It was possible to fully understand all of the old 8 and 16 but machines. Now you could spend momths trying to fully understand one video card, which would be replaced by something more complex by the time you finished understanding it.
And that was a big part of it, the stability of the platforms during that era. A C64 was exactly the same as every other one, a Tandy Coco was identical to the million others of it's kind. Later models tended to retain as close to 100% backward compatibility as possible so knowledge and software tools retained value. Now you buy a lot of PCs with the understanding that a year from now you won't be able to buy more of the exact model even if you stick to Optiplexes and such that promote the relative stability of the platform. Something will be slightly different. So, understanding being impossible we abstract it all away to the greatest extent possible.
If you want to reconnect with low level look at AVR microcontrollers. If you are really frugal you can get going for $20.
>..there's a reason that the FDA takes a long time to approve treatments.
Yes there is, but you won't like it.
It is all in the incentives. If the FDA sits on a new procedure/drug/whatever another decade one of two things happen. One, they find a problem and everyone at the FDA is a hero. Two they don't find a problem and they approve the new treatment and the FDA is a hero anyway. Now consider the case where they see really promising initial results and fasttrack the treatment. If a decade later everything is good the FDA is a hero, but if anything goes wrong and they didn't put up every last roadblock to approval somebody at the FDA isn't a hero and probably gets sacked. Bottom line, the people who suffer and/or die during a prolonged approval process get no voice and thus can pose no harm to the career of an FDA official while victims of a mistake in approval get face time on TV and can cause much harm to a career.
Everyone is quick to get a pity party on for the hapless victims of a new drug that shows an unexpected side effect when it goes into general availability but until we ALSO pay equal attention to the ones who died waiting the year before a new treatment gets approved we will continue to misplace the balance point in the equation.
Re:Reminds me of broadband internet in the beginni
on
Gas Wants To Kill the Wind
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
> Once the wind system is built, then you're talking marginal gains, rising as the price of oil and gas rises due to their increasing rarity. So there's an initial steep cost for wind,....
From the evidence to date there are also pretty huge ongoing upkeep expenses for wind turbines. There is no free lunch.
> I don't understand what part of of 'one day oil/gas will run out and we'll all die horribly,
Because people who actually have money are smarter than you. They understand economics and know that we won't suddenly wake up one otherwise normal sunny day and find ourselves out of dead dinosaurs to burn. It will happen slowly and the price will rise accordingly as supply declines, which will make alternatives become cost effective.
> Things like instant replay are impossible with a VCR.
True, but all of the TIVO patents fall out as a self evident use of a non-linear storage medium like a hard drive. They didn't invent ANYTHING. They didn't invent computerized video capture, they didn't even exist when MPEG was standardized and they didn't create the all in one encoder/decoder chips they used. I saw ALL of that in the early 1990's when I first saw a video capture board in use, it was only a matter of having big enough hard drives to make capture and storage of video practical.
So fuck TIVO directly in the mouth for their crime of attempting to game the patent system to hold up progress.
Re:Firefox + NoScript + Adblock Plus + FlashBlocke
on
Window Pain
·
· Score: 1
>..it is the millions of joe sixpacks that care not to go through the trouble that it takes to install..
Sorry, but I hold to the belief that it is immoral to let suckers keep their money. Stupid is supposed to be painful, it is only the pain that eventually causes growth and learning... or death but then I doubt anyone has even been spammed to death yet.
That said, the root of this problem is simple. The ad networks themselves are the problem. Too many layers of indirection for any hope of accountability. The solution is fairly obvious, widespread use of browser tech that simply sets a limit on redirection. Real content isn't hiding behind several layers of scripts and redirectors. Force the content providers to host the ads in their own network (or at most one redirect away) like in the print and TV models and the malware problem goes away.
> When a country with a lot of wealth has 70% of its population living in poverty, a redistributionist left-wing regime is going to be the inevitable result in a democracy...
Which is the #1 problem with Democracy and one the US Founding Fathers understood perfectly. Which was why they wisely gave us a Republic instead of a Democracy. Then we failed to keep it and the goddamn Democrats took over.
Many of the religious folk were certainly supporters but could not have been the primary mover. Look at the who controlled the government at the time, it was the Progressives. There were many reasons[1] that movement quickly disowned the name for the better part of a century before recently deciding that, their prior victims mostly dead of old age and the official histories carefully cleansed, they could reclaim the name and move openly against the Republic once again.
[1] Being on record saying nice things about every fasist dictator we would eventually end up fighting WWII and the Cold War against, Margaret sanger and her eugenics, the League of Nations, making the Depression Great, and so on.
> I think there are far more extraordinary claims out there: flat-world theory...
Perhaps I should qualify my statement with "most extraordinary claim given serious consideration". Yes flat earthers, Troofers, Lyndon Larouch, Faked Moonlanding theorists, etc. are about as zany bit nobody sane takes them seriously. The US just came a few weeks from Cap & Tax sailing right through Congress based on nothing but smoke and mirrors. Thankfully with the IPCC report now discredited it probably isn't going anywhere in the Senate.
> yours is rather extraordinary as well: that carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane don't affect the climate despite reams of planetological data
In sufficent quantities and sufficent time it probably has an effect. Greater than the normal climate cycles? Ah, now that is debatable. Will the proposed solution be far worse than than any problem? Almost certainly. And it still comes down to AGW being a big claim based to pretty flimsy evidence and the only solution being offered up is so preposterous as to merit only laughter wnen comparing the cost to the odds of AGW really causing the sorts of mayhem envisioned by the scaremongers pushing a political agenda.
>...not simply Earth-based...
Btw, that reminds me to mention that if we can trust NASA (and I don't, Hansen is a liar) for Earth temp data why are you guys ignoring their observations of higher temps on other bodies outside the influence of our Hummers? I'd suggest that if it is true the Earth is a bit warmer you might want to go outdoors on a clear day and look up to find suspect #1. Disprove that theory before attempting to introduce a far more complicated one.
> Your characterization of the proposed solutions is rather hyperbolic, too.
Have you actually studied the Kyoto Treaty, the various proposals that died an ignoble death in Copenhagan or the the proposed Waxman/Markey bill. Or perhaps you could examine the European implementation. Yes it really does involve the taking over of pretty much everything.
> Why can't an economy run on energy derived from sources other than the burning of fossil fuels?
That is an almost totally unrelated issue. I support a massive crash program to get the US off imported oil for purely political reasons, thus support building Nuke plants like our very lives depended on it. Want a Manhattan Project size research effort to make fusion practical? Sign me up.
Wind power and solar panels? No. Don't hate em, just consider them an impractical use of public resources based on the potential return on investment. If the marketplace wants to invest in it and proves me wrong I'll be happy to say I was wrong but we can't afford to invest a lot in pure blue sky projects with little expectation of success, especially in a major recession.
