Just try to imagine all the even worse stories that could have replaced this story! Probably stuff like "this one rant some guy on IRC said about how Windoez Blowz"
Do you all remember the age at which you could state, in all seriousness, that people aren't smart? And say it as a straight-forward comment, as if this is a great discovery? I think everybody goes through this period. Especially geeks. Especially geeks who may have had a hard time in the teenage years. But then, after you get done picking on the expected targets: mainstream culture and society, you have to prove yourself "geekier than thou" by picking on things in your own sub-culture, until only the very narrowest is good for you. I think we have all seen this and taken part in it.
The thing is, in places, FFVII is indeed stupid. It has the same hardcore hero who gets better and more magical powers, living everyone's dreams of power fulfillment. And of course he is surrounded by the same group of magical beautiful women. Of course it has a villain that you save the world from. The game mechanics are often repetitive. There are certain holes and inconsistences in the story. The world only has ten or so towns, and the planet is shaped like a Torus. There is an Evil Corporation(TM) running things. And many more. So, yes, like all human endeavor it has lots of stupidity. But it also has many, many smart and engaging things about it: the gradual, spooky peeling back of Cloud's character, the mixture of cute nostalgia and gothic elements, the look at the inner machinations of Shinra, the gigantic amounts of literary references, the sometimes understated dialogue, the design of the geographic locations you visit, and of course the music and graphics.
So, yes, while in some ways stupid and repetitive, it seems somewhat snide to dismiss it out of hand. He could say that he doesn't like playing it, or that its legions of fanboys and fangirls sometimes treat the game as the greatest thing ever. But I think Final Fantasy VII got its reputation for a reason. Lots of people who are not stupid at all think it is a great, great game.
There are so many questions to ask about this...my first response is that attempts to make information more friendly don't seem to have that great of a track record. Does anyone remember "Ask Jeeves"? Compare how its interface competed with the super-minimalist interface of google.
Anyway, there is this one quote: Microsoft research shows that generic search engines can't answer 50% of queries asked, he says.
What type of questions were they asking it? Were they factual questions, like "What is the Capital of Burundi?", or were they process oriented questions, such as "How can you make cookies that are not too hard, but are cooked all the way through?" The first question, if you type "capital Burundi" into google, you get an answer for. Trying to search for information on the second would be much harder, I imagine.
There is a piece of old lore that sales of cardboard boxes is one way to see if there is an upcoming business recovery or expansion...because when businesses start preparing to ship more things, they need lots of cardboard boxes to do it with. This may or may not be true, but, we could still look at an upswing in domain names as a type of "cardboard box effect", it may mean that e-Commerce is picking up again. Or it might mean nothing at all!
The article doesn't seem to go into too much detail about the methodology and the survey questions, and what their sample group was. And, of course, most importantly, what they were searching for.
Most of the time, most of what you are going to be looking for is going to come up on the first few pages. And it is all going to be the same information, repeated on different sites. For example, say I am looking for the address of a local cafe called "Hipster Dudes Coffee", I am probably going to find its address repeated several time on the first page of results.
On the other hand, say I want to research the different ethnic groups that live on the East Coast of Taiwan. I am not looking for a simple piece of information here, and might have to look several pages in before I find something that is directly addressing what I am looking for.
So, I think this survey seems to be somewhat obvious, but incomplete.
But every representative you elect has to take a personal oath of loyalty to the queen? Or am I wrong about that?
And I have heard some people say that the Queen merely represents an idea of the common good of the nation or something. So, why are the representatives not taking an oath to "the common good of the nation".
If the personal oath of loyalty to a hereditary ruler who is also the leader of a church is so non-important, why is it there?
well, the common law is not quite the same as the royal law, as such!
but!
Thank you for pointing out that Canada is not a "democracy". I have gotten flamed many times on Slashdot for pointing out that a government ruled by a hereditary ruler, who also is a theocrat, is not a democracy. People seem to be offended by this, even though it is very clearly the truth.
