Let us not forget that even in New York, they have recently elected such republicans as George Petaki (sp?) and Rudy Juliani (sp?) -- and it looks like Hillary the carpet bagger faces an uphill battle for the Senate. Gore can't just take the Empire State for granted these days. If your predictions of George W. Bush taking Texas (third largest), Florida (fourth largest) and California (largest), are accurate, and if George W. takes New York as well (second largest), Gore would basically be sunk. I think it'd be highly unlikely (if not virtually a mathematical impossibility -- I don't remember how many electoral college votes those states get for sure and I don't have an almanac handy) for Gore to win in the electoral college even if those were the only states George W. got.
It doesn't look like Gore will get the benefit of a 3rd party spoiler like Ross Perot allowing him to win with less than a majority by splitting the conservative and moderate vote. Clinton most likely would have lost in 1992 and 1996 if it weren't for Perot stealing away significant numbers of votes from Bush Sr. and Bob Dole.
You mean like the part of our law that provides that an accused party can face their accusor? Where is the anonymity there???
Not every tipster has to be an 'accusor'. The police solicit anonymous tips, even though it requires that they must do the leg work to build evidence to back up such tips. Tipsters can actually provide that evidence totally anonymously by mail, for example. While they might not be willing or able to testify in person, if they can provide evidence that can aid the police (such as photographs, video or audio tape), then they still have a valid service to perform. Not all of such evidence may even be directly usable in court, but it can be enough to help the police find other evidence (for example it might be enough to allow them to get a search warrant).
This is once again ridiculous. In the Soviet Union alone there were numeours dissidents who spoke out against the regime at peril to their lives, but they spoke out publically as themselves, not some shadowy anonymous entity.
...sorry, this is the most tired drivel you could have drawn up. Let me guess - NRA member?
Uh, I think that a lot of people who might disagree with the NRA would support people's right to free speech and anonymity. I'm not sure if you are radically far left or radically far right, not that there is any real difference in the end -- the differences seem to be the order in which all civil rights will be eliminated and the rhetoric used to justify it. At any rate it seems kind of ridiculous to assume that just because someone uses the term 'founding fathers' that they are an NRA member, when I often see similar language used by other civil rights groups such as the ACLU.
This is once again ridiculous. In the Soviet Union alone there were numeours dissidents who spoke out against the regime at peril to their lives, but they spoke out publically as themselves, not some shadowy anonymous entity.
It isn't ridiculous. Not everyone is willing to put their lives or their freedom or their family's lives and/or freedom on the line to speak out against the government. Most of the dissidents you speak of in repressive countries like the old Soviet Union, China or Cuba spent (or are spending) numerous years in jail. Some were killed. One of the things that helped bring down the Soviet Union was 'samizdat'. The unauthorized, generally anonymous self-publication of information, much of which was critical of the government.
Bill Clinton got away with pulling over 900 of them.
Even worse than that, weren't some of the files in question found in Hillary's (someone who is neither an elected nor officially appointed official) possession?
Your driver's license analogy doesn't really fit. A more apt comparison would be public pay phones. We allow anyone with some coins to go up to a public payphone and make a call. Its about as anonymous as you can get. You can make long distance calls too, by buying a prepaid phone card with cash. Now there are people who want to make all of that illegal too, by requiring people to use some sort of 'smart card' system for phones which you have to register for in order to purchase time. There are even people who want to do away with cash entirely because they want to be able to monitor and keep records of every transaction all the time. They will use any excuse to justify that sort of invasiveness "sales tax evasion", "drug buys", "prostitution", etc. Your assertation that internet anonymity is only related to pr0n viewing is entirely transparent. If we choose not to allow anonymity on the Internet we are going a lot further than we do with physical phone access.
Actually, by default it was less than 6k, as the first graphics page started at 8192 ($2000) (and took up 8k), and the beginning of memory for a BASIC program started at 2048 ($800). That was for both the tokenized program store and the variable space, which was put by default immediately following the end of the code. What you were probably seeing on your graphics screen was your variables.
If you wanted to write big programs that used graphics or if you wanted to write programs that used lots of variables and graphics, you either had to use the second hires page (which started at 16384 ($4000), but didn't allow split screen text/graphics), or you had to do some twiddling with memory mapping to relocate either the variables and/or program storage above the graphics buffers.
Back in those days you really had to be a lot more careful about memory usage than you do today.
Age of course plays a factor. A grizzled old bum wouldn't get hassled for drug paraphernalia no matter how scruffy he looked
Wrong, it's precisely because of his socio-economic status that he will get hassled.
I wasn't saying he wouldn't get hassled, he just won't get hassled for drug paraphernalia. He would most likely just get rounded up to the drunk tank or told to more or less get out of town just for being a bum.
and a kid in his 20's would probably get hassled no matter how 'respectable' his appearance might be.
As a white man in his late 20's I have never been hassled by the police for carrying a briar.
I wouldn't recommend carrying one if you find yourself down here. I've known people your age who were hassled even though they actually even had tobacco on them (the cops went rifling through the tobacco pouch looking for anything 'suspicious' hidden in there).
(And I started enjoying the occasional bowl in my teens, which I am sure contravened a statute or two)
Tons of teens smoke, but almost all of them smoke cigarettes, so a teen or 'young adult' (what a loaded term) smoking a pipe is bound to raise a lot more attention.
