These all seem like really credible ideas that would potentially make moderation work a lot more smoothly. I particularly think that suggestions 2 & 3 have merit, although #3, since it would require storing quite a bit of additional information about who has voted might be slightly difficult to implement or have too much overhead. Given that, I think that #2 is worth exploring. The idea of moderation is a good one, but it seems like there is a lot of agreement that the current system could use some fine tuning.
If the people in the US would eat 10% less meat there would be enough excess crop to end the third world famine.
And it wouldn't matter, because they'd just produce enough less grain to make up the difference. Seriously, famine in the third world isn't caused by excess consumerism in the first world. Its caused by political problems in the third world that wouldn't go away even if there were plenty of excess surplus grain. There is already tons of surplus grain and the western governments pay farmers not to grow as much and there are still surpluses. And it doesn't get sent to the third world, and even when we try to send it, it doesn't get distributed because of political reasons.
Please. Those two words together is enough to make me want to vomit. I don't want to see the chief administration poster boy for Clipper/Skipjack/key escrow president, nor Tipper Gore, the founder of PMRC the first lady.
I like freedom, and those that are for government spying on citizens and for censorship of music lyrics are no friends of freedom.
The democrats had better be able to come up with a better candidate than Al Gore. How about Bill Bradley? What is his record on the important issues?
Two, Oracle could turn around and point out that MS struggled and strained just to *finally* come within a factor of 100 of Oracle's wares...
Microsoft needs to do more than get within a factor of 100, if they don't get within a factor of 16, then Oracle still 'wins' because that is what Microsoft claims the cost-benefit of their solution vs. the Oracle one is. Even if they can do that, Oracle still wins because their solution is still going to be far more reliable.
DOS, Windows, Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Office, TrueType, the Internet, the Sidewalk, SoftImage, AVI,...
Not a single innovative product in that bunch.
DOS: A clone of CP/M that Microsoft purchased from someone else.
Windows: A copy of a copy (Microsoft copied Apple who copied Xerox.
Word: Certainly not the first word processor, not even the first GUI based one.
Excel: Not the first spreadsheet either.
TrueType: Co-developed with Apple largely as a clone of Adobe's then proprietary Postscript font formats.
the Internet: Microsoft showed up late for the party (the first edition of "The Road Ahead" didn't even mention it), then they want to claim its their party and they invited everyone.
etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Microsoft is free to start innovating any time they want, but they never have in their 20+ year history.
Well, at the company I work at this is definitely not true. I am not a member of the IT department, but there are basically 2 people who take care of all the Unix boxes, which out number NT boxes. There are at least 4 people that I know of that take care of the NT machines, and probably a couple more that I don't know. So, given this I would say the Unix boxes offer a better long term value than the NT boxes.
I am a member of the IT department where I work. We have at least double the number of people maintaining NT servers as UNIX servers, despite the fact that all of our most important production systems are on UNIX and UNIX servers greatly outnumber NT servers at this point in the company (probably by hundreds). The same thing is true of Netware and OS/2 within the company, we have fewer people who maintain them than NT, and more boxes of each than NT. Of any server operating system we use, I'd have to say that NT offers the worst value, especially since it is the least reliable.
if the road ahead was a best-seller then why is borders selling it for $2.98? i could've sworn best-sellers maintained their value....
They probably did it the same way that the Church of Scientology made Dianetics and other L. Ron Hubbard books "best sellers". Buy your own book to get it onto the bestseller lists. Its a tried and true method to "prime the pump". Pressure the big book chains into large advance orders, which you book and advertise as sales. Creative accounting seems to be a Microsoft tradition.
If you have Linux servers you have to offer a decent salary for a sysadmin with a brain.
You can hire an MCSE (Must Consult Someone Experienced) for about $10K-$20K less a year, and gamble that he may not have to pay for support from MS.
Or hell, just get some 16-year-old from Tek Systems. 'You know how to double-click, right son?'
One of the big NT myths (or perhaps marketing lies) is that NT is cheaper to administer than UNIX. One of the reasons often stated for that is that NT admins are significantly cheaper and easier to find than UNIX admins. From what I've seen, it doesn't seem to be true, in general, NT admin salaries are only slightly below what UNIX admin salaries are. Secondly as others have pointed out, you need more administers for large NT installations than large UNIX installations for two reasons, first that UNIX is more reliable so it needs less administration, secondly because it generally takes 3 to 5 times the number of NT servers to replace UNIX servers, thirdly because NT's administration tools make remote administration and automating administration tasks with scripting more difficult than UNIX.
