All they did was say that some people get all worked up about it. If they thought they were wrong, they wouldn't have used it. Kudos to c|net for not using the incorrect term "cracking" like so many people do.
If this isn't eventually resolved between the site operators and IDG, then I'm sure that threatening words will occur, but this current letter was entirely civil.
And they and other companies don't send letters off whenever their name is simply used. The key is that they thought this was a Chat Room, not the title of an e-mail. It would be like the difference between an AOL user posting on a forum board about a hypothetical "...for Dummies" book and AOL starting a "_____ for Dummies" chat room. I don't think too many people would disagree that IDG would be within their rights to ask that AOL stop hosting the chat room.
Again, it sounds like a misunderstanding on IDG's part. Plumpy should be an adult, realize that people do sometimes make mistakes, and politely inform them of that. If IDG doesn't take him at his word, then come back and bitch.
And people wonder why Slashdot can be such a haven for trolls...
Why do you feel the need to respond to them so immaturely? What they sent to you seemed polite in every way. Honest mistakes happen all the time; most mature adults have learned to repond to them graciously rather than in a childishly antagonistic way. I'd suggest politely pointing out that they were mistaken in that it was just a message title (as well as a request for such a book to be published) and not a chat room. Do you really expect to gain sympathy from anyone above the age of 12 by displaying such juvenility?
I also remember all the confusion and all the time and energy and bandwidth wasted sorting out the confusion and incompatibilities. It was a Good Thing (or at least a Better Thing) when things got resolved, but if you really do remember the situation at the time it was going on, then I'm astounded by your nonchalance just because that incident is for the most part behind us.
When the hype dies down and people start to look at Linux with a critical eye, things like your example would be a serious black eye for any hopes of large-scale Linux acceptance. And with the commercial vultures, er vendors, entering the fray, it's more likely to happen in the future. How do you think it would bode for Linux's acceptance in the non-hobbyist community if two or three or four such forks were going on at the same time?
Cheers, ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Ignorance doesn't help *your* cause
on
Microsoft Cracked
·
· Score: 2
Dell does millions of dollars of business in half an hour on the web?
I know you thought you were being cute by taking the previous poster literally, but you might want to take a look at Dell's financials.
If you did, you'd know that in the last month of the quarter (July), Dell's internet sales reached $30 million per day. With an average of over a million dollars per hour, it should come as no surprise that they'd be pulling in "millions" for some 30-minute periods during normal U.S. business hours.
And that's just pure sales, that's not even counting the costs of any future business lost by frustrated buyers who might switch or develop loyalties to IBM or Compaq.
Chris, first off, don't base your opinion of America on anything that Jon Katz writes. He has a severely distorted picture of reality. The oddest thing is that he thinks he's saying something different than the mainstream media.
As to your questions, I definitely wouldn't say that someone saying that he believed in God means that religion is a big force in his life. There's a big difference between committing oneself to one's religion and just saying, "Yeah, I guess there's a God."
Pat Buchanan's isn't considered a mainstream candidate by anyone. He's far right on some things, and far left on others -- I just think he's an opportunist willing to subvert his own views for the promise of millions of Reform Party dollars. Please don't make the mistake, however, that a lot of people here are and think that he's some kind of Hitler-lover. He's not. I wouldn't vote for him, but the people who are trying to tag him with that label are either intellectual dullards or plain intellectually dishonest. You know, the same kind of politically correct people that have made it impossible to have an honest dialogue on racial issues.
Again, put more trust in what you saw with your own eyes here than what the Christianity-hating U.S. media or Jon Katz tells you. And y'all come back some time, ya hear?
"In the post-Columbine era, when computer games, the Net and other elements of geek culture are being blamed for murder,..."
You know, some people out there really do have tough lives, a lot rougher on average than people who actually have the means to own their own computers. If you're going to assume the position of mouthpiece for "the geek cause," please don't make the voice a whiny one.
Cheers, ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
P.S. Sorry if this was already posted, but I kept getting sent to the Preview page every time I would submit this. Odd...