The difference is though I engage in such subversive and nefarious activities in these strange times such as; pipe-smoking, attending evil musical displays like George Clinton & The P-Funk All-Stars, going to hockey games & horse racing, defending civil liberties, advocating political & judicial reform and most subversive of all: canoeing; I look like someone who might have fallen out of a Big'n'Tall commercial, and speak like someone (in public anyway) enamoured with the Queen's English.
You'd probably really be in trouble down here with the last bit given the temperment of the typical redneck cops -- and their command of, or perhaps lack thereof of the English language.:-)
This is the real point, if you dress like, act like & speak like a hoodlum, don't be surprised if you attract the attention of law enforcement. Agreed. Sad as it may be, most of the world judges people based largely on appearances.
One of the things that really bothers me are punks (the worst ones are suburban white kids) who look, speak & act like they just stepped out of a Rap Video, then wonder why they get hassled by The Man!
Yea, I really don't get that either. There are tons of that sort of 'wannabe' punks like that around here. Its kinda weird because they are really the antithesis of the people they are trying to emulate. Pretty soon 'the man' will get used to seeing the kids in their baggy-ass jeans and Tommy/FUBU shirts and not pay attention to them anymore. Of course once it no longer gets attention, they will move on to the next fad. To a certain extent I think they are disingenuous when they act surprised they get hassled, because a lot of them are doing it to get attention, even bad attention.
The great irony here is that these supposed "subversives" buy into the mass consumerism that fuels the masters who seek to oppress them.
Exactly. It is nothing new though, the latchers-on in the 50's all tried to be James Dean, in the 60's all the kids bought commercial pseudo-hippie clothes, in the 70's they bought all of the platform shoes, leisure suits and whatnot fake disco clothes. Its all still conformity, just conforming to something different than their parents did.
You want a real subversive? It's someone who looks like they shop at Brooks Brothers, who sounds clarion calls against the status quo, and goes home and pops in their favourite NWA CD.(Mind you, this could just be my bias toward "Old-School")
I'm not all that interested in intentionally trying to be subversive anymore, but neither can I be bothered to try to conform. I just don't care that much anymore about what other people think. I buy what I find to be cheap and comfortable, not what the fashion police say is the hot thing these days. My political views aren't that way out for Slashdot, but probably would raise a few eyebrows amongst the average populace. I'm not at all familiar with NWA, but my listening tastes aren't at all mainstream either.
Well, its not really a hard and fast age thing. It is more a cosmetic appearance thing. If you look 'dignified' versus you look like 'a punk'. Age of course plays a factor. A grizzled old bum wouldn't get hassled for drug paraphernalia no matter how scruffy he looked and a kid in his 20's would probably get hassled no matter how 'respectable' his appearance might be. A lot of this just depends on the jurisdiction in question, perhaps you live in a community that isn't quite so crazy when it comes to the 'war on drugs'.
That depends on where you live. Where I live having 'paraphernalia' used to be legal. Then they made it so that it was legal until it was used (IE contained 'residue'). Now it is illegal to posess at all. Technically zig-zag type rolling papers and old-man type tobacco pipes are illegal under the current laws. Of course those items are sold openly at tobacco shops and drug stores, etc. Old geezers would never get bothered about possessing such things. The law isn't applied uniformly of course. If someone who is say under 40 had such items, they would likely be considered dangerous contraband. The owner of a local t-shirt/music store was busted on drug paraphernalia charges for selling the same zig-zag papers that are sold openly at the local Walgreens drug store.
Back on topic: While in the case at hand, the person getting busted may have actually used the tools for unlawful purposes, it may be only a matter of time before someone else is charged with only possession of tools. Not every jurisdiction makes sane judgements about such things, even ones who might on other issues. Heck, sometimes such things are strictly related to election year politics (the 'head shop' crackdowns tend to happen in years the county prosecutor is up for re-election). Coincidence?
The point is, this is one of those slippery slope issues where once things start downhill, it is very hard to get back up again.
Read the FAQ. Once a person has built up a certain level of karma, every post they make automatically has a +1 bonus on it unless they specifically check a box against it when they post. Likewise, a person who accumulates a certain level of negative karma automatically gets a -1 penalty on every post (which they can't opt out of). Moderation seems to work. Most of the annoying posts (first posters and trolls) tend to get moderated down quickly, and only occasionally does a particularly good post get moderated above 2. I very rarely see any worthwhile posts moderated to -1, so you can fairly easily read with your threshold at 0 and not miss anything good. Sometimes I see good, but not outstanding posts that are at zero (anonymous cowards do occasionally have something worthwhile to say), so I wouldn't personally read with my threshold set above 0. In general, I am pretty thick skinned, so I usually read with my threshold set at -1.
A smiley would have been a good thing. There are a lot of people out there who don't seem to know history very well (including a lot of people who aren't enough to remember it), so it was pretty easy to mistake your post as something other than humor.
UNIX on mainframes isn't new. IBM has had AIX/390 out for a long time, and Amdahl had their UTS (UNIX Time Sharing) for their (IBM plug compatible) mainframes way back in the mid 80's.
As far as old DEC boxes, I was using UNIX (specifically 4.2 and 4.3 BSD) on VAXes back in the mid 80's. DEC hardware was the original host for UNIX (the PDP-7), and was the most popular hardware for UNIX in the 70's (PDP-11 family). I know for sure that NetBSD still has support for at least some of the VAX hardware, and you can get licenses from SCO (the current USL owner) for free to run older versions of UNIX (V6/V7) on PDP-11's. Once you get a V7 license you can get a copy of the 2.11 BSD distributions from I believe an organization called the PDP-11 preservation society.
