When were the processors the problem? I have a venerable AMD 386-40MHz system collecting dust in my basement that ran solidly for about 8 years before it failed to keep up with my computing needs. I'll bet that if I powered that system back up that it would still be running (although the clock battery has probably died by now).
Yeah, pretty much what I've been saying to friends and colleagues so far this election year. Basically...
Our choices this year are to vote for the militaristic, plutocratic Yale graduate, or you can try to change things and vote for the militaristic, plutocratic Yale graduate.
Apple: "After all, the company's control over both software and hardware helps make its systems more reliable."
Which is why all the bogus claims of Apple's and Sun's pending demise just continue to sound preposterous to me. These companies have ultimate control and ultimate knowledge about their products, have teams that work together to diagnose problems, and consistently achieve customer satisfaction. But this does nothing to stop the trolls that keep barking the same old tired lines.
Other companies could stand to learn a few old tricks from these companies -- customer support is the most important part of a company's existence. Without customers, you are nothing.
Niche market. Mainly business types who will request a demo from the vendor to place on their desktop as the coolest new toy that our department is looking at, but will never use, nor even attempt to learn how to, nor even give to line employees who actually might find a use for the toy. Will never use on the plane because it's still on the desk (and still powered off). Will continue to use latest, greatest, and most powerful laptop that the company provides to create Word documents, while line employees continue to be frustrated with 4 year old technology running 5-6 year old OS's. Will eventually take the toy to a meeting, probably offsite, will lose the toy, and end up having to pay the vendor full price for the item. Vendor will then happily place the newest toy on said business type's desk ASAP, thereby ensuring the cycle repeats itself ad infinatum.
(No, I'm not bitter, and I've never seen this happen before, why do you ask?)
Ok, Slashdotters, here's your chance to googlebomb (hmmm, ok, guess we need a new catchphrase here) the MSN Newsbot. Go to the site and use the "Find Your News" search field to look for things like FOSS, SCO-MS interplay, RIAA, or get really nasty and search for things like goatse and other wrteched sites.
The scary part about Slashdot is that if you replace every instance of "liberal" with "conservative" in the parent post, it will get moderated as +5, Insightful despite no change in content.
You have heard of a support contract, haven't you? You do realize that the lion's share of all IT supplier profits come from support contracts, don't you?
Well....that depends. Virii is not a valid English word, but since the singular word virus is not an original English word, but actually a borrowed Latin word, then the plural of the Latin word virus is actually virii. This is almost certainly the source of all the confusion, and it's an honest mistake that a lot of people make.
However, bastardized words like 'alot', 'irregardless', 'gotten', 'orientate', and 'remediate' do get on my nerves.
this is something on which Cisco can buy them just to shut them up
You can not, must not cave in to buy a company like this because it sets precedent for the creation of a million more just like them that will create noise and/or sue for things they don't have ownership for nor can prove there is damage being done.
You must see this out to the end, either being the annihilation of the barratrous company or the squashing of the lawsuit by an informed judicial process. You must send a message to all other wannabes that this type of crap will not be tolerated and that doing so will result in the destruction of their companies, their reputations, and their personal viability.
Re:As a self-appointed representative of ...
on
Black Hat
·
· Score: 1
Those that do not comply with this offer will be SNIPPED and GUNNED down....
So try something else, like.....grow it in Mexico. Work with the gov't there to setup a potentially extremely lucrative industry that the US will not embrace due to FUD and politics, and then plant, harvest, process, manufacture, and sell directly to US companies, not as a hemp product, but as low-cost, high quality paper.
Hell, as the ultimate irony, you could sell the paper to to US gov't for use in legal documents.
First off, I'm the submitter. I have no relation with Timothy whatsoever. Nuff said.
Second, I originally wrote the story from the point of view of the RIAA trampling on organizations' rights, with the users' rights (or the lack thereof) being the end result of the lack of ability (or funds) to fight back. I happen to agree with the letter of the law regarding the RIAA's efforts, but I disagree with the method they are taking to enforce their copyrights, although ultimately they are doing what anyone else would do in their situation given a business model that is pending implosion if nothing is done. But in this case, I object to the RIAA basically strong-arming the universities saying "Buy this, or we'll bury you in litigation, which even if you win, will cost you more than this due to lawyer fees." That is effectively what they have done in this case.
But if you think about it on an even deeper level (for which I may be giving the RIAA too much credit, but nonetheless), this could actually be one of the greatest consumer adoption schemes ever devised. As the old saying goes, "like any good addiction, the first hit is free". So the RIAA cuts extremely cheap deals to allow college students to download music to their hearts content. But at the end of their tutelage, they're left with nothing and an insatiable desire to keep downloading music. Therefore, the post-college consumer buys into the Napster/iTunes/Rhapsody or whatever service is available at the time. The end result is that RIAA gets money from the colleges now for what they would otherwise pretty much lose to filesharing, continues to beat the "piracy" initiative into kids heads, and then gets a captive audience afterwards. It's devilishly clever.
plan to test a wi-fi connection between his house and his plane...
