flops = floating point operation per second flop = Gigli
The article got it mostly right. It mentioned 500-teraflop once, but every other time it spelled flops correctly. Slashdot, on the other hand, fucked up the title, despite the fact that it pretty much just copied it from the article (poorly).
Now if we could just get all websites to stop depending on the damn Acrobat Reader plugin. I kid you not- I have had to fight several sites we must use at work that, instead of just offering links to necessary PDF files, they check "to make sure you have the Acrobat Plugin installed" and pull some type of plugin call. Extremely annoying.
That is terrible. I've never seen that before, and as you admit by "I kid you not" it isn't very common. It seems more like part of the "retarded webmasters" problem. I don't think that is a problem that we are ever likely to fix. We could try making it more difficult to write web pages, but that hasn't worked for C.
Most of us *hate* the Acrobat Reader plugin, we don't WANT to have to look at a PDF file embedded into the web browser.... it is slower, less flexible, doesn't offer all the controls, often doesn't free memory after you close that "page", and doesn't allow us to use some other reader.
I tried to use google to find a reference for the "adobe acrobat cringe" but could not. It is a phenomenon whereby a person will cringe after finding out that they accidentally clicked a pdf, and now have to wait 20 seconds for adobe to load.
And if I had a dollar for every site that claims I *MUST* have Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to look at a damn PDF file, I would be rich.
I've seen this. A lot. I would be rich too. It is a serious problem, and I think too many of us web viewers don't take the time to e-mail the webmasters, and inform them of their terrible mistake. It is too easy for us to just ignore it, and use our selected viewer.
If this thing worked, than it would already be working. There are plenty of people out there attempting to "teach someone a lesson" by scamming them out of their money. Sometimes the lesson takes, and sometimes it doesn't. The thing is, actually scamming someone out of their money is a stronger lesson than pretending to, and in the millenia that this has been happening, it hasn't significantly lowered the number of gullible people on this planet.
What would mandates inclusions to an EULA do to the GPL or BSD licenses[?]
Nothing. EULA means "end user license agreement." GPL and BSD are each "distribution licenses." By default, a person is allowed to do anything they want with things they purchase, and a EULA is designed to restrict that. By default, a person is never allowed to distribute someone else's copyrighted works (with some fair use exceptions), and a free distribution license is designed to be more permissible in that regard.
I'm not one to fuss much about UI design... but there are still parts of the OS where they simply split apart a window with tabs in it, didn't even bother removing the tabs, and dumped it into it's own window.
So, you aren't one to fuss about UI design, but you will fuss over a minor cosmetic defect? Also, you borked the link. Here is one that works, and after looking at it, it looks fine, despite being exactly what you describe. With all of the problems with Windows, and even GNU/Linux and software in general, including genuine UI problems (UAC), a minor cosmetic defect is nothing to fuss about.
I was thinking the exact same thing when I read that. Apparently, MS completely borks their version scheme. To them, Beta means Tech Demo, RC means early Alpha, Gold means Beta, SP1 means RC, and SP2 means release quality.
To be fair to MS, versioning is ambiguously defined, and lots of projects get it terribly wrong. It's almost become meaningless.
Indeed it is a stupid question. Turn signals are something that the user consciously uses, these morons are attempting to add something automatic to phones, and something that the user probably doesn't want. Turn signals are a feature; this is DRM (although the restrictions don't necessarily have to be digital).
So you are saying other doctors would approve of your pharmaceutical whore doctor? You are saying medical review boards would approve of a doctor taking bribes from these companies when it would put his or her patients at risk?
Nope. I'm saying compare apples to apples. Try to not have such selective observation.
Yet, in the IT field I am seeing plenty of "professionals" who think it is okay to take advantage of anyone who doesn't understand computers, to the point of selling the shoddiest crap I've ever seen. They've even indoctrinated most users into thinking computers are supposed to be quirky and strange.
There are bad apples in every profession. Including IT, but not exclusive to it.
It's taking advantage of people who don't have technical knowledge about the subject. I suppose the IT sector loves to do this, but in most fields it is frowned upon...at least in professional circles. What would you think if, say, a doctor did this?
That's an inaccurate claim. In all fields, including medicine, there are untrustworthy professionals. Doctors will frequently recommend surgery even if it isn't needed. They will prescribe drugs that aren't needed to keep a patient coming back. Pharmaceutical companies will sponsor a doctor's med school education with the requirement that the doctor prescribe their drugs as much as possible, even where something less harsh would do. Mechanics, florists, retail outlets, no industry is immune. There are people in every industry who will rip off their customers given the chance. My guess is that you only singled out IT because IT is something that you are familiar with. Perhaps you would not recognize if a plumber or a landscaper were ripping you off, but that only makes it more likely.
It looks like we've all gone a bit off topic, but that's OK with me, as the original topic is just Slashdot filler.
I've been wondering, and it seems like you might know. How well do laser printers work if you don't use them? I mean, ink jet cartridge heads will clog if you don't print something out at least every few weeks, and I hardly ever need to print something. Ink jet heads will clog quickly after they are empty, too. How well would a laser printer handle my situation?
