Most likely, we'd be the more advanced ones (primarily due to the age of Sun and earth).
not necessarily. Any one of a number of different events in earth's past could have slowed us down, and absence of other events could have sped things up - when you're talking about evolution of life - and then once intelligent life evolved, evolution of culture/technology. I'd say it's a toss-up, either way - with the PRIMARY indicator that they're more advanced being: they have not yet come to contact us.
While working on a backup product, I discovered some behavior in Windows File Protection that was not as Microsoft documented.
After three weeks of wrangling with Microsoft Developer Support, they admitted that they could not find any developers with any information on how Windows File Protection was SUPPOSED to work. And they said that I could tell my customer that Microsoft said that WFP behaves as per my observations (using SysInternals' excellent FileMon tool).
As far as I know, Microsoft still hasn't updated their documentation online about how WFP works.
It wasn't really a security issue. But it can cause problems in certain types of system restores. (ie, the result could be a nonfunctional system).
Will they have a patch available withing the next day or so? You can guarantee that the Mozilla or Konqueror communities would have in the same circumstances...
I really wish someone had done a study, or that there was data somewhere to back that up. Sure, we've got a buttload of anecdotal evidence, but has anyone ever done a study of "average time to fix an exploit once discovered" by Proprietary Vendor versus Open Source?
Such a study would be MOST enlightening. And greatly help some of us win arguments against Microsoft zealots.
So what's wrong with the standard most of the rest of the computer world (IBM, Sun, Apple) uses - OpenFirmware? You'd think Linuxheads would want an x86 motherboard with OpenFirmware. . .
No - FRICKIN expensive, and frickin difficult. You take over Afghanistan, they hide in Pakistan and Iran. You take over Iraq, they hide in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, Syria. If we're actually going to do this - have a REAL war on terror - we have no real choice but to take over every frickin "bullshit terrorist-sponsoring Middle-Eastern" nation.
We do not have the money, or the manpower to do this. But more importantly, we do not have the CAJONES. Bush has proven that. If we did, we'd have troops in Iran right now, and we'd have enough troops in Iraq that the job would be done by now, and the terrorist corpses would be stacked high and burning. Because that's what THIS path requires to be done. Any other approach than "kill them all" will result in the terrorists finding somewhere else to hide, and using our actions as propaganda for recruitment.
Since it's clear that even after an attrocity like 9/11, we don't have the cujones to do what's really required (Afghanistan was a half-hearted try; Iraq was taking our eye off the ball) - then we should just frickin leave it alone (and, instead, spend the money on REAL airline security, like the Israelis do - oh wait, it's not THEIR money they're spending - it's ours). This war has killed far more people and cost our economy far more than 9/11 has. The only thing this war has been good for is government contractors with questionable ties to the administration, and USA Pride (and that, only amongst lamebrain rednecks or religious fanatics).
The reason why there won't be any more attacks on US soil now, is because 9/11 achieved Osama's goal, 100%. His goal was to get the US out of Saudi Arabia. It worked. We're out of there. 9/11 was extremely expensive, risky, and complicated for Al Qaeda. That's no more true now than it was in 2001, or 1993. They get more bang for their buck attacking third world shitholes now. Notice the steep increase in terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia? (only the ones that the state-sponsored newsmedia allows to become public). How about Turkey? One thing that I think would really SUCK for the US right now, would be to lose Turkey as an ally. All Al Qaeda needs to do is get some close ties with the Kurds (already done, really) and fire up a few more car bombs. Al Qaeda has moved on to their next goal - and by all accounts, it's moving along nicely too.
I remember seeing this one car that had a bunch of buttons on the steering wheel, each one had a different letter on it, and a different function. That car did some amazingly cool stuff. . . had a monkey in the trunk too. . .
One of the supposed advantages of fuel injection over carbs is that when you run out of gas, you don't need to take off the air cleaners and prime the carb with a shot of gasoline (or carb cleaner;) to get the engine to start.
Fuel injectors that can't run dry is retarded. Which is why one should only buy vintage Porsches.
Ironically, 50,000 people die every year from Automobile accidents and no one looks to blame Ford or GM for these deaths.
Not nobody.
Also, 9/11 was caused by poor airline security and lax regulation and oversight. Terrorists are a fact of life that's incredibly difficult (and expensive) to change. Airline security is something we could have changed to prevent this tragedy. And we still have not.
It's probably not too far off to say 99.9% of Windows crashing problems are due to operator error from installing bad drivers (from other manufacterers), installing bad hardware, installing crappy software.
But is that the user's fault? I buy a computer, I attach a printer, I expect the frickin thing to print. Is it MY fault the printer manufacturer went after the quick buck and wrote a crappy driver, and never updated it?