Yes, and I'm about to test my wi-fi roaming capability from my rocket car in the Bonneville flats. Next week, I'm going to test the reception distance of my Pringle's can antenna from the deck of my 75' yacht on my way to the Bahamas to my other beach house....
Ummm, not quite what they're saying. What I believe this device is doing is translating the physical analog experience into a virtual digital representation. Think of it more like recording a movie rather than playing it back.
This has great applications if the forces required to perform a certain function can be recorded and then recreated in a simulation. With that capability, we could record Tiger Woods swinging a golf club and then teach new golfers how to emulate his style by actually feeling what he does. Or perhaps record a physician's surgery and allow med students to get the feel for the correct procedure before doing it on real people. Or maybe record ace pilots turning a 5G roll and teach new ones what to expect.
Well, I agree with both of you here. Touring is a necessity, possibly if only to keep the ideas flowing and the storylines behind songs fresh. Some of the most boring music ever recorded has been recorded recently because the storylines are old and played out. It's not just the music that is boring, but the message itself. That's why current music is failing -- the formula is broken.
But some bands literally have to start putting out shitty music because of bad record deals they made. Take Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell's situation when he signed his record deal with his former band, Porno for Pyros. He basically signed a deal that gave him squat off the recordings and sunk him on concerts as well, but he could not get out of this contract until he had released X amount of recordings. So he and his band spent the last years of their existence making absolutely horrible songs in order to quickly fulfill their part of the deal and to ensure that the record label would not re-sign them to another contract. Once that was finished, he went back to JA and is once again doing fairly nicely. Too bad about the Lollapalooza cancellations though....state of the nation I guess.
Hate to reply to my own post, but on second thought, the hardware wasn't broken. In fact, the software wasn't broken either. The only thing wrong was that you broke the routing on a working SPARC Solaris server, which is an easy fix with a laptop and a serial cable.
But instead of providing them with the cheap fix, you moved them to what is probably a more expensive solution TCO-wise on probably less reliable hardware (especially so given the state of PC hardware vs. Sun hardware 4 years ago). Not sure I agree with your methodology here.
Actually, I'm less curious about this service and more curious about when to use it. Per the article:
Although customers won't get any cash or rebates for bringing in dated electronics, Rubin said the company is looking into adopting such an incentive scheme in the future.
So if I hold on to my 12 year old POS monitor for just a little while longer, is there possibly something in it for me?
Ok, fair enough, but some sort of global tracking is what I'm looking for -- something like RFID that is small enough to be embedded, but remotely trackable. The kind of things the CIA is paid to research.
And as far as finding some dumb kid or a small cadre, it's a start. Besides, the dumb kid will spill the beans, and you begin to be able to put the pieces together. You know, the kind of things the FBI is paid to research....
What needs to be done is a concerted effort with the US Treasury to create $100 bills with RFID tags inserted into them, and tell the 419'ers that you will pay in cash only. After the transaction is complete, literally follow the money trail. Should uncover a huge amount of the crime underworld that way.
Actually, Red Hat and SuSE would be fine as well. They are fairly easy to work with, and allow the user to get comfortable as well, while keeping the dirty parts contained and controlled to keep the support fairly innocuous.
My guess is that the choice of Linspire had more to do with the higher TCO including support that Dell would have to pony up and pass on to the customer if RH or SuSE were chosen. I can imagine that having to buck up like that might be more damaging to people's desire to try out Linux than the benefits gained from using it.
This is very true. While we might view optimization and total control as desirable attributes, the n00b Linux user who is testing the waters outside the Microsoft pool is likely to be overwhelmed by this requirement, and will probably not stay long enough to give Linux a good test drive.
While Linspire might not be ideal for the hard core folks, it's a good first choice for people who want to find out what all the buzz is about and see what it's like to live in a world free of virii and pop-ups, without having to worry about the administrative overhead of a Debian or a Gentoo install. Let them get comfortable first before suggesting such a quantum leap like that.
"I hope that when the Earth's magnetic fields flip and new north poles are created, that one happens to be at my house. That way, I can tell my kids that we live at the North Pole, and that Santa lives upstairs and really does see you when you're sleeping and know when you're awake."
Actually, you almost hit on what I think really needs to be done next to really get Mozilla into critical mass area. And that is to do current reviews of IE. For every new review and push towards Mozilla and/or Opera, we need to give everyone the reasons why this is beneficial.
OTOH, if an unbiased review of IE can produce comparable results, then at the very least, it gives the Mozilla and Opera folks a good idea of where to go next in developing the Uber-browsers. However, I have a hard time believing that IE can compare anymore, save for the annoying habit of web developers coding for IE only.