I've also noticed that people who try to scrimp my hiring less qualified administrators pay more in the long run due to significantly higher vendor support bills. Microsoft also charges significant sums for access to technical information such as MSDN and TechNet, the analogs for UNIX of which are generally lower cost, if not outright free.
It's useful for reading stuff about programs you're watching, getting more info about stuff, and seeing schedules. Quite a nifty system.
DSS (Digital Satellite) and some digital cable systems have this type of functionality in the US. I have a Sony DSS, and I find the on screen menus, schedules and program blurbs quite convenient.
Sure, it's not fully interactive, but it's a fairly good imitation, and reading a few pages of info about the program you're watching (without having to have a WebTV to go to the channel's website) is nice.
You might consider getting DSS. I have a Sony DSS unit, and the on-screen menus (which include blurbs about the programs is very nice.
Actually, a 27" *RCA* these days *is* pretty shitty. Those Panasonic GAOO models are pretty sweet, though.
I have a 27" RCA, and I am quite happy with it. I have Sony DSS unit, and I get good picture and sound (stereo) from it, from videotape and even from antenae for local stations. Actually as far as the $299 goes, I think I paid $269 for mine on sale last year some time. There may be other sets that are better, but the one I have is far from $#!++y.
Bad experience with 6x86 first generation
on
The $299 PC
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· Score: 1
It could be a heat problem or it could be the motherboard is cheap. However, this machine has never been what you would call stable.
It is probably a heat problem unless you are using a "Cyrix Approved" fan and heat sink. Standard Pentium fan/heat sink combos are not sufficient to reliably cool an original generation 6x86. The "Cyrix Approved" fan runs at a higher speed and the heat sink is larger. The top surface of the Cyrix chips is also shaped differently than the Intel chips, so the bottom of the heat sink needs to fit properly, which the "Cyrix Approved" ones do, and the generic Pentium ones don't usually.
Another thing to worry about is whether the heat sink is making good thermal transfer from the chip, which generally requires some heat sink compound (a type of silicone grease).
A cheap motherboard can also lead to problems with 6x86 chips, because they often have substandard voltage regulations, and the early production 6x86's require a lot more juice than a Pentium (which is why they run so hot). I have heard of problems with overheating of the voltage regulator IC's on motherboards that people have cured by jerry-rigging a larger heat sink and/or fan to cool the voltage regulator.
A little poking around inside the case can often help determine where the problem lies. Sometimes if problems either become more serious or go away when the machine is operated with the cover off, that can be an indication of thermal problems. If its a voltage regulation problem, then careful observation with a precise digital voltmeter may be necessary to diagnose the problem (watch for out of spec or fluctuating voltages).
I tried this on an 8 meg 486 laptop... I inserted the supplemental disk, and it soon freaked out, couldn't get past fdisk. The consensus seems to be that more memory would help, but that's not an option. I tried RH5.1 and RH5.2, both failed. What did you use?
For a limited memory install you might want to try Slackware. I have successfully installed Slackware 3.x on a 386SX-25 with only 4M of RAM. I have also installed it on a Toshiba 3300SL laptop (386SL-25) with 8M of RAM (from floppies no less).
I know that it is possible to install Red Hat 5.2 on an 8M machine (I did it on a 486DLC-40 with 8M), but I have heard that prior versions had a bug that caused
Who cares if they have a hard time installing Windows if they never have to do it?
But they might, unless they want to lug their computer back to the store (and probably pay) to have it "fixed" when they blow their registry, or they corrupt their hard drive, or a virus wipes out their drive or any one of the thousands of ways a Windows installation can get hosed up enough it needs to be reinstalled.
So, saying, "Well, Windows is hard to install too" is silly.
It isn't silly, although it still isn't completely an excuse.
I would pay not to have a cyrix chip...I hate them
I personally prefer AMD, but I have nothing against Cyrix, at least not their current products. I knew a number of people who had overheating problems with the 6x86-133 through 6x86-166 chips, but then again, they were using generic Pentium fans and not "Cyrix Approved" fans, or were overclocking. The integer performance of the Cyrix chips actually seems to be quite good, and while their floating point performance has traditionally fallen behind Intel's similarly "P-rated" parts, the price difference has been substantial enough that you can usually buy a Cyrix part with similar floating point and a lot faster integer performance for about the same money as an Intel part.
Really $#!++y? You can buy a 27" RCA stereo TV for that. While its not exactly the top of the line, it is not "really $#!++y". Really shitty would be some crappy little 13" "Made In China" set, which you can pick up for well under $100 these days.
