...ah, grasshopper, but when you surround yourself with a pretty interface and you understand how the underlying system works, then you are one step closer to understanding the Great Mystery; this is called attacking the lion in its den.
Machines for comb-binding are commonplace (and, for some reason, all unreasonably expensive...anybody know why?). I'll bet, though, that for 500 bucks or so you could get a machine that would let you actually spiral-bind. Then all you need is a big papercutter, and you can spiral-bind your own:).
But if that's Microsoft's reasoning, then why didn't they say that, instead? And since they didn't say it, doesn't it seem somewhat less likely that that is their reason?
Well, I don't completely disagree with you, although I must say that one of the reasons we don't have a player is the encoder H/W card manufacturers aren't giving out specs, and nobody really cares about software decoding. Not enough people to come out with a player, anyway.
All right. I run several servers at work, and a dual-boot box at home. The only thing I have to say is this: I have a measly 64MB of memory at home, and yet I have only a 16MB swap file. I used to have no swap file at all (the horror! the horror!).
Guess what? I've run out of memory once in the last two years. Once. That was when I was trying to use SNiFF+ to parse the 2.2 kernel...
I'm not advising you to use as little swap as I am. It's probably too little, especially considering the way app requirements are shooting up all around these days. However, if you're setting up a workstation here, fuggeddabout the multiple F/W LVD SuperSCSI VII Widgetco hardrives and just set yourself up a nice, comfy 64MB partition anywhere on the drive you want. I'm betting it doesn't get used 99% of the time anyway.
Servers, on the other hand, are a different story...:)
hey froggyboy, you might not be against women in comp sci, but as lot of guys in CS either a) are, or b) act in ways that tend to drive women away from the field (back when everybody's in HS and stuff). i've seen it happen.
and another thing. there is a shortage of women in comp sci, but it seems to be more a shortage of american-born (and especially caucasian and african-american) women than anyone else. that may sound racist or whatnot, but you know as well as i do that that's the numerical truth, and i only point it out because it makes it seem to me that there is a strong cultural component to this that scholarships for women might certainly help alleviate. (i come to this conclusion because there doesn't seem to be as bad an imbalance for men, at least at the undergrad level).
also note that i'm not advocating a scholarship only for white/african-american women, or only for americans, (although a lot scholarships are american-only anyway).
plus, i think that a lot of what chix there are in CS are pretty hot.:P
actually, muggers wouldn't go away. they'd just change jobs, become the people who "equitably" divided up the goods. you know, you're good friends with this guy, and he makes sure your share is a little more equal than everybody else's. Or maybe she's the person who who decides who get to work where....or do you think that people just choose to be sewer-cleaning teams when they have a better choice?
Re:All Christians aspire to be like christ
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RMS Responds
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you made me spray my trini with DP. you're my hero.
teeny tiny robot soldier guys--aren't they CUUTE!?
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although, you have to ask yourself, if the bombers were close enough to drop teeny tiny soldiers on the plant, why would they just drop, ummmm, bombs?
they're sort of cheaper, faster, and more destructive.:)
Companies that add features they need, but that are not accepted into the coredistribution, may find themselves in a redevelopment and retesting cycle every time a new version of Linux is released.
Even if your changes are accepted into the kernel, you still would have to do redevelopment and retesting every time a new version of Linux is released, same as you would have to do with any in-house code when you upgrade operating system versions.
Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition ships with a full complement of Internet services, including Web, proxy, index, messaging, database, transaction and firewall services. With Linux, these services will soon be available as a multivendor product.
Web-apache. Proxy-squid. messaging-sendmail. database-sybase/informix. firewall-services built into the kernel. there are probably tools to take advantage of these controls, even if only for testing purposes. I could probably think of some more if I considered it for a while, which I don't currently have time to do.
More importantly, however, the whole proprietary-single-vendor-works-better thing wasn't true for IBM, or DEC, or anybody else, as far as I know, and I don't see why it should be any different for Microsoft. Communism looks good on paper, but, pragmatically speaking, it has some serious weak points (at least, in the way it's been done so far, but that's a different discussion) that become apparent when you try to run a largish country.
Whereas Microsoft's products are designed to work with one another and the operating system's services, users may spend a significant amount of time trying to integrate these components under Linux. The most critical of these integrations will be security and access control.
How are Microsoft's products integrated with NT when it comes to security and access control? Answer: they're not. S&AC belongs to the operating system, not apps.
NT needs to not throw any stones when it comes to security. As for access control? Sort-of. Better than Linux on the FS side.
Linux is just beginning to be retrofitted for symmetric multiprocessing. Without robust SMP, Linux servers can support only small companies and single applications. If you're managing multiple servers for increased scalability, you're better off using multiple NT servers all participating within the same domain.
So....You can use multiple Linux servers, or multiple NT servers, huh? How is one an advantage and the other not? NT might be more scalable than Linux on the low end, but from a scalability point of view, they're both disasters at this point.
One of the reasons for Windows' growth has been the complexity of configuring and maintaining Unix operating systems. Simply because a low-cost version of Unix is now available, it does not automatically generate more people capable of managing and configuring these systems.
No, training generates more people with those capabilities. Or did you think that that whole MSCE thing was just for dumbasses?
Also, there was no sufficiently powerful Unix that ran practically on PCs when Windows grew. I was around when Windows got big, and nobody was saying, "well, we could use Unix, but Windows is so much *easier*," simply because Unix wasn't even an option. Where were you? And if that's the reason for Windows' growth today, then why are you writing a column about Linux?
Linux is a college student's project gone astray. The version that will be supported by Sun Microsystems and IBM on its hardware will fall far short of each of these company's own Unix operating systems in features and capabilities. If you're responsible for operating system selection in your company, be wary of the Linux play.
Hmmm....This is half opinion, half true, half unsubstantiated. Yeah, Linux isn't Solaris. It isn't AIX. But for a lot of stuff, you don't need Solaris or AIX. The vast majority of servers out there have one processor, and don't need a journaling FS (which linux should have in less than six months anyway). *That* is Linux's current market. Server-wise, I'm not sure what NT's market is, really, despite the fact that we have a lot of NT servers around here.
