Why do OEM's care so much about altering the desktop?
Because they want to distinguish themselves from the other OEMs.
It's M$'s product, the OEM's shouldn't be allowed to mess with it.
It's Microsoft's component of the OEM's product. You need to see this distinction before it all makes sense.
When I buy a computer from Dell the entire computer system is the product. I'm not paying for the "Windows product": Windows is just one component (of many) in the product I'm buying from Dell.
The OEMs have been value-adding software for years. For example the OEM might decide to throw in some fax software, imaging software, administration software, a handful of games, a web browser...
Back up a minute. The OEM can't throw in a web browser because Microsoft is claiming that only Microsoft has the right to include a web browser. This is what the court case is all about: Microsoft using their monopoly status to destroy competition in the browser market.
Cast your mind back to when this all started. It was IE 2 versus Navigator 2. IE 2 was so goddamn shit that nobody wanted to use it. Even when IE was bundled on the Windows 95 disc (OEM version only: the store version did not have IE anywhere on the disc) people would download Netscape because Netscape was (a) better, and (b) had mind-share. Microsoft couldn't compete on merit so they bullied their way into the market through licensing. The OEMs were forced to ship IE in preference to Navigator, even though their customers wished otherwise. How is this good for the customer? Answer: it isn't.
Right now it's all different because Microsoft has had 5 (6?) years to well and truly entrench IE into Windows. So now it's not only difficult to remove IE but there's no benefit anymore: IE really is better than Navigator now. Microsoft is banking on the short attention span of the consumer to not remember what they did to Netscape, and it seems people like you are suckered right in.
By the way, why not jail the programmers at microsoft for writing an e-mail client that allows "billions and billions of damage"
Ooh! Let's jail Linus Torvalds for writing an OS that allows people to hack! And Bill Gates for creating an OS that allows viruses to be spread. And CmdrTaco for creating slashdot, because people can post flames and trolls, and links to illegal material.
Or fine Ford for not fixing the Pinto. Or fine Philip Morris for making people sick.
Let's not be stupid, okay, buddy? The rest of your post is quite excellent, but stupid remarks like that one invalidate the whole thing.
Sometimes companies are held responsible if their product causes damage. The situations where this is legal are beyond me but I know one of them is gross negligence.
Whether Microsoft was negligent with Outlook isn't a question I can answer, but the original poster wasn't being stupid.
But the fact is in order to run Windows 3.1 you needed to buy DOS, thus the price of Windows was Windows 3.1 + DOS. If Windows 3.1 was $100, and DOS $50... the price is $150.
That seems like faulty reasoning to me. If I already had Windows 3.1 plus DOS, and I wanted to upgrade to Windows 95, why would I want to purchase another copy of DOS? I'd want to reuse my existing copy. The "bundled DOS" has $0 value to me.
Also why would I want to use Microsoft DOS? DR-DOS was also available. Perhaps FreeDOS would have been usable because of increased attention to it. IBM had PC-DOS and it's probable they would have shipped Windows 95 + PC-DOS.
Also the $50 "sticker price" of DOS covers more than just the license. It covers the cost of the box, the manuals, the shelf-space, and the support. You get none of these things when you buy the "bundled DOS" in Windows 95: you would only get the manuals and support for the Windows component. So the "bundled DOS" is clearly not worth the full $50.
Also you're arguing that because Windows 3.1 required DOS to boot that you must add the price of DOS when comparing Windows 3.1 against Windows 95. This reasoning itself is bogus. Windows 95 required more RAM than Windows 3.1: should we add the cost of this RAM to the price of Windows 95? The report and I are comparing the price of Windows. You want to compare Total Cost of Ownership but you are being selective in what contributes to that total.
Finally, you have no idea how much the version of DOS actually cost. Windows 95 shipped with something that was nominally called "DOS 7.0". It was incomplete compared to earlier versions and you could not install it standalone. Because it wasn't a fully featured version of DOS it's not valid for you to choose its value at $50 based on earlier versions of DOS. Could I even buy a standalone version of DOS 7.0? To me it is clear that buying DOS + Windows 3.1 as two seperate products has more value than buying Windows 95 with a crippled sub-DOS: there is more value to DOS than as nothing more than a bootloader and interrupt handler for Windows.
No, but I have considered the possibility that the anti-MS/OSS contingent is becoming more and more desperate as it becomes apparent they are losing the battle.