I would agree that hype is generally a bad thing because it can set unrealistic expectations about a product. I remember when the Pentium 60's came out, and the place I worked for at the time bought several of them. They were real turkeys (FDIV and f00f bugged), especially for the money. I bought an AMD 486DX4-100 about the same time and it performed very similarly to the P60's for considerably less money. And it didn't have a lot of bugs in it either -- it is still working fine to this day (albiet, it hasn't been a machine I use on a daily basis for a long time). When it comes down to it, I almost never recommend that anyone buy something 'early on' unless they have thoroughly researched it and they absolutely need to have the latest thing for some real reason (not just to keep "ahead of the Jones'"). When you buy something that has just come out the price tends to be a lot higher than if you wait until it has been out a while. I prefer to buy one or two notches below the current top end.
No, I wouldn't use IE on Linux even if it were available. Actually, I use Netscape instead of IE when I am forced to use Windows (only at work, I don't use it at home or for any of my freelance work). You are right that some of the main reasons I wouldn't support Microsoft's browser is that I think there needs to be real competition to keep Microsoft from hijacking the market.
I'd like to see an Open Source browser that was as good or better than any of the commercial offerings, however, I still don't want to see only one choice, even if it was Open Source -- competition is still good. I've got no problem with commercial browsers like Netscape and Opera existing -- if people want them as options that is fine. I only dislike IE because I just don't like the way a few things in it work, and because I highly disapprove of the way that Microsoft conducts business. By the same tokem I don't begrudge the existance of commercial *nixes (I've got three SparcStations at home and mostly use Solaris at work) even though I mainly use Linux at home.
I found out that it was MainWin that Microsoft used for their IE port to Solaris after I posted that. I actually suspected as much given that Bristol was sueing Microsoft around that time due to them having jacked the licensing fees to Bristol way up. I also checked on Bristol's site, and found they have a Linux version of Wind/U as well. So the answer is that both have Linux versions, although as you note that MainWin is in limited beta release. That being true, it would be perfect for a Micrsoft product.:-)
Early Cyrix 6x86's have overheating problems. In order to run reliably they require a special 'Cyrix-approved' chip fan/heat sink (fan spins at roughly twice the RPM and the heat sink is about 1/2 again as big as a standard Pentium fan). The 6x86MX and M-II's seem to have fixed those problems. The early chips also require a motherboard with a very good voltage regulator due to their high power consumption. If your Cyrix equipped machine has a cheapo motherboard, a standard Pentium style chip fan or if the BIOS parameters and/or motherboard jumper settings aren't configured correctly, then you may have problems.
I've had great luck with AMD processors, from the 486's to the K6 family. Most of my friends have recently bought K6-II or K6-III's and all of them are really happy with them including speed and stability. I would wholeheartedly recommend AMD CPUs compared to any similar priced to slightly more expensive Intel CPUs.
Early Cyrix 6x86's did indeed have overheating problems, even in desktop units (you needed a special 'Cyrix-approved' CPU fan/heatsink combos -- one that the fan spins at roughly twice the speed of a normal Pentium fan and the heatsink is about 1/2 again larger in order to get reliable operation). Toshiba made a big mistake putting such chips into laptops, most of which don't have CPU fains at all, and which often run hot even with Intel or AMD CPU's. Later 6x86's and the M-II's seem to have fixed their overheating problems by switching to a much smaller die size.
While your 133 probably wasn't impressive compared to an Intel 133, it probably cost less than 1/2 what an Intel 133 did. You only get what you pay for, and for the money, the Cyrix chips generally have been a pretty good deal unless you are a gamer or do a lot of math intensive work like scientific computing or image processing.
That is usually caused by bad memory and/or incorrectly set BIOS parameters or incorrectly set motherboard jumpers. It generally isn't caused by a faulty CPU, and as lots of people I know have successfully installed Linux on Cyrix chips from the 486's to the M-II, I don't think it is fair to blame Cyrix for something that probably isn't their fault.
Whether or not Intel looks good doesn't matter as much as whether or not some other company is taking away some of Intel's market share.
Cyrix's chips may be lousy for gamers or people doing heavy scientific computing due to lackluster FPU performance, but for the low-end market Cyrix is aiming at, that isn't such a big deal. If you just want to do web browsing, email and a little word processing, the Cyrix M-II's provide an excellent value. While that may not include a lot of geeks, there are a lot of people like my wife who the M-II is perfect for. I bought an M-II/300 for my wife, and she is more than happy with it. Personally, for me I prefer AMD processors (specifically my main box is K6 based), but I really don't think that Cyrix deserves the harsh treatment they get from a lot of people. Other than the very early Cyrix 6x86 chips that had serious overheating problems, they generally have built a reliable if uninspiring product. Given their excellent price/performance, I think they can be forgiven for a lot, especially since IDT (WinChip), their main competitor for that low-end market has basically given up entirely.
Microsoft has done more recent ports of IE to Solaris than that. The newer versions are still very bloated and slow. You are basically right that they basically re-implemented the entire Windows API under Solaris, what they specifically did is use Mainsoft's MainWin product which is a Win32->UNIX porting layer, which basically re-implements all of the Windows stuff under UNIX and is actually based largely on Microsoft's code (under license).
Porting MS-Office wouldn't be that much larger a challenge than IE, given that they have done ports of both to MacOS. I'd guess they would just use MainWin again. However, I don't believe they will do it, for political reasons. I wouldn't be surprised to see them do a port of IE to Linux, especially since I believe that Mainsoft has ported MainWin to Linux.
