Oh and it's a little slower and eats more memory. That too.
And my X2 4400+ with 2GB of RAM cares why?
Seriously, unless you're using old hardware, the extra requirements really aren't a problem. If you are using old hardware, perhaps you ought to be using old software to match.
On a secure OS - at least one with proper file system security Peggy-Sue can pack her account with all kinds of nasties, and Dad's still safe as houses.
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. NTFS provides an extremely rich file system security model, with far more granularity than is present in all but a few obscure, specialised Linux filesystems.
Then the users go and run as admin and do away with most of that protection, but you can't blame that one on Windows/NTFS (you can blame it on MS for making it the default, and on third-party developers for writing shitty software that needlessly requires it).
Windows just doesn't offer that kind of security.
Windows 3 and 9x didn't, Windows NT (and so 2k, XP, 2003 Server and eventually Vista and Longhorn) with NTFS does.
Just because a lot of people choose not to use the features (often out of either ignorance or laziness) doesn't mean that they don't exist.
I can't think of any occasion where a feature appeared in Linux which was in a Microsoft OS first
Well, if you want to get picky about it, Windows predates Linux, so little features like disk access, task scheduling, memory management, etc were all in Windows before they were in Linux...;)
There are a lot of things that were in Windows before they made it into KDE or Gnome, although I can't be sure that there weren't "independent" alternatives available; I'm thinking specifically along the lines of control panel type things, hardware and network config wizards, etc. (In fact, arguably a coherent desktop shell was in Windows long before it was available for Linux distros)
One thing that was definitely available to Windows users for a long, long time before it made it into Linux distros was changing the screen resolution on the fly. For years that required a restart of the X server; it's only relatively recently that this has changed.
Don't get me wrong, there are things "in Linux" that aren't in Windows, like KDE's kioslaves (drag 'n' drop creation of mp3s or oggs from a different view of a CD is pretty cool). I'm not trying to assert the superiority of Windows, just provide a few examplse of features that were available as part of Windows before they were part of Linux distros.
I also happen to disgaree with you, and agree with the OP. I have never seen an article here about some feature of Linux or Apache, etc to which an editor has added that the same thing has been available under Windows/IIS/whatever for ages. However, I have seen a number of times like this one where the editor has seen fit to mention Linux, or have a dig at proprietary software or praise open source or whatever.
Basically, if you don't think that Slashdot is biased, then either you're not paying attention, or you're simply biased in the same way and don't recognise it as bias. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing - there are plenty of rabidly pro-MS sites, the world can use a few pro-Linux ones. Just don't come here expecting a balanced outlook; the site has always had a heavy pro-Linux, pro-OSS bias. It's kind of the point.
Eh? Starforce protected games won't run under XP without admin rights either - or are you trying to say that you need to grant the admin account even more rights under Vista? (Which raises two questions - what account do you use to elevate admin's privileges, and why not simply run the game as that account instead?)
I was thinking along those lines; or alternatively, a friend or relative phones up to let you know that they're coming to visit/emmigrating/etc, and you ring round family and mutual friends to let them know.
Or, they phone up to ask you if you can buy them $somethingHardToFindWhereTheyAre and mail it to them, and you ring round to find one/a good price on one, etc. Maybe it's a second hand or collectible item, so you're phoning private citizens rather than shops.
Or they need some advice, or they've moved and have asked you to distribute their new address, or they're throwing a massive party and have asked you to invite everyone, or...
Sure, some of them are a bit contrived, and wouldn't happen that often, but the point is that they're all plausible and all perfectly innocent. Ok, so you have nothing to fear from a little covert investigation by the FBI; unless, of course, they screw up, or at some time in the future the *reason* you are in a certain file is lost or forgotten, and unfortunate assumptions are made.
Mistakes happen. The more often innocent people are investigated "just in case", the more often innocent people are going to be victims of those mistakes. At some point, the costs start to outweigh the benefits.
Is it because ink is expensive or because ink is distracting?
I'd imagine that it's a little of both. Don't forget that major newspapers will be printing hundreds of thousands or millions of papers every day; all that ink is going to add up over the course of a year.
There are also other issues, of course - newsprint tends to come off on your fingers, so if there was a lot of extra cosmetic ink on the page, the readers' fingers would get that much dirtier (I know I hate how dirty my fingers get after reading a paper now).
