"something fancy, like find a file", they can't do it. WTF? How about "Start, Find, Files or Folders"? Even my users are not so stupid they can't do that... I think you exaggerate!
Thanks for a quick answer. I guess it _is_ the latter, then. You're right, VM is cool, but as I thought, it's not exactly Linux running "on" a mainframe, is it? Any more than you can run Windows NT "on" an AS/400 (or i-series!). You actually run it on an Intel CPU which is integrated into the AS/400's disk and I/O environment...you need to dig a bit to find that out, the sales reptiles have no clue. Still if it helps to run good apps I suppose only techie purists will care. And perhaps only techie IBM purists at that.
Can anyone explain (OK, I'm ignorant!) what is happening under the covers here? Is this mainframe partitioned in hardware terms, with x number of Linux instances actually controlling its resources? Or is it that x number of Linux instances are running in software partitions under the control of OS/390 or VM or...? If it's the latter it seems far less exciting to me.
Well you've obviously forgotten the days when you could only buy telephones - and only one model of telephone, only in black - from Post Office Telephones (remember them? Are you old enough?), you were forbidden by law from connecting anything to the phone line that didn't belong to them, and it took about three months to get a line. Or longer, I don't know. Maybe the Big Thief is far from competent - and I don't mean to give them any sort of boost at all - but a little competition makes all the difference. Philosophically, why on earth should the government - or any arm of it - be in any sort of business anyway?
Re:In a Corporatocracy, we're all just targets.
on
Clever Girl Bess
·
· Score: 1
You may live in London, but you're not paying attention to what happens there. The RIP bill is now the RIP act - it did make it through parliament. But hey, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. My ass.
You might like to consider the law about house designs - it's the same as with anything else. I happen to have a completely unique custom-built house which was designed for me by an architect - to my ideas and even my sketches; the house is mine, _but the design is his_. If I wanted to build another one the same, I would have to pay a royalty. If he wanted to build another one the same, I couldn't stop him, much as I like to think of it as "mine".
My 2d-worth on the Microsoft thing is that in the normal way of things people would just stop using a piece of software which had these kind of restrictions -remember what happened to copy-protected Lotus 1-2-3? But MS now guess/hope that people want to use Windows so much that they won't mind being shafted, and, of course, most people won't even understand whether and how the shafting matters, until it hits them when they try to upgrade or re-install. Whether MS are right in this remains to be seen, but you can forget mass conversions to Linux - most people who could do that, already have, and for the masses it's a non starter.
No sig is a good sig
Re:Encryption controls were a good thing
on
The Encryption Wars
·
· Score: 1
Your argument seems to be "We Americans will prevent our people from exporting cryptographic tools, therefore nobody else in the world will be able to encrypt anything". I'm sorry? Don't you think anyone outside the US has brains? Or perhaps you didn't realise there was anyone outside the US at all? The export regulations were abandoned, not because your lot suddenly came over all liberal, but because, since lots of other people had written encryption software of their own, it was pointless to maintain what had become simply a restriction on those US businesses who wanted to export it.
I'm sceptical too. The ozone "hole" (actually, thinning) was discovered in 1985, that doesn't mean it first occurred in 1985. Did Captain Scott look for it? Did Amundsen look for it? Did they - or anyone else before 1985 - have any means of measuring it? No, no, and no, I think. I believe ozone is formed by the action of sunlight on Oxygen, and some chemical reactions are involved which work more slowly, as most chemical reactions do, in lower temperatures. It's an equilibrium, so some natural process is also removing or degrading the ozone - it's pretty reactive stuff, after all. Now, what do you think would happen if you took a large closed volume of very cold air and kept it in the dark for four or five months? Might the ozone level in it not drop? What does this mean in relation to Antarctic winter conditions? Or is there some other, secret evidence that this is a new phenomenon? I wonder...
...apart from the biology, which is fascinating. I thought the whole point of the three photo-whatsits was that they respond to the three primary colours, from which ALL other colours can be created. So if your three photo-whatsits are all working properly - ie you're not colour-blind in the normally-accepted sense - then you will be able to see ALL possible colours. This is an analogue system, remember, not digital, so discussions about 32, 48, 64-bit colour depths etc are all off the topic. So what is it that the fourth receptor is supposed to enable, exactly? The ability to see something - a colour ordinary people can't see - that doesn't actually exist because ordindary people can see all possible colours anyway? Duh? Can someone point out what I'm missing here?
If you really think monitoring programs can only be installed on an NT workstation by someone logging on locally, then you've got a lot to learn about NT, my friend. There are dozens of ways to do it that even an administrator wouldn't notice unless being very very thorough. If you're a Linux zealot and don't want to learn those things, be afraid. And don't use your office NT workstation for anything dodgy.
Everyone is missing a point here. The Laurence Godfrey case did not go to the court, so no law was made and no precedent set. Demon paid up _out_of_court_ presumably because they were afraid they would lose squillions of pounds if they lost the action. So the reason everyone is being so paranoid and super-cautious is that they don't actually know what the law is. Some brave ISP needs to go to court and test it - the verdict might be that an ISP is a common carrier (like a Telco) and therefore not responsible for content. But given the nonsense that sometimes comes out of libel cases (Fayed won, remember?) I wouldn't hold my breath.
