I'd think a decent package manager would be able to easily downgrade something like X if the update doesn't work. To be honest, I have no idea if it's really always as smooth as it ought to be, but as a naive user, I'd just expect it work.
Only the kernel? Um, yes. Kernel updates only update the kernel. Is that controversial somehow?
No way of knowing if it's broken or not without a reboot and if it is broken then a reboot is probably the worst thing you can do. If it's broken, you just boot back into the previous version. Not a big problem unless it also trashes you disk, but some things you just can't protect against.
You're living in a dreamworld if you think any sort of update can ever be 100% guaranteed will never under any circumstances break anything. How on Earth did you get the impression that this is what I think? There's a big difference between less chance of breaking, which is what I wrote, and never breaking.
the lovely homely Penguin tavern next door where they're serving wholesome, nutritious and filling meals for nothing, and with free beer. I shudder to ask... Exactly what kind of wholesome, nutritious and filling meals are they serving in this Penguin tavern? Please tell me it's not what I think!
I just want an accurate frame for your post, Mac troll or Linux user. Hmm, so according to you the merit (or lack thereof) of what I'm saying depends on what OS I use. I can't say that I subscribe to that view so I fear you'll just have to take a guess. Just to make it more mysterious, there's at least one other OS which I use fairly regularly.
And this is different from a new kernel version how? One big difference is that the Linux kernel (which is the one you mean, I presume) is usually updated in much smaller increments which means that every single update has less chance of breaking things. Another big difference is that kernel updates only update the kernel, not X, KDE/Gnome/whatever and all those programs which your system won't run without. These are updated separately which, again, means that there's less chance of breaking things.
... I can't help but pity those poor Vista users. What should be simply the release of a patch has become a major "event" which people actually have to prepare for and which, from what I hear, is even causing something quite similar to mild panic. But then again, you do get great DRM for your troubles.
Really? You are hoping for famine that could cause billions of innocent people to starve just to teach us a lesson? Seriously? No, people who want a lesson taught always want it to be taught to someone else. Never to themselves or, by extension, the specific group they belong to.
You do know that, if the US chose to - we could grow enough food to feed every single person on this earth. And provide them all with hundreds of gallons of fresh water every day. And not need a single extra acre of farmland. So if that's true, what does it say about the US or the EU or any other rich country/region? Nothing good, that's for sure.
I honestly can't figure out where "reduce by 400%" came from. They say the average hops were reduced from 5.5 hops to 0.89 hops, which is either 84% if you're not an idiot or 616% if you are. That's easy. It came from the 4 in P4P. The more accurate P6P had been vetoed by marketing as too nasty.
What do these guys see as an engineering challenge? How is "prevent nuclear terror" engineering? What the hell does "advance personalized learning" mean? Or "tools for scientific discovery"? Or "reverse-engineer the brain", for that matter? Probably I'm just too stupid to understand, but to me this whole thing looks like absolute gibberish.
They're educating themselves to advance their nation's interests, and their doing at our expense. Wow, this is so nicely xenophobic! Do you really think the ultimate goal of an average Chinese student (or any other student, for that matter) is to advance China's interests and not to simply get the best education available to them? And how are they doing it at your expense if they are actually paying for it? Do you realise that many universities make most of their income from foreign students who effectively subsidise local ones? Do you have any idea what an effect a significant drop in the number of foreign students would actually have on the US educational system? If not, you might want to find out how US universities reacted when the number of international students did drop due to various so-called security measures introduced after the WTC attacks.
You may perhaps not realise this, but what's actually happening is pure capitalism. Universities compete with other universities for paying students and for good students. Students (yes, Chinese students, too) want to get the best education they have access to in order to be able to make as much money as possible later. Good US universities are still pretty good and the US is an English-speaking country (this is important, too) so studying in the US isn't a bad choice. Everything else follows from that. There is no commy plot to subvert the US education system. If anything, it's the US that's benefiting from the influx of brainpower into the country.
A quick perusal of, e.g., newspaper web sites in Iran finds every one I have tried working fine, including all state-run media. As is the web site of the Government of Iran and numerous other government and press web sites physically located in Iran. See for yourself. Jeez, if this goes on Iran will be offline - it will be slashdotted. But maybe that was the plan all along...
Of course, you should have an option in your OS to ask you for your login password whenever you close and then open your lid as well. I don't see how that helps. Simple way of circumventing this:
Wake up laptop, do not try to log in on the console.
Hook it up to a network.
Log in remotely, exploiting a vulnerability in the OS (every OS has one).
Access encrypted drive.
Not asking for a password on wake up looks like a huge security hole to me.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but in a world that's already overpopulated it seems counter-productive in the long run to figure out how to make humans the most expensive way possible. Hmm, if you want to have fewer humans, then of course you want to make making them as expensive as possible.
So why do they need all this stupid copy protection stuff like license numbers, WGA etc.? If their products practically aren't commercially pirated any longer you'd think they could do without.
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I'd think a decent package manager would be able to easily downgrade something like X if the update doesn't work. To be honest, I have no idea if it's really always as smooth as it ought to be, but as a naive user, I'd just expect it work.
Does it also apply to steganography? Would sort of suck if it did.
Mate, it ain't arrogance, it's certainty. Even if he's the father of the internet his kneecaps are still soft for those non-verbal descriptions.
... I can't help but pity those poor Vista users. What should be simply the release of a patch has become a major "event" which people actually have to prepare for and which, from what I hear, is even causing something quite similar to mild panic. But then again, you do get great DRM for your troubles.
Whatever happened to the difference between art and design?
What do these guys see as an engineering challenge? How is "prevent nuclear terror" engineering? What the hell does "advance personalized learning" mean? Or "tools for scientific discovery"? Or "reverse-engineer the brain", for that matter? Probably I'm just too stupid to understand, but to me this whole thing looks like absolute gibberish.
...the inner space. Now that smells really weird!
Providing an OS + released patches on one CD is actually innovative? Oh my...
- Access encrypted drive.
Not asking for a password on wake up looks like a huge security hole to me.I almost never turn off my laptop, I just close the lid. Will it ask me for a password when it wakes up again?
What exactly does pseudophedrine have to do with homeland security? Why do those DHS guys even think about it at all?
God, I hope they aren't going to patent threesomes now!
Wouldn't something like postal chess be prior art to some extent? After all, snail mail is a communication network.
So why do they need all this stupid copy protection stuff like license numbers, WGA etc.? If their products practically aren't commercially pirated any longer you'd think they could do without.