Now, I'm not the type to call everything critical of Linux FUD. I've got a few gripes with Linux myself (and yes, I use it quite a bit. I've got gripes about every operating system I've ever used). However, this guy sounds like Bernama discussing opposition politicians. He's either paid or just ignorant.
Bullet casings are generally brass-colored, not gold colored. When casings shoot out of a high speed automatic weapon, they're generally more than 5cm apart (and they don't fall straight down). I should have been more specific.
Personally, I wouldn't have bothered to demonstrate that I could kick his ass by acting bored while I fended him off. I'd have just kicked his ass.
Hmmm...I gotta go watch the movie again, now, dammit!:P All I can say is...you could be right. I only saw the movie once, but I definitely came away from it with less than super-complimentary impressions of the fight scenes. I can't seem to come up with any specific examples, though. Partly, I think that the problem was a lack of subtlety, which seems a very odd thing to say in the context of comparing TM to HKAFs.
These are things I *think* I remember correctly:
The scene with the spent casings falling out of the sky. Cute, yeah, but a lot better if there are fewer casings (there was a veritable deluge) and if they hadn't been gold-colored. The way it was done just looks silly.
The scene with the metal detector? Carrying a lot of guns looks kewl. Being wallpapered with guns looks...unwieldy.
Keanu Reeves fending off a bad guy with one-arm while distracted? That's less subtle than, say, Leslie Cheung whipping bad guys with a twig in The Bride with White Hair. And that's saying a bit.
I may seriously be wrong with this. I should go watch TM again. Or maybe I'll just spend the money to watch Black Mask on the big screen instead.:P
I must have missed the anime references. That's the bit that interests me in seeing it again. I'm not a huge anime fan, but....
unistddisc.h --/*I'm a pretty big HK film fan myself, although I really like cheesy romantic comedies more than action flicks (except for JC's flicks.) */
I think what Jon is forgetting is that a lot of geeks like movies. No, a lot of geeks *love* movies, and for some it's the defining element of their particular brand of geekdom.
If you love movies (and you're a geek), you probably didn't love The Matrix. You might have liked it (hell, I even liked it), but I don't think you could love it.
You had to see the parts that were obvious homages either to John Woo or to HK action flicks in general, and seen how woefully short they fell in comparison to the best of those they imitated.
You had to see The Battery Scene, and probed the swiss-cheese holes in the premise of the movie. The silliness of the final battle. The melodrama of it all.
You had to have seen that the acting was...occasionally...sub-par.
As a matter of fact, The Matrix is a movie you'd love to hate. But you can't. You have to give it credit for the execution of the shared hallucination concept. Plus, bits of it actually achieved the kewlness that the rest aspired to. Part poseur, part thrasher.
Maybe you don't have to have done any of these things. Maybe you did love the movie. Maybe you're just the sort of person who'd show up on/. and complain about every aspect of the movie, and how you hated it, and how you're so intelligent and superior (hey, your criticism of the movie should be proof enough of that, no?) and anyone who disagrees with you is a lamer, a lusr, a person not worthy of being in your august presence. A movie geeks would find interesting? Yeah. A litmus test? no way.
I've even seen some people bashing HomeSite and saying that you should use a plaintext editor in the same post (or in reply to a pro-Homesite post), which only demonstrates that they don't know that HomeSite *is* a plaintext editor, and makes them look like morons in the process. This small subset of people should be very thoroughly ignored. People that are bashing Dreamweaver without giving specific reasons (other than, all visula editors suck! They mess up your code!) should also be ignored. Pretty much everyone who has worked professionally with web pages has run across both of these programs on occasion, and should have some sort of valid critique. The reason is this: Dreamweaver doesn't mess with the code you wrote. It doesn't remove tags it doesn't understand. It doesn't change the tags you wrote unless you change them in the visual environment.
On top of this, it's got a built-in bare HTML widget, and ships with a high-powered external plaintext editor (on windows, at least; I've never used BBEdit). It produces CSS; it compensates for the drain bamage of the various browsers (iff you tell it to).
Of *course* you can't (yet) create an entire website within a graphical editor. The difference between Dreamweaver and, say, FrontPage is that Macromedia doesn't expect you to.
What are DWs drawbacks? They are twofold: the site management tools aren't all that great; the ones in HS are better. Two: the user interface leans far more toward flexibility than intuitiveness. If you know HTML, then the way things work within DW will make almost perfect sense from the start. If not, it's got a semi-steep learning curve.
Dreamweaver on Windows comes with HomeSite, which I can't go on enough about. It kicks ass. Color-coded HTML with with hyperlinked HTML ref, the ability to preview documents in IE in-place, buttons to insert things you may have forgotten the tags for (if you're a newbie) or don't feel like typing out (theoretically, if you're a pro). I've never used the little insert-X buttons, but they don't detract from the program. Pretty good site-management tools, too.
I haven't used GoLive. If the reputation of certain companies holds true, it's probably a kick-ass program. You might be going right(er) with GoLive, but you can't go wrong with Dreamweaver, that's all I'm sayin'.
No, I don't think wrong. I (perhaps) communicate unclearly, but to restate in an i'll-speak-slowly manner, i'll give an example:
Mozilla must remain free, but if Quicken(tm) wants to use Gecko as their HTML widget, that doesn't mean that they have to give away the source to Quicken(tm), which is what the original poster was implying that Neoplanet had to do. They might have to publish the source code to whatever version of Gecko they used, but *their* code, inasmuch as it is not a part of Gecko but uses it through a well-defined interface, remains their own. Any other arrangement completely obliterates any commercial adoption of Mozilla, and I can assure you that that was not Netscape's intent.
