Banks take this kind of thing very seriously. If you object to the cup, they'll take it out of your arm! Or they'll show you the door.
Second data point: Yep...it's true. As someone who uses banks, I was glad to see that they did check me for drug use before allowing me on a contract for check processing systems. After the banking contract, I moved on to a sensitive government contract and was stunned that they didn't include drug tests along with the FBI background check. I told the interviewer this, and from the look on his face he hadn't even considerd it before.
True atheists don't give a damn about religion at all, that includes not caring whether the word god is in the constitution or not.
Well, I'd shy away from talk about 'true athests'. There's no entrance exam or membership card, and according to the folks on the alt.atheism newsgroup there is no Evil Atheist Conspiracy(tm) and it does not meet on every second Tuesday to eat pizza.
Speaking as someone who had the opportunity to debate atheism and theology with the local bishop at a fairly early age I find this level of apparent fundamentalism quite spooky.
Well, I grew up in the US but I still see exactly what you mentioned. This mindset is everywhere...sometimes showing up in the oddest situations. It can get quite hostile...as if stating that atheism is even a posibility is an accusation that there's something wrong with a specific religion.
Plus, there's the general attitude to having arguments that is different in the US vs. UK;
US = Argument means you are willing to fight, but will try and persuade first.
UK = Argument means a spirited debate.
Yes, this is not always the case here, and I like to argue in the UK sense, but it is something to keep in mind.
As for the 'atheist = satianist' angle it comes from the idea that capital "G" God necessarily exists and that 'God = good'. Therefor, anyone who says that they don't agree with 'God = good' is evil or mislead by evil, thus 'satanists'. This breaks down into sects where everyone NOT in your church is going to Hell or is simply on the 'wrong path'...this leads me to the following joke;
A priest encounters a suicidal man who is about to fling himself off a bridge to end it all.
"Wait, there's so much to live for...you believe in God, don't you?"
...'Tux2'...provides the same guarantees of a consistent filesystem as data+metadata journalling, without the performance hit.
I'm curious...does anyone know how much more RAM/CPU Tux2/ReiserFS/... need over and beyond Ext2? Journaling is an impressive feature, yet some of the machines I monitor aren't cutting edge; Pentium 200/64MB, Celeron 300/96MB. I've already tweaked these systems in other ways (no extra consoles, MTTR settings,...).
I don't think Linus is going to listen to you. It doesn't look like you've read what he's said on these issues already, or have spent much time compiling kernels on different systems.
The issues you raise are packaging issues, important to people putting together distributions -- not kernel development or design issues. Even though that is the case, most distributions tend to load specific hardware support as a module.
If you roll your own kernel you have ultimate control over what disk, BIOS, and bus types are supported. Very little in the Linux kernel is manditory. That's why it runs on such wildly different systems.
Perhaps the time has come to fork the older machines.. Few of us run Linux on anything less powerful than a Pentium, and even fewer on a 486.
It's not a question of older but of smaller, and if you've ever compiled a kernel from scratch, you know how insanely flexible the choices are. Kernel Traffic, as others have mentioned is a must-read if you want to understand the design decisions being made.
For systems with limited resources -- embeded systems, or those mini-distribututions with under 16MB of storage (flash) and RAM -- the decisions made for the kernel in general are the same as larger systems with a few gigs of RAM and multiple processors. Read a few comments on these in KT, and the reasons will become more obvious.
I agree with others who said that this is just Ziff-Davis making an issue out of nothing, and that nearly everything can be a patch or an ifdef -- no fork needed.
You could also throw your vote into a black hole. End result is the same.
That's the same attitude voiced in a Simpson's episode -- where both G.Bush and B.Clinton are really squid-like aliens. When unmasked by Homer...the crowd is shocked...and someone yells, "We could vote for a 3rd party candidate!"
One of the aliens says "Go ahead...throw your vote away!"
I'm proud to have "thrown away" my vote in the last two presidential elections...the three presidential elections before those had me voting for people I simply didn't and couldn't agree with.