Biofuels don't interest me either, can't see how they become practical on a large enough scale without causing famine. Famine is bad.
Geothermal is showing some problems of late, but it still has potential in some places and the bugs could still get solved.
Tidal power might be practical someday, probably too far out to help with the immediate need to make Saudi oil worth about the same as their sand though.
> How would a conversion to non-carbon-emitting energy eliminate most of the world's industrial base? People will still need stuff, even if it costs more.
Perhaps you really don't know. The idea is to eliminate most of the world's industrial base by simply making it too expensive to maintain. And people can want stuff but it juts won't be available in sufficient quantity. And they will be expected to learn to live with less. The whole point isn't to save the Earth, it is to bring about changes in society. A more agrarian society more in tune with Mother Earth.... and obedient to Big Brother.
I am old enough to remember when the same people were making the same recomendations to save the world from the coming Ice Age and when
> Well, maybe for 2009 to not be the hottest year in recorded history, or 2000-2009 to be the hottest decade in recorded history, for one.
Ok, but 2009 wasn't and 2000-2009 wasn't. Don't believe me, believe Phil Jones. And believe is all you can do since he lost all of his original data and there doesn't appear to be a clean temperature dataset ANYWHERE. Politics and science don't mix. Politics, science and trillions of dollars make an especially toxic stew.
Remember when 1998 was supposed to be the hottest ever? Then that was debunked and it was 1934. Now Hansen & his asshats are saying they have massaged the data some more and it is 1998 again by a nose. I say so what? If it is a statistical tie it really doesn't matter, the Warmers were yelling the warming was "unprecedented" yet that doesn't square with a virtual tie with 1934 now does it? But saying 'It was just a cunthair higher than back in 1934' doesn't make a good argument for seizing trillions of dollars of economic output and redirecting it into politically connected pockets.
> Maybe not for a clear upward trend in average global temperature over the last 100 years, for another.
Well if ol' Phil is right and we haven't seen any statistically significant warming for fifteen years.... And if the recent high was inside the error bars with 1934. Your point is?
> Weather != climate.
I know that. But if Al Gore can make Hurricane Katrina the centerpiece of his farce of a movie and not ONE Warmer call him out on it it is equally valid for the other team to toss this blizzard right back in his face. Don't go all heads I win and tails you lose on me, don't treat me as an idiot and I'll return the favor. K? We both know the difference between science and arguments to win points in the mass media and influence the electorate, right? Why should we let your side get away with it while we take the noble path? Besides, Copenhagen's blizzard and now this blizzard to greet the creation of the new Climate Change dept. is such rich irony it would almost be criminal not to exploit the situation being handed to us by Mother Nature Herself.
And I notice you avoided the question. What would falsify AGW theory?
And yes I must be willing to take the opposite question. But I have one advantage there, AGW is probably the most extraordinary claim in the history of extraordinary claims and the proposed solution (seizing most of the world's wealth, eliminating most of the current industrial base, etc.) is so far beyond extraordinary I doubt any human language even has the proper vocabulary for describing it properly. I simply demand extraordinary evidence. Since the evidence offered to date is pathetic and weak I laugh at it and call it a silly thing for silly (or evil) people.
One question for the warmers reading. Can the theory of AGW be falsified?
If it gets hotter it is because of Global Warming.
If a hurricane hits it is because of Global Warming.
If there is a drought anywhere it is because of Global Warming.
But if we get a blizzard it is bacause of Global Climate Change.
If it floods it is because of Global Warming/Climate Change.
If the North polar ice shrinks it is Global Warming.
Yet when the Antarctic ice grows it is Climate Change.
When the Northern ice returns it is nothing to see here, move along.
When Phil Jones says there has been no warming for fifteen years, it doesn't mean anything. In fact, to date only the Moonies at the Wash. Times and Fox News consider his statement worthy of repeating. (He said it to the BBC, btw, not known as a bastion of Deniers.)
So my question is this: For a theory to be Science it must be falsifiable; so what would it take for one of you True Believers to reconsider your theory?
> Both Maemo and Moblin started off Gtk-based, using the Clutter toolkit on top of Gtk.
You would have a point had it been done for technical reasons. And had you known what you were going on about. Maemo was never based on clutter, it predated clutter by several years and the hardware it ships on lacks 3d acceleration. This is corporate politics at work. Maemo is pretty much dead if you ask me, managed into oblivion. Moblin was already a dead horse, being tied too closely to both the x86 anchor and being a research toy OS watching Android come storming onto the scene sucking all the PR buzz up.
As for Maemo, look how many flag days there have already been and how many more are planned. The current shipping product is GTK based and everyone had already been warned of a rip and replace of most of the guts to go to Qt for the next version. Why? Because Nokia went out and bought Trolltech thats why, and ya gotta eat the house brand of dogfood. Now before they can even ship a beta more corporate politics happen and the developers are going to get a much more crap they didn't ask for dumped into their laps and told to integrate it.
So now there are two possibilities, either delay shipping the QT rewrite to merge all of the Intel tech and piss off everyone who, in anticipation of this switch was readying new code of their own, or worse ship the Qt port they had planned and announce yet again that it is a one release OS that is going to have most of it's innards ripped and replaced yet again for the next one. Who in their right mind is going to continue sinking resources into following this train wreck over the cliff? Perhaps Nokia can afford the developer resources to keep rewriting their OS for every release, but most 3rd party developers just want to release an app and get onto the next one or adding cool new features for a new version, not just keep rewriting and debugging the same one for an ever changing OS.
> Why would anyone need to be paid to target the platform which has over 90% of the desktop market, and disregard platforms with minuscule market share?
Just off the top of my head I can come up with one scenario that should be common but isn't. Which implies that either I'm missing something obvious or there are forces at work beyond the invisible hand of the marketplace.
Take any software category other than games, which is a special case. If there are multiple vendors servicing that market one usually dominates. That leaves one or more with less than 50% of the market, often less than 25%, of which Windows is usually 90+% of the customer base. Now just to put a number on it, lets say your company has 30%. That means the non-windows market represents a potential to add another couple percent or as much as a one third increase in sales if you do a Mac & Linux port. Ok, that probably won't be worth the extra support. But eventually somebody gets pushed down to single digits and the potential to DOUBLE sales by going cross platform should induce many to try. But it almost never happens. I say it is fear of offending Microsoft behind the reluctance, after all dropping a product line is better than bringing the wrath of Redmond on the whole company.
> And with the open distros, it doesn't cost a cent. You can put copies of it on as > many computers as you want. You have server functionality if you want it - for free.
It is even better. You can even install RHEL for free, they only charge for updates and support. Granted that only a madman would put an Internet facing server out without updates or support but RedHat won't remotely disable you.
I hope Microsoft has great success with this scheme, eliminating 100% of unauthorized copies. As a certain fictional princess noted, "The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers." Or do they plan on using geolocation tech to allow 3rd world areas to continue their rampant 'piracy?'