That is a very good point. Nowhere in the article does it say anything about a technical investigation, which would at the very least include things such as looking at the raw message received by her friends, and comparing them with messages that would have been sent by the woman in the story. For example, if this woman regularly uses Outlook to send e-mails, then the X-Mailer field would have the words, "Microsoft" and "Outlook". But if a hacker wrote the e-mails, then the X-Mailer field might be blank, or might have another label. The "Received:" fields would be helpful too.
If this was a hacker attack, it would likely be easily proved using this method. There is no way they could prove that it wasn't; all they could do is look for every potential discrepancy, and find none. However, it appears that they did not try either, which is unfortunate.
Without a master password, a trojan horse running on your system can steal all your passwords.
A master password does not protect against trojans. All the trojan has to do is wait until you've typed your password at the master password prompt, and BOOM! your entire password safe is stolen. Master passwords are like multi-user security on a single user system. Seems like it would add to security, until you really think about it.
Too many leaders know one or two things about leadership, but fail miserably with all the other requirements. A better test for leadership is knowing when to say, "fuck you all" and when to say, "I hear you. We'll do it your way."
Another test is knowing how to word your thoughts and ideas appropriately. For example, instead of saying, "fuck you all", try saying "no".
The last leadership qualities I will bring up are respect and logic. Censorship betrays both.
These people already has their answer. DRM prevents piracy. Sure, we all know that it isn't true, but judging by what their rep says, they are only seeking to prove that there is something good about DRM, and this "trial" is only to prove that they are right, not to actually gather information. No matter what the results are, they will claim that they have confirmation of what they already believe.
Several problems with the article. No mention of metric, as parent said. No mention of what Linux-based OS they used. Choice quotes like the following, "but Linux is 'always faster' than Vista or Mac OS X -- to the tune of 1% to 2% -- because like Windows 2000, 'it never runs anything in the background.'" What do background applications have to do with anything? And both Windows 2000 and all Linux distros run stuff in the background. Even DOS does that.
Slashdot Mirror
I would almost put money on Comcast being stripped of their contract and replaced by Cox.
Oh! The irony!
flops = floating point operation per second
flop = Gigli
The article got it mostly right. It mentioned 500-teraflop once, but every other time it spelled flops correctly. Slashdot, on the other hand, fucked up the title, despite the fact that it pretty much just copied it from the article (poorly).
Now if we could just get all websites to stop depending on the damn Acrobat Reader plugin. I kid you not- I have had to fight several sites we must use at work that, instead of just offering links to necessary PDF files, they check "to make sure you have the Acrobat Plugin installed" and pull some type of plugin call. Extremely annoying.
That is terrible. I've never seen that before, and as you admit by "I kid you not" it isn't very common. It seems more like part of the "retarded webmasters" problem. I don't think that is a problem that we are ever likely to fix. We could try making it more difficult to write web pages, but that hasn't worked for C.
Most of us *hate* the Acrobat Reader plugin, we don't WANT to have to look at a PDF file embedded into the web browser.... it is slower, less flexible, doesn't offer all the controls, often doesn't free memory after you close that "page", and doesn't allow us to use some other reader.
I tried to use google to find a reference for the "adobe acrobat cringe" but could not. It is a phenomenon whereby a person will cringe after finding out that they accidentally clicked a pdf, and now have to wait 20 seconds for adobe to load.
And if I had a dollar for every site that claims I *MUST* have Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to look at a damn PDF file, I would be rich.
I've seen this. A lot. I would be rich too. It is a serious problem, and I think too many of us web viewers don't take the time to e-mail the webmasters, and inform them of their terrible mistake. It is too easy for us to just ignore it, and use our selected viewer.
If this thing worked, than it would already be working. There are plenty of people out there attempting to "teach someone a lesson" by scamming them out of their money. Sometimes the lesson takes, and sometimes it doesn't. The thing is, actually scamming someone out of their money is a stronger lesson than pretending to, and in the millenia that this has been happening, it hasn't significantly lowered the number of gullible people on this planet.
What would mandates inclusions to an EULA do to the GPL or BSD licenses[?]
Nothing. EULA means "end user license agreement." GPL and BSD are each "distribution licenses." By default, a person is allowed to do anything they want with things they purchase, and a EULA is designed to restrict that. By default, a person is never allowed to distribute someone else's copyrighted works (with some fair use exceptions), and a free distribution license is designed to be more permissible in that regard.
I'm not one to fuss much about UI design ... but there are still parts of the OS where they simply split apart a window with tabs in it, didn't even bother removing the tabs, and dumped it into it's own window.
So, you aren't one to fuss about UI design, but you will fuss over a minor cosmetic defect? Also, you borked the link. Here is one that works, and after looking at it, it looks fine, despite being exactly what you describe. With all of the problems with Windows, and even GNU/Linux and software in general, including genuine UI problems (UAC), a minor cosmetic defect is nothing to fuss about.
Working link to minor cosmetic defect
I was thinking the exact same thing when I read that. Apparently, MS completely borks their version scheme. To them, Beta means Tech Demo, RC means early Alpha, Gold means Beta, SP1 means RC, and SP2 means release quality.