If GM made Windows, it would not be upgradable, it would run 1950's technology, it would cost $20000 every 5 years, and it would STILL CRASH!
Yeah, but the coders would have an AWESOME retirement plan. And they wouldn't be replaced by H-1B's.:)
t's a well-known fact that IM, even more than computer games, is a notorious productivity killer. So much so that many companies have started to firewall IM clients off and edict company rules forbidding the use of IM at the office.
Actually, at my last company, we installed Lotus Sametime on computers. We had hundreds of offices worldwide, and it was a GREAT way to get around some of the communication problems in email. Sometimes you just need immediate feedback, and IM meets those needs. Plus Sametime was encrypted and loggable so the conversations could be archived for posterity if necessary.
IM certainly has great potential for business application. You just got to block off the external connections so that employees aren't spending time in meetings IM-ing FBI officers posing as horny 13 year old girls.
There are people out there who think adjustable seats, air conditioning and radios are worthless fluff in cars, as well. Fortunately they're in the minority and most manufacturers ignore them.
Such customers generally build their own cars, or buy antiques. Much like the people who chose Linux, because it gives them a choice.
Why should I care if an application wants to install to 100MB or 150MB when I've got 50G free on the machine and another half a terabyte sitting on a fileserver ?
Maybe it's not a matter of disk space. maybe it's a matter of security, or stability, or simplicity of the UI.
The OS/application line has been blurry ever since the first machine that used a CLI shell instead of a bunch of flashing lights and switches rumbled into life. "Bundling" an IM client (or a web browser) is logically no different to bundling a text editor, or ping, or ftp, or any number of "core applications" that have been being "bundled" with operating systems for decades.
Can't disagree. But the degree to which Microsoft does it - so that there's no way to UN-bundle junk which is there for no TECHNICAL reason. Stuff that's there for marketing purposes. Would you, as a taxpayer, want the US Army to be forced to buy H2 hummers with leather seats and cd changers, and no armor, for our troops? Or would you rather be able to buy THREE military hummers for the same cost, without the luxury fluff?
"OS experts" aren't voicing their opinions because by and large they have grasped the concept that the thing academically defined as an "operating system" bears little resemblence to the thing commercially defined as an "operating system". The only commercial products that are even remotely similar to the academic definition of "operating system" are embedded OSes.
Bullshit. This disagreement isn't about an ivory tower academic view conflicting with reality. This disagreement is about an ivory tower MARKETROID view conflicting with reality. True, my mother doesn't need that kind of flexibility on her home computer. She needs the whole ball of wax installed on her 80 gig drive, and she'll choose what she wants to use and not use. But not everybody has those requirements. While it would be nice to make Microsoft's marketing people and investors happy by cramming Windows down everybody's throat - the REAL world needs more flexibility.
When I'm installing a system for myself, damn right I want EVERYTHING.
When I building a solution for a customer, I want ONLY that which meets their requirements, and nothing more.
Incidentally, Microsoft Operating Systems fail miserably at that. ex; try installing Windows with RPC shut off. While Linux can be marvelously stripped down to bare essentials, depending on requirements.
But for the potentially millions of tiny bits, manmade or natural, it's still a pretty insurmountable problem. Vaporizing them with a laser probably isn't the answer either. Because you'd turn a large object, say a bolt, into thousands of tiny metal droplets once the vapor condensed and hardened.
I think with current technology we've got on board the Airborne Laser, coupled with a space-based radar tracking system, could easily work the smaller ballistic targets - that's technology we have TODAY. (excluding how one would re-fuel the laser). But the vaporization debris creates a new problem. Sure, the tiny metal droplets are less hazardous, less mass, same velocity. But they're not harmless either.
Everybody may have different requirements in mind when working on a project such as the modern domesday.
If the requirements were "get me lots of temporary fame and grant money for this fancy high-tech project" - I'd say laserdisk was the "better" technology. If the requirement was "to produce something that would be more likely to be read by our progeny 1000 years hence", of course, it didn't work out.
Always think of the requirements. "Better" is a pretty vague description.
Slashdot Mirror
I just hope that it's close enough and alive enough for us to talk to it and sell it stuff.
Or download their pr0n. . .
Most likely, we'd be the more advanced ones (primarily due to the age of Sun and earth).
not necessarily. Any one of a number of different events in earth's past could have slowed us down, and absence of other events could have sped things up - when you're talking about evolution of life - and then once intelligent life evolved, evolution of culture/technology. I'd say it's a toss-up, either way - with the PRIMARY indicator that they're more advanced being: they have not yet come to contact us.
This thread seems purposely designed to generate a flamewar. Of that much, I am certain.
what can one do?
set a good example, and eschew the abbreviations yourself.