Anytime one of these articles comes up, someone posts a link to Free Geek, your local place where technology is recycled. That is because people think Free Geek is awesome. Because it is awesome. Although, you know, you can also learn a lot about Free Geek here
If you've ever written or read html, you know that html doesn't care if links start file:// or if they start html://. HTML has always been quite neutral on whether it was linking to a local file system or getting something over the internet. Of course, most people don't use html extensively for local content. So in theory, this isn't a new idea at all.
In practice, I don't see a lot of points for it. I can imagine that some people might want a map of a new city, with clickable pictures and informations about various services there. Most features of a city map are going to stay the same for at least six months, so this is the type of thing that could be done staticly. But even with this, internet access is so widespread, that it seems like a solution for a minor problem. Also, if you want a handy city guide, it would make more sense to me to write it from scratch rather than use a cludge of cached web pages.
As large as Microsoft is, they can't totally control the computing choices of all of the businesses and governments in the world. As much as marketing is importing in the consumer field, I think aggressive advertising is not taken as favorably in the business world. Many large businesses and organizations have chosen to use Linux on various servers, and Microsoft has to acknowledge this, especially if they want to keep their core desktop business. For example, say you are a large university and you keep thousands of students and staff members' e-Mail on a Linux computer (or computers), and you have labs full of desktops that students use to access it. Say the IT department at this university calls Microsoft up with a question about some minor problem this is causing. Microsoft tech support can't really say "oh, just format that closet full of mail servers and put Windows on them!" They might be able to suggest such a thing in advertising, but they know that if they try it with corporate professionals, they are just going to be laughed at. Microsoft needs to adjust itself to the decisions corporations, governments, universities and the like are making. It is as simple as that.
If you are doing this using Windows computers, how careful accounting do you have to keep of what machines Windows was installed on? I imagine that if you are installing Windows off of one server on to a lot of machines, you are going to have to have proof that you originally had a license for each one of them. How did you do that?
The only font problem I have noticed is getting some foreign language fonts--Chinese in my case-- installed in Linux can be very difficult. Otherwise, I don't notice things like fonts...and even if I did, the best fonts in the world wouldn't make up for a 1 in a 1000 chance that my computer could get zombied.
According to a quick search, there is 35 file systems supported by Linux. I think you could, theoretically, run a Linux system on say, the Amiga File System totally. Or at least such a feat would be much easier than trying to run a Windows computer using only the Amiga File System. But I admit that I am out of my technical depths here.
As I understand it, the major design decision between the Windows Kernel and the Linux Kernel is that the Windows Kernel includes more references to things like the GUI and the filesystem. I think that the Windows Kernel, in just about every release, is designed to support the Windows filesystem. The Linux kernel, on the other hand, would be just as happy running a Windows, Minix or Solaris filesystem as it would the Ext3 file system. The same thing with the graphical user interface, the kernel is designed for one particular GUI. At least this is how I understand it, although I have a far from good understanding.
The problem with getting "charity" licenses is that if Microsoft is smart, and I assume they are, they will want to know that they are really going to charitable usage of some sort. I don't know if refurbishing and donating computers is what these licenses are intended for, which means that if you keep on buying small quantities over time, it might be suspicious.
So, if you are going to have charity licenses, you will want to have documentation that you are giving computers to people who are in need, with no recompense to yourself. You will also have to prove that the people in need are not your friends and family.
Free Geek used Debian Woody for many years, when we were using the last of the Pentiums and the early Pentium-IIs. Currently, Free Geek recycles anything below Pentium-III 500 MHz. Its not that we couldn't use slower computers, but we have only so much room to store them. So now Debian Sarge or Ubuntu Badger work just fine and speedily on what we have.
Slashdot Mirror
Just try to imagine all the even worse stories that could have replaced this story!
Probably stuff like "this one rant some guy on IRC said about how Windoez Blowz"
Do you all remember the age at which you could state, in all seriousness, that people aren't smart? And say it as a straight-forward comment, as if this is a great discovery? I think everybody goes through this period. Especially geeks. Especially geeks who may have had a hard time in the teenage years. But then, after you get done picking on the expected targets: mainstream culture and society, you have to prove yourself "geekier than thou" by picking on things in your own sub-culture, until only the very narrowest is good for you. I think we have all seen this and taken part in it.