As for the Solaris/HP-UX IE, when it was released sometime ago, I remeber reading in a Microsoft site that they used Motif for it.
Actually I believe that they used one of the commercial Win32->UNIX porting products (either Bristol's Wind/U or Mainsoft's MainWin) which happen to use Motif. I believe that one or the other if not both of those now have Linux versions of those products, so one would tend to think that Microsoft would be inclined to do the same thing if/when they ever port any of the application software to Linux.
I personally don't believe they are in the process of porting MS-Office to Linux, but I'd believe they might be working on a port of IE. It makes me shudder a little to think about it (I've seen the latest version of IE for Solaris), but I could believe that they might be doing it.
However, if it works very poorly compared to other offerings on Linux (ApplixWare, StarOffice, Word Perfect Suite, etc), then it will look more like MS doesn't know how to develop for other platforms than Linux isn't ready. Microsoft has to play a very careful game there. They have more to lose if they aren't careful than they could possibly gain by this one maneuver.
Personally I don't believe that Microsoft is really working on a Linux version of MS-Office.
What kind of printer do you have, an ImageWriter or something? Seriously, I've used three different printers with both StarOffice and (mainly) with Word Perfect 8 for Linux. I primarily use an HP LaserJet III (a $50 used printer, but a reliable workhorse). I also have a Panasonic KX-SP100 (which emulates an HP LaserJet IIp). I used to have an HP DeskJet Plus (but sold it). The only one that I have ever had any trouble with configuring was the DeskJet Plus (which is very old). The problem then wasn't with StarOffice or Word Perfect (in fact Word Perfect worked with it right out of the box), but was with the version of Ghostscript that shipped with the Linux distribution I was using at the time (older Ghostscript versions had a bug in the driver for that series of printers). All I had to do was install a newer version of Ghostscript and all was well.
The only current printers I can think of that you would have trouble getting to work would be crappy GDI-only printers. Most printers even if they aren't directly supported can emulate something that is (like my Panasonic).
Searching a zipcode database I have, I find the following:
Holland, IA Holland, IN Holland, KY Holland, MA Holland, MI Holland, MN Holland, MO Holland, NY Holland, OH Holland, TX New Holland, IL New Holland, OH New Holland, PA New Holland, SD
It might save money for you, but my point is that it doesn't make money for the companies associated with it.
I think it is too soon to say that for sure.
Microsoft could give away their operating systems and products, and that would also "make money for you", but they'd hardly be effective capitalists because of it.
That depends. Microsoft gives away a lot of things as loss leaders and to get people locked in. They don't always expect to profit from that directly, or to see returns right away even when they do expect to profit directly. Giving things away isn't necessarily incompatible with capitalism.
Yes, this is because manufacturing is expensive. However, software development has nothing ( or almost nothing ) to do with manufacturing. The commercial software industry is about creating intellectual assets and capitalising on those assets via licensing schemes.
That has been the primary model for the past few years, but that doesn't necessarily mean that is the only way for things to work, or that it will work forever.
Capitalising on ones assets is at the heart of capitalism ( duh! ) and is the most effective way to make money ( who makes more than investment bankers and stock market gurus ? ) And the software industry is booming. Take a look at MSFT's earnings chart if you have any doubts about this.
Unfortunately, it seems that Microsoft has been pulling out those big earnings largely by their ability to destroy markets and gobble them up. There is only so long that they can do that before they run a real danger of irritating so many competitors and customers that they either find themselves under government scrutiny, driving large coalitions of their competitors together or formenting a full scale revolt amongst their customers.
Microsoft is one of the few software companies that has been able to consistantly turn huge profit numbers. Many of the other large software companies have had much more spotty track records.
IBM had huge earnings on mainframe hardware in the 70's and early 80's until the market changed. In a very short period of time they went from making billions to losing billions in a quarter. No matter what company you are talking about, or what industry, those that aren't prepared when the market changes will have a hard time reinventing themselves. IBM seems to be well on their way to doing that, but it wasn't easy for them.
I never said Linux was socialist. But it does embody many of the ideals of Marxism.
It may appear that way, but I believe that is more of a side effect than a core philosophy when it comes to Linux.
Still, I don't like to say "Linux is communist", because a lot of ignorant American's immediately assume that this means that the Linux community is Stalinist or Maoist, or that the Linux community are a bunch of dirty hippies.
Unfortunately, not everyone seems to be able to excercise your self restraint.
As a member and contributor of this community, I find both insinuations offensive.
As do I, being rather strongly anti-socialist.
Can you substantiate this by naming a Linux company that has been sustaining substantial operating profits over the last two or more years ?
No more than you can say that no Linux company will make substantial profits over the next two years. About the only companies we know anything about the finances of are Red Hat and VA. We are just starting to hear anything about Caldera and LinuxCare's financials now that they are going to IPO. Just about every other company (SuSE, MandrakeSoft, Walnut Creek, etc) are privately held. While I don't know, I'd suspect that at least some of those companies are profitable.
Red Hat is still a tiny startup in the scheme of things. Until very recently (when the venture capital started rolling in) they only had a couple dozen employees. In the corporate world six years is a short period of time. Microsoft has been in business for about 25 years, and has been public for at least as long as Red Hat has existed. Linux isn't much younger than Windows NT, but it has only really burst into the public attention in the last two or three years, where NT was widely advertised and hyped in the trade press well in advance of it being an actual product.