It worked for me at my previous job, where we used Lotus Sametime as a secure IM client. Good stuff.
you're going to see an increase in the blurring of advertising and entertainment.
Yeah, like an entire 24x7 cable channel devoted to nothing but watching promotional videos for musical acts?
I'm certain that if "TV as we know it(tm)" dies, we'll all easily be able to find something better to do with our time.
While working on a backup product, I discovered some behavior in Windows File Protection that was not as Microsoft documented.
After three weeks of wrangling with Microsoft Developer Support, they admitted that they could not find any developers with any information on how Windows File Protection was SUPPOSED to work. And they said that I could tell my customer that Microsoft said that WFP behaves as per my observations (using SysInternals' excellent FileMon tool).
As far as I know, Microsoft still hasn't updated their documentation online about how WFP works.
It wasn't really a security issue. But it can cause problems in certain types of system restores. (ie, the result could be a nonfunctional system).
Will they have a patch available withing the next day or so? You can guarantee that the Mozilla or Konqueror communities would have in the same circumstances...
I really wish someone had done a study, or that there was data somewhere to back that up. Sure, we've got a buttload of anecdotal evidence, but has anyone ever done a study of "average time to fix an exploit once discovered" by Proprietary Vendor versus Open Source?
Such a study would be MOST enlightening.
And greatly help some of us win arguments against Microsoft zealots.
Just like Scotty used to say;
"The more complicated you make the plumbing, the easier it is to clog up the works."
So what's wrong with the standard most of the rest of the computer world (IBM, Sun, Apple) uses - OpenFirmware? You'd think Linuxheads would want an x86 motherboard with OpenFirmware. . .
Oh, and by the way - HALO is finally available on the Mac - after a 3+ year delay (thanks again Microsoft, for buying Bungie!).
Not difficult, just expensive.
No - FRICKIN expensive, and frickin difficult. You take over Afghanistan, they hide in Pakistan and Iran. You take over Iraq, they hide in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, Syria. If we're actually going to do this - have a REAL war on terror - we have no real choice but to take over every frickin "bullshit terrorist-sponsoring Middle-Eastern" nation.
We do not have the money, or the manpower to do this. But more importantly, we do not have the CAJONES. Bush has proven that. If we did, we'd have troops in Iran right now, and we'd have enough troops in Iraq that the job would be done by now, and the terrorist corpses would be stacked high and burning. Because that's what THIS path requires to be done. Any other approach than "kill them all" will result in the terrorists finding somewhere else to hide, and using our actions as propaganda for recruitment.
Since it's clear that even after an attrocity like 9/11, we don't have the cujones to do what's really required (Afghanistan was a half-hearted try; Iraq was taking our eye off the ball) - then we should just frickin leave it alone (and, instead, spend the money on REAL airline security, like the Israelis do - oh wait, it's not THEIR money they're spending - it's ours). This war has killed far more people and cost our economy far more than 9/11 has. The only thing this war has been good for is government contractors with questionable ties to the administration, and USA Pride (and that, only amongst lamebrain rednecks or religious fanatics).
The reason why there won't be any more attacks on US soil now, is because 9/11 achieved Osama's goal, 100%. His goal was to get the US out of Saudi Arabia. It worked. We're out of there. 9/11 was extremely expensive, risky, and complicated for Al Qaeda. That's no more true now than it was in 2001, or 1993. They get more bang for their buck attacking third world shitholes now. Notice the steep increase in terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia? (only the ones that the state-sponsored newsmedia allows to become public). How about Turkey? One thing that I think would really SUCK for the US right now, would be to lose Turkey as an ally. All Al Qaeda needs to do is get some close ties with the Kurds (already done, really) and fire up a few more car bombs.
Al Qaeda has moved on to their next goal - and by all accounts, it's moving along nicely too.
I dunno.
Seems to me as if NOBODY has a decent fucking printer driver these days. On ANY platform. (at least for printers you can buy for under $500).
Or Scanner Drivers.
Or Cardreader drivers.
Or video drivers.
Can I get a Deafness Exemption?
I remember seeing this one car that had a bunch of buttons on the steering wheel, each one had a different letter on it, and a different function. That car did some amazingly cool stuff. . . had a monkey in the trunk too. . .
That's nuts.
One of the supposed advantages of fuel injection over carbs is that when you run out of gas, you don't need to take off the air cleaners and prime the carb with a shot of gasoline (or carb cleaner;) to get the engine to start.
Fuel injectors that can't run dry is retarded.
Which is why one should only buy vintage Porsches.
Ironically, 50,000 people die every year from Automobile accidents and no one looks to blame Ford or GM for these deaths.
:)
Not nobody.
Also, 9/11 was caused by poor airline security and lax regulation and oversight. Terrorists are a fact of life that's incredibly difficult (and expensive) to change. Airline security is something we could have changed to prevent this tragedy. And we still have not.