What is your definition of not $#!++y? 36", 48", 54"??? Must be rough to have money falling out of your @$$.
Linux - you can't give it away. NT - happy customers willing to pay.
Live with it!
Troll breath. Red Hat and SuSE seem to be able to find a lot of people willing to pay for Linux. Not all NT customers are happy (or I should say a lot of NT customers I know are unhappy. And even those that are happy. Well, the "Who's on crack?" might fit -- a lot of crack customers are happy as long as they are getting their stuff.
The good thing is I don't have to live with it, so deal with the fact that more and more of us are opting against Microsoft every day.
By that same logic, then if my time has value, Windows is very, very expensive since it is more frustratingly time consuming than Linux by far. Linux works and works well, whereas it is a chore to reliably do anything with Windows.
You can only hear them when your BEHIND the motorcycle
Bullpuckey. I can hear a Harley when it is in front of a car in front of me, when it is coming up behind me, or when it is approaching from a cross street. Your car must have too much sound insulation from outside noise. That can be a bad thing.
Harley's are not made to enjoy the road, they are made to annoy others. Why else would they have those offensively loud tailpipes? Do the morons who ride them actually think they look and/or sound "cool"?
Actually the factory Harley pipes (with the crossover pipe) are way too quiet, which is why most people buy aftermarket pipes right away. You don't get that 'blat blat, blat blat' sound at idle with the factory pipes.
Seriously, loud pipes save lives. Anyone who isn't deaf who says "I didn't see any motorcycles around" if they hit a Harley, in my book has no excuse.
Seriously though, most Harleys are quiet compared to my Chevelle... So nyea nyea to you.:-)
What I expect Microsoft is thinking is that it is more likely that people will delay installing Linux anticipating MS-Office.
Then they can drag out their ship schedule indefinitely. Even if they ever ship a product, they can do to it what they did to the Mac versions of Office. Bloat them by making them run huge Windoze compatibility libraries. Make parts of it run in P-code to make it run slower. Always make sure it is released later or is behind versions to the current Windoze version.
I wouldn't buy it anyway and you shouldn't either
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MS Office for Linux
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· Score: 1
Frankly, I don't like using MS-Office when I am occasionally forced to at work on Windoze. I won't buy it even if a Linux version comes out because Microsoft doesn't deserve my money. I wouldn't even pirate it and run it because there are other more palatable alternatives already on Linux.
But what worries me is that while MS-Office on Linux would help give Linux credibility with PHB types and ease transitions for some newbies... and maybe even make cross-platform work easier, which are all good things, at least in the short term. The danger is that Microsoft would use MS-Office as a weapon against the Linux community (or at least the large distribution vendors) the way they do against the Mac.
Once MS-Office was on Linux, chances are too great that it would squeeze out most if not all of the competition and leave a large portion of users dependant on Microsoft. Another danger is that MS could use it as a way to either force people to a new "Microsoft Linux" distribution, or more likely that Microsoft may decide to 'anoint' one particular distribution as the 'standard', which would not only hurt diversity in the Linux world, it could possibly lead to that distribution being controlled by Microsoft in the future.
Personally, I think Microsoft may be starting these vaporware rumors in an attempt to try to derail Lotus from porting SmartSuite or to reduce Corel's resolve in porting the rest of WordPerfect Office. Vaporware is one of the ways that Microsoft crushes their competitors without even delivering a product because companies and venture capitolists are reluctant to fund any development that might come into future competition with Microsoft.
It's amusing to note that IBM didn't compare the Linux cluster to its own hardware. I'd be curious to know how a 12-way RS/6000 S70/S7A running AIX under HACMP would stand up to the Netfinity/Linux assult.
This demo was done at a Linux show. Linux on RS/6000 is still a work in progress, so it is not surprising that they aren't ready to show that. Doing a demo with AIX at that show would have been a political faux pas.
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These all seem like really credible ideas that would potentially make moderation work a lot more smoothly. I particularly think that suggestions 2 & 3 have merit, although #3, since it would require storing quite a bit of additional information about who has voted might be slightly difficult to implement or have too much overhead. Given that, I think that #2 is worth exploring. The idea of moderation is a good one, but it seems like there is a lot of agreement that the current system could use some fine tuning.
If the people in the US would eat 10% less meat there would be enough excess crop to end the third world famine.