Finally, PCs are not newspapers. They have different design considerations, and so naturally lend themselves to different types of design.
've come across a good rule of thumb: if the page is more readable in lynx, links, or w3m than it is in Firefox, then it needs work. The current slashdot is pretty darn readable in a text browser once you get past the ton of links at the top
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say there - do you mean that the current page *does* need to be redesigned?
Now if I was hanging slashdot on my wall, I might prefer one of the CSS redesigns... but I'm not; I'm reading it
I know where you're coming from, but for me (and I suspect a lot of people), I tend to spend a very large proportion of my day staring at my monitor. What's on it had better be pleasing to my eye, and while plain text in a terminal window is definitely *usable*, it's not very aesthetically pleasing. That's a very subjective thing, of course, but my opinion would be the exact opposite of yours.
Perhaps she quit because she became disgusted with the way in which MS does business, and in fact the entire notion of proprietary software?
Perhaps she quit because she didn't think they went far enough, and was disgusted that they gave consumers as much freedom as they do?
The point is, who knows? It might amaze you to learn that not everyone who works for a company necessarily believes in the same ideals, and even if they did, people can change. On the other hand, maybe she is a true believer, and would never change.
or sometimes even what gender it will be (suppose your ultrasound had been wrong about gender?)
I don't know about the US, but certainly here in the UK some people choose not to know, preferring it to be a surprise.
That lead to the situation in which my fiancée's best friend was pregnant, and she and we knew the sex of the baby, but were all desparate not to let it slip to anyone else that we even knew, let alone what it was, as it was supposed to be a surprise...
What if you want something that isn't quite in one of those 4 catagories.
Well, you can always download it. I don't suppose for one minute that the OP is suggesting an arbitrary restriction, like MS's server products (used to?) have - eg MS SQL Server refusing to install on XP because it's not a Windows Server OS.
Similarly, I have a little over 7 years commercial experience of server-side programming for websites, mostly in Java. On my home machine, I have a few toy projects, mostly in C# (as I want to broaden my skill set), mostly desktop-based (for the same reason).
I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to keep my personal interests and my work interests separate.
I predict that when games get more advanced they will either use OpenGL
OpenGL is arguably a replacement for the functionality of Direct3D (although I've not used it, so I can't tell how close the feature equivalence is), but D3D is a relatively small part of DX. You can't just use OGL instead of DX.
or even program what the game needs into the game itself (which likely won't be a permanent upgrade to your system).
Now why in the world would you do that? You're saying that rather than rely on third-party libraries and concentrate on getting the engine right, it would be *better* to write not only the engine, but also the entire HAL?
OGL and DX exist precisely because software houses have neither the time nor the expertise to create their own. What you suggest would massively increase the complexity and therefore time and cost of any game; it simply isn't practical. And to what end? What would they gain over simply using an existing set of libraries?
To answer another point, the vast majority of PC users do not upgrade their OS. They simply use whatever comes with their PC. If they're in the market for a new PC, they'll choose the one with the latest version of Windows, because
1) no-one likes to think that they're using old, out-dated stuff 2) the advertising will tell them to 3) they'll quickly have no choice, as no manufacturer likes to be slling old, out-dated stuff (see point 1)
People like you and me, we upgrade, but we're in a tiny minority.
Oh sure, it's quicker for any given email, but if you just delete it, Spamcop will never know about it. If Spamcop never knows about it, it'll never block it. If it never blocks it, you'll just keep on getting the spam. The more spam you get, the longer you spend just deleting it...
I'm a little confused as to what you think Java needs saving from; it may not be popular round these parts, but out in the real world, its in huge demand, at least in the web. Increasingly it's also to be found gluing web fornt ends to legacy systems and even replacing those systems altogether.
Yeah, it pretty-much died a death on the client, but that's hardly indicative of it requiring "saving" from anything.
It's an interesting industry when one of the advertising campaigns includes the boast: "fewest dropped calls of any mobile phone service". It kind of drives home what the mobile phone industry has failed most at, yet they continue to drive forward with other unnecessary and no more mature offerings.
I never fail to be amazed at the state of the mobile industry in the US, at least as portrayed on sites like this one.