As for Nader, he gets some consideration from me...he has saved many lives and is honest in his convictions. Personally, I agree more with the libertarian point of view so they will more likely get my vote this time round.
Either way, if you don't vote in all elections -- especially in non-presidential years -- you are throwing your vote away.
Steve Gibson is loosing his touch I think. His origonal great product was Spinrite, but it's pretty much useless now as it can't access any new drives at low enough a level to be effective.
I think you're being too hard on Steve. His company is doing a service to the Windows-users of the world...even if this DoS solution is mostly a translation of an existing Unix solution.
Spinrite: It was valuable because of design limits in drives that are no longer a problem;
MFM and some drives (IDE/SCSI) made when MFM was still being sold didn't autocorrect defects.
Tracks would drift over time due to temperature changes (any drive).
Drives were expensive so correcting track drift and defects is a good way to keep from spending more money.
While defects still crop up, and temperature changes do cause tracks to drift, most modern hardware automatically corrects this at the physical level. The logicial level is the only part that is still exposed to the system, and Spinright can't use it. This means that for every drive they'd have to find out how to access the physical part of the drive... and when they get there most drives don't need it!
You're also forgetting that people still have a lot of that old hardware out there. Some folks (not as wealthy as you) don't want to throw away a perfectly good modem, printer, or NIC if they don't have to.... I think some of you guys are just too young to understand that good equipment does not become obsolete.
I agree with what you say. Most computers and parts that are being dumped are perfectly fine. Since most computers are never upgraded, the fact that they have any free slots or external ports after they are initially bought/configured is not usually an issue. Use what is appropriate for the task at hand -- especially if it's cheap!
Personally, almost 1/2 of the adapter cards I use are ISA, and I'm still using a serial modem...yet, that's changing.
I'm getting rid of many of my ISA/serial/parallel devices by selling them or giving them to friends and family. The trend for new stuff is clearly towards USB devices and PCI-only systems. In a few years, you won't be able to buy many ISA/serial/parallel devices (or they will be dumped...cheap!). Here's a short list of reasons why I'm dumping ISA/S/P devices;
New equipment has mothballed old, new equipment is fairly cheap, better, and better supported. Example: 512k SVGA cards (XFv4 does not support it), ISA SCSI cards (slow), and other cards sitting unused in static bags.
Many devices are only available in USB/PCI versions. Example: Most web cams.
Existing ISA/serial/parallel devices are becoming dated -- speed/capabilities -- in comparison to similar USB/PCI devices. Example: Printers, scanners, and sound cards.
USB and PCI are much better interfaces. There's little reason to fight the trend toward eliminating serial/parallel/ISA.
As for USB compatability with *BSD, Linux,... there's some work to be done but it doesn't look too dire. My main concern is with dumb devices that use propriatory -- binary -- drivers and hidden interfaces. These have been and will be an issue regaurdless of the interface used.
(An aside: first computer - Columbia Data Products lugable with 2-320k floppies, 128k RAM, and bundled CPM/86 and MS DOS 1.24.)
Its sad to see that a company that is signifigantly benifiting the opensource community is dying.
[Sam Kinison, talking about Jesus on the cross]
Crowd (mumbling): 'Jesus, it's too bad you've got to die!'
Jesus (screaming): 'Well, I wouldn't have to if somebody would get a pair of pliers!'
It's not a question if there are Corel products that are worth having and... yes... buying. The question is 'Is it worth it to you?'
So far myself, I've downloaded the freebies and have considered recommending v.2 of Corel Linux for less-tech savy friends and family. I can't justify getting WordPerfect because it uses a closed format, and I don't do that much graphics work so I'm not a customer for Corel Draw. I've only spent a few minutes fiddling around with Photopaint only because I don't do much graphics work.
The only thing stopping me from recommending v.2 Corel Linux is that I know more about RedHat and RedHat derrived distributions then Debian. Not a big hurdle, true, yet if anything goes wrong or needs changing, I'll have to make the changes (via. SSH, of course!).