It's probably not too far off to say 99.9% of Windows crashing problems are due to operator error from installing bad drivers (from other manufacterers), installing bad hardware, installing crappy software.
But is that the user's fault? I buy a computer, I attach a printer, I expect the frickin thing to print. Is it MY fault the printer manufacturer went after the quick buck and wrote a crappy driver, and never updated it?
If GM made Windows, it would not be upgradable, it would run 1950's technology, it would cost $20000 every 5 years, and it would STILL CRASH!
Yeah, but the coders would have an AWESOME retirement plan. And they wouldn't be replaced by H-1B's.
how does one pronounce "kucinich"?
t's a well-known fact that IM, even more than computer games, is a notorious productivity killer. So much so that many companies have started to firewall IM clients off and edict company rules forbidding the use of IM at the office.
Actually, at my last company, we installed Lotus Sametime on computers. We had hundreds of offices worldwide, and it was a GREAT way to get around some of the communication problems in email. Sometimes you just need immediate feedback, and IM meets those needs. Plus Sametime was encrypted and loggable so the conversations could be archived for posterity if necessary.
IM certainly has great potential for business application. You just got to block off the external connections so that employees aren't spending time in meetings IM-ing FBI officers posing as horny 13 year old girls.
There are people out there who think adjustable seats, air conditioning and radios are worthless fluff in cars, as well. Fortunately they're in the minority and most manufacturers ignore them.
Such customers generally build their own cars, or buy antiques.
Much like the people who chose Linux, because it gives them a choice.
Why should I care if an application wants to install to 100MB or 150MB when I've got 50G free on the machine and another half a terabyte sitting on a fileserver ?
Maybe it's not a matter of disk space. maybe it's a matter of security, or stability, or simplicity of the UI.
The OS/application line has been blurry ever since the first machine that used a CLI shell instead of a bunch of flashing lights and switches rumbled into life. "Bundling" an IM client (or a web browser) is logically no different to bundling a text editor, or ping, or ftp, or any number of "core applications" that have been being "bundled" with operating systems for decades.
Can't disagree. But the degree to which Microsoft does it - so that there's no way to UN-bundle junk which is there for no TECHNICAL reason. Stuff that's there for marketing purposes. Would you, as a taxpayer, want the US Army to be forced to buy H2 hummers with leather seats and cd changers, and no armor, for our troops? Or would you rather be able to buy THREE military hummers for the same cost, without the luxury fluff?
"OS experts" aren't voicing their opinions because by and large they have grasped the concept that the thing academically defined as an "operating system" bears little resemblence to the thing commercially defined as an "operating system". The only commercial products that are even remotely similar to the academic definition of "operating system" are embedded OSes.
Bullshit. This disagreement isn't about an ivory tower academic view conflicting with reality. This disagreement is about an ivory tower MARKETROID view conflicting with reality. True, my mother doesn't need that kind of flexibility on her home computer. She needs the whole ball of wax installed on her 80 gig drive, and she'll choose what she wants to use and not use. But not everybody has those requirements. While it would be nice to make Microsoft's marketing people and investors happy by cramming Windows down everybody's throat - the REAL world needs more flexibility.
When I'm installing a system for myself, damn right I want EVERYTHING.
When I building a solution for a customer, I want ONLY that which meets their requirements, and nothing more.
Incidentally, Microsoft Operating Systems fail miserably at that.
ex; try installing Windows with RPC shut off.
While Linux can be marvelously stripped down to bare essentials, depending on requirements.
For large pieces of junk which we can track, yes.
But for the potentially millions of tiny bits, manmade or natural, it's still a pretty insurmountable problem. Vaporizing them with a laser probably isn't the answer either. Because you'd turn a large object, say a bolt, into thousands of tiny metal droplets once the vapor condensed and hardened.
I think with current technology we've got on board the Airborne Laser, coupled with a space-based radar tracking system, could easily work the smaller ballistic targets - that's technology we have TODAY. (excluding how one would re-fuel the laser). But the vaporization debris creates a new problem. Sure, the tiny metal droplets are less hazardous, less mass, same velocity. But they're not harmless either.
It's not "floating about".
It's jetting along at 18,000 miles per hour.
UnderwearSoiled=true
Better="meets requirements"
Everybody may have different requirements in mind when working on a project such as the modern domesday.
If the requirements were "get me lots of temporary fame and grant money for this fancy high-tech project" - I'd say laserdisk was the "better" technology.
If the requirement was "to produce something that would be more likely to be read by our progeny 1000 years hence", of course, it didn't work out.
Always think of the requirements. "Better" is a pretty vague description.
And don't forget. Pi=3.0 ;)