Of course you can't predict everything. Nobody's talking about a setup where a computer reads a list of variables about a person and spits out an order to have that person sent to an asylum. It's just a tool to help humans identify potential problems.
Everybody likes to think that they're so complicated that profiling wouldn't work on them. It's always a little ego jolt to think that one isn't the free-thinker he thought he was. "Who, me? Predictable? Bah!" Well, I hate to break it to you, but people generally do break down into nice, neat little categories. That's why FBI profiling is so successful.
Secondly, it's not about trying to understand all the intracacies of the brain -- it's about recognizing common patterns of behavior in people, something computers are great at. Real profilers know what they're doing -- don't confuse them with your high school principal making a list of kids wearing "Ozzy Rules" shirts.
Most people do define competition in terms of functionality, not by license terms. Besides, I think you're being awfully petty by complaining about Hemos's use of the word competition just because this software isn't an option for you. I myself don't use page layout software, but that doesn't mean that I pretend that there isn't competition between Quark and Adobe.
Taking a look at his site, I'm pretty impressed with the work Paul Nolan's done with this, but I'm a bit skeptical that many Linux users will shell out $99 for this software -- that's the price for the Amiga version, anyway.
It looks like he's designed it to be pretty portable, so hopefully he won't be sinking too many resources into supporting any one platform, and hopefully it will help him to further expand the number of platforms as time goes by. Whatever the case, well done and best of luck to him and other entrepreneurs of his ilk.
On related note, ActivePerl (Perl for Win32) 5.6, which is due out next month will have support for fork(), so one of the biggest portability hurdles in moving your scripts from Unix to Win32 should disappear.
To summarize: Lion asks wolf and fox to team up to kill a deer. Fox tricks deer into the open, wolf chases deer to wolf, Lion kills deer. Lion eats most of the carcass ("the lion's share"), leaving only scraps for the fox and wolf.
This implies that the Open Source community is getting shafted after contributing equally to Java, Jini, etc. That's nuts. Sun put up the R&D money and paid for the coders to come up with these things. Nor would the Open Source community's efforts be equal to the people that Sun is paying -- most of the non-paid contributions would be in the form of bug fixes, which, while important, pale in comparison to the huge effort in actually designing a beast like Java in the first place.
Sorry, but to me, this whole thing smacks of the Open Source community being unable to come up with ideas of its own and then slamming other companies when they won't hand over their creations. If you don't like the license, then don't use it -- find someone else's code to tweak or (Wow, here's an idea!), actually create something yourself. As Joy himself said, they "are not doing SCSL for the Linux community. If they believe they are a 'gift' culture, fine, but we are working to enable commercial and entrepreneurial investment."
Primary Risk: You get that Richard Stallman - Jon "maddog" Hall - Alan Cox look going.
For the companies like Sun Microsystems that are struggling with their decision whether or not to suppport Open Source, there's still hope. With Halloween fast approaching, a number of stores will be carrying those fake ZZ Top beards, giving everyone from the CEO to the boys in the mailroom the opportunity to get their feet wet with the Open Source way of life.
Here is a different shot that I saw when I originally submitted this story yesterday. Guess Slashdot didn't think my post was good enough.:-P Anyway, I've got to admit that I find the resolution a bit disappointing. The color's still not too shabby, though.
Yes, it seems to be a myth. Back in the days, while I had to make a fake ID for myself, my underage friends in the military only had to show their military IDs and they never had a problem. And believe you me, we tried more than our fair share of bars. Seems like an unwritten rule in the bar biz, and, IMO, a good one.
Before I begin, let me say that I find your attitude disgusting. Why the Hell do you think you deserve software? Nobody does -- not Mac users, Linux users, or Windows users. It's bad enough that we have tons of kiddies screaming whenever a company whose software they use won't give them the source code to said software (Hell, it turns out that even that isn't enough if the company does such an evil thing as use a license other than the GPL -- just ask Sun, Apple, or TrollTech). But now, companies are expected to write whatever software that "Ronin47" wants to use? I think not.