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Let us not forget that even in New York, they have recently elected such republicans as George Petaki (sp?) and Rudy Juliani (sp?) -- and it looks like Hillary the carpet bagger faces an uphill battle for the Senate. Gore can't just take the Empire State for granted these days. If your predictions of George W. Bush taking Texas (third largest), Florida (fourth largest) and California (largest), are accurate, and if George W. takes New York as well (second largest), Gore would basically be sunk. I think it'd be highly unlikely (if not virtually a mathematical impossibility -- I don't remember how many electoral college votes those states get for sure and I don't have an almanac handy) for Gore to win in the electoral college even if those were the only states George W. got.
It doesn't look like Gore will get the benefit of a 3rd party spoiler like Ross Perot allowing him to win with less than a majority by splitting the conservative and moderate vote. Clinton most likely would have lost in 1992 and 1996 if it weren't for Perot stealing away significant numbers of votes from Bush Sr. and Bob Dole.
You mean like the part of our law that provides that an accused party can face their accusor? Where is the anonymity there???
...sorry, this is the most tired drivel you could have drawn up. Let me guess - NRA member?
Not every tipster has to be an 'accusor'. The police solicit anonymous tips, even though it requires that they must do the leg work to build evidence to back up such tips. Tipsters can actually provide that evidence totally anonymously by mail, for example. While they might not be willing or able to testify in person, if they can provide evidence that can aid the police (such as photographs, video or audio tape), then they still have a valid service to perform. Not all of such evidence may even be directly usable in court, but it can be enough to help the police find other evidence (for example it might be enough to allow them to get a search warrant).
This is once again ridiculous. In the Soviet Union alone there were numeours dissidents who spoke out against the regime at peril to their lives, but they spoke out publically as themselves, not some shadowy anonymous entity.
Uh, I think that a lot of people who might disagree with the NRA would support people's right to free speech and anonymity. I'm not sure if you are radically far left or radically far right, not that there is any real difference in the end -- the differences seem to be the order in which all civil rights will be eliminated and the rhetoric used to justify it. At any rate it seems kind of ridiculous to assume that just because someone uses the term 'founding fathers' that they are an NRA member, when I often see similar language used by other civil rights groups such as the ACLU.
This is once again ridiculous. In the Soviet Union alone there were numeours dissidents who spoke out against the regime at peril to their lives, but they spoke out publically as themselves, not some shadowy anonymous entity.
It isn't ridiculous. Not everyone is willing to put their lives or their freedom or their family's lives and/or freedom on the line to speak out against the government. Most of the dissidents you speak of in repressive countries like the old Soviet Union, China or Cuba spent (or are spending) numerous years in jail. Some were killed. One of the things that helped bring down the Soviet Union was 'samizdat'. The unauthorized, generally anonymous self-publication of information, much of which was critical of the government.
Bill Clinton got away with pulling over 900 of them.
Even worse than that, weren't some of the files in question found in Hillary's (someone who is neither an elected nor officially appointed official) possession?
Your driver's license analogy doesn't really fit. A more apt comparison would be public pay phones. We allow anyone with some coins to go up to a public payphone and make a call. Its about as anonymous as you can get. You can make long distance calls too, by buying a prepaid phone card with cash. Now there are people who want to make all of that illegal too, by requiring people to use some sort of 'smart card' system for phones which you have to register for in order to purchase time. There are even people who want to do away with cash entirely because they want to be able to monitor and keep records of every transaction all the time. They will use any excuse to justify that sort of invasiveness "sales tax evasion", "drug buys", "prostitution", etc. Your assertation that internet anonymity is only related to pr0n viewing is entirely transparent. If we choose not to allow anonymity on the Internet we are going a lot further than we do with physical phone access.
Actually, by default it was less than 6k, as the first graphics page started at 8192 ($2000) (and took up 8k), and the beginning of memory for a BASIC program started at 2048 ($800). That was for both the tokenized program store and the variable space, which was put by default immediately following the end of the code. What you were probably seeing on your graphics screen was your variables.
If you wanted to write big programs that used graphics or if you wanted to write programs that used lots of variables and graphics, you either had to use the second hires page (which started at 16384 ($4000), but didn't allow split screen text/graphics), or you had to do some twiddling with memory mapping to relocate either the variables and/or program storage above the graphics buffers.
Back in those days you really had to be a lot more careful about memory usage than you do today.
Age of course plays a factor. A grizzled old bum wouldn't get hassled for drug paraphernalia no matter how scruffy he looked
:-)
Wrong, it's precisely because of his socio-economic status that he will get hassled.
I wasn't saying he wouldn't get hassled, he just won't get hassled for drug paraphernalia. He would most likely just get rounded up to the drunk tank or told to more or less get out of town just for being a bum.
and a kid in his 20's would probably get hassled no matter how 'respectable' his appearance might be.
As a white man in his late 20's I have never been hassled by the police for carrying a briar.
I wouldn't recommend carrying one if you find yourself down here. I've known people your age who were hassled even though they actually even had tobacco on them (the cops went rifling through the tobacco pouch looking for anything 'suspicious' hidden in there).
(And I started enjoying the occasional bowl in my teens, which I am sure contravened a statute or two)
Tons of teens smoke, but almost all of them smoke cigarettes, so a teen or 'young adult' (what a loaded term) smoking a pipe is bound to raise a lot more attention.