Slashdot Mirror
When were the processors the problem? I have a venerable AMD 386-40MHz system collecting dust in my basement that ran solidly for about 8 years before it failed to keep up with my computing needs. I'll bet that if I powered that system back up that it would still be running (although the clock battery has probably died by now).
Apple: "After all, the company's control over both software and hardware helps make its systems more reliable."
Which is why all the bogus claims of Apple's and Sun's pending demise just continue to sound preposterous to me. These companies have ultimate control and ultimate knowledge about their products, have teams that work together to diagnose problems, and consistently achieve customer satisfaction. But this does nothing to stop the trolls that keep barking the same old tired lines.
Other companies could stand to learn a few old tricks from these companies -- customer support is the most important part of a company's existence. Without customers, you are nothing.
Ummm....let me reword this a bit....
Niche market. Mainly business types who will request a demo from the vendor to place on their desktop as the coolest new toy that our department is looking at, but will never use, nor even attempt to learn how to, nor even give to line employees who actually might find a use for the toy. Will never use on the plane because it's still on the desk (and still powered off). Will continue to use latest, greatest, and most powerful laptop that the company provides to create Word documents, while line employees continue to be frustrated with 4 year old technology running 5-6 year old OS's. Will eventually take the toy to a meeting, probably offsite, will lose the toy, and end up having to pay the vendor full price for the item. Vendor will then happily place the newest toy on said business type's desk ASAP, thereby ensuring the cycle repeats itself ad infinatum.
(No, I'm not bitter, and I've never seen this happen before, why do you ask?)
Ok, Slashdotters, here's your chance to googlebomb (hmmm, ok, guess we need a new catchphrase here) the MSN Newsbot. Go to the site and use the "Find Your News" search field to look for things like FOSS, SCO-MS interplay, RIAA, or get really nasty and search for things like goatse and other wrteched sites.
Let's give MSN's newest beta a warm sendoff...
The scary part about Slashdot is that if you replace every instance of "liberal" with "conservative" in the parent post, it will get moderated as +5, Insightful despite no change in content.
You have heard of a support contract, haven't you? You do realize that the lion's share of all IT supplier profits come from support contracts, don't you?
Well....that depends. Virii is not a valid English word, but since the singular word virus is not an original English word, but actually a borrowed Latin word, then the plural of the Latin word virus is actually virii. This is almost certainly the source of all the confusion, and it's an honest mistake that a lot of people make.
However, bastardized words like 'alot', 'irregardless', 'gotten', 'orientate', and 'remediate' do get on my nerves.
this is something on which Cisco can buy them just to shut them up
You can not, must not cave in to buy a company like this because it sets precedent for the creation of a million more just like them that will create noise and/or sue for things they don't have ownership for nor can prove there is damage being done.
You must see this out to the end, either being the annihilation of the barratrous company or the squashing of the lawsuit by an informed judicial process. You must send a message to all other wannabes that this type of crap will not be tolerated and that doing so will result in the destruction of their companies, their reputations, and their personal viability.
Those that do not comply with this offer will be SNIPPED and GUNNED down....
How poetic is is that Microsofties admire a singer who's demise was a direct result of his incredible bloat?
So try something else, like.....grow it in Mexico. Work with the gov't there to setup a potentially extremely lucrative industry that the US will not embrace due to FUD and politics, and then plant, harvest, process, manufacture, and sell directly to US companies, not as a hemp product, but as low-cost, high quality paper.
Hell, as the ultimate irony, you could sell the paper to to US gov't for use in legal documents.
First off, I'm the submitter. I have no relation with Timothy whatsoever. Nuff said.
Second, I originally wrote the story from the point of view of the RIAA trampling on organizations' rights, with the users' rights (or the lack thereof) being the end result of the lack of ability (or funds) to fight back. I happen to agree with the letter of the law regarding the RIAA's efforts, but I disagree with the method they are taking to enforce their copyrights, although ultimately they are doing what anyone else would do in their situation given a business model that is pending implosion if nothing is done. But in this case, I object to the RIAA basically strong-arming the universities saying "Buy this, or we'll bury you in litigation, which even if you win, will cost you more than this due to lawyer fees." That is effectively what they have done in this case.
But if you think about it on an even deeper level (for which I may be giving the RIAA too much credit, but nonetheless), this could actually be one of the greatest consumer adoption schemes ever devised. As the old saying goes, "like any good addiction, the first hit is free". So the RIAA cuts extremely cheap deals to allow college students to download music to their hearts content. But at the end of their tutelage, they're left with nothing and an insatiable desire to keep downloading music. Therefore, the post-college consumer buys into the Napster/iTunes/Rhapsody or whatever service is available at the time. The end result is that RIAA gets money from the colleges now for what they would otherwise pretty much lose to filesharing, continues to beat the "piracy" initiative into kids heads, and then gets a captive audience afterwards. It's devilishly clever.
plan to test a wi-fi connection between his house and his plane...