So tell me, and I'm being serious here, what have you done to deserve software? If you haven't given something to the company/author in return, whether it's money, services, etc., then I say you've done nothing.
Atari, Beos, Vic-20, OS/400, Amiga, QNX, RiscOS, PalmOS, WinCE, and TRS-80 users are every bit as much "REAL PEOPLE" as Mac and Linux users. Under your plan, don't they "DESERVE SOFTWARE" as well? Now tell me, how many companies can afford to make software supporting all those "REAL PEOPLE"? There might be a handful if they're really lucky, but I can tell you that none of the gaming companies can afford it.
Now, to what really annoyed me. We're living in the Information Age -- you want software? Go write it yourself. All the resources are there waiting to be used. Too cheap to buy a programming book? Look it up on the web. You think all the game programmers who made the big time started out earning six and seven figures? Slashdot recently published an interesting John Carmack interview that you might want to read. How many times do you think he sat around on his ass posting to message boards that he deserves to have software made for him?
Drop the Jihad bullshit and start coding. And be sure to let me know when I'll be able to use your software on my old Commodore 64.
Unfortunately, I think MS has definitely seen the way: if people who communicate in non-latin based languages can't input characters, they're not gonna use your software!
Why is this unfortunate? It's helped me a tremendous deal when communicating with Japanese friends (My Japanese is improving, but still not great -- the more I can practice it in real life situations, the better). Anyway, it seems to me like Microsoft's doing a great thing here and I'm not seeing what you have against it.
A bug could be something as benign as displaying the wrong font size in tables, but declaring this a "vulnerability" lets you know right away that you better install the fix.
Actually, I don't consider this a bug anyway, but instead a security hole. That is, the feature works as it was designed to, but a lack of foresight in the design resulted in the security hole.
It affected IE5 on Win95 and Win98, but not NT. There was an unchecked buffer involved in the code, so a hacker could present a malformed icon which would overrun the buffer and then run arbitrary code on the victim's box. I imagine you haven't heard much about it because it was patched back in May.
Seriously, Jon, I'd like to know. Well, I know what the point is for you -- you felt somewhat of an obligation now that you're writing for Slashdot, proving the naysayers here wrong, etc. -- but what would be the point of such a switch for someone not in that unique position?
After spending a whole year with it, PPP still isn't working properly for you, and you had to get someone else to put your computer together for you. For that much trouble, I was hoping to hear what it is about Linux that would be worth switching from your Mac. Well, I can't find anything more substantial in your article than "mov[ing] things around, kill[ing] a few programs, and... checking the Term windows." What is one to make of this?
I think your article unintentionally makes a strong point that is often drowned out here at Slashdot: For many people, maybe even most, the faddishness of Linux just isn't worth it. You've been plugging away at it for a year now, but what do you really have to show for all that time spent, other than feeling like "[your] own particular geek now"?
As an aside, Jon, I'd also like to explain one reason why some of us get irritated with your articles, and it's not because you don't know as much technically as some people here (or more probably, as some people here claim they have). It's the way that you (mis)appropriate the word "Geek" to refer to just about about person with positive qualities. You write, "The term 'geek' is broadening and evolving daily, and is coming to mean different, complex and increasingly positive things to people." Now, I think if someone's reading material consisted only of your writings, that they'd agree, but that's because you seemingly use it to describe anything you like. Your statement near the end of the article seems to go along with this, too: "I am my own particular kind of geek now." The whole thing smacks of pandering to the crowd here, and I know that's what annoys a lot of people here, especially since you yourself rail against the mainstream media's constant pandering to other crowds.
But this isn't what you originally said. You were claiming that Linux had nothing original.
Yes, I still claim it, I'm not backing away from that statement at all.
If you want to point out to some people that their thinking is hypocritical, you need to have a solid airtight argument or they'll tear you to pieces. Allow me: Linux is made of components either taken or cloned from other operating systems. To say that it's wrong for Microsoft to pick and choose the best ideas from other software you need to admit that it's wrong for Microsoft to do the same.