The difference is though I engage in such subversive and nefarious activities in these strange times such as; pipe-smoking, attending evil musical displays like George Clinton & The P-Funk All-Stars, going to hockey games & horse racing, defending civil liberties, advocating political & judicial reform and most subversive of all: canoeing; I look like someone who might have fallen out of a Big'n'Tall commercial, and speak like someone (in public anyway) enamoured with the Queen's English.
You'd probably really be in trouble down here with the last bit given the temperment of the typical redneck cops -- and their command of, or perhaps lack thereof of the English language.
This is the real point, if you dress like, act like & speak like a hoodlum, don't be surprised if you attract the attention of law enforcement.
Agreed. Sad as it may be, most of the world judges people based largely on appearances.
One of the things that really bothers me are punks (the worst ones are suburban white kids) who look, speak & act like they just stepped out of a Rap Video, then wonder why they get hassled by The Man!
Yea, I really don't get that either. There are tons of that sort of 'wannabe' punks like that around here. Its kinda weird because they are really the antithesis of the people they are trying to emulate.
Pretty soon 'the man' will get used to seeing the kids in their baggy-ass jeans and Tommy/FUBU shirts and not pay attention to them anymore. Of course once it no longer gets attention, they will move on to the next fad. To a certain extent I think they are disingenuous when they act surprised they get hassled, because a lot of them are doing it to get attention, even bad attention.
The great irony here is that these supposed "subversives" buy into the mass consumerism that fuels the masters who seek to oppress them.
Exactly. It is nothing new though, the latchers-on in the 50's all tried to be James Dean, in the 60's all the kids bought commercial pseudo-hippie clothes, in the 70's they bought all of the platform shoes, leisure suits and whatnot fake disco clothes. Its all still conformity, just conforming to something different than their parents did.
You want a real subversive? It's someone who looks like they shop at Brooks Brothers, who sounds clarion calls against the status quo, and goes home and pops in their favourite NWA CD.(Mind you, this could just be my bias toward "Old-School")
I'm not all that interested in intentionally trying to be subversive anymore, but neither can I be bothered to try to conform. I just don't care that much anymore about what other people think. I buy what I find to be cheap and comfortable, not what the fashion police say is the hot thing these days. My political views aren't that way out for Slashdot, but probably would raise a few eyebrows amongst the average populace. I'm not at all familiar with NWA, but my listening tastes aren't at all mainstream either.
Well, its not really a hard and fast age thing. It is more a cosmetic appearance thing. If you look 'dignified' versus you look like 'a punk'. Age of course plays a factor. A grizzled old bum wouldn't get hassled for drug paraphernalia no matter how scruffy he looked and a kid in his 20's would probably get hassled no matter how 'respectable' his appearance might be. A lot of this just depends on the jurisdiction in question, perhaps you live in a community that isn't quite so crazy when it comes to the 'war on drugs'.
That depends on where you live. Where I live having 'paraphernalia' used to be legal. Then they made it so that it was legal until it was used (IE contained 'residue'). Now it is illegal to posess at all. Technically zig-zag type rolling papers and old-man type tobacco pipes are illegal under the current laws. Of course those items are sold openly at tobacco shops and drug stores, etc. Old geezers would never get bothered about possessing such things. The law isn't applied uniformly of course. If someone who is say under 40 had such items, they would likely be considered dangerous contraband. The owner of a local t-shirt/music store was busted on drug paraphernalia charges for selling the same zig-zag papers that are sold openly at the local Walgreens drug store.
Back on topic: While in the case at hand, the person getting busted may have actually used the tools for unlawful purposes, it may be only a matter of time before someone else is charged with only possession of tools. Not every jurisdiction makes sane judgements about such things, even ones who might on other issues. Heck, sometimes such things are strictly related to election year politics (the 'head shop' crackdowns tend to happen in years the county prosecutor is up for re-election). Coincidence?
The point is, this is one of those slippery slope issues where once things start downhill, it is very hard to get back up again.
Read the FAQ. Once a person has built up a certain level of karma, every post they make automatically has a +1 bonus on it unless they specifically check a box against it when they post. Likewise, a person who accumulates a certain level of negative karma automatically gets a -1 penalty on every post (which they can't opt out of). Moderation seems to work. Most of the annoying posts (first posters and trolls) tend to get moderated down quickly, and only occasionally does a particularly good post get moderated above 2. I very rarely see any worthwhile posts moderated to -1, so you can fairly easily read with your threshold at 0 and not miss anything good. Sometimes I see good, but not outstanding posts that are at zero (anonymous cowards do occasionally have something worthwhile to say), so I wouldn't personally read with my threshold set above 0. In general, I am pretty thick skinned, so I usually read with my threshold set at -1.
A smiley would have been a good thing. There are a lot of people out there who don't seem to know history very well (including a lot of people who aren't enough to remember it), so it was pretty easy to mistake your post as something other than humor.
UNIX on mainframes isn't new. IBM has had AIX/390 out for a long time, and Amdahl had their UTS (UNIX Time Sharing) for their (IBM plug compatible) mainframes way back in the mid 80's.
As far as old DEC boxes, I was using UNIX (specifically 4.2 and 4.3 BSD) on VAXes back in the mid 80's. DEC hardware was the original host for UNIX (the PDP-7), and was the most popular hardware for UNIX in the 70's (PDP-11 family). I know for sure that NetBSD still has support for at least some of the VAX hardware, and you can get licenses from SCO (the current USL owner) for free to run older versions of UNIX (V6/V7) on PDP-11's. Once you get a V7 license you can get a copy of the 2.11 BSD distributions from I believe an organization called the PDP-11 preservation society.