I live in the UK, and I can't remember the last time I had a dropped mobile call that wasn't directly attributed to completely losing phone signal (which at least for me, only ever happens when going underground on the Tube). Add to that some of the ridiculous pricing schemes that seem to be in effect (do you really still pay to *receive* calls?) and it's little wonder that everyons seems so pissed about things.
For a country that (rightly) prides itself on its innovation and technical advancement, you don't half seem to have some things completely wrong...
Earth is measured in millions and billions of years, yet all the items you and other lists as killing the planet have only been around say 200 years. There's a few orders of magnitude difference in those.
What a strange argument. A bullet can end a life in milliseconds that had until then been going perfectly well for decades; that's a similar order of magnitude difference in timescale, and it's a man-made effect.
If you don't believe the measurements indicating that the ozone hole was increasing (back when it was) why do you believe the measurements now that it is decreasing?
As you said, convenience; a hole that we have to take steps to fix is inconvenient, hence the disbelieve. A hole that is now closing faster than expected is very convenient, hence the belief.
You see the same sort of thing in all sorts of situations; people are naturally predisposed to believe the things that agree with the beliefs they already hold, and that make life easier for themselves. (There are of course people who tend to believe the worst, too, but they tend to be in a minority)
When you copy and paste (a section of) an article, it's only fair to provide a link to the original; that's especially true when it references an image: "A typical unit, like the Adrian machine shown here".
I'm begining to wonder if the mods even read the comments.
So, let me get this straight - because MS or its PR companies have astroturfed, it necessarily follows that every pro-MS comment is astroturfing?
I can understand disbelieving the boy the third time he cries wolf, but disbelieving *everyone* the *first* time because of him? Seems a little closed-minded to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh and it's a little slower and eats more memory. That too.
And my X2 4400+ with 2GB of RAM cares why?
Seriously, unless you're using old hardware, the extra requirements really aren't a problem. If you are using old hardware, perhaps you ought to be using old software to match.
On a secure OS - at least one with proper file system security Peggy-Sue can pack her account with all kinds of nasties, and Dad's still safe as houses.
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. NTFS provides an extremely rich file system security model, with far more granularity than is present in all but a few obscure, specialised Linux filesystems.
Then the users go and run as admin and do away with most of that protection, but you can't blame that one on Windows/NTFS (you can blame it on MS for making it the default, and on third-party developers for writing shitty software that needlessly requires it).
Windows just doesn't offer that kind of security.
Windows 3 and 9x didn't, Windows NT (and so 2k, XP, 2003 Server and eventually Vista and Longhorn) with NTFS does.
Just because a lot of people choose not to use the features (often out of either ignorance or laziness) doesn't mean that they don't exist.
I can't think of any occasion where a feature appeared in Linux which was in a Microsoft OS first
;)
Well, if you want to get picky about it, Windows predates Linux, so little features like disk access, task scheduling, memory management, etc were all in Windows before they were in Linux...
There are a lot of things that were in Windows before they made it into KDE or Gnome, although I can't be sure that there weren't "independent" alternatives available; I'm thinking specifically along the lines of control panel type things, hardware and network config wizards, etc. (In fact, arguably a coherent desktop shell was in Windows long before it was available for Linux distros)
One thing that was definitely available to Windows users for a long, long time before it made it into Linux distros was changing the screen resolution on the fly. For years that required a restart of the X server; it's only relatively recently that this has changed.
Don't get me wrong, there are things "in Linux" that aren't in Windows, like KDE's kioslaves (drag 'n' drop creation of mp3s or oggs from a different view of a CD is pretty cool). I'm not trying to assert the superiority of Windows, just provide a few examplse of features that were available as part of Windows before they were part of Linux distros.
I also happen to disgaree with you, and agree with the OP. I have never seen an article here about some feature of Linux or Apache, etc to which an editor has added that the same thing has been available under Windows/IIS/whatever for ages. However, I have seen a number of times like this one where the editor has seen fit to mention Linux, or have a dig at proprietary software or praise open source or whatever.
Basically, if you don't think that Slashdot is biased, then either you're not paying attention, or you're simply biased in the same way and don't recognise it as bias. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing - there are plenty of rabidly pro-MS sites, the world can use a few pro-Linux ones. Just don't come here expecting a balanced outlook; the site has always had a heavy pro-Linux, pro-OSS bias. It's kind of the point.