OK, I'm a little lost here. I'm assuming you meant to type "Linux" one of those places where you typed "Microsoft," but I can't tell which place -- i.e., I don't know if you're trying to make your own argument against me, or if you're telling me the argument that I should've used. A little clarification?
I think you're taking your own feelings on this and projecting them onto the Linux community as a whole. I don't think that's the case, though -- just about anytime Microsoft buys a company, there are posts from Linux users slamming their innovation or lack thereof. I think *you* "get it," but most of the posters I see around here don't.
Well, I'm heading out for the evening, and possibly the weekend, so if you respond, I won't get to see it for a while -- so don't think I'm cutting out on the debate. Thanks for the reasoned discussion.
[Just thought it'd be easier than posting five separate ones with a lot of overlap.]
DanaL writes:"No one, that I see, ever claims that Linux is innovative and bleeding edge. [...] If there is innovation, it is in the software development model.
People claim that by implication all the time here, by criticizing Microsoft when it comes to innovation. Hell, the Microsoft logo is the freakin' Bill Gates Borg thing. As for your second assertion, the Unix community had been doing this long before Linux came along. Later in your article you show the exact hypocrisy that I'm talking about: "Microsoft steals ideas and claims them as it's own. Linux cheerfully borrows good ideas!"
zantispam writes: "I defy you to prove [that there hasn't been any innovation in the history of Linux]. Yours is the burden of evidence."
No, it's not my burden of evidence, because there is no evidence that there's ever been innovation there. How could I go about proving that something doesn't exist? You could easily refute me, however, if you were to give a few (Hell, even one would be nice) examples of Linux innovation.
John Fulmer writes: "1. Linux has never clamed someone else's works as 'innovative' and then actively tries to drive the origional company out of business. 2. Linux is about making software available to EVERYONE free of charge."
Again, your latter example has nothing to do with Linux innovation, because GNU predated Linux for quite a while. As for your first point, you seem to imply that Microsoft did this. Please cite some examples of when they've done that unprovoked.
Kitsune Sushi writes: "GNU was meant to be a Unix clone. Therefore, a lot of software had to be rewritten from scratch, so that it would be free. If you think that points to a lack of innovation, I'd like to see you make an OS from scratch without copying anyone else's ideas for any reason. [...] You think Berlin isn't innovative?"
LOL. This is just too rich. So even though Linux has been around for 8 years now, the only innovative thing you can come up with when pressed is a project just celebrating its 0.1.0 release? Kitsune, could you please find something that's at least at 1.0. (Naturally, no offense intended to the Berlin team.)
As for your first point: No, it's not innovation. Innovation is coming up with new ideas, not a bunch of codemonkeys getting together and banging away until they finally get a functional copy of a previously existing app.
scumdamn writes: "If Microsoft wants to clone something first done in the Linux community, they're free to do so. If they want to embrace and extend, copy source code and make it proprietary, or spread FUD about Linux, they're not. [...] fvwm95 blatantly copied the Windows 'look & feel' and that didn't piss anyone off."
Organizations can't spread FUD about each other or embrace and extend? Come on. As far as copying source code, I don't see why Slashdotters would care about it -- I sure don't see too many complaining about violating other forms of Intellectual Property, namely when it comes to recorded music.
Regarding your second point, Apple's always had NIH syndrome, something that thankfully has never affected Microsoft. Whoever I'm getting my operating system from, I want then to take all the best ideas out there -- I couldn't care less where they originated. And I think that most Linux users feel the same way (just don't ever tell them when they're using one of Microsoft's innovations or be prepared to get your head bitten off!;-). I have no complaints about Linux being filled with ideas taken from elsewhere -- I use Linux and, frankly, I'd be majorly pissed if they succumbed to Not Invented Here bollocks. The raison d'etre for my original post wasn't to slam Linux itself, not at all, just to point out a flaw in the thinking of a large number of its users.
