the Constitution. But as you point out, it's the opposite. The right exists naturally, and the government is forbidden from infringing it.
Looking at the words "Bill of Rights" gets you nowhere. Every time we see those words thrown around today, it's a sign that people are getting screwed over. Patient's Bill of Rights, etc. Even the Founding Fathers knew that, and were not afraid to say it. And like I just like some of them feared, there is a popular belief that rights are granted by the Constitution. This is what the OP is talking about, that in a perfect world, the Bill of Rights wouldn't have been strictly necessary. Of course, it's a damn good thing we have it.
The first two chapters in the first book of the Bible contradict each other in a a literal reading. Genesis 1: creation by word, and specifically says that man was created last. Genesis 2: physical creation, and the breath of life. Also, man is created while "no plant of the field had yet sprung up".
The Bible is wonderful but you have to understand that it is very hard for most people, especially non-Christians, to squeeze science out of the Bible when it is full of those sorts of contradictions.
I can't find a good link either, besides wikipedia's bio on the guy, but David Macht, who was a pioneer in pharmacology, published work in the 1950s where he pointed out that treif meats have higher levels of toxins than kosher meats.
The thing is, as far as the kosher laws go...some of them make dietary or scientific sense...many do not. The most plausible "scientific" explanation for them that I've heard is that they reinforced cultural boundaries. Cultures that don't eat the same things are less likely to intermarry.
I think he meant that since evolution and diversity of life are intertwined, losing one would be bad for the other. Not evolution as it applies to our specific species.
:)
And I think he was talking about Joan Quigley, which seems to have been just some stupidity on Nancy's part that didn't get dealt with quickly enough. Probably not the huge deal it was made out to be afterward but...not really anything to be proud of either. And the lack of nuclear annihilation doesn't really mean she did a good job. Well, she did a good job at embarassing the country, I guess
Well, Reagan-era scientists were probably as good as those who came before or after. But Ron was a cowboy, and had a special knack for ignoring them.
True, true. But just be careful that XP isn't silently defaulting to S1.
Ah well, I've got karma to burn. Take it for what it is (one dude's opinion), but I when I read AS, which was some time ago now, I felt like what should have been the steamier passages were really cold and flat. Probably because the characters, like Dagny herself, are really idealized...they're either supermen/women or fatally flawed.
Great novel, great plot, but in my mind very simple philosophy and very simple characters, too "stiff" to be capable of believable sex. It was a crude attempt at humor but I guess it got modded "-1 Evader".
Also: you had to cover AS in 8th grade? That's nuts!
Biologists tend to avoid using the word goal at all, even in a neutered sense. There is a human tendency to bring teleology into things when answering the question of why something happens. But part of what separates modern science from the work of, say, the ancient Greeks, is the mechanistic vs. teleological approach.
Consider the difference here (practically, it's the same - philosophically, it's not):
- Evolution happens so that life can continue to exist.
- Life continues to exist because of evolution (genetic mutations + natural selection).
Right now the wikipedia article on teleology sums it up as function following form rather than vice versa. The point being that, not is only evolution not conscious, it has no goals. Not even the preservation of life.
That said, it does seem like life tries pretty damn hard to perpetuate itself, doesn't it? But there is no scientific basis for assigning a goal to evolution. We do ourselves a disservice by seeing something and declaring that it has to be that way.
I think they're only related in the sense that they attempt to predict and control phenomena. However, science goes the extra step of trying to explain it.
You're right, but don't forget that the DMCA was written with that in mind. If they want safe harbor, they can't afford to screw up. They don't have the same worries on the side of removing legitimate material. If anything, it's better...they're still serving ads on those pages, just not content.
They have to do what's in the DMCA, which means taking down everything that has a claim against it. The law itself was written to favor copyright holders and the prevention of potential infringement. I don't agree with it, but it's not up to Google. Heads should be rolling in Congress, but they're not...I think DMCA abuses just aren't something most Americans care about.
(I should add, though, that I do agree.)
You mean everyone involved is a sexless caricature who speaks in long monologues?
That's a nice-lookin' datacenter you got there. All hot and loud, runnin' them queries. Be a shame if something were to, eh, happen to it...
Some of us pay for electricity ;)
Unfortunately sometimes you just have to build it. If you're only ever relying on what other people have built for other systems, you're going to run across compatibility problem sometimes. I had an experience like he had with Lightscribe drivers.
This is why people rail against binary blobs. Everyone replies with "what's the harm?"...but everyone's going to get bitten hard by a situation like that, and most of the time it's because they didn't have option of just building from source.
Which, by the way, usually completely painless. You don't have to be a coder or anything.
The LSB looks pretty promising though. I don't have much experience with it, and it sounds pretty business/ISV oriented ("get certified d00ds!"), but maybe we'll see more packages being built against it.
This is the kind of stupid fragmentation that doesn't make sense that Linux does not need right now.
C'mon, it's not a war. If every linux developer jumped ship tomorrow, the code would still be there. And the linux style of package management has its history and its advantages. Not that there aren't improvements to be made, but if the OP wants Windows, he should install Windows. MSIs are nice, but prior to Windows installer, installing software was pretty crappy and inconsistent. Uninstalls, if they were even possible, depended solely on the app author to work correctly.
There's more than just Ubuntu out there. Distros like Vector, Arch and Puppy are pretty slim. Arch doesn't even install with X, so you can really tailor things to what you want. Including using lighter login & window managers.
I hope people don't just look at linux as "fast windows". It's Unix-y, it's open...there's a lot more to it than just performance.
Not if you read the article, or have an understanding of how the thing works. Granted, saying it's unclonable is false in a the very strict sense of "anything's possible", but the summary has unclonable in quotes. You might say that it's more like a SecureID than a traditional RFID tag. And no, those aren't perfect either, but they're used in plenty of places, every day.