Ok, here are some random thoughts of mine on the subject.
First off Linux has come a long way in an incredibly short amount of time. Wasn't more than 3 years ago I was messing around with RedHat 5.1. No GUI install, Netscape as a browser, no GNOME, etc. It would be folly for anybody to say OS X will be superior to Linux in 5 years. A lot can happen in that short amount of time.
The Mac OS used to keep people away from Apple hardware. Most of the Macs with OS 7 were horrible with crashing. I didn't go with a Mac when I came to my college (which is a Macintosh campus (or so they say)) for two reasons. One was price (of course) and the other was stability. I instead built my own machine with windows, became a heavy drinker, then installed Linux. I'm still using Linux. Will making a more stable OS make more people willing to pay for Apple hardware? I think so, but people looking for a stable OS can save a lot of dough by going with Linux.
I read a Scott Hacker (the BeOS bible dude) story about OS X. He said it felt slow. I can't help but wonder if people are going to be satisfied plunking down money for a machine that feels slow. Most people probably won't notice, but still.
Macs are great. I love them. I own one (old 9500). I can't see buying another for a good while. I still got a fully functional *nix box, and I just built a new one. Macs are too expensive for me to consider at this time, especially when their success hinges on Microsoft (Office and IE). If you got the extra money for a new OS X machine go for it. I'll be perfectly comfortable using Linux.
One last idear on the.24% figure hitbox came up with: Is it possible that many of us *nix users are blocking cookies from Hitbox? I just checked my blocked cookie file (.galeon/mozilla/galeon/cookperm.txt) in Galeon and found I was rejecting cookies from 3 of their servers (ehg-sportsline.hitbox.com, hg1.hitbox.com, hitbox.com). This would explain the insanely low figures. Doubt many people on other systems block cookies.
1 bit encyption is every bit as hard for users as 4, 16, 512, or any other encryption is. Just slower on the computer really. If you are going to encrypt something you might as well make it a pain to decipher. I know you said it's bullshit; I just wanted to clarify.
I'm fully aware my sig can be taken as a joke or intereperated literally. Make what you will of it.
I believe the Duke of URL site was going to be archived for some time. Sounded like the dude who owned the site realized that people would still want to access the content even after the site was dead.
The Red Carpet update adds more than just the Express service. Nobody seems to be noticing CorporateConnect. Here is what it says in Red Carpet under Premium Services:
About Premium Services
If you're not already signed up for Red Carpet Express or CorporateConnect services, find out more about how they can help you and your company:
Red Carpet Express
For only $9.95 a month, get priority access to our high-bandwidth servers for rapid updates and downloads.
Red Carpet CorporateConnect
Manage and control your company's Linux software. Create custom, private secure Red Carpet channels for the software you distribute and update internally."
I'm not worried about Magic Lantern. I'm worried about the stuff we haven't heard about yet. Really, if the FBI wants to spy on citizens (or criminals for that matter) there is no way they would let their ideas be known.
I also get the feeling that we'll be reading michael's inane comments at the end of stories for a long, long time. Doesn't mean you have to say anything.
The people who don't have Internet connections are surely criminals. They must have something to hide, otherwise they would be gouged with outrageous prices and restrictions in order to be further monitored.
This is scary. First I wake up feeling like I am not in this earth, then I read/. and find that there have been not one, but TWO sane court rulings involving Technology. I think I should go back to bed. I obviously woke up in parallel universe today.
SuSE and Mandrake a very nice distros, but I would still like to see Slackware or Debian for PPC. There are a lot of older pre G3 Macs out there that aren't exactly speed machines by today's standards. Of course there is always BSD...
Personally, I would rather pay full price for a totally new copy so I can have another backup CD of the OS in case I damage the first one.
For a second there I thought MS had taken away the right to make a backup copy of software... or have they? Next thing you know there will be a $75 charge for being allowed to make a backup copy of any Microsoft product.
If you want to use windows that is fine. I will choose a free OS that I can copy, download, piss on, recompile and do whatever I want with. Oddly enough, I won't be paying $80 for the ability to install it on a second machine.
My main machine right now is the Tabernacle of Sin. I built it 4 years ago before coming to college, and by today's standards it is slow. It has a PII 300 with 256 MB of RAM. The Mozilla interface is a bit too slow for me to comfortably use on this machine. Galeon fixes that. I also like the ad blocking features, tabbed browsing, search bars, and other options that Galeon provides. I know Mozilla is getting some of these things integrated, but why use something slower when I can use something faster?
I am in the process of building a new box with a 1.2 Gig Thunderbird. I'll probably still use Galeon on that.
All I was saying was that the RIAA can (and does) affect people in other countries. I know and listen to plenty of stuff from Scandinavia, England, and elsewhere. It still sounds like you have gone through the RIAA to get about 20 of your CD's.