Well, I tried to answer everyone, yet still keep this from being a book, but that meant that I ended up cutting a lot. Soooo, if you think I glossed over a good point that you made, just reply and I'll try to answer it.
Slashdot Mirror
All they did was say that some people get all worked up about it. If they thought they were wrong, they wouldn't have used it. Kudos to c|net for not using the incorrect term "cracking" like so many people do.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
If this isn't eventually resolved between the site operators and IDG, then I'm sure that threatening words will occur, but this current letter was entirely civil.
And they and other companies don't send letters off whenever their name is simply used. The key is that they thought this was a Chat Room, not the title of an e-mail. It would be like the difference between an AOL user posting on a forum board about a hypothetical "...for Dummies" book and AOL starting a "_____ for Dummies" chat room. I don't think too many people would disagree that IDG would be within their rights to ask that AOL stop hosting the chat room.
Again, it sounds like a misunderstanding on IDG's part. Plumpy should be an adult, realize that people do sometimes make mistakes, and politely inform them of that. If IDG doesn't take him at his word, then come back and bitch.
And people wonder why Slashdot can be such a haven for trolls...
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Why do you feel the need to respond to them so immaturely? What they sent to you seemed polite in every way. Honest mistakes happen all the time; most mature adults have learned to repond to them graciously rather than in a childishly antagonistic way. I'd suggest politely pointing out that they were mistaken in that it was just a message title (as well as a request for such a book to be published) and not a chat room. Do you really expect to gain sympathy from anyone above the age of 12 by displaying such juvenility?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
I also remember all the confusion and all the time and energy and bandwidth wasted sorting out the confusion and incompatibilities. It was a Good Thing (or at least a Better Thing) when things got resolved, but if you really do remember the situation at the time it was going on, then I'm astounded by your nonchalance just because that incident is for the most part behind us.
When the hype dies down and people start to look at Linux with a critical eye, things like your example would be a serious black eye for any hopes of large-scale Linux acceptance. And with the commercial vultures, er vendors, entering the fray, it's more likely to happen in the future. How do you think it would bode for Linux's acceptance in the non-hobbyist community if two or three or four such forks were going on at the same time?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
I know you thought you were being cute by taking the previous poster literally, but you might want to take a look at Dell's financials.
If you did, you'd know that in the last month of the quarter (July), Dell's internet sales reached $30 million per day. With an average of over a million dollars per hour, it should come as no surprise that they'd be pulling in "millions" for some 30-minute periods during normal U.S. business hours.
And that's just pure sales, that's not even counting the costs of any future business lost by frustrated buyers who might switch or develop loyalties to IBM or Compaq.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Chris, first off, don't base your opinion of America on anything that Jon Katz writes. He has a severely distorted picture of reality. The oddest thing is that he thinks he's saying something different than the mainstream media.
As to your questions, I definitely wouldn't say that someone saying that he believed in God means that religion is a big force in his life. There's a big difference between committing oneself to one's religion and just saying, "Yeah, I guess there's a God."
Pat Buchanan's isn't considered a mainstream candidate by anyone. He's far right on some things, and far left on others -- I just think he's an opportunist willing to subvert his own views for the promise of millions of Reform Party dollars. Please don't make the mistake, however, that a lot of people here are and think that he's some kind of Hitler-lover. He's not. I wouldn't vote for him, but the people who are trying to tag him with that label are either intellectual dullards or plain intellectually dishonest. You know, the same kind of politically correct people that have made it impossible to have an honest dialogue on racial issues.
Again, put more trust in what you saw with your own eyes here than what the Christianity-hating U.S. media or Jon Katz tells you. And y'all come back some time, ya hear?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
"In the post-Columbine era, when computer games, the Net and other elements of geek culture are being blamed for murder, ..."
You know, some people out there really do have tough lives, a lot rougher on average than people who actually have the means to own their own computers. If you're going to assume the position of mouthpiece for "the geek cause," please don't make the voice a whiny one.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
P.S. Sorry if this was already posted, but I kept getting sent to the Preview page every time I would submit this. Odd...