Eh? Starforce protected games won't run under XP without admin rights either - or are you trying to say that you need to grant the admin account even more rights under Vista? (Which raises two questions - what account do you use to elevate admin's privileges, and why not simply run the game as that account instead?)
I was thinking along those lines; or alternatively, a friend or relative phones up to let you know that they're coming to visit/emmigrating/etc, and you ring round family and mutual friends to let them know.
Or, they phone up to ask you if you can buy them $somethingHardToFindWhereTheyAre and mail it to them, and you ring round to find one/a good price on one, etc. Maybe it's a second hand or collectible item, so you're phoning private citizens rather than shops.
Or they need some advice, or they've moved and have asked you to distribute their new address, or they're throwing a massive party and have asked you to invite everyone, or...
Sure, some of them are a bit contrived, and wouldn't happen that often, but the point is that they're all plausible and all perfectly innocent. Ok, so you have nothing to fear from a little covert investigation by the FBI; unless, of course, they screw up, or at some time in the future the *reason* you are in a certain file is lost or forgotten, and unfortunate assumptions are made.
Mistakes happen. The more often innocent people are investigated "just in case", the more often innocent people are going to be victims of those mistakes. At some point, the costs start to outweigh the benefits.
Nice FUD. Got any proof at all of any of your assertions?
absofuckinglutely stupid unless you're blind and using a screen reader
And how exactly do you know that he isn't?
Is it because ink is expensive or because ink is distracting?
I'd imagine that it's a little of both. Don't forget that major newspapers will be printing hundreds of thousands or millions of papers every day; all that ink is going to add up over the course of a year.
There are also other issues, of course - newsprint tends to come off on your fingers, so if there was a lot of extra cosmetic ink on the page, the readers' fingers would get that much dirtier (I know I hate how dirty my fingers get after reading a paper now).
Finally, PCs are not newspapers. They have different design considerations, and so naturally lend themselves to different types of design.
've come across a good rule of thumb: if the page is more readable in lynx, links, or w3m than it is in Firefox, then it needs work. The current slashdot is pretty darn readable in a text browser once you get past the ton of links at the top
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say there - do you mean that the current page *does* need to be redesigned?
Now if I was hanging slashdot on my wall, I might prefer one of the CSS redesigns... but I'm not; I'm reading it
I know where you're coming from, but for me (and I suspect a lot of people), I tend to spend a very large proportion of my day staring at my monitor. What's on it had better be pleasing to my eye, and while plain text in a terminal window is definitely *usable*, it's not very aesthetically pleasing. That's a very subjective thing, of course, but my opinion would be the exact opposite of yours.
Perhaps she quit because she became disgusted with the way in which MS does business, and in fact the entire notion of proprietary software?
Perhaps she quit because she didn't think they went far enough, and was disgusted that they gave consumers as much freedom as they do?
The point is, who knows? It might amaze you to learn that not everyone who works for a company necessarily believes in the same ideals, and even if they did, people can change. On the other hand, maybe she is a true believer, and would never change.
Also just sayin'.
or sometimes even what gender it will be (suppose your ultrasound had been wrong about gender?)
I don't know about the US, but certainly here in the UK some people choose not to know, preferring it to be a surprise.
That lead to the situation in which my fiancée's best friend was pregnant, and she and we knew the sex of the baby, but were all desparate not to let it slip to anyone else that we even knew, let alone what it was, as it was supposed to be a surprise...
What if you want something that isn't quite in one of those 4 catagories.
Well, you can always download it. I don't suppose for one minute that the OP is suggesting an arbitrary restriction, like MS's server products (used to?) have - eg MS SQL Server refusing to install on XP because it's not a Windows Server OS.
At least here, when our IP rights are corroded, or IP gets overbearing, we have recourse.
You do? Excellent - please go ahead and seek recourse, as your country and corporations are both lobbying and inspiring mine to their own excesses.
If anything, the groupthink will be just as bad.
Similarly, I have a little over 7 years commercial experience of server-side programming for websites, mostly in Java. On my home machine, I have a few toy projects, mostly in C# (as I want to broaden my skill set), mostly desktop-based (for the same reason).
I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to keep my personal interests and my work interests separate.
I was wondering about his use of @ too - it's not like he needs to save characters...