Neoplanet isn't derived from Gecko; It uses it as a layout widget. I seriously don't think that Netscape intended to keep commerciasl developers from using Gecko by insisting that any product which used it must me OSS.:)
it seems to me that the elitist crap quotient around here is going up as fast as the FUD stuff.
e.g.: the INTELLIGENT [used as a collective noun, I might add, which just reeks of looking down your nose @ the rest of us, emph mine] will struggle [or whatever] rather than accept an inferior solution...
or: that's why I get annoyed when technically competent people...complain that Linux is hard to install...
gimmee a break.
end users aren't really stupid. they are often ignorant about computers and operating systems, and for good reason: the point of being an end user is that you don't want to know a damned thing about computers.
you don't. you want to know how to do something that involves the use of a computer. learning about computers is a waste of, say, a research librarian's valuable time. s/he doesn't want to use a computer, s/he just wants to find a bibliographic reference, or create a document, or....
just because our lives (i'm a slolaris admin) revolve around the things that go on inside the box doesn't mean that everone else's should. computers, within society at large, are a means to an end, not an end.
when you're buying 4000 computers, whether or not the hardware is supported by your operating system isn't your only consideration. the OS is just one component of a larger system, and if IBM provides good support and good hardware at reasonable prices (and they do, as hard as it is to believe that i'm saying that), then that is a major factor in your system design.
Linux has beautiful hardware support, but it's not any more perfect than anyone else's, and that an unsupported graphics card merited only a one-line comment is actually remarkable in a good way.
As for installation: I've installed linux at least as many times as I've installed WinXX, and I can tell you a few things:
1) WinXX installation is no picnic. You have to pretty much know what you're doing.
2) Linux (Slackware 2.0,96,3.x, Red Hat 5.0,5.1, SuSE 6.0) is worse.
3) It's not an issue with Linux. It's an issue with installation progs. YaST is kewl. sax didn't work for me, despite the fact that all my hardware was listed (and I selected it).
4) something else.
here's a clue: a lot of us obviously want to see an end to M$ world domination. if you *ever* want to see that, you're going to have to stop treating people like shit just because they don't want to screw with kernel source. because 99% of the world doesn't want to do that. EOS.
I'm not sure why a couple of people are pointing out things that hint at the bias of Capitol Research. It's written all over their faces: there's no such thing as an unfunded think tank.
What's interesting about this one is that they manage to *completely* confuse open-source/proprietary software with open/proprietary *standards*. I think this is just hilarious. And to boot, they threw in the thing about OSS advocates writing to the UN about netscape possibly being an "illegal device" under new copyright treaty, which is beyong being merely a different issue.
*BWAHAHAHAHA*
At least, it would be funny if the "bad guys" didn't have such a large presence in Washington. We've got plenty of people who can write pulchritudinous platitudes for dayz about the wonders of open source software, but if you don't have anyone in Washington to make sure it gets read, well, you're f*^O^*d.
Don't get me wrong: we've got Ralph Nader (for the moment, until our little gadfly is distracted by a shiny object), and we've got James Love. We've got the EFF, the CPD, the VTW, and some other TLAs on the same or somewhat different fronts down in DCTown. However, good as these guys may be, they're a relatively small presence.
I don't mind being run down for my own faults (and Linux has plenty), but it's just insulting when the people trying to take you down don't even know why *they're* doing it. That's the problem with this paper. It misses what little meat is on the bone of this issue, and pulls shit out of its ass to compensate.
I'm not really surprised by the modifications to the definition of Free Software. They are essentially just the codification of the objections that the FSF has to the tenets of the Open Source(tm)(s)(r) movement, and in that sense are essentially not anything new.
What I didn't know, before I had browsed around fsf.org site a bit, was exactly how overboard these people had gone. O fun! O joy! Check out the words-to-avoid page and learn about the new, improved GNUSpek! Helps you avoid "incorrect thinking"! Read about the pitfalls of the Open Source movement (it allows bourgeois companies to take advantage of the "fuzzy thinking" of the proletariat). Come to the FSF web site and correct your wrong thinking!
RMS complains rather vehemently about the injustice of copyright law and the penchant of the SPA of trying to get the government to enforce it. This, it just recently occured to me, ignores one simple fact: copyright law does nothing but create a default bargain between the author/publisher and the user. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you don't want your work to be covered by US copyright law, release it to people under your own agreement, as the FSF does with the GPL. [Technically, it's still covered by US copyright law, but you render that a moot point with the correct agreement terms]. The upshot of all this is that the pigs and the SPA are essentially doing nothing more than making sure that people keep their word, that they abide by the agreement they made in order to get access to the works.
Keeping your word is a good thing, no? And if the software you wanted to use wasn't worth the price you paid for it and the restrictions that came with it, then why did you buy it? There can be no reason. The simple answer is that in some way, for some reason, it WAS worth it.
[ASIDE: Now, that *reason* isn't necessarily just. Refer to the terms "network effect" and "lock-in"]
More importantly, RMS knows this. And yet, rather that merely exhorting people to release their works under an alternative agreement, he rails on and on and on about the evils of copyright, as if changing the default bargain will keep companies from using the most profitable (i.e., generally one of the more restrictive) bargain they can come up with. But, RMS continues to rail on about how copyright violates the Right Of The People(tm) to share software with their neighbors. Let me get this straight: I've got something in my head. You don't have any damned right to anything with it. Now, if I write it down and don't share it with you, you still don't have any damned right to it (and thus far, couldn't do anything about it if you did).
But, if you and I come to an agreement about the conditions under which I will show it to you (and only you), then you somehow magically gain the right to blab it out to everybody once I turn my back? Is this true even when you promised me you wouldn't? " Cooperation is more important than copyright," true, but keeping your word is often more important than cooperation. Personally, I think RMS is so concerned that the argument be viewed in his light because he'd like to see a lack of protection for creators and publishers enshrined in the consitution he refers to so much.
Don't get me wrong: I pirate [hah!] my fair share of shit. I sometimes even pirate stuff that I could afford to buy. However, I view this as something akin to petty theft (when I can afford it), and something a bit less than that when I can't. I certainly don't delude myself into thinking it's my right. And I don't worry about the SPA showing up on my doorstep either: it isn't the least bit interested in stopping piracy that doesn't result in a loss of income; it's just interested in making sure that those who can pay are scared enough to. As far as the SPA showing up and auditing businesses, more power to 'em! If a company is using software to make money, then it oughtta by golly be prepared to share the wealth with the people who gave them the software thant helped them make the money. And that's just all I've got to say about that.
RMS also complains at length about the fact that publishers profit more than artists from copyright non-infringement, although I'm not sure exactly how relevant this is given his contention that artists don't have any more right to a work than users do.
This ignores yet another blatantly true statement: if authors didn't make more money by going through a publisher than by not, then they would not.