> US government is prohibited from demanding that people obtain permission before speaking..
Somebody might want to clue in (lord knows he could use a clue about something) the POTUS. You know, the asshat/constitutional law professor that denounced the recent SCOTUS decision to their faces. And while you are at it you might want to clue in the asshat that ran against him in the '08 election. You probably remember the guy, the oathbreaker who co-authored the bill that is (thankfully) being (too) slowly dismembered by the courts. And don't forget the idiot! who signed McCain-Feingold while admitting it was unconstitutional or the guy who ran against Bush in '04 who is singing along from the progressive hymnal about the need to DO SOMETHING about the court decision. And don't forget 'all right thinking people' such as the NYT, CNN, WashPost, HuffPost, etc. who are all pissing and moaning about it and trying, with a straight face, to whip up an effort up to outright repeal the 1st Amendment if it can't be twisted into saying what they want it to say.
So no, I wouldn't count on our elected leaders to hold to their oath and defend our right to speak without asking their permission first and yes I'm just a little pissed off about that.
> They have a 90% market share. Just make up a required course...
Everyone would ditch Windows/IE within a year.... unless of course the government forced everyone else to do it too.... or better coupled it with a certification/licensing scheme for platforms (to ensure they all complied) that happened to put all of the competitors[1] out of business. And of course governments would be happy to make such a deal... for certain considerations which they want. Wiretap ports perhaps? Always watch for wheels within wheels turning when watching the sort of old money who hang around places like Davos.
[1] Apple excluded of course, were Apple to die Microsoft would have to invent another perfect 'competitor.' Think about it, Apple is always held up as the reason Microsoft isn't a monopoly without a competitor but does anyone think Apple actually wants to compete? Assume they could(yea, yea. work with me here); would they? Decades of evidence says they have zero desire to leave the market niche Microsoft intentionally left them with. It gives them prestige and the insanely great profit margins that allow them to do the R&D Microsoft doesn't seem able to do with similarly boundless resources. Then Microsoft 'invents' (read popularizes) the new tech and except for a single early patent pissing fight Apple now sits idly by and watches it happen with only an occasional snarky TV commercial. Almost like they had some sort of unwritten unholy bargain.
Considering that enforcing a license requirement just here in the US would be nigh on impossible without rethinking everything and that the odds of doing anything of the sort worldwide is less than zero I'm left wondering just what problem this idea is intended to solve?
Hint, it ain't any problem we users have and it ain't a problem the network operators are having. And since the practice of allowing Microsoft products to connect to the Internet is the bulk of the spam/zombie/malware problem I guess we would license every host as well as user. Any any license scheme that permitted Microsoft crap to operate would be considered toothless and any that banned them would get called 'draconian.' No win scenario. The only winning move is not to play.
> I think it's much more likely that there's something broken about your pc.
Possible, but my experience was this:
1. Buy Thinkpad x200s
2. Light it up, go through the firstboot stuff.
3. Let Windows Uodate do its thing.
4. Launch IE to download FF.
5. FF installs and throws three error dialogs, then runs.
6. Odd. Reboot and launch FF. It throws three error dialogs and then runs.
7. Make the recovery media set, do other mandatory housekeeping, etc.
8. Try FF again, still broke. Ok, isn't that odd. Now on with resizing Windows partition to make room for F12. That was a bit of an adventure but a tale for another day...
9. It is now over a month later, I have booted Win7 a couple of times. FF has updated itself once yet the problem persists.
> These magic mushrooms from Apple are so awesome.
No, no, no! There is Steve and his Kool-Aid and there is Nintendo with the magic mushrooms. Learn the difference and you can identify crazed fan boys at a distance.
> a) Vista was crap, and now people are falling over themselves to buy a windows 7, or a PC with windows 7, or > b) Almost all of windows 7 sales were involuntary, and not a product of demand
I'll try one more time to explain it.
1. Vista was considered to be crap. EVERYBODY was saying it, the NYT, CNN, everybody. I never messed with it a lot but the one machine I put the RC on worked just fine. Sluggish though and it was an Athlon64. But regardless of fact, perception is everything once a meme sets in and Vista == suck was accepted wisdom.
2. No significant numbers of customers have bought upgrades since the Win9x era because upgrades are painful and almost always end up in a wipe and fresh load. An upgrade also normally requires tossing hardware without drivers. Thus now they buy a PC and it comes with an operating system. When they replace that PC it usually comes with a new OS.
3. Enterprise and SMB customers were (and still are) offered the option of getting XP but retail choices were 1) Vista, 2) Mac, 3) postpone purchase.
4. Macs are expensive and don't run any of a user's existing software.
5. Facts 1-4 caused customers to put off replacing their PC in droves, fearing getting stuck with "the suckage that is Vista."
6. The buzz around Windows 7 started telling people it "didn't suck like Vista." Again it didn't even have to be true, only that be become common wisdom.
7. Millions of people who had put off buying a new PC came back to the stores and bought a new faster PC since the Vista nightmare was finally over. But note that sales weren't through the roof even with the pent up demand.
Bottom line, people don't run out in any significant numbers and buy based on the OS but they will avoid buying a new PC if one of the components is considered to be crap. Imagine if every PC offered at a decent price had one of those old Conner Bigfoot hard drives after you figured out they were crap. You would wait until the stores got in new models. Well Vista was kinda like that.
> Anyway, however which way you slice it, it's a win for Microsoft and a loss for Linux. It doesn't help Linux for you to deny this.
Do you really think the only shot Linux had was the window of opportunity while Microsoft was pushing Vista? We made most of our gains against XP. All we have to do is keep the quality up and make small but constant gains. Eventually we will get close to Mac OS at which point we will instantly become the 2nd OS since we run on commodity hardware. After that Apple dies (really doubt they could maintain their mystique and profit margins as #3) and we are the only competition left standing. From there we should be able to get into double digits, especially if we can get any traction from the ARM smartbooks and tablets. Then the battle begins.
> Face it: people are using windows 7, and by and large, they are satisfied with it.
I wouldn't dispute that, it is part of the argument I just made, see point 6 above. However, what I am saying is if they have XP or Vista SP2 they are also pretty satisfied and will only be upgrading the XP installs because much of the hardware hosting those installs is getting long in the tooth. Quick! Name me ten must have applications that only run on Windows 7. Ok, how about name ten that won't run on XP. Remember, people buy PCs to do things and if XP can watch YouTube videos and post to twitter most folks are happy campers. And Firefox on any current Linux can also do those things. If the iron wall keeping preloads out of retail channels is ever broken all hell will be set loose on Microsoft's balance sheet. Note also that 'enough' computer to do those things is quickly approaching the cost of a Windows 7 license. (Starter excluded)
> No matter how it's deployed, 10% of the huge PC market is extremely large.