The software giant also persuaded Macchia that its system would cost 25 percent less initially and 42 percent less to maintain than comparable products from Sun or Oracle. So Aegis bought the Microsoft package, which is scheduled to start running the firm's 16 call centers sometime next year.
In a tight economy, "why would you spend extra dollars to get the same service?" Macchia asks.
Indeed. Why then would Mr. Macchia spend money on Microsoft products at all. Why spend extra dollars to get the same service in this tight economy.
I'm not sure what "high end business applications" the article is talking about, but Linux or *BSD may not be suited for it. However, if Macchia needed workstations for web browsing would he use Linux, or would he allow Microsoft to swoop in and offer 25% *giggles* off on Windows? This is a tight economy after all.
I think the recall probably had less to do with consumer feedback and more to do with the fact that they could have been liable for damage caused by copied CDs, especially since fair use law allows you to make copies in certain situations...
I doubt it. The RIAA isn't concerned about rights. They have spun the situation so well that almost everybody believes making a digital copy for any reason is theft. If a few hundred people have damaged hardware from these CD's that is the price that must be paid for trying to steal their music. The RIAA is a cartel, and cartels do not care about rights.
This is just going to piss people off. Kids will find "unsuitable content" on sites hosted in other parts of the world. Ever hear of the USA? Norway? Holland? Japan?
Unless Australia tries to play USA and impose these regulations on the rest of the world it is just a waste of time.
What is to stop webmasters from further segmenting their pages? One of the best things about the Internet is the unlimited page size. If this goes through you won't be loading up a 300k HTML page, you'll load up 100 pages of 3K HTML and end up paying a dollar. And don't even pretend that banner ads will go away. I like the premise behind this, but it can be abused too easily.
Older PDF files have the nasty habit of being compressed with LZW (think GIF). Visit http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/lzw.html for more info on that.
I also remember reading somewhere (maybe/.) about problems reading some of the newer PDF files on *nix systems if they used fonts that weren't on the system. I could have this totally wrong... does anybody know what I am yapping about?
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, here are some random thoughts of mine on the subject.
.24% figure hitbox came up with: Is it possible that many of us *nix users are blocking cookies from Hitbox? I just checked my blocked cookie file (.galeon/mozilla/galeon/cookperm.txt) in Galeon and found I was rejecting cookies from 3 of their servers (ehg-sportsline.hitbox.com, hg1.hitbox.com, hitbox.com). This would explain the insanely low figures. Doubt many people on other systems block cookies.
First off Linux has come a long way in an incredibly short amount of time. Wasn't more than 3 years ago I was messing around with RedHat 5.1. No GUI install, Netscape as a browser, no GNOME, etc. It would be folly for anybody to say OS X will be superior to Linux in 5 years. A lot can happen in that short amount of time.
The Mac OS used to keep people away from Apple hardware. Most of the Macs with OS 7 were horrible with crashing. I didn't go with a Mac when I came to my college (which is a Macintosh campus (or so they say)) for two reasons. One was price (of course) and the other was stability. I instead built my own machine with windows, became a heavy drinker, then installed Linux. I'm still using Linux. Will making a more stable OS make more people willing to pay for Apple hardware? I think so, but people looking for a stable OS can save a lot of dough by going with Linux.
I read a Scott Hacker (the BeOS bible dude) story about OS X. He said it felt slow. I can't help but wonder if people are going to be satisfied plunking down money for a machine that feels slow. Most people probably won't notice, but still.
Macs are great. I love them. I own one (old 9500). I can't see buying another for a good while. I still got a fully functional *nix box, and I just built a new one. Macs are too expensive for me to consider at this time, especially when their success hinges on Microsoft (Office and IE). If you got the extra money for a new OS X machine go for it. I'll be perfectly comfortable using Linux.
One last idear on the
Sorry for me rambling.
*sigh*
I sometimes doubt earth has intelligent life.
Nice to see PlanetChristmas gets the wonderful gift of a /.ing this year.
1 bit encyption is every bit as hard for users as 4, 16, 512, or any other encryption is. Just slower on the computer really. If you are going to encrypt something you might as well make it a pain to decipher. I know you said it's bullshit; I just wanted to clarify.
I'm fully aware my sig can be taken as a joke or intereperated literally. Make what you will of it.
I believe the Duke of URL site was going to be archived for some time. Sounded like the dude who owned the site realized that people would still want to access the content even after the site was dead.
So even though it's one group of rich bastards against another, "fuck the RIAA" is about to become a household phrase.
Shit! My parents get so worked up when people swear in the house.
You should have used 5-bit keys like me.