Now, I agree with all the Utopians out there on this point: that era's probably gonna come to a close pretty soon. Just ask the RIAA. And to that, I say "good riddance!" But to imply that, in the present day, a publisher's income from things that don't get pirated is somehow ill-gotten gains, despite the money that the publisher put into it (manufacturing, marketing, etc.) is ludicrous. Percentage-wise, publishing a book or a program is probably a bigger gamble for the publisher than it is for the author. As ye sew, so shall ye reap, or something like that.
Also, don't get me wrong on two other counts:
a) I hate big software business and big publishing business, and nobody's ever accused me of being an unfettered free-market guy. I just don't have an objection in principle to the line of work they're in.
b) The pathetic results of my programming endeavors are available under the GPL. It's a good license, and I used it because I wanted to contribute back to the community. So I did. I think I'll list it on Freshmeat in a couple of weeks. Watch out soon for subScript, the wonderfully inept text-to-PS convoita! I love free software, and I'm not opposed to it, either:P. However, I don't think that all software must be free, nor that it's everyone's responsibility to support only free software.
I'm not really surprised by the modifications to the definition of Free Software. They are essentially just the codification of the objections that the FSF has to the tenets of the Open Source(tm)(s)(r) movement, and in that sense are essentially not anything new. What I didn't know, before I had browsed around fsf.org site a bit, was exactly how overboard these people had gone. O fun! O joy! Check out the words-to-avoid page and learn about the new, improved GNUSpek! Helps you avoid "incorrect thinking"! Read about the pitfalls of the Open Source movement (it allows bourgeois companies to take advantage of the "fuzzy thinking" of the proletariat). Come to the FSF web site and correct your wrong thinking! RMS complains rather vehemently about the injustice of copyright law and the penchant of the SPA of trying to get the government to enforce it. This, it just recently occured to me, ignores one simple fact: copyright law does nothing but create a default bargain between the author/publisher and the user. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. If you don't want your work to be covered by US copyright law, release it to people under your own agreement, as the FSF does with the GPL. [Technically, it's still covered by US copyright law, but you render that a moot point with the correct agreement terms]. The upshot of all this is that the pigs and the SPA are essentially doing nothing more than making sure that people keep their word, that they abide by the agreement they made in order to get access to the works. Keeping your word is a good thing, no? And if the software you wanted to use wasn't worth the price you paid for it and the restrictions that came with it, then why did you buy it? There can be no reason. The simple answer is that in some way, for some reason, it WAS worth it. [ASIDE: Now, that *reason* isn't necessarily just. Refer to the terms "network effect" and "lock-in"] More importantly, RMS knows this. And yet, rather that merely exhorting people to release their works under an alternative agreement, he rails on and on and on about the evils of copyright, as if changing the default bargain will keep companies from using the most profitable (i.e., generally one of the more restrictive) bargain they can come up with. But, RMS continues to rail on about how copyright violates the Right Of The People(tm) to share software with their neighbors. Let me get this straight: I've got something in my head. You don't have any damned right to anything with it. Now, if I write it down and don't share it with you, you still don't have any damned right to it (and thus far, couldn't do anything about it if you did). But, if you and I come to an agreement about the conditions under which I will show it to you (and only you), then you somehow magically gain the right to blab it out to everybody once I turn my back? Is this true even when you promised me you wouldn't? " Cooperation is more important than copyright," true, but keeping your word is often more important than cooperation. Personally, I think RMS is so concerned that the argument be viewed in his light because he'd like to see a lack of protection for creators and publishers enshrined in the consitution he refers to so much. Don't get me wrong: I pirate [hah!] my fair share of shit. I sometimes even pirate stuff that I could afford to buy. However, I view this as something akin to petty theft (when I can afford it), and something a bit less than that when I can't. I certainly don't delude myself into thinking it's my right. And I don't worry about the SPA showing up on my doorstep either: it isn't the least bit interested in stopping piracy that doesn't result in a loss of income; it's just interested in making sure that those who can pay are scared enough to. As far as the SPA showing up and auditing businesses, more power to 'em! If a company is using software to make money, then it oughtta by golly be prepared to share the wealth with the people who gave them the software thant helped them make the money. And that's just all I've got to say about that. RMS also complains at length about the fact that publishers profit more than artists from copyright non-infringement, although I'm not sure exactly how relevant this is given his contention that artists don't have any more right to a work than users do. This ignores yet another blatantly true statement: if authors didn't make more money by going through a publisher than by not, then they would not. Now, I agree with all the Utopians out there on this point: that era's probably gonna come to a close pretty soon. Just ask the RIAA. And to that, I say "good riddance!" But to imply that, in the present day, a publisher's income from things that don't get pirated is somehow ill-gotten gains, despite the money that the publisher put into it (manufacturing, marketing, etc.) is ludicrous. Percentage-wise, publishing a book or a program is probably a bigger gamble for the publisher than it is for the author. As ye sew, so shall ye reap, or something like that. Also, don't get me wrong on two other counts: a) I hate big software business and big publishing business, and nobody's ever accused me of being an unfettered free-market guy. I just don't have an objection in principle to the line of work they're in. b) The pathetic results of my programming endeavors are available under the GPL. It's a good license, and I used it because I wanted to contribute back to the community. So I did. I think I'll list it on Freshmeat in a couple of weeks. Watch out soon for subScript, the wonderfully inept text-to-PS convoita! I love free software, and I'm not opposed to it, either:P. However, I don't think that all software must be free, nor that it's everyone's responsibility to support only free software. cheers ya'll, -k. ^-^ a) I hate big software business and big publishing business, and nobody's ever accused me of being an unfettered free-market guy. I just don't have an objection in principle to the line of work they're in. b) The pathetic results of my programming endeavors are available under the GPL. It's a good license, and I used it because I wanted to contribute back to the community. So I did. I think I'll list it on Freshmeat in a couple of weeks. Watch out soon for subScript, the wonderfully inept text-to-PS convoita! I love free software, and I'm not opposed to it, either:P. However, I don't think that all software must be free, nor that it's everyone's responsibility to support only free software.
Slashdot Mirror
...ah, grasshopper, but when you surround yourself with a pretty interface and you understand how the underlying system works, then you are one step closer to understanding the Great Mystery; this is called attacking the lion in its den.