Not really. Windows 7 has been on sale through one Xmas. About one in ten PCs in active service rolling
> And that's Windows 7's fault and cannot be Firefox's? Right? Blind fanboi, much?
1. I was giving my first look at W7 experience. Firefox has never blown up on any previous Windows install I have used and I only use IE to download FF. Microsoft has teams dedicated to making sure key ISV's products work because they know people buy computers (normally never really thinking about the OS, which is exactly what Microsoft wants) to run applications and if popular apps don't work customers don't care who is at fault. If they aren't working with Moz Corp that IS their fault.
2. Guess you didn't/couldn't read the next sentence where I note that while FF blows up on launch on W7 it blows up on close on F12, hence along with the noted different but equally wrong docking behavior merits the Meh! verdict on both.
Although I guess I should rate Windows worse on the docking problem because it is a preload and the dock is advertised as a recommended accessory. Lenovo should get to share blame with Microsoft for not properly testing. Windows KNOWS the new resolution of the docked display but decides to keep running at the lower resolution of the internal panel on a warm dock with the lid closed. In the same situation Fedora believes both panels are active and, worse, that the internal one is the primary so the gnome panel isn't visible, making the monitor control applet hard to get at. On Windows I can quickly fix the resolution and on Fedora I bound a key to pop up gnome-display-properties so it is usable.
The bigger point being neither are perfect but both are about equally usable. Availability of a key app, preferred philosophy (UNIX vs Windows vs Mac) are both more important factors in picking an OS, all three major OS families having long since passed the threshold of being 'good enough' to get work done. In my case I like the UNIX Way and won't use closed source if an open solution exists that doesn't blow. For now that puts me on Linux but I'm threatening to ditch it for BSD if I can't at least find some reliable documentation on some of this new freedesktop *kit/udev/hal/etc steaming piles of xml bullcrap. Fighting the frigin registry is easier, at least it is fairly well documented these days.
> I sincerely doubt that Linux will, in the near future, become mainstream like Windows. Linux is too difficult for the average computer user to use.
Pure FUD.
If you said Linux is too difficult for the average computer user to INSTALL I'd have replied that you are about two years behind the times. But even that argument is falling into history. Take a dozen users, give half Windows 7 install DVDs and the other half a mix of current desktop oriented Linux install media and I'd bet money that at any point in the release cycles you will get three of the Linux installs done within 10% +/- of the install of Windows 7 and more hardware will work 'out of the box.'
Now as for USE being harder? Bullcrap. It is a GUI desktop. Our public lab has had the general public using a Linux based desktop for over a decade now. Yes everything has been carefully adjusted so all of the hardware support issues are fixed, codecs and plugins have been preinstalled and all of the admin stuff has been done for them. Exactly as we would have done with a Windows based computer lab. But average rural library patrons have been browsing the Internet and editing documents on Linux here for long enough I can reject the "too difficult for the average user" FUD as exactly that. We give them individual NIS/NFS served persistent accounts with zero 'lockdown' and they have adapted to it nicely. We don't disable the USB ports and we give them a burner and sell (or they can bring their own) blank CDs for $.50. When they visit libraries elsewhere we get feedback noting how inferior the experience is on the standard Gates Foundation model everyone else in the state uses.
If you really want simple, take a look at some of the preloaded netbooks from ASUS or HP.
We don't ignore them, we understand them to be unimportant. Please take your astroturf campaign somewhere people won't call you out and laugh.
> Microsoft revealed that it had sold over 60 million Windows 7 licenses through the second quarter.
So what? Just means that after a couple of YEARS of pent up demand because of the Vista fiasco retailers had a decent Xmas selling season for PCs despite the generally crappy economy. Almost none of those 7 licenses were actual retail sales in the normal meaning of the word. Yes, we all understand the Microsoft tax still exists despite multiple consent decrees so every PC sale is also a Windows sale. But those would have been Vista sales a year ago and XP before that. Hell, about half the netbooks this Xmas were still XP. And to be able to show a increase in revenue they had to jack the OEM pricing on 7 oretty steep. That is a longterm opportunity for the Penguin Army.
> Apple's Aug. 28 release of its Snow Leopard...
Meh. At least most Apple users DO upgrade when a new OS ships instead of waiting for their next system purchase to get it rammed down their throat whether they want/like it or not. But Apple is just a niche player and their business model requires them to remain a niche player. Unlike His Steveness who only aspires to be a cult leader, we want "World Domination"
> For the last day in January Windows 7 Breaks 10% in Daily Tracking.
You say that like you guys in Redmond are proud of it or something. It is a sign of a saturated market. Odds are over half of that 10% was people getting a new machine for Xmas because the penetration numbers for 7 before that was still fairly small. Compare and contrast to Win95's release and deployment rate. That was a product people really wanted enough to suffer through the pain of upgrading.
Windows 7 (Professional 64bit) is actually pretty good, I got it forcefed on a new laptop (but it runs F12 99% of the time) and it mostly works. Both W7 and Fedora screw up some aspects of hot docking, each failing to deal with the external display having a different resolution in different ways. W7 blows up Firefox; every launch throws three error dialogs before settling down and running. F12 instead throws the abrt-tool every time FF closes. Meh, a pox on em all. Bottom line, after seeing W7 it is OK as far as Windows goes. I ordered the XP restore disc just in case I decided W7 blows goats but didn't end up using it. Would I upgrade a working Windows XP PC to it? Why? I can't answer that question and I'd bet you can't either. Since Vista has had some service pack love I'm not even certain I'd recommend spending good money taking an otherwise working Vista install up to 7.
Exactly right. Bootleg Windows is the #1 competition to Linux. So if ya want to bring about "The Year of the Linux Desktop" helping Microsoft turn the screws on unlicensed installs is probably the most productive thing a non-coder can do. Especially outside the US.
> Do you bitch about not being able to modify the ECU in your car?
If I couldn't modify my ECU I'd bitch about it. Most cars still allow it though. They make it hard but there is a thriving aftermarket in that sort of thing, especially in the sort of cars where that makes sense.
> Do you bitch about not being able to change the picture tube/lcd/plasma screen in your TV?
I have a copy of the service manual for my TV. Service mode helped tweak the picture quality greatly. I could also replace the tube. But I also know just what a bitch that job is and would likely replace it with a flatpanel, especially since I currently lack access to the equipment to realign everything. And before buying a flatpanel, yes I would research things like availibility of service info, potential for mods like getting root, etc.
> Are you mad that you can't upgrade the firmware in your digital thermostat in your home or office?
The typical thermostat has very little in it to work with. On the more complex ones, yes the more information available the more desirable the product.
same way that it is sad that hp has gone from a premier instrument maker to a maker^W importer of commodity PCs and peripherals
Fixed that for ya. And now the destroyer of HP (plus Lucent, etc.) wants to be a politician; try kicking her game up a notch and have a go at destroying the country.