I predict that when games get more advanced they will either use OpenGL
OpenGL is arguably a replacement for the functionality of Direct3D (although I've not used it, so I can't tell how close the feature equivalence is), but D3D is a relatively small part of DX. You can't just use OGL instead of DX.
or even program what the game needs into the game itself (which likely won't be a permanent upgrade to your system).
Now why in the world would you do that? You're saying that rather than rely on third-party libraries and concentrate on getting the engine right, it would be *better* to write not only the engine, but also the entire HAL?
OGL and DX exist precisely because software houses have neither the time nor the expertise to create their own. What you suggest would massively increase the complexity and therefore time and cost of any game; it simply isn't practical. And to what end? What would they gain over simply using an existing set of libraries?
To answer another point, the vast majority of PC users do not upgrade their OS. They simply use whatever comes with their PC. If they're in the market for a new PC, they'll choose the one with the latest version of Windows, because
1) no-one likes to think that they're using old, out-dated stuff
2) the advertising will tell them to
3) they'll quickly have no choice, as no manufacturer likes to be slling old, out-dated stuff (see point 1)
People like you and me, we upgrade, but we're in a tiny minority.
Oh sure, it's quicker for any given email, but if you just delete it, Spamcop will never know about it. If Spamcop never knows about it, it'll never block it. If it never blocks it, you'll just keep on getting the spam. The more spam you get, the longer you spend just deleting it...
also, why .info?
Irrepressible.info -> "irrepressible information" -> "information [that] [cannot|should not] be repressed" (or similar).
Besides that, given that it's the website for a campaign, rather than an organisation or similar, what domain fits better?
This might just save java too.
I'm a little confused as to what you think Java needs saving from; it may not be popular round these parts, but out in the real world, its in huge demand, at least in the web. Increasingly it's also to be found gluing web fornt ends to legacy systems and even replacing those systems altogether.
Yeah, it pretty-much died a death on the client, but that's hardly indicative of it requiring "saving" from anything.
It's an interesting industry when one of the advertising campaigns includes the boast: "fewest dropped calls of any mobile phone service". It kind of drives home what the mobile phone industry has failed most at, yet they continue to drive forward with other unnecessary and no more mature offerings.
I never fail to be amazed at the state of the mobile industry in the US, at least as portrayed on sites like this one.
I live in the UK, and I can't remember the last time I had a dropped mobile call that wasn't directly attributed to completely losing phone signal (which at least for me, only ever happens when going underground on the Tube). Add to that some of the ridiculous pricing schemes that seem to be in effect (do you really still pay to *receive* calls?) and it's little wonder that everyons seems so pissed about things.
For a country that (rightly) prides itself on its innovation and technical advancement, you don't half seem to have some things completely wrong...
Nobody has ever satisfactorily explained how periodic holes in the ozone at the poles threaten anyone other than those who live at extreme latitudes.
Oh well that's all right then isn't it? Just as long as the holes didn't get too big, and we didn't live too far away from the Equator, we'd be fine!
Earth is measured in millions and billions of years, yet all the items you and other lists as killing the planet have only been around say 200 years. There's a few orders of magnitude difference in those.
What a strange argument. A bullet can end a life in milliseconds that had until then been going perfectly well for decades; that's a similar order of magnitude difference in timescale, and it's a man-made effect.
If you don't believe the measurements indicating that the ozone hole was increasing (back when it was) why do you believe the measurements now that it is decreasing?
As you said, convenience; a hole that we have to take steps to fix is inconvenient, hence the disbelieve. A hole that is now closing faster than expected is very convenient, hence the belief.
You see the same sort of thing in all sorts of situations; people are naturally predisposed to believe the things that agree with the beliefs they already hold, and that make life easier for themselves. (There are of course people who tend to believe the worst, too, but they tend to be in a minority)
When you copy and paste (a section of) an article, it's only fair to provide a link to the original; that's especially true when it references an image: "A typical unit, like the Adrian machine shown here".
I'm begining to wonder if the mods even read the comments.
So, let me get this straight - because MS or its PR companies have astroturfed, it necessarily follows that every pro-MS comment is astroturfing?
I can understand disbelieving the boy the third time he cries wolf, but disbelieving *everyone* the *first* time because of him? Seems a little closed-minded to me.