I would agree that hype is generally a bad thing because it can set unrealistic expectations about a product. I remember when the Pentium 60's came out, and the place I worked for at the time bought several of them. They were real turkeys (FDIV and f00f bugged), especially for the money. I bought an AMD 486DX4-100 about the same time and it performed very similarly to the P60's for considerably less money. And it didn't have a lot of bugs in it either -- it is still working fine to this day (albiet, it hasn't been a machine I use on a daily basis for a long time). When it comes down to it, I almost never recommend that anyone buy something 'early on' unless they have thoroughly researched it and they absolutely need to have the latest thing for some real reason (not just to keep "ahead of the Jones'"). When you buy something that has just come out the price tends to be a lot higher than if you wait until it has been out a while. I prefer to buy one or two notches below the current top end.
No, I wouldn't use IE on Linux even if it were available. Actually, I use Netscape instead of IE when I am forced to use Windows (only at work, I don't use it at home or for any of my freelance work). You are right that some of the main reasons I wouldn't support Microsoft's browser is that I think there needs to be real competition to keep Microsoft from hijacking the market.
I'd like to see an Open Source browser that was as good or better than any of the commercial offerings, however, I still don't want to see only one choice, even if it was Open Source -- competition is still good. I've got no problem with commercial browsers like Netscape and Opera existing -- if people want them as options that is fine. I only dislike IE because I just don't like the way a few things in it work, and because I highly disapprove of the way that Microsoft conducts business. By the same tokem I don't begrudge the existance of commercial *nixes (I've got three SparcStations at home and mostly use Solaris at work) even though I mainly use Linux at home.
I found out that it was MainWin that Microsoft used for their IE port to Solaris after I posted that. I actually suspected as much given that Bristol was sueing Microsoft around that time due to them having jacked the licensing fees to Bristol way up. I also checked on Bristol's site, and found they have a Linux version of Wind/U as well. So the answer is that both have Linux versions, although as you note that MainWin is in limited beta release. That being true, it would be perfect for a Micrsoft product. :-)
Early Cyrix 6x86's have overheating problems. In order to run reliably they require a special 'Cyrix-approved' chip fan/heat sink (fan spins at roughly twice the RPM and the heat sink is about 1/2 again as big as a standard Pentium fan). The 6x86MX and M-II's seem to have fixed those problems. The early chips also require a motherboard with a very good voltage regulator due to their high power consumption. If your Cyrix equipped machine has a cheapo motherboard, a standard Pentium style chip fan or if the BIOS parameters and/or motherboard jumper settings aren't configured correctly, then you may have problems.
I've had great luck with AMD processors, from the 486's to the K6 family. Most of my friends have recently bought K6-II or K6-III's and all of them are really happy with them including speed and stability. I would wholeheartedly recommend AMD CPUs compared to any similar priced to slightly more expensive Intel CPUs.
Early Cyrix 6x86's did indeed have overheating problems, even in desktop units (you needed a special 'Cyrix-approved' CPU fan/heatsink combos -- one that the fan spins at roughly twice the speed of a normal Pentium fan and the heatsink is about 1/2 again larger in order to get reliable operation). Toshiba made a big mistake putting such chips into laptops, most of which don't have CPU fains at all, and which often run hot even with Intel or AMD CPU's.
Later 6x86's and the M-II's seem to have fixed their overheating problems by switching to a much smaller die size.
While your 133 probably wasn't impressive compared to an Intel 133, it probably cost less than 1/2 what an Intel 133 did. You only get what you pay for, and for the money, the Cyrix chips generally have been a pretty good deal unless you are a gamer or do a lot of math intensive work like scientific computing or image processing.
That is usually caused by bad memory and/or incorrectly set BIOS parameters or incorrectly set motherboard jumpers. It generally isn't caused by a faulty CPU, and as lots of people I know have successfully installed Linux on Cyrix chips from the 486's to the M-II, I don't think it is fair to blame Cyrix for something that probably isn't their fault.
Whether or not Intel looks good doesn't matter as much as whether or not some other company is taking away some of Intel's market share.
Cyrix's chips may be lousy for gamers or people doing heavy scientific computing due to lackluster FPU performance, but for the low-end market Cyrix is aiming at, that isn't such a big deal. If you just want to do web browsing, email and a little word processing, the Cyrix M-II's provide an excellent value. While that may not include a lot of geeks, there are a lot of people like my wife who the M-II is perfect for. I bought an M-II/300 for my wife, and she is more than happy with it. Personally, for me I prefer AMD processors (specifically my main box is K6 based), but I really don't think that Cyrix deserves the harsh treatment they get from a lot of people. Other than the very early Cyrix 6x86 chips that had serious overheating problems, they generally have built a reliable if uninspiring product. Given their excellent price/performance, I think they can be forgiven for a lot, especially since IDT (WinChip), their main competitor for that low-end market has basically given up entirely.
Microsoft has done more recent ports of IE to Solaris than that. The newer versions are still very bloated and slow. You are basically right that they basically re-implemented the entire Windows API under Solaris, what they specifically did is use Mainsoft's MainWin product which is a Win32->UNIX porting layer, which basically re-implements all of the Windows stuff under UNIX and is actually based largely on Microsoft's code (under license).
Porting MS-Office wouldn't be that much larger a challenge than IE, given that they have done ports of both to MacOS. I'd guess they would just use MainWin again. However, I don't believe they will do it, for political reasons. I wouldn't be surprised to see them do a port of IE to Linux, especially since I believe that Mainsoft has ported MainWin to Linux.