[Steve Martin voice] Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm so PISSED!
Go ahead. Mark this as flamebait. Mark me down, bring up the same complaints already voiced in other threads as if they're unique...but answer me this;
Why are people ripping RedHat a new one?
Is this just an attempt at 'bash the leader' again? Sure looks like it, and I'm sick of it.
Is any of this based on facts of a real problem, or just unhappyness over someone charging for something nobody's forcing you to buy?
I'll give folks who mentioned Debian/apt-get/windows_update/... a point. Yes, those are handy. You can do similar things with RPM -- no not _identical_, _similar_. Not really interesting, though.
If you know how to run a Linux system, you probably don't need any special services. I sure don't want to update anything without seeing if there's a reason and what those changes are first. If you want to use the service, and it saves you some anguish/time/effort then it does not seem that prohibitive.
It's like people complaining about the cost of VMware or other handy tools. If you don't want to play, don't pay. Why gripe about it?
It was sent to me without any action on my part, other than being a subscriber to a magazine- that sounds like a gift to me.
I don't know the specific U.S. law, but I do rember a commercial a few years back from the U.S. Postal Service that showed an Eskimo opening a box with a fan in it. The announcer (off-screen) said "Did you know that if you recieve anything in the mail that you didn't order, you don't have to pay for it?" "Cool" said the Eskimo, as he smiled.
...well, almost any! If you go to a site that doesn't have it available for download, you can probably view the source and still figure out how to get it.
Clearly documented explanations of the security features that one can toggle in the Internet Options -> Security tab would be one thing, but the lack of context-specific, right-click help (try it and see) or even the word persistence in the indexed help file (search and see) is somewhat silly.
While I agree, I think you're expecting too much from Microsoft's documentation group. They have different -- and Annoying(tm) -- ideas about what should go in a help system. Let me say up front that I neither agree or misunderstand why they dumb-down the docs -- we aren't thier main clients!
It's like an anti-man-page attitude; say How to do something not What something is or Why it is valuable. Much of the help provided is along the lines of "Print prints somethig to a printer" or worse "This button prints". In context, these might be OK...but the lack of extra details anywhere is just part of the design goal. Less is better...since it's not really necessary, is it? Anything more detailed would be confusing to a typical user.
MS is, after all, the company that don't document the switch/MBR for thier fdisk program (try it - fdisk/?)...why give detailed help on something that is much more of a user-level tool then a disk partitioning tool?
I'm painted as the bad guy for even asking where the clothes on the emperor are. As if I'm being silly, or worse a bigot just for disagreeing. Someone please explain this reasoning to me, but skip the common explanations. Been there, done that.
Welp, the simple explanation for my belief in God... [ snip ]...I also whole heartedly agree with you, nonsense is nonsense, and my opinion of current scientific theory on the origin of everything and how it went from nothing to today is that it's equally nonsensical.
I _was_ Christian. I _know_ this point of view in detail...and don't begrudge you for having it.
I'm still confused on why taking the 'None of the above' opinion brings out such ire. I don't hate people for being religious. (In Rome a few years ago, I even watched in admiration the Pope give a public greeting on the steps of St. Peter's.)
Is there a legitimate reason for such an attitude? Why is it so common among religous people -- even those with under grad and graduate degrees?
Way off topic...I'm stopping now but will look for replies later.
Re:I don't want to believe, I want to be left alon
on
Hackers And Mysticism?
·
· Score: 2
I'd say something like 'I feel your pain', but that might be seen as mocking.
I do understand, though. Since I was a young teen, I thought that atheist=bigot. Because of that, I told people I was a non-practing Christian not an atheist.
Nothing has happened in my basic lack of beliefs between then and now. The only 'difference' is the label. I've been an atheist since I was probably about 12 to 14 years old.
Now, if I even give a hint that I think the god concept is only a concept and not reality, I get harrased...or a wry grin. There are other heathens out there, don't you know?:}
It's too bad that a minority of selfish religious leaders have damaged the public image of organized religion in general.