:P.
tongue, firmly, in cheek
Machines for comb-binding are commonplace (and, for some reason, all unreasonably expensive...anybody know why?). I'll bet, though, that for 500 bucks or so you could get a machine that would let you actually spiral-bind. Then all you need is a big papercutter, and you can spiral-bind your own :).
But if that's Microsoft's reasoning, then why didn't they say that, instead? And since they didn't say it, doesn't it seem somewhat less likely that that is their reason?
Or maybe we'll just use 'her'.
Or maybe ta (1).
No, Christians are violent and annoying all the time.
:P
>Guess why?
Well, I don't completely disagree with you, although I must say that one of the reasons we don't have a player is the encoder H/W card manufacturers aren't giving out specs, and nobody really cares about software decoding. Not enough people to come out with a player, anyway.
Kinda like video card manufacturers...
All right. I run several servers at work, and a dual-boot box at home. The only thing I have to say is this: I have a measly 64MB of memory at home, and yet I have only a 16MB swap file. I used to have no swap file at all (the horror! the horror!).
Guess what? I've run out of memory once in the last two years. Once. That was when I was trying to use SNiFF+ to parse the 2.2 kernel...
I'm not advising you to use as little swap as I am. It's probably too little, especially considering the way app requirements are shooting up all around these days. However, if you're setting up a workstation here, fuggeddabout the multiple F/W LVD SuperSCSI VII Widgetco hardrives and just set yourself up a nice, comfy 64MB partition anywhere on the drive you want. I'm betting it doesn't get used 99% of the time anyway.
Servers, on the other hand, are a different story...:)
hey froggyboy, you might not be against women in comp sci, but as lot of guys in CS either a) are, or b) act in ways that tend to drive women away from the field (back when everybody's in HS and stuff). i've seen it happen.
:P
and another thing. there is a shortage of women in comp sci, but it seems to be more a shortage of american-born (and especially caucasian and african-american) women than anyone else. that may sound racist or whatnot, but you know as well as i do that that's the numerical truth, and i only point it out because it makes it seem to me that there is a strong cultural component to this that scholarships for women might certainly help alleviate. (i come to this conclusion because there doesn't seem to be as bad an imbalance for men, at least at the undergrad level).
also note that i'm not advocating a scholarship only for white/african-american women, or only for americans, (although a lot scholarships are american-only anyway).
plus, i think that a lot of what chix there are in CS are pretty hot.
just my -$0.02
actually, muggers wouldn't go away. they'd just change jobs, become the people who "equitably" divided up the goods. you know, you're good friends with this guy, and he makes sure your share is a little more equal than everybody else's. Or maybe she's the person who who decides who get to work where....or do you think that people just choose to be sewer-cleaning teams when they have a better choice?
you made me spray my trini with DP. you're my hero.
although, you have to ask yourself, if the bombers were close enough to drop teeny tiny soldiers on the plant, why would they just drop, ummmm, bombs?
:)
they're sort of cheaper, faster, and more destructive.
you should be able to use NIS, i think. i "know" there are ypclients for linux; i don't (yet) know about servers.
Companies that add features they need, but that are not accepted into the coredistribution, may find themselves in a redevelopment and retesting cycle every time a new version of Linux is released.
Even if your changes are accepted into the kernel, you still would have to do redevelopment and retesting every time a new version of Linux is released, same as you would have to do with any in-house code when you upgrade operating system versions.
Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition ships with a full complement of Internet services, including Web, proxy, index, messaging, database, transaction and firewall services. With Linux, these services will soon be available as a multivendor product.
Web-apache. Proxy-squid. messaging-sendmail. database-sybase/informix. firewall-services built into the kernel. there are probably tools to
take advantage of these controls, even if only for testing purposes. I could probably think of some more if I considered it for a while, which I don't currently have time to do.
More importantly, however, the whole proprietary-single-vendor-works-better thing wasn't true for IBM, or DEC, or anybody else, as far as I know, and I don't see why it should be any different for Microsoft. Communism looks good on paper, but, pragmatically speaking, it has some serious weak points (at least, in the way it's been done so far, but that's a different discussion) that become apparent when you try to run a largish country.
Whereas Microsoft's products are designed to work with one another and the operating system's services, users may spend a significant amount of time trying to integrate these components under Linux. The most critical of these integrations will be security and access control.
How are Microsoft's products integrated with NT when it comes to security and access control? Answer: they're not. S&AC belongs to the operating system, not apps.
NT needs to not throw any stones when it comes to security. As for access control? Sort-of. Better than Linux on the FS side.
Linux is just beginning to be retrofitted for symmetric multiprocessing. Without robust SMP, Linux servers can support only small companies and single applications. If you're managing multiple servers for increased scalability, you're better off using multiple NT servers all participating
within the same domain.
So....You can use multiple Linux servers, or multiple NT servers, huh? How is one an advantage and the other not? NT might be more scalable than Linux on the low end, but from a scalability point of view, they're both disasters at this point.
One of the reasons for Windows' growth has been the complexity of configuring and maintaining Unix operating systems. Simply because a low-cost version of Unix is now available, it does not automatically generate more people capable of managing and configuring these systems.
No, training generates more people with those capabilities. Or did you think that that whole MSCE thing was just for dumbasses?
Also, there was no sufficiently powerful Unix that ran practically on PCs when Windows grew. I was around when Windows got big, and nobody was saying, "well, we could use Unix, but Windows is so much *easier*," simply because Unix wasn't even an option. Where were you? And if that's the reason for Windows' growth today, then why are you writing a column about Linux?
Linux is a college student's project gone astray. The version that will be supported by Sun Microsystems and IBM on its hardware will fall far short of each of these company's own Unix operating systems in features and capabilities. If you're responsible for operating system selection in your company, be wary of the Linux play.
Hmmm....This is half opinion, half true, half unsubstantiated. Yeah, Linux isn't Solaris. It isn't AIX. But for a lot of stuff, you don't need Solaris or AIX. The vast majority of servers out there have one processor, and don't need a journaling FS (which linux should have in less than six months anyway). *That* is Linux's current market. Server-wise, I'm not sure what NT's market is, really, despite the fact that we have a lot of NT servers around here.