As for the Solaris/HP-UX IE, when it was released sometime ago, I remeber reading in a Microsoft site that they used Motif for it.
Actually I believe that they used one of the commercial Win32->UNIX porting products (either Bristol's Wind/U or Mainsoft's MainWin) which happen to use Motif. I believe that one or the other if not both of those now have Linux versions of those products, so one would tend to think that Microsoft would be inclined to do the same thing if/when they ever port any of the application software to Linux.
I personally don't believe they are in the process of porting MS-Office to Linux, but I'd believe they might be working on a port of IE. It makes me shudder a little to think about it (I've seen the latest version of IE for Solaris), but I could believe that they might be doing it.
However, if it works very poorly compared to other offerings on Linux (ApplixWare, StarOffice, Word Perfect Suite, etc), then it will look more like MS doesn't know how to develop for other platforms than Linux isn't ready. Microsoft has to play a very careful game there. They have more to lose if they aren't careful than they could possibly gain by this one maneuver.
Personally I don't believe that Microsoft is really working on a Linux version of MS-Office.
What kind of printer do you have, an ImageWriter or something? Seriously, I've used three different printers with both StarOffice and (mainly) with Word Perfect 8 for Linux. I primarily use an HP LaserJet III (a $50 used printer, but a reliable workhorse). I also have a Panasonic KX-SP100 (which emulates an HP LaserJet IIp). I used to have an HP DeskJet Plus (but sold it). The only one that I have ever had any trouble with configuring was the DeskJet Plus (which is very old). The problem then wasn't with StarOffice or Word Perfect (in fact Word Perfect worked with it right out of the box), but was with the version of Ghostscript that shipped with the Linux distribution I was using at the time (older Ghostscript versions had a bug in the driver for that series of printers). All I had to do was install a newer version of Ghostscript and all was well.
The only current printers I can think of that you would have trouble getting to work would be crappy GDI-only printers. Most printers even if they aren't directly supported can emulate something that is (like my Panasonic).
Searching a zipcode database I have, I find the following:
Holland, IA
Holland, IN
Holland, KY
Holland, MA
Holland, MI
Holland, MN
Holland, MO
Holland, NY
Holland, OH
Holland, TX
New Holland, IL
New Holland, OH
New Holland, PA
New Holland, SD
It might save money for you, but my point is that it doesn't make money for the companies associated with it.
I think it is too soon to say that for sure.
Microsoft could give away their operating systems and products, and that would also "make money for you", but they'd hardly be effective capitalists because of it.
That depends. Microsoft gives away a lot of things as loss leaders and to get people locked in. They don't always expect to profit from that directly, or to see returns right away even when they do expect to profit directly. Giving things away isn't necessarily incompatible with capitalism.
Yes, this is because manufacturing is expensive. However, software development has nothing ( or almost nothing ) to do with manufacturing. The commercial software industry is about creating intellectual assets and capitalising on those assets via licensing schemes.
That has been the primary model for the past few years, but that doesn't necessarily mean that is the only way for things to work, or that it will work forever.
Capitalising on ones assets is at the heart of capitalism ( duh! ) and is the most effective way to make money ( who makes more than investment bankers and stock market gurus ? ) And the software industry is booming. Take a look at MSFT's earnings chart if you have any doubts about this.
Unfortunately, it seems that Microsoft has been pulling out those big earnings largely by their ability to destroy markets and gobble them up. There is only so long that they can do that before they run a real danger of irritating so many competitors and customers that they either find themselves under government scrutiny, driving large coalitions of their competitors together or formenting a full scale revolt amongst their customers.
Microsoft is one of the few software companies that has been able to consistantly turn huge profit numbers. Many of the other large software companies have had much more spotty track records.
IBM had huge earnings on mainframe hardware in the 70's and early 80's until the market changed. In a very short period of time they went from making billions to losing billions in a quarter. No matter what company you are talking about, or what industry, those that aren't prepared when the market changes will have a hard time reinventing themselves. IBM seems to be well on their way to doing that, but it wasn't easy for them.
I never said Linux was socialist. But it does embody many of the ideals of Marxism.
It may appear that way, but I believe that is more of a side effect than a core philosophy when it comes to Linux.
Still, I don't like to say "Linux is communist", because a lot of ignorant American's immediately assume that this means that the Linux community is Stalinist or Maoist, or that the Linux community are a bunch of dirty hippies.
Unfortunately, not everyone seems to be able to excercise your self restraint.
As a member and contributor of this community, I find both insinuations offensive.
As do I, being rather strongly anti-socialist.
Can you substantiate this by naming a Linux company that has been sustaining substantial operating profits over the last two or more years ?
No more than you can say that no Linux company will make substantial profits over the next two years. About the only companies we know anything about the finances of are Red Hat and VA. We are just starting to hear anything about Caldera and LinuxCare's financials now that they are going to IPO. Just about every other company (SuSE, MandrakeSoft, Walnut Creek, etc) are privately held. While I don't know, I'd suspect that at least some of those companies are profitable.
Red Hat is still a tiny startup in the scheme of things. Until very recently (when the venture capital started rolling in) they only had a couple dozen employees. In the corporate world six years is a short period of time. Microsoft has been in business for about 25 years, and has been public for at least as long as Red Hat has existed. Linux isn't much younger than Windows NT, but it has only really burst into the public attention in the last two or three years, where NT was widely advertised and hyped in the trade press well in advance of it being an actual product.