And yes, a lot of Christians and members of other "mainstream" religions are hypocrites.... That's not specific to organized religions; it's a dark side of human nature.
Personally, I don't care about the whacko religous leaders. They're nothing without followers.
Here's my enlightened conclusion on religon and good deeds in general that meshes well with your last comment;
There is Yin and Yang. There is ballence in each person, and stress that must be released.
Religon is often used as a way to be 'good' and allows the practitioners to be 'bad' in other ways.
Guilt and subservience is used to regulate the 'bad' actions but the thoughts are still there and make many highly religous people seem fake -- they aren't true to thier nature, and can't be trusted 100%.
Personally, I don't care what nonsense people believe. There's probably some truth in it, but none in the literal details. If someone says one thing odd, I try not to take it literally, and I suspect many other hackers/geeks are the same regaurdless of the topic. If the person insists on pushing a point they're being rude or just crazy. If it's nonsense they deserve getting mocked or referred for medication -- religion or not. Nonsense is nonsesnse.
What concerns me deeply are when friends and people I trust tell me what I think...as if gods are somehow normal and all over the place.
I'm painted as the bad guy for even asking where the clothes on the emperor are. As if I'm being silly, or worse a bigot just for disagreeing. Someone please explain this reasoning to me, but skip the common explanations. Been there, done that.
VMWare - Runs almost any x86 OS. VMs can be created on Linux or NT, some rumor of BSD folks using it -- though I'm not certian. Patches the kernel by using a set of loadable modules. Very compatable. Check the news groups: vmware.*.
Win4Lin - Only Win9x at this time. Only runs on Linux. Fairly compatable. Sound support added to beta releases. Very low memory footprint. Patches kernel directly; no module support. Check the mailing lists: www.trelos.com.
Neither support advanced video or specialized hardware. In the case of Win4Lin, the sound support is only available in the beta and is not entirely stable or complete. (I could not record with it, for example, but that might be my fault.)
The kernel patches are available, but aren't the same. Because of that, your kernel may/may not be supported by either VMWare or Win4Lin. If it's not supported, these programs won't run! For bleeding edge kernel releases, use VMWare. It is more likely to have kernel modules available when you need them. There are security issues since these are propriatory extentions, though the kernel modifications are available as source.
Having said that, I intend to buy two more copies of Win4Lin for my family as gifts. For business use, I would be more cautious and prefer VMWare unless Win4Lin worked with a specific Windows-only application and memory was tight.
Both have full-featured, time limited, trial versions available for download, so the risk is minimal.
As always, if there's a Linux software available...that gets the nod over VMware or Win4Lin.
Slashdot Mirror
Second data point: Yep...it's true. As someone who uses banks, I was glad to see that they did check me for drug use before allowing me on a contract for check processing systems. After the banking contract, I moved on to a sensitive government contract and was stunned that they didn't include drug tests along with the FBI background check. I told the interviewer this, and from the look on his face he hadn't even considerd it before.
Well, I'd shy away from talk about 'true athests'. There's no entrance exam or membership card, and according to the folks on the alt.atheism newsgroup there is no Evil Atheist Conspiracy(tm) and it does not meet on every second Tuesday to eat pizza.
Well, I grew up in the US but I still see exactly what you mentioned. This mindset is everywhere...sometimes showing up in the oddest situations. It can get quite hostile...as if stating that atheism is even a posibility is an accusation that there's something wrong with a specific religion.
Plus, there's the general attitude to having arguments that is different in the US vs. UK;
US = Argument means you are willing to fight, but will try and persuade first.
UK = Argument means a spirited debate.
Yes, this is not always the case here, and I like to argue in the UK sense, but it is something to keep in mind.
As for the 'atheist = satianist' angle it comes from the idea that capital "G" God necessarily exists and that 'God = good'. Therefor, anyone who says that they don't agree with 'God = good' is evil or mislead by evil, thus 'satanists'. This breaks down into sects where everyone NOT in your church is going to Hell or is simply on the 'wrong path'...this leads me to the following joke;
A priest encounters a suicidal man who is about to fling himself off a bridge to end it all.