Now, I'm not the type to call everything critical of Linux FUD. I've got a few gripes with Linux myself (and yes, I use it quite a bit. I've got gripes about every operating system I've ever used). However, this guy sounds like Bernama discussing opposition politicians. He's either paid or just ignorant.
Bullet casings are generally brass-colored, not gold colored. When casings shoot out of a high speed automatic weapon, they're generally more than 5cm apart (and they don't fall straight down). I should have been more specific.
Personally, I wouldn't have bothered to demonstrate that I could kick his ass by acting bored while I fended him off. I'd have just kicked his ass.
Hmmm...I gotta go watch the movie again, now, dammit! :P All I can say is...you could be right. I only saw the movie once, but I definitely came away from it with less than super-complimentary impressions of the fight scenes. I can't seem to come up with any specific examples, though. Partly, I think that the problem was a lack of subtlety, which seems a very odd thing to say in the context of comparing TM to HKAFs.
:P
/*I'm a pretty big HK film fan myself, although I really like cheesy romantic comedies more than action flicks (except for JC's flicks.) */
These are things I *think* I remember correctly:
The scene with the spent casings falling out of the sky. Cute, yeah, but a lot better if there are fewer casings (there was a veritable deluge) and if they hadn't been gold-colored. The way it was done just looks silly.
The scene with the metal detector? Carrying a lot of guns looks kewl. Being wallpapered with guns looks...unwieldy.
Keanu Reeves fending off a bad guy with one-arm while distracted? That's less subtle than, say, Leslie Cheung whipping bad guys with a twig in The Bride with White Hair. And that's saying a bit.
I may seriously be wrong with this. I should go watch TM again. Or maybe I'll just spend the money to watch Black Mask on the big screen instead.
I must have missed the anime references. That's the bit that interests me in seeing it again. I'm not a huge anime fan, but....
unistddisc.h --
If you love movies (and you're a geek), you probably didn't love The Matrix. You might have liked it (hell, I even liked it), but I don't think you could love it.
You had to see the parts that were obvious homages either to John Woo or to HK action flicks in general, and seen how woefully short they fell in comparison to the best of those they imitated.
You had to see The Battery Scene, and probed the swiss-cheese holes in the premise of the movie. The silliness of the final battle. The melodrama of it all.
You had to have seen that the acting was...occasionally...sub-par.
As a matter of fact, The Matrix is a movie you'd love to hate. But you can't. You have to give it credit for the execution of the shared hallucination concept. Plus, bits of it actually achieved the kewlness that the rest aspired to. Part poseur, part thrasher.
Maybe you don't have to have done any of these things. Maybe you did love the movie. Maybe you're just the sort of person who'd show up on
Keep up the good work, mistah katz.
So far I've seen two types of comments:
a) Everything thats not plaintext sucks!
b) Use HomeSite!
c) Use Dreamweaver!
I've even seen some people bashing HomeSite and saying that you should use a plaintext editor in the same post (or in reply to a pro-Homesite post), which only demonstrates that they don't know that HomeSite *is* a plaintext editor, and makes them look like morons in the process. This small subset of people should be very thoroughly ignored. People that are bashing Dreamweaver without giving specific reasons (other than, all visula editors suck! They mess up your code!) should also be ignored. Pretty much everyone who has worked professionally with web pages has run across both of these programs on occasion, and should have some sort of valid critique. The reason is this: Dreamweaver doesn't mess with the code you wrote. It doesn't remove tags it doesn't understand. It doesn't change the tags you wrote unless you change them in the visual environment.
On top of this, it's got a built-in bare HTML widget, and ships with a high-powered external plaintext editor (on windows, at least; I've never used BBEdit). It produces CSS; it compensates for the drain bamage of the various browsers (iff you tell it to).
Of *course* you can't (yet) create an entire website within a graphical editor. The difference between Dreamweaver and, say, FrontPage is that Macromedia doesn't expect you to.
What are DWs drawbacks? They are twofold: the site management tools aren't all that great; the ones in HS are better. Two: the user interface leans far more toward flexibility than intuitiveness. If you know HTML, then the way things work within DW will make almost perfect sense from the start. If not, it's got a semi-steep learning curve.
Dreamweaver on Windows comes with HomeSite, which I can't go on enough about. It kicks ass. Color-coded HTML with with hyperlinked HTML ref, the ability to preview documents in IE in-place, buttons to insert things you may have forgotten the tags for (if you're a newbie) or don't feel like typing out (theoretically, if you're a pro). I've never used the little insert-X buttons, but they don't detract from the program. Pretty good site-management tools, too.
I haven't used GoLive. If the reputation of certain companies holds true, it's probably a kick-ass program. You might be going right(er) with GoLive, but you can't go wrong with Dreamweaver, that's all I'm sayin'.
-k.
qq!wq!^Q^C^D^H^S^Chelp^X^Hdamn.
No, I don't think wrong. I (perhaps) communicate unclearly, but to restate in an i'll-speak-slowly manner, i'll give an example:
Mozilla must remain free, but if Quicken(tm) wants to use Gecko as their HTML widget, that doesn't mean that they have to give away the source to Quicken(tm), which is what the original poster was implying that Neoplanet had to do. They might have to publish the source code to whatever version of Gecko they used, but *their* code, inasmuch as it is not a part of Gecko but uses it through a well-defined interface, remains their own. Any other arrangement completely obliterates any commercial adoption of Mozilla, and I can assure you that that was not Netscape's intent.
Neoplanet isn't derived from Gecko; It uses it as a layout widget. I seriously don't think that Netscape intended to keep commerciasl developers from using Gecko by insisting that any product which used it must me OSS. :)
XF4 should address this issue pretty well :)
it seems to me that the elitist crap quotient around here is going up as fast as the FUD stuff.
e.g.: the INTELLIGENT [used as a collective noun, I might add, which just reeks of looking down your nose @ the rest of us, emph mine] will struggle [or whatever] rather than accept an inferior solution...
or: that's why I get annoyed when technically competent people...complain that Linux is hard to install...
gimmee a break.
end users aren't really stupid. they are often ignorant about computers and operating systems, and for good reason: the point of being an end user is that you don't want to know a damned thing about computers.
you don't. you want to know how to do something that involves the use of a computer. learning about computers is a waste of, say, a research librarian's valuable time. s/he doesn't want to use a computer, s/he just wants to find a bibliographic reference, or create a document, or....
just because our lives (i'm a slolaris admin) revolve around the things that go on inside the box doesn't mean that everone else's should. computers, within society at large, are a means to an end, not an end.
when you're buying 4000 computers, whether or not the hardware is supported by your operating system isn't your only consideration. the OS is just one component of a larger system, and if IBM provides good support and good hardware at reasonable prices (and they do, as hard as it is to believe that i'm saying that), then that is a major factor in your system design.