The thing is, in places, FFVII is indeed stupid. It has the same hardcore hero who gets better and more magical powers, living everyone's dreams of power fulfillment. And of course he is surrounded by the same group of magical beautiful women. Of course it has a villain that you save the world from. The game mechanics are often repetitive. There are certain holes and inconsistences in the story. The world only has ten or so towns, and the planet is shaped like a Torus. There is an Evil Corporation(TM) running things. And many more. So, yes, like all human endeavor it has lots of stupidity. But it also has many, many smart and engaging things about it: the gradual, spooky peeling back of Cloud's character, the mixture of cute nostalgia and gothic elements, the look at the inner machinations of Shinra, the gigantic amounts of literary references, the sometimes understated dialogue, the design of the geographic locations you visit, and of course the music and graphics.
So, yes, while in some ways stupid and repetitive, it seems somewhat snide to dismiss it out of hand. He could say that he doesn't like playing it, or that its legions of fanboys and fangirls sometimes treat the game as the greatest thing ever. But I think Final Fantasy VII got its reputation for a reason. Lots of people who are not stupid at all think it is a great, great game.
I can't imagine what a LEGO world with no hemoglobin...everyone would be yellow, I imagine.
There are so many questions to ask about this...my first response is that attempts to make information more friendly don't seem to have that great of a track record. Does anyone remember "Ask Jeeves"? Compare how its interface competed with the super-minimalist interface of google.
Anyway, there is this one quote:
Microsoft research shows that generic search engines can't answer 50% of queries asked, he says.
What type of questions were they asking it? Were they factual questions, like "What is the Capital of Burundi?", or were they process oriented questions, such as "How can you make cookies that are not too hard, but are cooked all the way through?" The first question, if you type "capital Burundi" into google, you get an answer for. Trying to search for information on the second would be much harder, I imagine.
There is a piece of old lore that sales of cardboard boxes is one way to see if there is an upcoming business recovery or expansion...because when businesses start preparing to ship more things, they need lots of cardboard boxes to do it with.
This may or may not be true, but, we could still look at an upswing in domain names as a type of "cardboard box effect", it may mean that e-Commerce is picking up again.
Or it might mean nothing at all!
Yes, but we don't take an oath of personal loyalty to the President, do we now?
The article doesn't seem to go into too much detail about the methodology and the survey questions, and what their sample group was. And, of course, most importantly, what they were searching for.
Most of the time, most of what you are going to be looking for is going to come up on the first few pages. And it is all going to be the same information, repeated on different sites. For example, say I am looking for the address of a local cafe called "Hipster Dudes Coffee", I am probably going to find its address repeated several time on the first page of results.
On the other hand, say I want to research the different ethnic groups that live on the East Coast of Taiwan. I am not looking for a simple piece of information here, and might have to look several pages in before I find something that is directly addressing what I am looking for.
So, I think this survey seems to be somewhat obvious, but incomplete.
Usually, I like to point out that many very mainstream, popular corporate website runs on Linux, or else on commercial Unix.
But, in this case, I think I can proudly say, Myspace is running Windows.
Myspace on netcraft
But every representative you elect has to take a personal oath of loyalty to the queen? Or am I wrong about that?
And I have heard some people say that the Queen merely represents an idea of the common good of the nation or something. So, why are the representatives not taking an oath to "the common good of the nation".
If the personal oath of loyalty to a hereditary ruler who is also the leader of a church is so non-important, why is it there?
well, the common law is not quite the same as the royal law, as such!
but!
Thank you for pointing out that Canada is not a "democracy". I have gotten flamed many times on Slashdot for pointing out that a government ruled by a hereditary ruler, who also is a theocrat, is not a democracy. People seem to be offended by this, even though it is very clearly the truth.
Oh, I quite agree that it is an accessory to identity theft, but that doesn't make it phishing anymore than it makes it spamming or DDoSing.
Anytime one of these articles comes up, someone posts a link to Free Geek, your local place where technology is recycled. That is because people think Free Geek is awesome. Because it is awesome. Although, you know, you can also learn a lot about Free Geek here
This is not Phishing.