Slashdot Mirror
It was possible to fully understand all of the old 8 and 16 but machines. Now you could spend momths trying to fully understand one video card, which would be replaced by something more complex by the time you finished understanding it.
And that was a big part of it, the stability of the platforms during that era. A C64 was exactly the same as every other one, a Tandy Coco was identical to the million others of it's kind. Later models tended to retain as close to 100% backward compatibility as possible so knowledge and software tools retained value. Now you buy a lot of PCs with the understanding that a year from now you won't be able to buy more of the exact model even if you stick to Optiplexes and such that promote the relative stability of the platform. Something will be slightly different. So, understanding being impossible we abstract it all away to the greatest extent possible.
If you want to reconnect with low level look at AVR microcontrollers. If you are really frugal you can get going for $20.
> ..there's a reason that the FDA takes a long time to approve treatments.
Yes there is, but you won't like it.
It is all in the incentives. If the FDA sits on a new procedure/drug/whatever another decade one of two things happen. One, they find a problem and everyone at the FDA is a hero. Two they don't find a problem and they approve the new treatment and the FDA is a hero anyway. Now consider the case where they see really promising initial results and fasttrack the treatment. If a decade later everything is good the FDA is a hero, but if anything goes wrong and they didn't put up every last roadblock to approval somebody at the FDA isn't a hero and probably gets sacked. Bottom line, the people who suffer and/or die during a prolonged approval process get no voice and thus can pose no harm to the career of an FDA official while victims of a mistake in approval get face time on TV and can cause much harm to a career.
Everyone is quick to get a pity party on for the hapless victims of a new drug that shows an unexpected side effect when it goes into general availability but until we ALSO pay equal attention to the ones who died waiting the year before a new treatment gets approved we will continue to misplace the balance point in the equation.
> Once the wind system is built, then you're talking marginal gains, rising as the price of oil and gas rises due to their increasing rarity. So there's an initial steep cost for wind,....
From the evidence to date there are also pretty huge ongoing upkeep expenses for wind turbines. There is no free lunch.
> I don't understand what part of of 'one day oil/gas will run out and we'll all die horribly,
Because people who actually have money are smarter than you. They understand economics and know that we won't suddenly wake up one otherwise normal sunny day and find ourselves out of dead dinosaurs to burn. It will happen slowly and the price will rise accordingly as supply declines, which will make alternatives become cost effective.
> Things like instant replay are impossible with a VCR.
True, but all of the TIVO patents fall out as a self evident use of a non-linear storage medium like a hard drive. They didn't invent ANYTHING. They didn't invent computerized video capture, they didn't even exist when MPEG was standardized and they didn't create the all in one encoder/decoder chips they used. I saw ALL of that in the early 1990's when I first saw a video capture board in use, it was only a matter of having big enough hard drives to make capture and storage of video practical.
So fuck TIVO directly in the mouth for their crime of attempting to game the patent system to hold up progress.
> ..it is the millions of joe sixpacks that care not to go through the trouble that it takes to install..
Sorry, but I hold to the belief that it is immoral to let suckers keep their money. Stupid is supposed to be painful, it is only the pain that eventually causes growth and learning... or death but then I doubt anyone has even been spammed to death yet.
That said, the root of this problem is simple. The ad networks themselves are the problem. Too many layers of indirection for any hope of accountability. The solution is fairly obvious, widespread use of browser tech that simply sets a limit on redirection. Real content isn't hiding behind several layers of scripts and redirectors. Force the content providers to host the ads in their own network (or at most one redirect away) like in the print and TV models and the malware problem goes away.
> When a country with a lot of wealth has 70% of its population living in poverty, a redistributionist left-wing regime is going to be the inevitable result in a democracy...
Which is the #1 problem with Democracy and one the US Founding Fathers understood perfectly. Which was why they wisely gave us a Republic instead of a Democracy. Then we failed to keep it and the goddamn Democrats took over.
> Religionists are against booze,
Many of the religious folk were certainly supporters but could not have been the primary mover. Look at the who controlled the government at the time, it was the Progressives. There were many reasons[1] that movement quickly disowned the name for the better part of a century before recently deciding that, their prior victims mostly dead of old age and the official histories carefully cleansed, they could reclaim the name and move openly against the Republic once again.
[1] Being on record saying nice things about every fasist dictator we would eventually end up fighting WWII and the Cold War against, Margaret sanger and her eugenics, the League of Nations, making the Depression Great, and so on.
> I think there are far more extraordinary claims out there: flat-world theory...
Perhaps I should qualify my statement with "most extraordinary claim given serious consideration". Yes flat earthers, Troofers, Lyndon Larouch, Faked Moonlanding theorists, etc. are about as zany bit nobody sane takes them seriously. The US just came a few weeks from Cap & Tax sailing right through Congress based on nothing but smoke and mirrors. Thankfully with the IPCC report now discredited it probably isn't going anywhere in the Senate.
> yours is rather extraordinary as well: that carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane don't affect the climate despite reams of planetological data
In sufficent quantities and sufficent time it probably has an effect. Greater than the normal climate cycles? Ah, now that is debatable. Will the proposed solution be far worse than than any problem? Almost certainly. And it still comes down to AGW being a big claim based to pretty flimsy evidence and the only solution being offered up is so preposterous as to merit only laughter wnen comparing the cost to the odds of AGW really causing the sorts of mayhem envisioned by the scaremongers pushing a political agenda.
> ...not simply Earth-based...
Btw, that reminds me to mention that if we can trust NASA (and I don't, Hansen is a liar) for Earth temp data why are you guys ignoring their observations of higher temps on other bodies outside the influence of our Hummers? I'd suggest that if it is true the Earth is a bit warmer you might want to go outdoors on a clear day and look up to find suspect #1. Disprove that theory before attempting to introduce a far more complicated one.
> Your characterization of the proposed solutions is rather hyperbolic, too.
Have you actually studied the Kyoto Treaty, the various proposals that died an ignoble death in Copenhagan or the the proposed Waxman/Markey bill. Or perhaps you could examine the European implementation. Yes it really does involve the taking over of pretty much everything.
> Why can't an economy run on energy derived from sources other than the burning of fossil fuels?
That is an almost totally unrelated issue. I support a massive crash program to get the US off imported oil for purely political reasons, thus support building Nuke plants like our very lives depended on it. Want a Manhattan Project size research effort to make fusion practical? Sign me up.
Wind power and solar panels? No. Don't hate em, just consider them an impractical use of public resources based on the potential return on investment. If the marketplace wants to invest in it and proves me wrong I'll be happy to say I was wrong but we can't afford to invest a lot in pure blue sky projects with little expectation of success, especially in a major recession.
Biofuels don't interest me either, can't see how they become practical on a large enough scale without causing famine. Famine is bad.