The Red Carpet update adds more than just the Express service. Nobody seems to be noticing CorporateConnect. Here is what it says in Red Carpet under Premium Services:
About Premium Services
If you're not already signed up for Red Carpet Express or CorporateConnect services, find out more about how they can help you and your company:
Red Carpet Express
For only $9.95 a month, get priority access to our high-bandwidth servers for rapid updates and downloads.
Red Carpet CorporateConnect
Manage and control your company's Linux software. Create custom, private secure Red Carpet channels for the software you distribute and update internally."
I'm not worried about Magic Lantern. I'm worried about the stuff we haven't heard about yet. Really, if the FBI wants to spy on citizens (or criminals for that matter) there is no way they would let their ideas be known.
Only a programmer would refer to paper as robust.
I also get the feeling that we'll be reading michael's inane comments at the end of stories for a long, long time. Doesn't mean you have to say anything.
The people who don't have Internet connections are surely criminals. They must have something to hide, otherwise they would be gouged with outrageous prices and restrictions in order to be further monitored.
*waves at DOJ*
This is scary. First I wake up feeling like I am not in this earth, then I read /. and find that there have been not one, but TWO sane court rulings involving Technology. I think I should go back to bed. I obviously woke up in parallel universe today.
SuSE and Mandrake a very nice distros, but I would still like to see Slackware or Debian for PPC. There are a lot of older pre G3 Macs out there that aren't exactly speed machines by today's standards. Of course there is always BSD...
Personally, I would rather pay full price for a totally new copy so I can have another backup CD of the OS in case I damage the first one.
For a second there I thought MS had taken away the right to make a backup copy of software... or have they? Next thing you know there will be a $75 charge for being allowed to make a backup copy of any Microsoft product.
If you want to use windows that is fine. I will choose a free OS that I can copy, download, piss on, recompile and do whatever I want with. Oddly enough, I won't be paying $80 for the ability to install it on a second machine.
My main machine right now is the Tabernacle of Sin. I built it 4 years ago before coming to college, and by today's standards it is slow. It has a PII 300 with 256 MB of RAM. The Mozilla interface is a bit too slow for me to comfortably use on this machine. Galeon fixes that. I also like the ad blocking features, tabbed browsing, search bars, and other options that Galeon provides. I know Mozilla is getting some of these things integrated, but why use something slower when I can use something faster?
I am in the process of building a new box with a 1.2 Gig Thunderbird. I'll probably still use Galeon on that.
All I was saying was that the RIAA can (and does) affect people in other countries. I know and listen to plenty of stuff from Scandinavia, England, and elsewhere. It still sounds like you have gone through the RIAA to get about 20 of your CD's.
The software giant also persuaded Macchia that its system would cost 25 percent less initially and 42 percent less to maintain than comparable products from Sun or Oracle. So Aegis bought the Microsoft package, which is scheduled to start running the firm's 16 call centers sometime next year.
In a tight economy, "why would you spend extra dollars to get the same service?" Macchia asks.
Indeed. Why then would Mr. Macchia spend money on Microsoft products at all. Why spend extra dollars to get the same service in this tight economy.
I'm not sure what "high end business applications" the article is talking about, but Linux or *BSD may not be suited for it. However, if Macchia needed workstations for web browsing would he use Linux, or would he allow Microsoft to swoop in and offer 25% *giggles* off on Windows? This is a tight economy after all.
The RIAA? Since when would an American organisation like that have any relevance here in the UK?
Since most major American recordings go through the RIAA. Last I knew people in the UK still listened to American music.
I think the recall probably had less to do with consumer feedback and more to do with the fact that they could have been liable for damage caused by copied CDs, especially since fair use law allows you to make copies in certain situations...
I doubt it. The RIAA isn't concerned about rights. They have spun the situation so well that almost everybody believes making a digital copy for any reason is theft. If a few hundred people have damaged hardware from these CD's that is the price that must be paid for trying to steal their music. The RIAA is a cartel, and cartels do not care about rights.
This is just going to piss people off. Kids will find "unsuitable content" on sites hosted in other parts of the world. Ever hear of the USA? Norway? Holland? Japan?
Unless Australia tries to play USA and impose these regulations on the rest of the world it is just a waste of time.
What is to stop webmasters from further segmenting their pages? One of the best things about the Internet is the unlimited page size. If this goes through you won't be loading up a 300k HTML page, you'll load up 100 pages of 3K HTML and end up paying a dollar. And don't even pretend that banner ads will go away. I like the premise behind this, but it can be abused too easily.
Older PDF files have the nasty habit of being compressed with LZW (think GIF). Visit http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/lzw.html for more info on that.
/.) about problems reading some of the newer PDF files on *nix systems if they used fonts that weren't on the system. I could have this totally wrong ... does anybody know what I am yapping about?
I also remember reading somewhere (maybe
I was actually planning on Norway, but your point is well made.
Now I have to wait for another bill to pass so I have a legitimate reason (in my parents eyes) to move to Europe.