"Wait, there's so much to live for...you believe in God, don't you?"
"Why yes, I'm a Christian."
"So am I! What type?"
"Baptist. Third Congregationalists."
"OH! So am I! What church do you attend?"
"Christ Church, Second Reformed, ..."
"So do I!"
"...United Church."
"Die SINNER!"
I'm curious...does anyone know how much more RAM/CPU Tux2/ReiserFS/... need over and beyond Ext2? Journaling is an impressive feature, yet some of the machines I monitor aren't cutting edge; Pentium 200/64MB, Celeron 300/96MB. I've already tweaked these systems in other ways (no extra consoles, MTTR settings, ...).
The issues you raise are packaging issues, important to people putting together distributions -- not kernel development or design issues. Even though that is the case, most distributions tend to load specific hardware support as a module.
If you roll your own kernel you have ultimate control over what disk, BIOS, and bus types are supported. Very little in the Linux kernel is manditory. That's why it runs on such wildly different systems.
Read KT. Read KT often.
It's not a question of older but of smaller, and if you've ever compiled a kernel from scratch, you know how insanely flexible the choices are. Kernel Traffic, as others have mentioned is a must-read if you want to understand the design decisions being made.
For systems with limited resources -- embeded systems, or those mini-distribututions with under 16MB of storage (flash) and RAM -- the decisions made for the kernel in general are the same as larger systems with a few gigs of RAM and multiple processors. Read a few comments on these in KT, and the reasons will become more obvious.
I agree with others who said that this is just Ziff-Davis making an issue out of nothing, and that nearly everything can be a patch or an ifdef -- no fork needed.
That's the same attitude voiced in a Simpson's episode -- where both G.Bush and B.Clinton are really squid-like aliens. When unmasked by Homer...the crowd is shocked...and someone yells, "We could vote for a 3rd party candidate!"
One of the aliens says "Go ahead...throw your vote away!"
I'm proud to have "thrown away" my vote in the last two presidential elections...the three presidential elections before those had me voting for people I simply didn't and couldn't agree with.
As for Nader, he gets some consideration from me...he has saved many lives and is honest in his convictions. Personally, I agree more with the libertarian point of view so they will more likely get my vote this time round.
Either way, if you don't vote in all elections -- especially in non-presidential years -- you are throwing your vote away.
I think you're being too hard on Steve. His company is doing a service to the Windows-users of the world...even if this DoS solution is mostly a translation of an existing Unix solution.
Spinrite: It was valuable because of design limits in drives that are no longer a problem;
MFM and some drives (IDE/SCSI) made when MFM was still being sold didn't autocorrect defects.
Tracks would drift over time due to temperature changes (any drive).
Drives were expensive so correcting track drift and defects is a good way to keep from spending more money.
While defects still crop up, and temperature changes do cause tracks to drift, most modern hardware automatically corrects this at the physical level. The logicial level is the only part that is still exposed to the system, and Spinright can't use it. This means that for every drive they'd have to find out how to access the physical part of the drive ... and when they get there most drives don't need it!
I agree with what you say. Most computers and parts that are being dumped are perfectly fine. Since most computers are never upgraded, the fact that they have any free slots or external ports after they are initially bought/configured is not usually an issue. Use what is appropriate for the task at hand -- especially if it's cheap!
Personally, almost 1/2 of the adapter cards I use are ISA, and I'm still using a serial modem...yet, that's changing.
I'm getting rid of many of my ISA/serial/parallel devices by selling them or giving them to friends and family. The trend for new stuff is clearly towards USB devices and PCI-only systems. In a few years, you won't be able to buy many ISA/serial/parallel devices (or they will be dumped...cheap!). Here's a short list of reasons why I'm dumping ISA/S/P devices;
- New equipment has mothballed old, new equipment is fairly cheap, better, and better supported. Example: 512k SVGA cards (XFv4 does not support it), ISA SCSI cards (slow), and other cards sitting unused in static bags.