Geothermal is showing some problems of late, but it still has potential in some places and the bugs could still get solved.
Tidal power might be practical someday, probably too far out to help with the immediate need to make Saudi oil worth about the same as their sand though.
> How would a conversion to non-carbon-emitting energy eliminate most of the world's industrial base? People will still need stuff, even if it costs more.
Perhaps you really don't know. The idea is to eliminate most of the world's industrial base by simply making it too expensive to maintain. And people can want stuff but it juts won't be available in sufficient quantity. And they will be expected to learn to live with less. The whole point isn't to save the Earth, it is to bring about changes in society. A more agrarian society more in tune with Mother Earth.... and obedient to Big Brother.
I am old enough to remember when the same people were making the same recomendations to save the world from the coming Ice Age and when
> Well, maybe for 2009 to not be the hottest year in recorded history, or 2000-2009 to be the hottest decade in recorded history, for one.
Ok, but 2009 wasn't and 2000-2009 wasn't. Don't believe me, believe Phil Jones. And believe is all you can do since he lost all of his original data and there doesn't appear to be a clean temperature dataset ANYWHERE. Politics and science don't mix. Politics, science and trillions of dollars make an especially toxic stew.
Remember when 1998 was supposed to be the hottest ever? Then that was debunked and it was 1934. Now Hansen & his asshats are saying they have massaged the data some more and it is 1998 again by a nose. I say so what? If it is a statistical tie it really doesn't matter, the Warmers were yelling the warming was "unprecedented" yet that doesn't square with a virtual tie with 1934 now does it? But saying 'It was just a cunthair higher than back in 1934' doesn't make a good argument for seizing trillions of dollars of economic output and redirecting it into politically connected pockets.
> Maybe not for a clear upward trend in average global temperature over the last 100 years, for another.
Well if ol' Phil is right and we haven't seen any statistically significant warming for fifteen years.... And if the recent high was inside the error bars with 1934. Your point is?
> Weather != climate.
I know that. But if Al Gore can make Hurricane Katrina the centerpiece of his farce of a movie and not ONE Warmer call him out on it it is equally valid for the other team to toss this blizzard right back in his face. Don't go all heads I win and tails you lose on me, don't treat me as an idiot and I'll return the favor. K? We both know the difference between science and arguments to win points in the mass media and influence the electorate, right? Why should we let your side get away with it while we take the noble path? Besides, Copenhagen's blizzard and now this blizzard to greet the creation of the new Climate Change dept. is such rich irony it would almost be criminal not to exploit the situation being handed to us by Mother Nature Herself.
And I notice you avoided the question. What would falsify AGW theory?
And yes I must be willing to take the opposite question. But I have one advantage there, AGW is probably the most extraordinary claim in the history of extraordinary claims and the proposed solution (seizing most of the world's wealth, eliminating most of the current industrial base, etc.) is so far beyond extraordinary I doubt any human language even has the proper vocabulary for describing it properly. I simply demand extraordinary evidence. Since the evidence offered to date is pathetic and weak I laugh at it and call it a silly thing for silly (or evil) people.
One question for the warmers reading. Can the theory of AGW be falsified?
If it gets hotter it is because of Global Warming.
If a hurricane hits it is because of Global Warming.
If there is a drought anywhere it is because of Global Warming.
But if we get a blizzard it is bacause of Global Climate Change.
If it floods it is because of Global Warming/Climate Change.
If the North polar ice shrinks it is Global Warming.
Yet when the Antarctic ice grows it is Climate Change.
When the Northern ice returns it is nothing to see here, move along.
When Phil Jones says there has been no warming for fifteen years, it doesn't mean anything. In fact, to date only the Moonies at the Wash. Times and Fox News consider his statement worthy of repeating. (He said it to the BBC, btw, not known as a bastion of Deniers.)
So my question is this: For a theory to be Science it must be falsifiable; so what would it take for one of you True Believers to reconsider your theory?
> Both Maemo and Moblin started off Gtk-based, using the Clutter toolkit on top of Gtk.
You would have a point had it been done for technical reasons. And had you known what you were going on about. Maemo was never based on clutter, it predated clutter by several years and the hardware it ships on lacks 3d acceleration. This is corporate politics at work. Maemo is pretty much dead if you ask me, managed into oblivion. Moblin was already a dead horse, being tied too closely to both the x86 anchor and being a research toy OS watching Android come storming onto the scene sucking all the PR buzz up.
As for Maemo, look how many flag days there have already been and how many more are planned. The current shipping product is GTK based and everyone had already been warned of a rip and replace of most of the guts to go to Qt for the next version. Why? Because Nokia went out and bought Trolltech thats why, and ya gotta eat the house brand of dogfood. Now before they can even ship a beta more corporate politics happen and the developers are going to get a much more crap they didn't ask for dumped into their laps and told to integrate it.
So now there are two possibilities, either delay shipping the QT rewrite to merge all of the Intel tech and piss off everyone who, in anticipation of this switch was readying new code of their own, or worse ship the Qt port they had planned and announce yet again that it is a one release OS that is going to have most of it's innards ripped and replaced yet again for the next one. Who in their right mind is going to continue sinking resources into following this train wreck over the cliff? Perhaps Nokia can afford the developer resources to keep rewriting their OS for every release, but most 3rd party developers just want to release an app and get onto the next one or adding cool new features for a new version, not just keep rewriting and debugging the same one for an ever changing OS.
> Why would anyone need to be paid to target the platform which has over 90% of the desktop market, and disregard platforms with minuscule market share?
Just off the top of my head I can come up with one scenario that should be common but isn't. Which implies that either I'm missing something obvious or there are forces at work beyond the invisible hand of the marketplace.
Take any software category other than games, which is a special case. If there are multiple vendors servicing that market one usually dominates. That leaves one or more with less than 50% of the market, often less than 25%, of which Windows is usually 90+% of the customer base. Now just to put a number on it, lets say your company has 30%. That means the non-windows market represents a potential to add another couple percent or as much as a one third increase in sales if you do a Mac & Linux port. Ok, that probably won't be worth the extra support. But eventually somebody gets pushed down to single digits and the potential to DOUBLE sales by going cross platform should induce many to try. But it almost never happens. I say it is fear of offending Microsoft behind the reluctance, after all dropping a product line is better than bringing the wrath of Redmond on the whole company.
> And with the open distros, it doesn't cost a cent. You can put copies of it on as
> many computers as you want. You have server functionality if you want it - for free.
It is even better. You can even install RHEL for free, they only charge for updates and support. Granted that only a madman would put an Internet facing server out without updates or support but RedHat won't remotely disable you.
I hope Microsoft has great success with this scheme, eliminating 100% of unauthorized copies. As a certain fictional princess noted, "The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers." Or do they plan on using geolocation tech to allow 3rd world areas to continue their rampant 'piracy?'