Of course you can't predict everything. Nobody's talking about a setup where a computer reads a list of variables about a person and spits out an order to have that person sent to an asylum. It's just a tool to help humans identify potential problems.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Everybody likes to think that they're so complicated that profiling wouldn't work on them. It's always a little ego jolt to think that one isn't the free-thinker he thought he was. "Who, me? Predictable? Bah!" Well, I hate to break it to you, but people generally do break down into nice, neat little categories. That's why FBI profiling is so successful.
Secondly, it's not about trying to understand all the intracacies of the brain -- it's about recognizing common patterns of behavior in people, something computers are great at. Real profilers know what they're doing -- don't confuse them with your high school principal making a list of kids wearing "Ozzy Rules" shirts.
Cheers
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Most people do define competition in terms of functionality, not by license terms. Besides, I think you're being awfully petty by complaining about Hemos's use of the word competition just because this software isn't an option for you. I myself don't use page layout software, but that doesn't mean that I pretend that there isn't competition between Quark and Adobe.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Taking a look at his site, I'm pretty impressed with the work Paul Nolan's done with this, but I'm a bit skeptical that many Linux users will shell out $99 for this software -- that's the price for the Amiga version, anyway.
It looks like he's designed it to be pretty portable, so hopefully he won't be sinking too many resources into supporting any one platform, and hopefully it will help him to further expand the number of platforms as time goes by. Whatever the case, well done and best of luck to him and other entrepreneurs of his ilk.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
You're referring to Perl Power Tools: The Unix Reconstruction Project.
On related note, ActivePerl (Perl for Win32) 5.6, which is due out next month will have support for fork(), so one of the biggest portability hurdles in moving your scripts from Unix to Win32 should disappear.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
To summarize: Lion asks wolf and fox to team up to kill a deer. Fox tricks deer into the open, wolf chases deer to wolf, Lion kills deer. Lion eats most of the carcass ("the lion's share"), leaving only scraps for the fox and wolf.
This implies that the Open Source community is getting shafted after contributing equally to Java, Jini, etc. That's nuts. Sun put up the R&D money and paid for the coders to come up with these things. Nor would the Open Source community's efforts be equal to the people that Sun is paying -- most of the non-paid contributions would be in the form of bug fixes, which, while important, pale in comparison to the huge effort in actually designing a beast like Java in the first place.
Sorry, but to me, this whole thing smacks of the Open Source community being unable to come up with ideas of its own and then slamming other companies when they won't hand over their creations. If you don't like the license, then don't use it -- find someone else's code to tweak or (Wow, here's an idea!), actually create something yourself. As Joy himself said, they "are not doing SCSL for the Linux community. If they believe they are a 'gift' culture, fine, but we are working to enable commercial and entrepreneurial investment."
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Gawd, I suck. *thwap*
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Primary Risk: You get that Richard Stallman - Jon "maddog" Hall - Alan Cox look going.
For the companies like Sun Microsystems that are struggling with their decision whether or not to suppport Open Source, there's still hope. With Halloween fast approaching, a number of stores will be carrying those fake ZZ Top beards, giving everyone from the CEO to the boys in the mailroom the opportunity to get their feet wet with the Open Source way of life.
:)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Here is a different shot that I saw when I originally submitted this story yesterday. Guess Slashdot didn't think my post was good enough. :-P Anyway, I've got to admit that I find the resolution a bit disappointing. The color's still not too shabby, though.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Yes, it seems to be a myth. Back in the days, while I had to make a fake ID for myself, my underage friends in the military only had to show their military IDs and they never had a problem. And believe you me, we tried more than our fair share of bars. Seems like an unwritten rule in the bar biz, and, IMO, a good one.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Before I begin, let me say that I find your attitude disgusting. Why the Hell do you think you deserve software? Nobody does -- not Mac users, Linux users, or Windows users. It's bad enough that we have tons of kiddies screaming whenever a company whose software they use won't give them the source code to said software (Hell, it turns out that even that isn't enough if the company does such an evil thing as use a license other than the GPL -- just ask Sun, Apple, or TrollTech). But now, companies are expected to write whatever software that "Ronin47" wants to use? I think not.