To be fair to MS, versioning is ambiguously defined, and lots of projects get it terribly wrong. It's almost become meaningless.
I wonder if this will be as good as gmailfs.
The cell phone is mightier than the gun! (Edward Bulwer-Lytton adapted to the 21st century)
Indeed it is a stupid question. Turn signals are something that the user consciously uses, these morons are attempting to add something automatic to phones, and something that the user probably doesn't want. Turn signals are a feature; this is DRM (although the restrictions don't necessarily have to be digital).
let us PLEASE fill the Senate and HOR 50/50 with each party.
The most accurate acronym ever comes from the department who likes to make ironic acronyms.
So you are saying other doctors would approve of your pharmaceutical whore doctor? You are saying medical review boards would approve of a doctor taking bribes from these companies when it would put his or her patients at risk?
Nope. I'm saying compare apples to apples. Try to not have such selective observation.
Yet, in the IT field I am seeing plenty of "professionals" who think it is okay to take advantage of anyone who doesn't understand computers, to the point of selling the shoddiest crap I've ever seen. They've even indoctrinated most users into thinking computers are supposed to be quirky and strange.
There are bad apples in every profession. Including IT, but not exclusive to it.
It's taking advantage of people who don't have technical knowledge about the subject. I suppose the IT sector loves to do this, but in most fields it is frowned upon...at least in professional circles. What would you think if, say, a doctor did this?
That's an inaccurate claim. In all fields, including medicine, there are untrustworthy professionals. Doctors will frequently recommend surgery even if it isn't needed. They will prescribe drugs that aren't needed to keep a patient coming back. Pharmaceutical companies will sponsor a doctor's med school education with the requirement that the doctor prescribe their drugs as much as possible, even where something less harsh would do. Mechanics, florists, retail outlets, no industry is immune. There are people in every industry who will rip off their customers given the chance. My guess is that you only singled out IT because IT is something that you are familiar with. Perhaps you would not recognize if a plumber or a landscaper were ripping you off, but that only makes it more likely.
It looks like we've all gone a bit off topic, but that's OK with me, as the original topic is just Slashdot filler.
I've been wondering, and it seems like you might know. How well do laser printers work if you don't use them? I mean, ink jet cartridge heads will clog if you don't print something out at least every few weeks, and I hardly ever need to print something. Ink jet heads will clog quickly after they are empty, too. How well would a laser printer handle my situation?
http://www.bbspot.com/News/2006/12/leisure-suit-larry-wii.html
Awwww. That's almost cute. You think you've discovered DRM that works.
On screen this is probably going to be more headache than its worth.
On screen it isn't worth anything. But really, this is obviously a gimmick with little to no benefit. Much like Blackle.
That is a very good point. Nowhere in the article does it say anything about a technical investigation, which would at the very least include things such as looking at the raw message received by her friends, and comparing them with messages that would have been sent by the woman in the story. For example, if this woman regularly uses Outlook to send e-mails, then the X-Mailer field would have the words, "Microsoft" and "Outlook". But if a hacker wrote the e-mails, then the X-Mailer field might be blank, or might have another label. The "Received:" fields would be helpful too.
If this was a hacker attack, it would likely be easily proved using this method. There is no way they could prove that it wasn't; all they could do is look for every potential discrepancy, and find none. However, it appears that they did not try either, which is unfortunate.
Without a master password, a trojan horse running on your system can steal all your passwords.
A master password does not protect against trojans. All the trojan has to do is wait until you've typed your password at the master password prompt, and BOOM! your entire password safe is stolen. Master passwords are like multi-user security on a single user system. Seems like it would add to security, until you really think about it.
Doctor Who thwarts the Dalek invasion of Earth. Earth is not destroyed. None of the main characters die.
Too many leaders know one or two things about leadership, but fail miserably with all the other requirements. A better test for leadership is knowing when to say, "fuck you all" and when to say, "I hear you. We'll do it your way."
Another test is knowing how to word your thoughts and ideas appropriately. For example, instead of saying, "fuck you all", try saying "no".
The last leadership qualities I will bring up are respect and logic. Censorship betrays both.
These people already has their answer. DRM prevents piracy. Sure, we all know that it isn't true, but judging by what their rep says, they are only seeking to prove that there is something good about DRM, and this "trial" is only to prove that they are right, not to actually gather information. No matter what the results are, they will claim that they have confirmation of what they already believe.
Nice try, Bill.
No. If you FTFA
Fuck the fucking article? Sounds like fun, but how does it help?
Several problems with the article. No mention of metric, as parent said. No mention of what Linux-based OS they used. Choice quotes like the following, "but Linux is 'always faster' than Vista or Mac OS X -- to the tune of 1% to 2% -- because like Windows 2000, 'it never runs anything in the background.'" What do background applications have to do with anything? And both Windows 2000 and all Linux distros run stuff in the background. Even DOS does that.
To top it off, the article is spread out over 3 pages. Here's the print link: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Storage&articleId=9123140&taxonomyId=19