Phishing is the attempt to get someone to submit information to you by pretending to be someone else.
What the government is doing is publicizing information.
These two activities have almost nothing in common.
::: bonks head on monitor :::
sorry...I guess I should remember to not post on slashdot until AFTER my morning caffeine
This actually isn't by any means a new idea.
If you've ever written or read html, you know that html doesn't care if links start file:// or if they start html://. HTML has always been quite neutral on whether it was linking to a local file system or getting something over the internet. Of course, most people don't use html extensively for local content. So in theory, this isn't a new idea at all.
In practice, I don't see a lot of points for it. I can imagine that some people might want a map of a new city, with clickable pictures and informations about various services there. Most features of a city map are going to stay the same for at least six months, so this is the type of thing that could be done staticly. But even with this, internet access is so widespread, that it seems like a solution for a minor problem. Also, if you want a handy city guide, it would make more sense to me to write it from scratch rather than use a cludge of cached web pages.
As large as Microsoft is, they can't totally control the computing choices of all of the businesses and governments in the world.
As much as marketing is importing in the consumer field, I think aggressive advertising is not taken as favorably in the business world. Many large businesses and organizations have chosen to use Linux on various servers, and Microsoft has to acknowledge this, especially if they want to keep their core desktop business.
For example, say you are a large university and you keep thousands of students and staff members' e-Mail on a Linux computer (or computers), and you have labs full of desktops that students use to access it. Say the IT department at this university calls Microsoft up with a question about some minor problem this is causing. Microsoft tech support can't really say "oh, just format that closet full of mail servers and put Windows on them!" They might be able to suggest such a thing in advertising, but they know that if they try it with corporate professionals, they are just going to be laughed at.
Microsoft needs to adjust itself to the decisions corporations, governments, universities and the like are making. It is as simple as that.
If you are doing this using Windows computers, how careful accounting do you have to keep of what machines Windows was installed on?
I imagine that if you are installing Windows off of one server on to a lot of machines, you are going to have to have proof that you originally had a license for each one of them.
How did you do that?
The only font problem I have noticed is getting some foreign language fonts--Chinese in my case-- installed in Linux can be very difficult.
Otherwise, I don't notice things like fonts...and even if I did, the best fonts in the world wouldn't make up for a 1 in a 1000 chance that my computer could get zombied.
According to a quick search, there is 35 file systems supported by Linux.
I think you could, theoretically, run a Linux system on say, the Amiga File System totally. Or at least such a feat would be much easier than trying to run a Windows computer using only the Amiga File System.
But I admit that I am out of my technical depths here.
And that is what seperates the NT line kernel from the older 9X kernels?
As I understand it, the major design decision between the Windows Kernel and the Linux Kernel is that the Windows Kernel includes more references to things like the GUI and the filesystem. I think that the Windows Kernel, in just about every release, is designed to support the Windows filesystem. The Linux kernel, on the other hand, would be just as happy running a Windows, Minix or Solaris filesystem as it would the Ext3 file system. The same thing with the graphical user interface, the kernel is designed for one particular GUI.
At least this is how I understand it, although I have a far from good understanding.
The problem with getting "charity" licenses is that if Microsoft is smart, and I assume they are, they will want to know that they are really going to charitable usage of some sort. I don't know if refurbishing and donating computers is what these licenses are intended for, which means that if you keep on buying small quantities over time, it might be suspicious.
So, if you are going to have charity licenses, you will want to have documentation that you are giving computers to people who are in need, with no recompense to yourself. You will also have to prove that the people in need are not your friends and family.
Free Geek used Debian Woody for many years, when we were using the last of the Pentiums and the early Pentium-IIs. Currently, Free Geek recycles anything below Pentium-III 500 MHz. Its not that we couldn't use slower computers, but we have only so much room to store them. So now Debian Sarge or Ubuntu Badger work just fine and speedily on what we have.
I must have messed up my html on the above post.
This is the page for Windows XP
And Microsoft's own page for Office
I did exagerate by two dollars.