Your argument on the pricing of Windows is just one example, your cronies mass down-moderation is yet another.
I'd suggest that you read what you wrote here in about 1 year's time, because you sound quite insane. There is no "contingent" of "cronies" here on a vendetta against you. I believe a number of people just think you're wrong.
That has got to be the lamest counter argument I've ever seen.
I'm sorry you feel that way. It makes sense to me. Perhaps you'd like to explain what's "lame" about it instead of being dismissive?
What's even lamer is the fact that instead of trying to counter it with logic you and your cronies decided instead to mod me down. Hmm, can't stand the truth I guess.
I don't have any "cronies" and I can't moderate a discussion that I've posted to. Did you consider the more plausible possibility that other people (besides myself) think you are wrong?
It's interesting how the report not only ignores this but tries to use it as proof that Windows costs more. In Figure 1 they note the dramatic increase in the price of Windows 95 from Windows 3.1, but they don't point out that was because Win95 included a copy of DOS.
Your counter-argument would be valid if Microsoft had released a "Windows 95 without DOS" product. Because there was no such product you cannot claim that Windows 95 was "cheaper" than the sticker price by the price of DOS.
My argument stands as-is. You have not successfully argued against the facts in that report.
Go back and check the price of the original DOS, the original Windows... Windows 95 and so on. The price of the OS has remained almost constant as long as I can remember.
Ok. I went to this report and inflation-adjusted figures show that Windows cost 10% more in 1999 than it did in 1990.
Then if you go and compare the price of Microsoft's offerings to other comparable products in the industry you'll see software has gotten drastically cheaper because of Microsoft.
Correlation is not cause. Microsoft is not responsible for prices going down any more than IBM is responsible or Apple is responsible.
And then, on the other hand, Microsoft bundling a free browser with the desktop is anti-competitive. KDE bunding a free browser with the desktop is 'cool'.
The problem wasn't with the bundling per-se. It was when an OEM bought Windows and tried to remove IE to install the (at-the-time) superior Netscape browser. Microsoft threatened the OEM until the OEM caved in.
The KDE package also bundles a browser but an OEM is permitted to remove konqueror and install another browser. In fact, the KDE people even tell you how to do this.
This is the fundamental difference. You can't ignore it. The judge certainly didn't, nor did the appeals court. Bundling is OK. Product tying is not. Microsoft did the latter. KDE does the former.
My opinion is that Halo, Project Gotham, Max Payne, Munch's Odysee, Simpsons Road Rage, Rallisport Challenge and DOA3 have all been EXCELLENT games.
Then your opinion is shithouse. Simpsons Road Rage aims to be Crazy Taxi but without being fun. DOA3 is a perfect example of a fighter for people who don't play fighting games. Project Gotham has finally stolen the title of "Worst Racing Sim, Ever" from Metro Street Racer.
Oddysee is good, but it's hardly a killer game. Rallisport is perhaps the only decent item on your list: I'm half tempted to buy an X-Box just for Rallisport.
Imagine that there was a "duplication device" that could clone whatever you put into it - a watch, a TV, a car, whatever. Imagine it only cost $.20 per use. This device could literally destroy our society. Think about how many people would be driving Porche Boxters or (insert your favorite car here) versus how many would actually sell. Your friend bought a brand new HDTV? Now you've got one too! How would any manufaturer or store stay in business?
Why would you need the manufacturer to stay
in business? Your machine does the same job at a lower price.
Perhaps you meant to ask how would the creator of the original product stay in business? Good question, and the answer shouldn't involve legislation to protect the manufacturers and distributors.
No, it can't. There's a good reason why you need a trained professional and $1000s to use Oracle but only a trained monkey and $0 to use PostgreSQL. They're not even in the same country, let alone the same ballpark.
You're almost as bad as people who try and claim MS SQL Server is on par with Oracle.
Re:Interesting, but inconclusive.
on
Sharing Doesn't Hurt
·
· Score: 3, Informative
So, why is'nt anyone trading pirated books?
They are. Bookwarez is a huge phenomenon with
literally 1000s of works of fiction available for
grabs. You might not be aware of it, but perhaps
you don't read many books. I read a book a week
on average and I'm well aware of how easy it is
to get illegal copies of books.
So, when somebody goes online and sees a free book they enjoy, the next logical step is to purchase the thing, because having an actual book format copy is better.