Slashdot Mirror
If you _really_ want to know what the EU is doing with (to?) the Information Society, try this link: www.statewatch.org
"something fancy, like find a file", they can't do it. WTF? How about "Start, Find, Files or Folders"? Even my users are not so stupid they can't do that... I think you exaggerate!
Thanks for a quick answer. I guess it _is_ the latter, then. You're right, VM is cool, but as I thought, it's not exactly Linux running "on" a mainframe, is it? Any more than you can run Windows NT "on" an AS/400 (or i-series!). You actually run it on an Intel CPU which is integrated into the AS/400's disk and I/O environment...you need to dig a bit to find that out, the sales reptiles have no clue. Still if it helps to run good apps I suppose only techie purists will care. And perhaps only techie IBM purists at that.
Can anyone explain (OK, I'm ignorant!) what is happening under the covers here? Is this mainframe partitioned in hardware terms, with x number of Linux instances actually controlling its resources? Or is it that x number of Linux instances are running in software partitions under the control of OS/390 or VM or ...? If it's the latter it seems far less exciting to me.
Well you've obviously forgotten the days when you could only buy telephones - and only one model of telephone, only in black - from Post Office Telephones (remember them? Are you old enough?), you were forbidden by law from connecting anything to the phone line that didn't belong to them, and it took about three months to get a line. Or longer, I don't know. Maybe the Big Thief is far from competent - and I don't mean to give them any sort of boost at all - but a little competition makes all the difference. Philosophically, why on earth should the government - or any arm of it - be in any sort of business anyway?
You may live in London, but you're not paying attention to what happens there. The RIP bill is now the RIP act - it did make it through parliament. But hey, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. My ass.
You might like to consider the law about house designs - it's the same as with anything else. I happen to have a completely unique custom-built house which was designed for me by an architect - to my ideas and even my sketches; the house is mine, _but the design is his_. If I wanted to build another one the same, I would have to pay a royalty. If he wanted to build another one the same, I couldn't stop him, much as I like to think of it as "mine".
My 2d-worth on the Microsoft thing is that in the normal way of things people would just stop using a piece of software which had these kind of restrictions -remember what happened to copy-protected Lotus 1-2-3? But MS now guess/hope that people want to use Windows so much that they won't mind being shafted, and, of course, most people won't even understand whether and how the shafting matters, until it hits them when they try to upgrade or re-install. Whether MS are right in this remains to be seen, but you can forget mass conversions to Linux - most people who could do that, already have, and for the masses it's a non starter.
No sig is a good sig
Your argument seems to be "We Americans will prevent our people from exporting cryptographic tools, therefore nobody else in the world will be able to encrypt anything". I'm sorry? Don't you think anyone outside the US has brains? Or perhaps you didn't realise there was anyone outside the US at all? The export regulations were abandoned, not because your lot suddenly came over all liberal, but because, since lots of other people had written encryption software of their own, it was pointless to maintain what had become simply a restriction on those US businesses who wanted to export it.
.
I'm sceptical too. The ozone "hole" (actually, thinning) was discovered in 1985, that doesn't mean it first occurred in 1985. Did Captain Scott look for it? Did Amundsen look for it? Did they - or anyone else before 1985 - have any means of measuring it? No, no, and no, I think. I believe ozone is formed by the action of sunlight on Oxygen, and some chemical reactions are involved which work more slowly, as most chemical reactions do, in lower temperatures. It's an equilibrium, so some natural process is also removing or degrading the ozone - it's pretty reactive stuff, after all. Now, what do you think would happen if you took a large closed volume of very cold air and kept it in the dark for four or five months? Might the ozone level in it not drop? What does this mean in relation to Antarctic winter conditions? Or is there some other, secret evidence that this is a new phenomenon? I wonder...
...apart from the biology, which is fascinating. I thought the whole point of the three photo-whatsits was that they respond to the three primary colours, from which ALL other colours can be created. So if your three photo-whatsits are all working properly - ie you're not colour-blind in the normally-accepted sense - then you will be able to see ALL possible colours. This is an analogue system, remember, not digital, so discussions about 32, 48, 64-bit colour depths etc are all off the topic. So what is it that the fourth receptor is supposed to enable, exactly? The ability to see something - a colour ordinary people can't see - that doesn't actually exist because ordindary people can see all possible colours anyway? Duh? Can someone point out what I'm missing here?
If you really think monitoring programs can only be installed on an NT workstation by someone logging on locally, then you've got a lot to learn about NT, my friend. There are dozens of ways to do it that even an administrator wouldn't notice unless being very very thorough. If you're a Linux zealot and don't want to learn those things, be afraid. And don't use your office NT workstation for anything dodgy.
Everyone is missing a point here. The Laurence Godfrey case did not go to the court, so no law was made and no precedent set. Demon paid up _out_of_court_ presumably because they were afraid they would lose squillions of pounds if they lost the action. So the reason everyone is being so paranoid and super-cautious is that they don't actually know what the law is. Some brave ISP needs to go to court and test it - the verdict might be that an ISP is a common carrier (like a Telco) and therefore not responsible for content. But given the nonsense that sometimes comes out of libel cases (Fayed won, remember?) I wouldn't hold my breath.