So tell me, and I'm being serious here, what have you done to deserve software? If you haven't given something to the company/author in return, whether it's money, services, etc., then I say you've done nothing.
Atari, Beos, Vic-20, OS/400, Amiga, QNX, RiscOS, PalmOS, WinCE, and TRS-80 users are every bit as much "REAL PEOPLE" as Mac and Linux users. Under your plan, don't they "DESERVE SOFTWARE" as well? Now tell me, how many companies can afford to make software supporting all those "REAL PEOPLE"? There might be a handful if they're really lucky, but I can tell you that none of the gaming companies can afford it.
Now, to what really annoyed me. We're living in the Information Age -- you want software? Go write it yourself. All the resources are there waiting to be used. Too cheap to buy a programming book? Look it up on the web. You think all the game programmers who made the big time started out earning six and seven figures? Slashdot recently published an interesting John Carmack interview that you might want to read. How many times do you think he sat around on his ass posting to message boards that he deserves to have software made for him?
Drop the Jihad bullshit and start coding. And be sure to let me know when I'll be able to use your software on my old Commodore 64.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Why is this unfortunate? It's helped me a tremendous deal when communicating with Japanese friends (My Japanese is improving, but still not great -- the more I can practice it in real life situations, the better). Anyway, it seems to me like Microsoft's doing a great thing here and I'm not seeing what you have against it.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
That is, "i" + 18 letters + "n".
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
A bug could be something as benign as displaying the wrong font size in tables, but declaring this a "vulnerability" lets you know right away that you better install the fix.
Actually, I don't consider this a bug anyway, but instead a security hole. That is, the feature works as it was designed to, but a lack of foresight in the design resulted in the security hole.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
It affected IE5 on Win95 and Win98, but not NT. There was an unchecked buffer involved in the code, so a hacker could present a malformed icon which would overrun the buffer and then run arbitrary code on the victim's box. I imagine you haven't heard much about it because it was patched back in May.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Seriously, Jon, I'd like to know. Well, I know what the point is for you -- you felt somewhat of an obligation now that you're writing for Slashdot, proving the naysayers here wrong, etc. -- but what would be the point of such a switch for someone not in that unique position?
After spending a whole year with it, PPP still isn't working properly for you, and you had to get someone else to put your computer together for you. For that much trouble, I was hoping to hear what it is about Linux that would be worth switching from your Mac. Well, I can't find anything more substantial in your article than "mov[ing] things around, kill[ing] a few programs, and ... checking the Term windows." What is one to make of this?
I think your article unintentionally makes a strong point that is often drowned out here at Slashdot: For many people, maybe even most, the faddishness of Linux just isn't worth it. You've been plugging away at it for a year now, but what do you really have to show for all that time spent, other than feeling like "[your] own particular geek now"?
As an aside, Jon, I'd also like to explain one reason why some of us get irritated with your articles, and it's not because you don't know as much technically as some people here (or more probably, as some people here claim they have). It's the way that you (mis)appropriate the word "Geek" to refer to just about about person with positive qualities. You write, "The term 'geek' is broadening and evolving daily, and is coming to mean different, complex and increasingly positive things to people." Now, I think if someone's reading material consisted only of your writings, that they'd agree, but that's because you seemingly use it to describe anything you like. Your statement near the end of the article seems to go along with this, too: "I am my own particular kind of geek now." The whole thing smacks of pandering to the crowd here, and I know that's what annoys a lot of people here, especially since you yourself rail against the mainstream media's constant pandering to other crowds.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Yes, I still claim it, I'm not backing away from that statement at all.