I personally prefer e-book format over paper
format. I can carry a dozen books around with me
on my Palm Pilot. I don't have to remember my
page or carry a bookmark. At nighttime I can read
by the backlight which is more considerate than
using the bedside lamp. I can hold the Palm in
one hand: even the thinnest paper book requires
two hands.
It's not all peaches and cream. As Eric says in his essay, the quality of the
average bookwarez is awful. OCR technology is not
good enough and the scans have obviously never been
proofread. It's very hard to find sites, and when
you do it's uncommon to find what you want. Yet these are all shortcomings with bookwarez, not with e-books. I have no love for the paper book and no desire to read one if I can read an e-book instead.
I still feel obligated to buy all my books in paper format, if only because I know that the authors won't get paid otherwise. It's also comforting to have a physical library instead of bits on a disc. But after buying my
books I put them on my
bookshelf and spend an agonising hour or two
trying to find a badly OCRd "pirate" copy on the
web so I can read it in a comfortable format. I really hate doing that: it wastes my time and
detracts from the enjoyment of the book. I wish the publishers would wisen up and include
with the paper book a CD containing an e-book version (preferably ASCII text).
That having been said, I still think unrestricted free trade of music is a good thing, and helps the artists in the long run. I just don't see this article as being a credible argument for that.
I think the article does have a credible argument, because I can strongly relate to it. I've bought more books now than ever before. This is partly is due to me having a greater disposable income than I used to, but I don't think that's the whole answer. I believe that bookwarez have increased my spending on books by introducing me to new authors. I'm an honest person and if I like a bookwarez I'll pay for a legal copy. Money isn't the issue. It's all about convenience. The book publishers are going out of their way to make my life inconvenient, and I'm the one who wants to buy their product!
right, because the day they turn 18, something magical happens and suddenly they understand all the possible repercussions that getting naked on camera could have.
No, because there's a gray area between the ages of 15-18 when they stop being children and start being adults, but by 18 it has mostly stopped being gray.
18 isn't a "magical" cutoff. It's the "3 standard deviations" cutoff. There might still be some people 18+ who are child-like in their thinking, but they are rare.
Re:Sauce for the goose...
on
Rare Earth
·
· Score: 2
Problem with atheists is that they don't give any good answers that are meaningful to a human being with existential questions. Problem with religious folks is that they tend to interpret the world into what they want to believe. As always, the wise man walks in the middle and noone notices.
Problem with the wise man is that he thinks he's a lot smarter than he really is.
Hint: atheists don't offer meaningful answers to existential questions for the same reason that atheists don't offer gardening tips.
well, if you call all 2 good games for the Xbox compitition
How does a Troll get modded as insightful? Oh, it's against an MS product!
No, because it's true. The X-Box has exceptionally
good hardware but a complete dearth of good games.
DOA3 has no depth to the combination sets. Halo is
boring and repetitive. Gotham is a pathetic racer.
Just to add insult to injury, 30% of the
release titles for the X-Box were snowboard sims:
I fucking hate snowboard sims.
Is it any wonder that almost every X-Box game
review starts with something like "This game is visually stunning"?
It's because the X-Box has great hardware, great
graphics, and the game developers are using this
as a crutch to prop up their lack-luster no-fun
games. Meanwhile we have PS2 leading with FFX and
Rez and GT3: the X-Box can't hold a candle to these
titles.
This isn't Microsoft bashing. I will buy the
hardware when it has good games but that day has not yet come.
There are no X-Box exclusive games that make me say
"today I will get an X-Box". The only good games
that the X-Box can offer are also on the other consoles, so I might as well buy the other consoles and wait for
the X-Box price to drop.
Part of me is terrified at the potential for creating unimaginable horrors; the other part is completely in awe of the amazing things science can do. We're moving closer and closer to playing God. I pray we're up to the responsibility.
If humans can do it, then it's hardly inspiring enough to be "playing God".
If you used all MS components (Windows, IE, Office, Outlook, and MSN Messenger), all you need to do is call MS for support. If "Mr. Wang's funky widget"(tm) that you installed to "enhance" your browsing experience decides to overwrite MFC42.dll with one that breaks Office, what are you supposed to do now?
Well, that's easy, you call the packager. If
your Ford Explorer rolls because the integrated
Firestone tyres aren't good enough, then it's a
problem you raise with Ford. They put the whole
package together so they're responsible for the
consumer and dealing with complaints.