> US government is prohibited from demanding that people obtain permission before speaking..
Somebody might want to clue in (lord knows he could use a clue about something) the POTUS. You know, the asshat/constitutional law professor that denounced the recent SCOTUS decision to their faces. And while you are at it you might want to clue in the asshat that ran against him in the '08 election. You probably remember the guy, the oathbreaker who co-authored the bill that is (thankfully) being (too) slowly dismembered by the courts. And don't forget the idiot! who signed McCain-Feingold while admitting it was unconstitutional or the guy who ran against Bush in '04 who is singing along from the progressive hymnal about the need to DO SOMETHING about the court decision. And don't forget 'all right thinking people' such as the NYT, CNN, WashPost, HuffPost, etc. who are all pissing and moaning about it and trying, with a straight face, to whip up an effort up to outright repeal the 1st Amendment if it can't be twisted into saying what they want it to say.
So no, I wouldn't count on our elected leaders to hold to their oath and defend our right to speak without asking their permission first and yes I'm just a little pissed off about that.
> They have a 90% market share. Just make up a required course...
Everyone would ditch Windows/IE within a year.... unless of course the government forced everyone else to do it too.... or better coupled it with a certification/licensing scheme for platforms (to ensure they all complied) that happened to put all of the competitors[1] out of business. And of course governments would be happy to make such a deal... for certain considerations which they want. Wiretap ports perhaps? Always watch for wheels within wheels turning when watching the sort of old money who hang around places like Davos.
[1] Apple excluded of course, were Apple to die Microsoft would have to invent another perfect 'competitor.' Think about it, Apple is always held up as the reason Microsoft isn't a monopoly without a competitor but does anyone think Apple actually wants to compete? Assume they could(yea, yea. work with me here); would they? Decades of evidence says they have zero desire to leave the market niche Microsoft intentionally left them with. It gives them prestige and the insanely great profit margins that allow them to do the R&D Microsoft doesn't seem able to do with similarly boundless resources. Then Microsoft 'invents' (read popularizes) the new tech and except for a single early patent pissing fight Apple now sits idly by and watches it happen with only an occasional snarky TV commercial. Almost like they had some sort of unwritten unholy bargain.
Considering that enforcing a license requirement just here in the US would be nigh on impossible without rethinking everything and that the odds of doing anything of the sort worldwide is less than zero I'm left wondering just what problem this idea is intended to solve?
Hint, it ain't any problem we users have and it ain't a problem the network operators are having. And since the practice of allowing Microsoft products to connect to the Internet is the bulk of the spam/zombie/malware problem I guess we would license every host as well as user. Any any license scheme that permitted Microsoft crap to operate would be considered toothless and any that banned them would get called 'draconian.' No win scenario. The only winning move is not to play.
> I think it's much more likely that there's something broken about your pc.
Possible, but my experience was this:
1. Buy Thinkpad x200s
2. Light it up, go through the firstboot stuff.
3. Let Windows Uodate do its thing.
4. Launch IE to download FF.
5. FF installs and throws three error dialogs, then runs.
6. Odd. Reboot and launch FF. It throws three error dialogs and then runs.
7. Make the recovery media set, do other mandatory housekeeping, etc.
8. Try FF again, still broke. Ok, isn't that odd. Now on with resizing Windows partition to make room for F12. That was a bit of an adventure but a tale for another day...
9. It is now over a month later, I have booted Win7 a couple of times. FF has updated itself once yet the problem persists.
> These magic mushrooms from Apple are so awesome.
No, no, no! There is Steve and his Kool-Aid and there is Nintendo with the magic mushrooms. Learn the difference and you can identify crazed fan boys at a distance.
> Wait, so which is it now? Is it:
> a) Vista was crap, and now people are falling over themselves to buy a windows 7, or a PC with windows 7, or
> b) Almost all of windows 7 sales were involuntary, and not a product of demand
I'll try one more time to explain it.
1. Vista was considered to be crap. EVERYBODY was saying it, the NYT, CNN, everybody. I never messed with it a lot but the one machine I put the RC on worked just fine. Sluggish though and it was an Athlon64. But regardless of fact, perception is everything once a meme sets in and Vista == suck was accepted wisdom.
2. No significant numbers of customers have bought upgrades since the Win9x era because upgrades are painful and almost always end up in a wipe and fresh load. An upgrade also normally requires tossing hardware without drivers. Thus now they buy a PC and it comes with an operating system. When they replace that PC it usually comes with a new OS.
3. Enterprise and SMB customers were (and still are) offered the option of getting XP but retail choices were 1) Vista, 2) Mac, 3) postpone purchase.
4. Macs are expensive and don't run any of a user's existing software.
5. Facts 1-4 caused customers to put off replacing their PC in droves, fearing getting stuck with "the suckage that is Vista."
6. The buzz around Windows 7 started telling people it "didn't suck like Vista." Again it didn't even have to be true, only that be become common wisdom.
7. Millions of people who had put off buying a new PC came back to the stores and bought a new faster PC since the Vista nightmare was finally over. But note that sales weren't through the roof even with the pent up demand.
Bottom line, people don't run out in any significant numbers and buy based on the OS but they will avoid buying a new PC if one of the components is considered to be crap. Imagine if every PC offered at a decent price had one of those old Conner Bigfoot hard drives after you figured out they were crap. You would wait until the stores got in new models. Well Vista was kinda like that.
> Anyway, however which way you slice it, it's a win for Microsoft and a loss for Linux. It doesn't help Linux for you to deny this.
Do you really think the only shot Linux had was the window of opportunity while Microsoft was pushing Vista? We made most of our gains against XP. All we have to do is keep the quality up and make small but constant gains. Eventually we will get close to Mac OS at which point we will instantly become the 2nd OS since we run on commodity hardware. After that Apple dies (really doubt they could maintain their mystique and profit margins as #3) and we are the only competition left standing. From there we should be able to get into double digits, especially if we can get any traction from the ARM smartbooks and tablets. Then the battle begins.
> Face it: people are using windows 7, and by and large, they are satisfied with it.
I wouldn't dispute that, it is part of the argument I just made, see point 6 above. However, what I am saying is if they have XP or Vista SP2 they are also pretty satisfied and will only be upgrading the XP installs because much of the hardware hosting those installs is getting long in the tooth. Quick! Name me ten must have applications that only run on Windows 7. Ok, how about name ten that won't run on XP. Remember, people buy PCs to do things and if XP can watch YouTube videos and post to twitter most folks are happy campers. And Firefox on any current Linux can also do those things. If the iron wall keeping preloads out of retail channels is ever broken all hell will be set loose on Microsoft's balance sheet. Note also that 'enough' computer to do those things is quickly approaching the cost of a Windows 7 license. (Starter excluded)
> No matter how it's deployed, 10% of the huge PC market is extremely large.