And it wouldn't matter, because they'd just produce enough less grain to make up the difference. Seriously, famine in the third world isn't caused by excess consumerism in the first world. Its caused by political problems in the third world that wouldn't go away even if there were plenty of excess surplus grain. There is already tons of surplus grain and the western governments pay farmers not to grow as much and there are still surpluses. And it doesn't get sent to the third world, and even when we try to send it, it doesn't get distributed because of political reasons.
President Gore
Please. Those two words together is enough to make me want to vomit. I don't want to see the chief administration poster boy for Clipper/Skipjack/key escrow president, nor Tipper Gore, the founder of PMRC the first lady.
I like freedom, and those that are for government spying on citizens and for censorship of music lyrics are no friends of freedom.
The democrats had better be able to come up with a better candidate than Al Gore. How about Bill Bradley? What is his record on the important issues?
FUCK YOU BIT?CH
My, what an intelligent and literate response. I am truly overwhelmed.
All I can say is that jealousy is very unflattering for you.
Who TF can even afford the Sun machine they tested on???
There is an Enterprise 10000 in the building where I work.
One, I think they're doing it for the money =)
Two, Oracle could turn around and point out that MS struggled and strained just to *finally* come within a factor of 100 of Oracle's wares...
Microsoft needs to do more than get within a factor of 100, if they don't get within a factor of 16, then Oracle still 'wins' because that is what Microsoft claims the cost-benefit of their solution vs. the Oracle one is. Even if they can do that, Oracle still wins because their solution is still going to be far more reliable.
DOS, Windows, Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Office, TrueType, the Internet, the Sidewalk, SoftImage, AVI,
Not a single innovative product in that bunch.
Microsoft is free to start innovating any time they want, but they never have in their 20+ year history.
Well, at the company I work at this is definitely not true. I am not a member of the IT department, but there are basically 2 people who take care of all the Unix boxes, which out number NT boxes. There are at least 4 people that I know of that take care of the NT machines, and probably a couple more that I don't know. So, given this I would say the Unix boxes offer a better long term value than the NT boxes.
I am a member of the IT department where I work. We have at least double the number of people maintaining NT servers as UNIX servers, despite the fact that all of our most important production systems are on UNIX and UNIX servers greatly outnumber NT servers at this point in the company (probably by hundreds). The same thing is true of Netware and OS/2 within the company, we have fewer people who maintain them than NT, and more boxes of each than NT. Of any server operating system we use, I'd have to say that NT offers the worst value, especially since it is the least reliable.
if the road ahead was a best-seller then why is borders selling it for $2.98? i could've sworn best-sellers maintained their value....
They probably did it the same way that the Church of Scientology made Dianetics and other L. Ron Hubbard books "best sellers". Buy your own book to get it onto the bestseller lists. Its a tried and true method to "prime the pump". Pressure the big book chains into large advance orders, which you book and advertise as sales. Creative accounting seems to be a Microsoft tradition.
If you have Linux servers you have to offer a decent salary for a sysadmin with a brain.
You can hire an MCSE (Must Consult Someone Experienced) for about $10K-$20K less a year, and gamble that he may not have to pay for support from MS.
Or hell, just get some 16-year-old from Tek Systems.
'You know how to double-click, right son?'
One of the big NT myths (or perhaps marketing lies) is that NT is cheaper to administer than UNIX. One of the reasons often stated for that is that NT admins are significantly cheaper and easier to find than UNIX admins. From what I've seen, it doesn't seem to be true, in general, NT admin salaries are only slightly below what UNIX admin salaries are. Secondly as others have pointed out, you need more administers for large NT installations than large UNIX installations for two reasons, first that UNIX is more reliable so it needs less administration, secondly because it generally takes 3 to 5 times the number of NT servers to replace UNIX servers, thirdly because NT's administration tools make remote administration and automating administration tasks with scripting more difficult than UNIX.
I've also noticed that people who try to scrimp my hiring less qualified administrators pay more in the long run due to significantly higher vendor support bills. Microsoft also charges significant sums for access to technical information such as MSDN and TechNet, the analogs for UNIX of which are generally lower cost, if not outright free.
It's useful for reading stuff about programs you're watching, getting more info about stuff, and seeing schedules. Quite a nifty system.
DSS (Digital Satellite) and some digital cable systems have this type of functionality in the US. I have a Sony DSS, and I find the on screen menus, schedules and program blurbs quite convenient.
Sure, it's not fully interactive, but it's a fairly good imitation, and reading a few pages of info about the program you're watching (without having to have a WebTV to go to the channel's website) is nice.
You might consider getting DSS. I have a Sony DSS unit, and the on-screen menus (which include blurbs about the programs is very nice.