Linux has beautiful hardware support, but it's not any more perfect than anyone else's, and that an unsupported graphics card merited only a one-line comment is actually remarkable in a good way.
As for installation: I've installed linux at least as many times as I've installed WinXX, and I can tell you a few things:
1) WinXX installation is no picnic. You have to pretty much know what you're doing.
2) Linux (Slackware 2.0,96,3.x, Red Hat 5.0,5.1, SuSE 6.0) is worse.
3) It's not an issue with Linux. It's an issue with installation progs. YaST is kewl. sax didn't work for me, despite the fact that all my hardware was listed (and I selected it).
4) something else.
here's a clue: a lot of us obviously want to see an end to M$ world domination. if you *ever* want to see that, you're going to have to stop treating people like shit just because they don't want to screw with kernel source. because 99% of the world doesn't want to do that. EOS.
^D
I'm not sure why a couple of people are pointing out things that hint at the bias of Capitol Research. It's written all over their faces: there's no such thing as an unfunded think tank.
What's interesting about this one is that they manage to *completely* confuse open-source/proprietary software with open/proprietary *standards*. I think this is just hilarious. And to boot, they threw in the thing about OSS advocates writing to the UN about netscape possibly being an "illegal device" under new copyright treaty, which is beyong being merely a different issue.
*BWAHAHAHAHA*
At least, it would be funny if the "bad guys" didn't have such a large presence in Washington. We've got plenty of people who can write pulchritudinous platitudes for dayz about the wonders of open source software, but if you don't have anyone in Washington to make sure it gets read, well, you're f*^O^*d.
Don't get me wrong: we've got Ralph Nader (for the moment, until our little gadfly is distracted by a shiny object), and we've got James Love. We've got the EFF, the CPD, the VTW, and some other TLAs on the same or somewhat different fronts down in DCTown. However, good as these guys may be, they're a relatively small presence.
I don't mind being run down for my own faults (and Linux has plenty), but it's just insulting when the people trying to take you down don't even know why *they're* doing it. That's the problem with this paper. It misses what little meat is on the bone of this issue, and pulls shit out of its ass to compensate.
I'm not really surprised by the modifications to the definition of Free Software. They are essentially just the codification of the objections that the FSF has to the tenets of the Open Source(tm)(s)(r) movement, and in that sense are essentially not anything new.
What I didn't know, before I had browsed around fsf.org site a bit, was exactly how overboard these people had gone. O fun! O joy! Check out the words-to-avoid page and learn about the new, improved GNUSpek! Helps you avoid "incorrect thinking"! Read about the pitfalls of the Open Source movement (it allows bourgeois companies to take advantage of the "fuzzy thinking" of the proletariat). Come to the FSF web site and correct your wrong thinking!
RMS complains rather vehemently about the injustice of copyright law and the penchant of the SPA of trying to get the government to enforce it. This, it just recently occured to me, ignores one simple fact: copyright law does nothing but create a default bargain between the author/publisher and the user. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you don't want your work to be covered by US copyright law, release it to people under your own agreement, as the FSF does with the GPL. [Technically, it's still covered by US copyright law, but you render that a moot point with the correct agreement terms].
The upshot of all this is that the pigs and the SPA are essentially doing nothing more than making sure that people keep their word, that they abide by the agreement they made in order to get access to the works.
Keeping your word is a good thing, no? And if the software you wanted to use wasn't worth the price you paid for it and the restrictions that came with it, then why did you buy it? There can be no reason. The simple answer is that in some way, for some reason, it WAS worth it.
[ASIDE: Now, that *reason* isn't necessarily just. Refer to the terms "network effect" and "lock-in"]
More importantly, RMS knows this. And yet, rather that merely exhorting people to release their works under an alternative agreement, he rails on and on and on about the evils of copyright, as if changing the default bargain will keep companies from using the most profitable (i.e., generally one of the more restrictive) bargain they can come up with.
But, RMS continues to rail on about how copyright violates the Right Of The People(tm) to share software with their neighbors.
Let me get this straight: I've got something in my head. You don't have any damned right to anything with it. Now, if I write it down and don't share it with you, you still don't have any damned right to it (and thus far, couldn't do anything about it if you did).
But, if you and I come to an agreement about the conditions under which I will show it to you (and only you), then you somehow magically gain the right to blab it out to everybody once I turn my back? Is this true even when you promised me you wouldn't? " Cooperation is more important than copyright," true, but keeping your word is often more important than cooperation. Personally, I think RMS is so concerned that the argument be viewed in his light because he'd like to see a lack of protection for creators and publishers enshrined in the consitution he refers to so much.
Don't get me wrong: I pirate [hah!] my fair share of shit. I sometimes even pirate stuff that I could afford to buy. However, I view this as something akin to petty theft (when I can afford it), and something a bit less than that when I can't. I certainly don't delude myself into thinking it's my right. And I don't worry about the SPA showing up on my doorstep either: it isn't the least bit interested in stopping piracy that doesn't result in a loss of income; it's just interested in making sure that those who can pay are scared enough to. As far as the SPA showing up and auditing businesses, more power to 'em! If a company is using software to make money, then it oughtta by golly be prepared to share the wealth with the people who gave them the software thant helped them make the money. And that's just all I've got to say about that.
RMS also complains at length about the fact that publishers profit more than artists from copyright non-infringement, although I'm not sure exactly how relevant this is given his contention that artists don't have any more right to a work than users do.
This ignores yet another blatantly true statement: if authors didn't make more money by
going through a publisher than by not, then they would not.