Afterall, you might know that the tyres on a
Ford Explorer are from Firestone, but would you
have a clue who produced the air-conditioner? Do
you care? If the air-conditioner breaks then you
call the Ford Dealer. You don't call Matshuiama
Industries in Korea and demand somebody fix your
air-conditioner!
I don't see why Microsoft should be treated
any differently. They're a parts supplier, but
they seem to think that the OEMs (Compaq, IBM,
Dell, Gateway) shouldn't be allowed to bundle
their parts in a way that best suits the OEM's
customers. Microsoft seems to think that they
are producing a final product, but Windows is
only a single part in the OEM computer. For all
the other parts (hard drive, power supply) you
complain directly to the OEM. So why is Windows
given special treatment.
Sure, forcing all the OEMs to be exactly the
same makes things really easy for Microsoft, but
it destroys consumer choice. The Dell and the
IBM and the Compaq and the Gateway offerings all
have different hardware, and that's good, but
why is it exactly the same piece of software?!
Why can't IBM offer IBM Media Player or Gateway
offer FreeAmp? Why is Microsoft (a parts supplier)
telling the OEM (an integrator) how to do their
job? Why isn't the OEM listening to me, as the
consumer? Why is Microsoft more important than
ME THE CONSUMER?
The system is broken. Microsoft broke it. The
USA government needs to restore order.
The KGI had nothing to do with the DRI. They
are completely different designs, different code
bases, and different developers. They don't even
do the same thing.
How does threads fix the issue? How can a process have threads running under different user ids running concurrently? Granted - I don't know much about threaded apache - but isn't this a problem?
I don't really understand myself, but I can make an educated guess. Apache 1.x starts up several processes in advance (MinSpareServers) and puts them into a pool, ready to serve any request for any virtual host. These processes are heavyweight so best throughput is achieved by preforking them. Each process then serves 30 requests for any virtual host before exit'ing, but these requests are served out as the same UID. The pro is that you get better performance. The con is that you have to use the same UID for every virtual host.
Or does apache fork out a process for each user id- then each process runs multiple threads?
Yes, that's my understanding of what's changed for 2.0.
With Apache 2.0 you will be able to assign a dedicated child process to a virtual host by using the AssignUserId directive. With older Apache this would have been either a waste of resources (large and expensive pool of processes per virtual host) or a performance disaster (not enough preforked processes in each pool). With Apache 2.0 you can afford to create a process per virtual host because the pool consists of threads, not processes (inexpensive single process per virtual host).
The sad bit from the documentation is "This MPM does not currently work on most platforms. Work is ongoing to make it functional". Otherwise the AssignUserId directive is what the author of the AskSlashdot wanted. Until 2.0 is finished and works, the only solution I've found is what I described in my previous post: create a standalone Apache pool per virtual host and just live with the waste of resources.
As I said, I'm not an Apache developer, this is just an educated guess based on my limited understanding of what's going on. A real Apache developer would probably slap me silly for providing a totally bogus explanation.
Right... don't ask them anything like "what do you mean?" or "what is it costing you, quantifiably, over your current platform?" Because they're just FUD-spouting Micro$ith astroturfers, right?
If someone decided to not use a free and "good enough" platform because of what some nobody (ie, me) says, then they were never serious about using Linux in the first place.
If I was talking business with a "possible convert" then I would put on my best business voice and best business suit and be so goddamn polite that bluebirds would sing and angels would descend from heaven to see what was going on.
But I'm on Slashdot, and I don't have to woo anybody here. So get off your fucking soapbox and act like a normal person.
Linux could do a lot better without some of its "friends".
Linux doesn't need to do any better in the "making friends" department. It's making enough friends just by being free and "good enough".
Let each person's home directory be their website, then just point the Apache virtual servers to the users' respective homes. Remember, of course, to add the Apache user itself to each user's personal "group" so it can see their stuff.
Super easy, I've been doing it for years. ('Course now somebody's going to point out some huge security flaw in this arrangement and I'll be kicking myself from here to breakfast...:)
This is no good if you have php/perl scripts. The scripts run as the Apache user and you don't want people exploiting that to intrude/destroy other users on the system. You want each virtual host to run as a different user, not just be restricted to a different directory.