OK, I'm a little lost here. I'm assuming you meant to type "Linux" one of those places where you typed "Microsoft," but I can't tell which place -- i.e., I don't know if you're trying to make your own argument against me, or if you're telling me the argument that I should've used. A little clarification?
I think you're taking your own feelings on this and projecting them onto the Linux community as a whole. I don't think that's the case, though -- just about anytime Microsoft buys a company, there are posts from Linux users slamming their innovation or lack thereof. I think *you* "get it," but most of the posters I see around here don't.
Well, I'm heading out for the evening, and possibly the weekend, so if you respond, I won't get to see it for a while -- so don't think I'm cutting out on the debate. Thanks for the reasoned discussion.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
[Just thought it'd be easier than posting five separate ones with a lot of overlap.]
DanaL writes:"No one, that I see, ever claims that Linux is innovative and bleeding edge. [...] If there is innovation, it is in the software development model.
People claim that by implication all the time here, by criticizing Microsoft when it comes to innovation. Hell, the Microsoft logo is the freakin' Bill Gates Borg thing. As for your second assertion, the Unix community had been doing this long before Linux came along. Later in your article you show the exact hypocrisy that I'm talking about: "Microsoft steals ideas and claims them as it's own. Linux cheerfully borrows good ideas!"
zantispam writes: "I defy you to prove [that there hasn't been any innovation in the history of Linux]. Yours is the burden of evidence."
No, it's not my burden of evidence, because there is no evidence that there's ever been innovation there. How could I go about proving that something doesn't exist? You could easily refute me, however, if you were to give a few (Hell, even one would be nice) examples of Linux innovation.
John Fulmer writes: "1. Linux has never clamed someone else's works as 'innovative' and then actively tries to drive the origional company out of business. 2. Linux is about making software available to EVERYONE free of charge."
Again, your latter example has nothing to do with Linux innovation, because GNU predated Linux for quite a while. As for your first point, you seem to imply that Microsoft did this. Please cite some examples of when they've done that unprovoked.
Kitsune Sushi writes: "GNU was meant to be a Unix clone. Therefore, a lot of software had to be rewritten from scratch, so that it would be free. If you think that points to a lack of innovation, I'd like to see you make an OS from scratch without copying anyone else's ideas for any reason. [...] You think Berlin isn't innovative?"
LOL. This is just too rich. So even though Linux has been around for 8 years now, the only innovative thing you can come up with when pressed is a project just celebrating its 0.1.0 release? Kitsune, could you please find something that's at least at 1.0. (Naturally, no offense intended to the Berlin team.)
As for your first point: No, it's not innovation. Innovation is coming up with new ideas, not a bunch of codemonkeys getting together and banging away until they finally get a functional copy of a previously existing app.
scumdamn writes: "If Microsoft wants to clone something first done in the Linux community, they're free to do so. If they want to embrace and extend, copy source code and make it proprietary, or spread FUD about Linux, they're not. [...] fvwm95 blatantly copied the Windows 'look & feel' and that didn't piss anyone off."
Organizations can't spread FUD about each other or embrace and extend? Come on. As far as copying source code, I don't see why Slashdotters would care about it -- I sure don't see too many complaining about violating other forms of Intellectual Property, namely when it comes to recorded music.
Regarding your second point, Apple's always had NIH syndrome, something that thankfully has never affected Microsoft. Whoever I'm getting my operating system from, I want then to take all the best ideas out there -- I couldn't care less where they originated. And I think that most Linux users feel the same way (just don't ever tell them when they're using one of Microsoft's innovations or be prepared to get your head bitten off! ;-). I have no complaints about Linux being filled with ideas taken from elsewhere -- I use Linux and, frankly, I'd be majorly pissed if they succumbed to Not Invented Here bollocks. The raison d'etre for my original post wasn't to slam Linux itself, not at all, just to point out a flaw in the thinking of a large number of its users.
Well, I tried to answer everyone, yet still keep this from being a book, but that meant that I ended up cutting a lot. Soooo, if you think I glossed over a good point that you made, just reply and I'll try to answer it.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com