Now, I agree with all the Utopians out there on this point: that era's probably gonna come to a close pretty soon. Just ask the RIAA. And to that, I say "good riddance!" But to imply that, in the present day, a publisher's income from things that don't get
pirated is somehow ill-gotten gains, despite the money that the publisher put into it (manufacturing, marketing, etc.) is ludicrous. Percentage-wise, publishing a book or a program is probably a bigger gamble for the publisher than it is for the author. As ye sew, so shall ye reap, or something like that.
Also, don't get me wrong on two other counts:
a) I hate big software business and big publishing business, and nobody's ever accused me of being an unfettered free-market guy. I just don't have an objection in principle to the line of work they're in.
b) The pathetic results of my programming endeavors are available under the GPL. It's a :P. However, I don't think that all software must be free, nor that it's everyone's responsibility to support only free software.
good license, and I used it because I wanted to contribute back to the community. So I did. I think I'll list it on Freshmeat in a couple of weeks. Watch out soon for subScript, the wonderfully inept text-to-PS convoita! I love free software, and I'm not opposed to it, either
cheers ya'll,
-k. ^-^
I'm not really surprised by the modifications to the definition of Free Software. They are essentially just the codification of the objections that the FSF has to the tenets of the Open Source(tm)(s)(r) movement, and in that sense are essentially not anything new. What I didn't know, before I had browsed around fsf.org site a bit, was exactly how overboard these people had gone. O fun! O joy! Check out the words-to-avoid page and learn about the new, improved GNUSpek! Helps you avoid "incorrect thinking"! Read about the pitfalls of the Open Source movement (it allows bourgeois companies to take advantage of the "fuzzy thinking" of the proletariat). Come to the FSF web site and correct your wrong thinking! RMS complains rather vehemently about the injustice of copyright law and the penchant of the SPA of trying to get the government to enforce it. This, it just recently occured to me, ignores one simple fact: copyright law does nothing but create a default bargain between the author/publisher and the user. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. If you don't want your work to be covered by US copyright law, release it to people under your own agreement, as the FSF does with the GPL. [Technically, it's still covered by US copyright law, but you render that a moot point with the correct agreement terms]. The upshot of all this is that the pigs and the SPA are essentially doing nothing more than making sure that people keep their word, that they abide by the agreement they made in order to get access to the works. Keeping your word is a good thing, no? And if the software you wanted to use wasn't worth the price you paid for it and the restrictions that came with it, then why did you buy it? There can be no reason. The simple answer is that in some way, for some reason, it WAS worth it. [ASIDE: Now, that *reason* isn't necessarily just. Refer to the terms "network effect" and "lock-in"] More importantly, RMS knows this. And yet, rather that merely exhorting people to release their works under an alternative agreement, he rails on and on and on about the evils of copyright, as if changing the default bargain will keep companies from using the most profitable (i.e., generally one of the more restrictive) bargain they can come up with. But, RMS continues to rail on about how copyright violates the Right Of The People(tm) to share software with their neighbors. Let me get this straight: I've got something in my head. You don't have any damned right to anything with it. Now, if I write it down and don't share it with you, you still don't have any damned right to it (and thus far, couldn't do anything about it if you did). But, if you and I come to an agreement about the conditions under which I will show it to you (and only you), then you somehow magically gain the right to blab it out to everybody once I turn my back? Is this true even when you promised me you wouldn't? " Cooperation is more important than copyright," true, but keeping your word is often more important than cooperation. Personally, I think RMS is so concerned that the argument be viewed in his light because he'd like to see a lack of protection for creators and publishers enshrined in the consitution he refers to so much. Don't get me wrong: I pirate [hah!] my fair share of shit. I sometimes even pirate stuff that I could afford to buy. However, I view this as something akin to petty theft (when I can afford it), and something a bit less than that when I can't. I certainly don't delude myself into thinking it's my right. And I don't worry about the SPA showing up on my doorstep either: it isn't the least bit interested in stopping piracy that doesn't result in a loss of income; it's just interested in making sure that those who can pay are scared enough to. As far as the SPA showing up and auditing businesses, more power to 'em! If a company is using software to make money, then it oughtta by golly be prepared to share the wealth with the people who gave them the software thant helped them make the money. And that's just all I've got to say about that. RMS also complains at length about the fact that publishers profit more than artists from copyright non-infringement, although I'm not sure exactly how relevant this is given his contention that artists don't have any more right to a work than users do. This ignores yet another blatantly true statement: if authors didn't make more money by going through a publisher than by not, then they would not. Now, I agree with all the Utopians out there on this point: that era's probably gonna come to a close pretty soon. Just ask the RIAA. And to that, I say "good riddance!" But to imply that, in the present day, a publisher's income from things that don't get pirated is somehow ill-gotten gains, despite the money that the publisher put into it (manufacturing, marketing, etc.) is ludicrous. Percentage-wise, publishing a book or a program is probably a bigger gamble for the publisher than it is for the author. As ye sew, so shall ye reap, or something like that. Also, don't get me wrong on two other counts: a) I hate big software business and big publishing business, and nobody's ever accused me of being an unfettered free-market guy. I just don't have an objection in principle to the line of work they're in. b) The pathetic results of my programming endeavors are available under the GPL. It's a good license, and I used it because I wanted to contribute back to the community. So I did. I think I'll list it on Freshmeat in a couple of weeks. Watch out soon for subScript, the wonderfully inept text-to-PS convoita! I love free software, and I'm not opposed to it, either :P. However, I don't think that all software must be free, nor that it's everyone's responsibility to support only free software. cheers ya'll, -k. ^-^ a) I hate big software business and big publishing business, and nobody's ever accused me of being an unfettered free-market guy. I just don't have an objection in principle to the line of work they're in. b) The pathetic results of my programming endeavors are available under the GPL. It's a good license, and I used it because I wanted to contribute back to the community. So I did. I think I'll list it on Freshmeat in a couple of weeks. Watch out soon for subScript, the wonderfully inept text-to-PS convoita! I love free software, and I'm not opposed to it, either :P. However, I don't think that all software must be free, nor that it's everyone's responsibility to support only free software.
It really hurts to have to choose, but I'd pick raul's first, too. then maybe....
I wonder if a slashdot poll would be kewl on this?
Or maybe it would piss off the Gimp people...