Suexec promises a solution, but it really does seem like using a mallet to remove a cork from a wine bottle. And as the author of this story discovered, suexec isn't a perfect solution.
Unfortunately the only way I've found to solve this particular problem was to instantiate a new Apache process per user. This is understandably a resource hog, not to mention a configuration mess.
The S/390 "VM" concept is almost perfect. Each VM can run a different Apache process as a different user, so that way you have perfect sandboxing. Unfortunately an S/390 is a little pricey (even the base model).
The real problem is that Apache forks a herd of processes but each process can serve pages for any virtual host. If the Apache process changes its uid to a normal user, then it won't be able to change back for the next virtual host. Killing and restarting processes would work but would also destroy throughput. That is, unless you used threads, but threads won't be available until 2.0 is stable.
The problem is a common question on the Apache mailing list (and I've been guilty of asking about it too, before checking the FAQ). The last time I checked the answer was "we know about this, it's not trivial to fix, don't ask about it before at least Apache 2.0".
These same people would whinge that free beer isn't really free, because you have to expend energy lifting the glass in order to drink it.
If I was doling out the free beer then I'd be really pissed off if people started demanding that I had to pour the beer into their mouths for them as well.
Next time you hear the "Linux isn't really free" rhetoric, snap back with "How much less than $0 does Linux have to go?". Linux is free. The TCO of Linux isn't free but that's only because TCO includes the cost of your own time. People who think that this proves Linux itself isn't free need to be hit with the cluestick.
Nah - I don't buy this - if "small errors" crept into data burnt onto CDs on a regular basis, half the software I downloaded and burnt would be corrupt.
Data CDs and Audio CDs have different encodings. Data CDs use 304 ECC bits per 2048 data bits. Audio CDs use 24 ECC bits per 2352 data bits. Audio CDs can degrade if you record/rip/record/rip multiple times. Data CDs can potentially degrade too, but the higher number of ECC bits makes it much rarer.
My Sony CD player even has "One bit sampling" on it LOL.
1 bit DACs are clever inventions that avoid the problems with traditional voltage ladders. They are nothing to laugh about.
Seen on a DVD the other day too: "PAL" like the data is different if your player renders PAL as opposed to NTSC or Secam.
The coding on a PAL DVD is different to the encoding on an NTSC DVD. This is why R4 vs R1 sites tend to recommend R4 because the higher resolution on PAL DVDs gives you a better picture on decent TVs.
Slashdot Mirror
Because they want to distinguish themselves from the other OEMs.
It's Microsoft's component of the OEM's product. You need to see this distinction before it all makes sense.
When I buy a computer from Dell the entire computer system is the product. I'm not paying for the "Windows product": Windows is just one component (of many) in the product I'm buying from Dell.
The OEMs have been value-adding software for years. For example the OEM might decide to throw in some fax software, imaging software, administration software, a handful of games, a web browser...
Back up a minute. The OEM can't throw in a web browser because Microsoft is claiming that only Microsoft has the right to include a web browser. This is what the court case is all about: Microsoft using their monopoly status to destroy competition in the browser market.
Cast your mind back to when this all started. It was IE 2 versus Navigator 2. IE 2 was so goddamn shit that nobody wanted to use it. Even when IE was bundled on the Windows 95 disc (OEM version only: the store version did not have IE anywhere on the disc) people would download Netscape because Netscape was (a) better, and (b) had mind-share. Microsoft couldn't compete on merit so they bullied their way into the market through licensing. The OEMs were forced to ship IE in preference to Navigator, even though their customers wished otherwise. How is this good for the customer? Answer: it isn't.
Right now it's all different because Microsoft has had 5 (6?) years to well and truly entrench IE into Windows. So now it's not only difficult to remove IE but there's no benefit anymore: IE really is better than Navigator now. Microsoft is banking on the short attention span of the consumer to not remember what they did to Netscape, and it seems people like you are suckered right in.
Choose your own examples. The point was that companies can be held responsible for their products.
Or fine Ford for not fixing the Pinto. Or fine Philip Morris for making people sick.
Sometimes companies are held responsible if their product causes damage. The situations where this is legal are beyond me but I know one of them is gross negligence. Whether Microsoft was negligent with Outlook isn't a question I can answer, but the original poster wasn't being stupid.