Yes, and I'm about to test my wi-fi roaming capability from my rocket car in the Bonneville flats. Next week, I'm going to test the reception distance of my Pringle's can antenna from the deck of my 75' yacht on my way to the Bahamas to my other beach house....
Ummm, not quite what they're saying. What I believe this device is doing is translating the physical analog experience into a virtual digital representation. Think of it more like recording a movie rather than playing it back.
This has great applications if the forces required to perform a certain function can be recorded and then recreated in a simulation. With that capability, we could record Tiger Woods swinging a golf club and then teach new golfers how to emulate his style by actually feeling what he does. Or perhaps record a physician's surgery and allow med students to get the feel for the correct procedure before doing it on real people. Or maybe record ace pilots turning a 5G roll and teach new ones what to expect.
Could be pretty cool.
Well, I agree with both of you here. Touring is a necessity, possibly if only to keep the ideas flowing and the storylines behind songs fresh. Some of the most boring music ever recorded has been recorded recently because the storylines are old and played out. It's not just the music that is boring, but the message itself. That's why current music is failing -- the formula is broken.
But some bands literally have to start putting out shitty music because of bad record deals they made. Take Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell's situation when he signed his record deal with his former band, Porno for Pyros. He basically signed a deal that gave him squat off the recordings and sunk him on concerts as well, but he could not get out of this contract until he had released X amount of recordings. So he and his band spent the last years of their existence making absolutely horrible songs in order to quickly fulfill their part of the deal and to ensure that the record label would not re-sign them to another contract. Once that was finished, he went back to JA and is once again doing fairly nicely. Too bad about the Lollapalooza cancellations though....state of the nation I guess.
Hate to reply to my own post, but on second thought, the hardware wasn't broken. In fact, the software wasn't broken either. The only thing wrong was that you broke the routing on a working SPARC Solaris server, which is an easy fix with a laptop and a serial cable.
But instead of providing them with the cheap fix, you moved them to what is probably a more expensive solution TCO-wise on probably less reliable hardware (especially so given the state of PC hardware vs. Sun hardware 4 years ago). Not sure I agree with your methodology here.
So you replaced a piece of broken hardware with a piece of broken software?
(Sorry, just had to say it....)
So if I hold on to my 12 year old POS monitor for just a little while longer, is there possibly something in it for me?
Ok, fair enough, but some sort of global tracking is what I'm looking for -- something like RFID that is small enough to be embedded, but remotely trackable. The kind of things the CIA is paid to research.
And as far as finding some dumb kid or a small cadre, it's a start. Besides, the dumb kid will spill the beans, and you begin to be able to put the pieces together. You know, the kind of things the FBI is paid to research....
Hmmmm.....
What needs to be done is a concerted effort with the US Treasury to create $100 bills with RFID tags inserted into them, and tell the 419'ers that you will pay in cash only. After the transaction is complete, literally follow the money trail. Should uncover a huge amount of the crime underworld that way.
Actually, Red Hat and SuSE would be fine as well. They are fairly easy to work with, and allow the user to get comfortable as well, while keeping the dirty parts contained and controlled to keep the support fairly innocuous.
My guess is that the choice of Linspire had more to do with the higher TCO including support that Dell would have to pony up and pass on to the customer if RH or SuSE were chosen. I can imagine that having to buck up like that might be more damaging to people's desire to try out Linux than the benefits gained from using it.
This is very true. While we might view optimization and total control as desirable attributes, the n00b Linux user who is testing the waters outside the Microsoft pool is likely to be overwhelmed by this requirement, and will probably not stay long enough to give Linux a good test drive.
While Linspire might not be ideal for the hard core folks, it's a good first choice for people who want to find out what all the buzz is about and see what it's like to live in a world free of virii and pop-ups, without having to worry about the administrative overhead of a Debian or a Gentoo install. Let them get comfortable first before suggesting such a quantum leap like that.
"I hope that when the Earth's magnetic fields flip and new north poles are created, that one happens to be at my house. That way, I can tell my kids that we live at the North Pole, and that Santa lives upstairs and really does see you when you're sleeping and know when you're awake."
Actually, you almost hit on what I think really needs to be done next to really get Mozilla into critical mass area. And that is to do current reviews of IE. For every new review and push towards Mozilla and/or Opera, we need to give everyone the reasons why this is beneficial.
OTOH, if an unbiased review of IE can produce comparable results, then at the very least, it gives the Mozilla and Opera folks a good idea of where to go next in developing the Uber-browsers. However, I have a hard time believing that IE can compare anymore, save for the annoying habit of web developers coding for IE only.