- Many devices are only available in USB/PCI versions. Example: Most web cams.
- Existing ISA/serial/parallel devices are becoming dated -- speed/capabilities -- in comparison to similar USB/PCI devices. Example: Printers, scanners, and sound cards.
USB and PCI are much better interfaces. There's little reason to fight the trend toward eliminating serial/parallel/ISA.As for USB compatability with *BSD, Linux, ... there's some work to be done but it doesn't look too dire. My main concern is with dumb devices that use propriatory -- binary -- drivers and hidden interfaces. These have been and will be an issue regaurdless of the interface used.
(An aside: first computer - Columbia Data Products lugable with 2-320k floppies, 128k RAM, and bundled CPM/86 and MS DOS 1.24.)
...so, you're saying it'll be perfect for the Xbox?
Crowd (mumbling): 'Jesus, it's too bad you've got to die!'
Jesus (screaming): 'Well, I wouldn't have to if somebody would get a pair of pliers!'
It's not a question if there are Corel products that are worth having and ... yes ... buying. The question is 'Is it worth it to you?'
So far myself, I've downloaded the freebies and have considered recommending v.2 of Corel Linux for less-tech savy friends and family. I can't justify getting WordPerfect because it uses a closed format, and I don't do that much graphics work so I'm not a customer for Corel Draw. I've only spent a few minutes fiddling around with Photopaint only because I don't do much graphics work.
The only thing stopping me from recommending v.2 Corel Linux is that I know more about RedHat and RedHat derrived distributions then Debian. Not a big hurdle, true, yet if anything goes wrong or needs changing, I'll have to make the changes (via. SSH, of course!).
[Steve Martin voice] Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm so PISSED!
Go ahead. Mark this as flamebait. Mark me down, bring up the same complaints already voiced in other threads as if they're unique...but answer me this;
Why are people ripping RedHat a new one?
Is this just an attempt at 'bash the leader' again? Sure looks like it, and I'm sick of it.
Is any of this based on facts of a real problem, or just unhappyness over someone charging for something nobody's forcing you to buy?
I'll give folks who mentioned Debian/apt-get/windows_update/... a point. Yes, those are handy. You can do similar things with RPM -- no not _identical_, _similar_. Not really interesting, though.
If you know how to run a Linux system, you probably don't need any special services. I sure don't want to update anything without seeing if there's a reason and what those changes are first. If you want to use the service, and it saves you some anguish/time/effort then it does not seem that prohibitive.
It's like people complaining about the cost of VMware or other handy tools. If you don't want to play, don't pay. Why gripe about it?
I don't know the specific U.S. law, but I do rember a commercial a few years back from the U.S. Postal Service that showed an Eskimo opening a box with a fan in it. The announcer (off-screen) said "Did you know that if you recieve anything in the mail that you didn't order, you don't have to pay for it?" "Cool" said the Eskimo, as he smiled.
The arts web site does have a small note that basically says 'arts is in KDE 2.0', and leaves it at that.
I'd like to know if it is compatable with ESD-aware apps, since there seem to be quite a few of those.
Hell, Mozilla is doing the same thing. (Current, from CVS built about a half hour ago.)
...well, almost any! If you go to a site that doesn't have it available for download, you can probably view the source and still figure out how to get it.
While I agree, I think you're expecting too much from Microsoft's documentation group. They have different -- and Annoying(tm) -- ideas about what should go in a help system. Let me say up front that I neither agree or misunderstand why they dumb-down the docs -- we aren't thier main clients!
It's like an anti-man-page attitude; say How to do something not What something is or Why it is valuable. Much of the help provided is along the lines of "Print prints somethig to a printer" or worse "This button prints". In context, these might be OK...but the lack of extra details anywhere is just part of the design goal. Less is better...since it's not really necessary, is it? Anything more detailed would be confusing to a typical user.