That seems like faulty reasoning to me. If I already had Windows 3.1 plus DOS, and I wanted to upgrade to Windows 95, why would I want to purchase another copy of DOS? I'd want to reuse my existing copy. The "bundled DOS" has $0 value to me.
Also why would I want to use Microsoft DOS? DR-DOS was also available. Perhaps FreeDOS would have been usable because of increased attention to it. IBM had PC-DOS and it's probable they would have shipped Windows 95 + PC-DOS.
Also the $50 "sticker price" of DOS covers more than just the license. It covers the cost of the box, the manuals, the shelf-space, and the support. You get none of these things when you buy the "bundled DOS" in Windows 95: you would only get the manuals and support for the Windows component. So the "bundled DOS" is clearly not worth the full $50.
Also you're arguing that because Windows 3.1 required DOS to boot that you must add the price of DOS when comparing Windows 3.1 against Windows 95. This reasoning itself is bogus. Windows 95 required more RAM than Windows 3.1: should we add the cost of this RAM to the price of Windows 95? The report and I are comparing the price of Windows. You want to compare Total Cost of Ownership but you are being selective in what contributes to that total.
Finally, you have no idea how much the version of DOS actually cost. Windows 95 shipped with something that was nominally called "DOS 7.0". It was incomplete compared to earlier versions and you could not install it standalone. Because it wasn't a fully featured version of DOS it's not valid for you to choose its value at $50 based on earlier versions of DOS. Could I even buy a standalone version of DOS 7.0? To me it is clear that buying DOS + Windows 3.1 as two seperate products has more value than buying Windows 95 with a crippled sub-DOS: there is more value to DOS than as nothing more than a bootloader and interrupt handler for Windows.
I'd suggest that you read what you wrote here in about 1 year's time, because you sound quite insane. There is no "contingent" of "cronies" here on a vendetta against you. I believe a number of people just think you're wrong.
I'm sorry you feel that way. It makes sense to me. Perhaps you'd like to explain what's "lame" about it instead of being dismissive?
I don't have any "cronies" and I can't moderate a discussion that I've posted to. Did you consider the more plausible possibility that other people (besides myself) think you are wrong?
Your counter-argument would be valid if Microsoft had released a "Windows 95 without DOS" product. Because there was no such product you cannot claim that Windows 95 was "cheaper" than the sticker price by the price of DOS.
My argument stands as-is. You have not successfully argued against the facts in that report.
Ok. I went to this report and inflation-adjusted figures show that Windows cost 10% more in 1999 than it did in 1990.
Correlation is not cause. Microsoft is not responsible for prices going down any more than IBM is responsible or Apple is responsible.
The problem wasn't with the bundling per-se. It was when an OEM bought Windows and tried to remove IE to install the (at-the-time) superior Netscape browser. Microsoft threatened the OEM until the OEM caved in.
The KDE package also bundles a browser but an OEM is permitted to remove konqueror and install another browser. In fact, the KDE people even tell you how to do this.
This is the fundamental difference. You can't ignore it. The judge certainly didn't, nor did the appeals court. Bundling is OK. Product tying is not. Microsoft did the latter. KDE does the former.
Then your opinion is shithouse. Simpsons Road Rage aims to be Crazy Taxi but without being fun. DOA3 is a perfect example of a fighter for people who don't play fighting games. Project Gotham has finally stolen the title of "Worst Racing Sim, Ever" from Metro Street Racer.
Oddysee is good, but it's hardly a killer game. Rallisport is perhaps the only decent item on your list: I'm half tempted to buy an X-Box just for Rallisport.
Why would you need the manufacturer to stay in business? Your machine does the same job at a lower price.
Perhaps you meant to ask how would the creator of the original product stay in business? Good question, and the answer shouldn't involve legislation to protect the manufacturers and distributors.
No, it can't. There's a good reason why you need a trained professional and $1000s to use Oracle but only a trained monkey and $0 to use PostgreSQL. They're not even in the same country, let alone the same ballpark.
You're almost as bad as people who try and claim MS SQL Server is on par with Oracle.
They are. Bookwarez is a huge phenomenon with literally 1000s of works of fiction available for grabs. You might not be aware of it, but perhaps you don't read many books. I read a book a week on average and I'm well aware of how easy it is to get illegal copies of books.