Not really. Windows 7 has been on sale through one Xmas. About one in ten PCs in active service rolling
> And that's Windows 7's fault and cannot be Firefox's? Right? Blind fanboi, much?
1. I was giving my first look at W7 experience. Firefox has never blown up on any previous Windows install I have used and I only use IE to download FF. Microsoft has teams dedicated to making sure key ISV's products work because they know people buy computers (normally never really thinking about the OS, which is exactly what Microsoft wants) to run applications and if popular apps don't work customers don't care who is at fault. If they aren't working with Moz Corp that IS their fault.
2. Guess you didn't/couldn't read the next sentence where I note that while FF blows up on launch on W7 it blows up on close on F12, hence along with the noted different but equally wrong docking behavior merits the Meh! verdict on both.
Although I guess I should rate Windows worse on the docking problem because it is a preload and the dock is advertised as a recommended accessory. Lenovo should get to share blame with Microsoft for not properly testing. Windows KNOWS the new resolution of the docked display but decides to keep running at the lower resolution of the internal panel on a warm dock with the lid closed. In the same situation Fedora believes both panels are active and, worse, that the internal one is the primary so the gnome panel isn't visible, making the monitor control applet hard to get at. On Windows I can quickly fix the resolution and on Fedora I bound a key to pop up gnome-display-properties so it is usable.
The bigger point being neither are perfect but both are about equally usable. Availability of a key app, preferred philosophy (UNIX vs Windows vs Mac) are both more important factors in picking an OS, all three major OS families having long since passed the threshold of being 'good enough' to get work done. In my case I like the UNIX Way and won't use closed source if an open solution exists that doesn't blow. For now that puts me on Linux but I'm threatening to ditch it for BSD if I can't at least find some reliable documentation on some of this new freedesktop *kit/udev/hal/etc steaming piles of xml bullcrap. Fighting the frigin registry is easier, at least it is fairly well documented these days.
> I sincerely doubt that Linux will, in the near future, become mainstream like Windows. Linux is too difficult for the average computer user to use.
Pure FUD.
If you said Linux is too difficult for the average computer user to INSTALL I'd have replied that you are about two years behind the times. But even that argument is falling into history. Take a dozen users, give half Windows 7 install DVDs and the other half a mix of current desktop oriented Linux install media and I'd bet money that at any point in the release cycles you will get three of the Linux installs done within 10% +/- of the install of Windows 7 and more hardware will work 'out of the box.'
Now as for USE being harder? Bullcrap. It is a GUI desktop. Our public lab has had the general public using a Linux based desktop for over a decade now. Yes everything has been carefully adjusted so all of the hardware support issues are fixed, codecs and plugins have been preinstalled and all of the admin stuff has been done for them. Exactly as we would have done with a Windows based computer lab. But average rural library patrons have been browsing the Internet and editing documents on Linux here for long enough I can reject the "too difficult for the average user" FUD as exactly that. We give them individual NIS/NFS served persistent accounts with zero 'lockdown' and they have adapted to it nicely. We don't disable the USB ports and we give them a burner and sell (or they can bring their own) blank CDs for $.50. When they visit libraries elsewhere we get feedback noting how inferior the experience is on the standard Gates Foundation model everyone else in the state uses.
If you really want simple, take a look at some of the preloaded netbooks from ASUS or HP.
> Three stories the geek will studiously ignore:
We don't ignore them, we understand them to be unimportant. Please take your astroturf campaign somewhere people won't call you out and laugh.
> Microsoft revealed that it had sold over 60 million Windows 7 licenses through the second quarter.
So what? Just means that after a couple of YEARS of pent up demand because of the Vista fiasco retailers had a decent Xmas selling season for PCs despite the generally crappy economy. Almost none of those 7 licenses were actual retail sales in the normal meaning of the word. Yes, we all understand the Microsoft tax still exists despite multiple consent decrees so every PC sale is also a Windows sale. But those would have been Vista sales a year ago and XP before that. Hell, about half the netbooks this Xmas were still XP. And to be able to show a increase in revenue they had to jack the OEM pricing on 7 oretty steep. That is a longterm opportunity for the Penguin Army.
> Apple's Aug. 28 release of its Snow Leopard...
Meh. At least most Apple users DO upgrade when a new OS ships instead of waiting for their next system purchase to get it rammed down their throat whether they want/like it or not. But Apple is just a niche player and their business model requires them to remain a niche player. Unlike His Steveness who only aspires to be a cult leader, we want "World Domination"
> For the last day in January Windows 7 Breaks 10% in Daily Tracking.
You say that like you guys in Redmond are proud of it or something. It is a sign of a saturated market. Odds are over half of that 10% was people getting a new machine for Xmas because the penetration numbers for 7 before that was still fairly small. Compare and contrast to Win95's release and deployment rate. That was a product people really wanted enough to suffer through the pain of upgrading.
Windows 7 (Professional 64bit) is actually pretty good, I got it forcefed on a new laptop (but it runs F12 99% of the time) and it mostly works. Both W7 and Fedora screw up some aspects of hot docking, each failing to deal with the external display having a different resolution in different ways. W7 blows up Firefox; every launch throws three error dialogs before settling down and running. F12 instead throws the abrt-tool every time FF closes. Meh, a pox on em all. Bottom line, after seeing W7 it is OK as far as Windows goes. I ordered the XP restore disc just in case I decided W7 blows goats but didn't end up using it. Would I upgrade a working Windows XP PC to it? Why? I can't answer that question and I'd bet you can't either. Since Vista has had some service pack love I'm not even certain I'd recommend spending good money taking an otherwise working Vista install up to 7.
> Windows is a commercial product.
Exactly right. Bootleg Windows is the #1 competition to Linux. So if ya want to bring about "The Year of the Linux Desktop" helping Microsoft turn the screws on unlicensed installs is probably the most productive thing a non-coder can do. Especially outside the US.
> Do you bitch about not being able to modify the ECU in your car?
If I couldn't modify my ECU I'd bitch about it. Most cars still allow it though. They make it hard but there is a thriving aftermarket in that sort of thing, especially in the sort of cars where that makes sense.
> Do you bitch about not being able to change the picture tube/lcd/plasma screen in your TV?
I have a copy of the service manual for my TV. Service mode helped tweak the picture quality greatly. I could also replace the tube. But I also know just what a bitch that job is and would likely replace it with a flatpanel, especially since I currently lack access to the equipment to realign everything. And before buying a flatpanel, yes I would research things like availibility of service info, potential for mods like getting root, etc.
> Are you mad that you can't upgrade the firmware in your digital thermostat in your home or office?
The typical thermostat has very little in it to work with. On the more complex ones, yes the more information available the more desirable the product.
Fixed that for ya. And now the destroyer of HP (plus Lucent, etc.) wants to be a politician; try kicking her game up a notch and have a go at destroying the country.