MS is, after all, the company that don't document the switch /MBR for thier fdisk program (try it - fdisk /?)...why give detailed help on something that is much more of a user-level tool then a disk partitioning tool?
Welp, the simple explanation for my belief in God ... [ snip ] ...I also whole heartedly agree with you, nonsense is nonsense, and my opinion of current scientific theory on the origin of everything and how it went from nothing to today is that it's equally nonsensical.
I _was_ Christian. I _know_ this point of view in detail...and don't begrudge you for having it.
I'm still confused on why taking the 'None of the above' opinion brings out such ire. I don't hate people for being religious. (In Rome a few years ago, I even watched in admiration the Pope give a public greeting on the steps of St. Peter's.)
Is there a legitimate reason for such an attitude? Why is it so common among religous people -- even those with under grad and graduate degrees?
Way off topic...I'm stopping now but will look for replies later.
I do understand, though. Since I was a young teen, I thought that atheist=bigot. Because of that, I told people I was a non-practing Christian not an atheist.
Nothing has happened in my basic lack of beliefs between then and now. The only 'difference' is the label. I've been an atheist since I was probably about 12 to 14 years old.
Now, if I even give a hint that I think the god concept is only a concept and not reality, I get harrased...or a wry grin. There are other heathens out there, don't you know? :}
And yes, a lot of Christians and members of other "mainstream" religions are hypocrites. ... That's not specific to organized religions; it's a dark side of human nature.
Personally, I don't care about the whacko religous leaders. They're nothing without followers.
Here's my enlightened conclusion on religon and good deeds in general that meshes well with your last comment;
Religon is often used as a way to be 'good' and allows the practitioners to be 'bad' in other ways.
Guilt and subservience is used to regulate the 'bad' actions but the thoughts are still there and make many highly religous people seem fake -- they aren't true to thier nature, and can't be trusted 100%.
Personally, I don't care what nonsense people believe. There's probably some truth in it, but none in the literal details. If someone says one thing odd, I try not to take it literally, and I suspect many other hackers/geeks are the same regaurdless of the topic. If the person insists on pushing a point they're being rude or just crazy. If it's nonsense they deserve getting mocked or referred for medication -- religion or not. Nonsense is nonsesnse.
What concerns me deeply are when friends and people I trust tell me what I think...as if gods are somehow normal and all over the place.
I'm painted as the bad guy for even asking where the clothes on the emperor are. As if I'm being silly, or worse a bigot just for disagreeing. Someone please explain this reasoning to me, but skip the common explanations. Been there, done that.
I thought that was odd too.
The Linux version is out of date and is Flash only -- not Shockwave. Very annoying.
A data point: AOL ran _Netscape v.6_ commercials a few weeks ago on cable. Bad timing or a trial baloon? -- you decide.
VMWare - Runs almost any x86 OS. VMs can be created on Linux or NT, some rumor of BSD folks using it -- though I'm not certian. Patches the kernel by using a set of loadable modules. Very compatable. Check the news groups: vmware.*.
Win4Lin - Only Win9x at this time. Only runs on Linux. Fairly compatable. Sound support added to beta releases. Very low memory footprint. Patches kernel directly; no module support. Check the mailing lists: www.trelos.com.
Neither support advanced video or specialized hardware. In the case of Win4Lin, the sound support is only available in the beta and is not entirely stable or complete. (I could not record with it, for example, but that might be my fault.)
The kernel patches are available, but aren't the same. Because of that, your kernel may/may not be supported by either VMWare or Win4Lin. If it's not supported, these programs won't run! For bleeding edge kernel releases, use VMWare. It is more likely to have kernel modules available when you need them. There are security issues since these are propriatory extentions, though the kernel modifications are available as source.
Having said that, I intend to buy two more copies of Win4Lin for my family as gifts. For business use, I would be more cautious and prefer VMWare unless Win4Lin worked with a specific Windows-only application and memory was tight.
Both have full-featured, time limited, trial versions available for download, so the risk is minimal.
As always, if there's a Linux software available...that gets the nod over VMware or Win4Lin.