I personally prefer e-book format over paper format. I can carry a dozen books around with me on my Palm Pilot. I don't have to remember my page or carry a bookmark. At nighttime I can read by the backlight which is more considerate than using the bedside lamp. I can hold the Palm in one hand: even the thinnest paper book requires two hands.
It's not all peaches and cream. As Eric says in his essay, the quality of the average bookwarez is awful. OCR technology is not good enough and the scans have obviously never been proofread. It's very hard to find sites, and when you do it's uncommon to find what you want. Yet these are all shortcomings with bookwarez, not with e-books. I have no love for the paper book and no desire to read one if I can read an e-book instead.
I still feel obligated to buy all my books in paper format, if only because I know that the authors won't get paid otherwise. It's also comforting to have a physical library instead of bits on a disc. But after buying my books I put them on my bookshelf and spend an agonising hour or two trying to find a badly OCRd "pirate" copy on the web so I can read it in a comfortable format. I really hate doing that: it wastes my time and detracts from the enjoyment of the book. I wish the publishers would wisen up and include with the paper book a CD containing an e-book version (preferably ASCII text).
I think the article does have a credible argument, because I can strongly relate to it. I've bought more books now than ever before. This is partly is due to me having a greater disposable income than I used to, but I don't think that's the whole answer. I believe that bookwarez have increased my spending on books by introducing me to new authors. I'm an honest person and if I like a bookwarez I'll pay for a legal copy. Money isn't the issue. It's all about convenience. The book publishers are going out of their way to make my life inconvenient, and I'm the one who wants to buy their product!
No, because there's a gray area between the ages of 15-18 when they stop being children and start being adults, but by 18 it has mostly stopped being gray.
18 isn't a "magical" cutoff. It's the "3 standard deviations" cutoff. There might still be some people 18+ who are child-like in their thinking, but they are rare.
Problem with the wise man is that he thinks he's a lot smarter than he really is.
Hint: atheists don't offer meaningful answers to existential questions for the same reason that atheists don't offer gardening tips.
Telstra Bigpond users (in Australia) pay 12c or 19c per meg.
No, because it's true. The X-Box has exceptionally good hardware but a complete dearth of good games. DOA3 has no depth to the combination sets. Halo is boring and repetitive. Gotham is a pathetic racer. Just to add insult to injury, 30% of the release titles for the X-Box were snowboard sims: I fucking hate snowboard sims.
Is it any wonder that almost every X-Box game review starts with something like "This game is visually stunning"? It's because the X-Box has great hardware, great graphics, and the game developers are using this as a crutch to prop up their lack-luster no-fun games. Meanwhile we have PS2 leading with FFX and Rez and GT3: the X-Box can't hold a candle to these titles.
This isn't Microsoft bashing. I will buy the hardware when it has good games but that day has not yet come. There are no X-Box exclusive games that make me say "today I will get an X-Box". The only good games that the X-Box can offer are also on the other consoles, so I might as well buy the other consoles and wait for the X-Box price to drop.
If humans can do it, then it's hardly inspiring enough to be "playing God".
He should have listened...
It's a pet peeve of mine.
Well, that's easy, you call the packager. If your Ford Explorer rolls because the integrated Firestone tyres aren't good enough, then it's a problem you raise with Ford. They put the whole package together so they're responsible for the consumer and dealing with complaints.
Afterall, you might know that the tyres on a Ford Explorer are from Firestone, but would you have a clue who produced the air-conditioner? Do you care? If the air-conditioner breaks then you call the Ford Dealer. You don't call Matshuiama Industries in Korea and demand somebody fix your air-conditioner!
I don't see why Microsoft should be treated any differently. They're a parts supplier, but they seem to think that the OEMs (Compaq, IBM, Dell, Gateway) shouldn't be allowed to bundle their parts in a way that best suits the OEM's customers. Microsoft seems to think that they are producing a final product, but Windows is only a single part in the OEM computer. For all the other parts (hard drive, power supply) you complain directly to the OEM. So why is Windows given special treatment.
Sure, forcing all the OEMs to be exactly the same makes things really easy for Microsoft, but it destroys consumer choice. The Dell and the IBM and the Compaq and the Gateway offerings all have different hardware, and that's good, but why is it exactly the same piece of software?! Why can't IBM offer IBM Media Player or Gateway offer FreeAmp? Why is Microsoft (a parts supplier) telling the OEM (an integrator) how to do their job? Why isn't the OEM listening to me, as the consumer? Why is Microsoft more important than ME THE CONSUMER?
The system is broken. Microsoft broke it. The USA government needs to restore order.
The KGI had nothing to do with the DRI. They are completely different designs, different code bases, and different developers. They don't even do the same thing.
I don't really understand myself, but I can make an educated guess. Apache 1.x starts up several processes in advance (MinSpareServers) and puts them into a pool, ready to serve any request for any virtual host. These processes are heavyweight so best throughput is achieved by preforking them. Each process then serves 30 requests for any virtual host before exit'ing, but these requests are served out as the same UID. The pro is that you get better performance. The con is that you have to use the same UID for every virtual host.
Yes, that's my understanding of what's changed for 2.0. With Apache 2.0 you will be able to assign a dedicated child process to a virtual host by using the AssignUserId directive. With older Apache this would have been either a waste of resources (large and expensive pool of processes per virtual host) or a performance disaster (not enough preforked processes in each pool). With Apache 2.0 you can afford to create a process per virtual host because the pool consists of threads, not processes (inexpensive single process per virtual host).
The sad bit from the documentation is "This MPM does not currently work on most platforms. Work is ongoing to make it functional". Otherwise the AssignUserId directive is what the author of the AskSlashdot wanted. Until 2.0 is finished and works, the only solution I've found is what I described in my previous post: create a standalone Apache pool per virtual host and just live with the waste of resources.
As I said, I'm not an Apache developer, this is just an educated guess based on my limited understanding of what's going on. A real Apache developer would probably slap me silly for providing a totally bogus explanation.
If someone decided to not use a free and "good enough" platform because of what some nobody (ie, me) says, then they were never serious about using Linux in the first place.
If I was talking business with a "possible convert" then I would put on my best business voice and best business suit and be so goddamn polite that bluebirds would sing and angels would descend from heaven to see what was going on.
But I'm on Slashdot, and I don't have to woo anybody here. So get off your fucking soapbox and act like a normal person.
Linux doesn't need to do any better in the "making friends" department. It's making enough friends just by being free and "good enough".
This is no good if you have php/perl scripts. The scripts run as the Apache user and you don't want people exploiting that to intrude/destroy other users on the system. You want each virtual host to run as a different user, not just be restricted to a different directory.
Suexec promises a solution, but it really does seem like using a mallet to remove a cork from a wine bottle. And as the author of this story discovered, suexec isn't a perfect solution.
Unfortunately the only way I've found to solve this particular problem was to instantiate a new Apache process per user. This is understandably a resource hog, not to mention a configuration mess.
The S/390 "VM" concept is almost perfect. Each VM can run a different Apache process as a different user, so that way you have perfect sandboxing. Unfortunately an S/390 is a little pricey (even the base model).
The real problem is that Apache forks a herd of processes but each process can serve pages for any virtual host. If the Apache process changes its uid to a normal user, then it won't be able to change back for the next virtual host. Killing and restarting processes would work but would also destroy throughput. That is, unless you used threads, but threads won't be available until 2.0 is stable.
The problem is a common question on the Apache mailing list (and I've been guilty of asking about it too, before checking the FAQ). The last time I checked the answer was "we know about this, it's not trivial to fix, don't ask about it before at least Apache 2.0".
These same people would whinge that free beer isn't really free, because you have to expend energy lifting the glass in order to drink it. If I was doling out the free beer then I'd be really pissed off if people started demanding that I had to pour the beer into their mouths for them as well.
Next time you hear the "Linux isn't really free" rhetoric, snap back with "How much less than $0 does Linux have to go?". Linux is free. The TCO of Linux isn't free but that's only because TCO includes the cost of your own time. People who think that this proves Linux itself isn't free need to be hit with the cluestick.
Data CDs and Audio CDs have different encodings. Data CDs use 304 ECC bits per 2048 data bits. Audio CDs use 24 ECC bits per 2352 data bits. Audio CDs can degrade if you record/rip/record/rip multiple times. Data CDs can potentially degrade too, but the higher number of ECC bits makes it much rarer.
1 bit DACs are clever inventions that avoid the problems with traditional voltage ladders. They are nothing to laugh about.
The coding on a PAL DVD is different to the encoding on an NTSC DVD. This is why R4 vs R1 sites tend to recommend R4 because the higher resolution on PAL DVDs gives you a better picture on decent TVs.