Actually, a 27" *RCA* these days *is* pretty shitty. Those Panasonic GAOO models are pretty sweet, though.
I have a 27" RCA, and I am quite happy with it. I have Sony DSS unit, and I get good picture and sound (stereo) from it, from videotape and even from antenae for local stations. Actually as far as the $299 goes, I think I paid $269 for mine on sale last year some time. There may be other sets that are better, but the one I have is far from $#!++y.
It could be a heat problem or it could be the motherboard is cheap. However, this machine has never been what you would call stable.
It is probably a heat problem unless you are using a "Cyrix Approved" fan and heat sink. Standard Pentium fan/heat sink combos are not sufficient to reliably cool an original generation 6x86. The "Cyrix Approved" fan runs at a higher speed and the heat sink is larger. The top surface of the Cyrix chips is also shaped differently than the Intel chips, so the bottom of the heat sink needs to fit properly, which the "Cyrix Approved" ones do, and the generic Pentium ones don't usually.
Another thing to worry about is whether the heat sink is making good thermal transfer from the chip, which generally requires some heat sink compound (a type of silicone grease).
A cheap motherboard can also lead to problems with 6x86 chips, because they often have substandard voltage regulations, and the early production 6x86's require a lot more juice than a Pentium (which is why they run so hot). I have heard of problems with overheating of the voltage regulator IC's on motherboards that people have cured by jerry-rigging a larger heat sink and/or fan to cool the voltage regulator.
A little poking around inside the case can often help determine where the problem lies. Sometimes if problems either become more serious or go away when the machine is operated with the cover off, that can be an indication of thermal problems. If its a voltage regulation problem, then careful observation with a precise digital voltmeter may be necessary to diagnose the problem (watch for out of spec or fluctuating voltages).
I tried this on an 8 meg 486 laptop... I inserted the supplemental disk, and it soon freaked out, couldn't get past fdisk. The consensus seems to be that more memory would help, but that's not an option. I tried RH5.1 and RH5.2, both failed. What did you use?
For a limited memory install you might want to try Slackware. I have successfully installed Slackware 3.x on a 386SX-25 with only 4M of RAM. I have also installed it on a Toshiba 3300SL laptop (386SL-25) with 8M of RAM (from floppies no less).
I know that it is possible to install Red Hat 5.2 on an 8M machine (I did it on a 486DLC-40 with 8M), but I have heard that prior versions had a bug that caused
Who cares if they have a hard time installing Windows if they never have to do it?
But they might, unless they want to lug their computer back to the store (and probably pay) to have it "fixed" when they blow their registry, or they corrupt their hard drive, or a virus wipes out their drive or any one of the thousands of ways a Windows installation can get hosed up enough it needs to be reinstalled.
So, saying, "Well, Windows is hard to install too" is silly.
It isn't silly, although it still isn't completely an excuse.
I would pay not to have a cyrix chip...I hate them
I personally prefer AMD, but I have nothing against Cyrix, at least not their current products. I knew a number of people who had overheating problems with the 6x86-133 through 6x86-166 chips, but then again, they were using generic Pentium fans and not "Cyrix Approved" fans, or were overclocking. The integer performance of the Cyrix chips actually seems to be quite good, and while their floating point performance has traditionally fallen behind Intel's similarly "P-rated" parts, the price difference has been substantial enough that you can usually buy a Cyrix part with similar floating point and a lot faster integer performance for about the same money as an Intel part.
Yeah, a really shitty TV
Really $#!++y? You can buy a 27" RCA stereo TV for that. While its not exactly the top of the line, it is not "really $#!++y". Really shitty would be some crappy little 13" "Made In China" set, which you can pick up for well under $100 these days.
What is your definition of not $#!++y? 36", 48", 54"??? Must be rough to have money falling out of your @$$.
Linux - you can't give it away.
NT - happy customers willing to pay.
Live with it!
Troll breath. Red Hat and SuSE seem to be able to find a lot of people willing to pay for Linux. Not all NT customers are happy (or I should say a lot of NT customers I know are unhappy. And even those that are happy. Well, the "Who's on crack?" might fit -- a lot of crack customers are happy as long as they are getting their stuff.
The good thing is I don't have to live with it, so deal with the fact that more and more of us are opting against Microsoft every day.
Linux is only free if your time is worthless
By that same logic, then if my time has value, Windows is very, very expensive since it is more frustratingly time consuming than Linux by far. Linux works and works well, whereas it is a chore to reliably do anything with Windows.
You can only hear them when your BEHIND the motorcycle
Bullpuckey. I can hear a Harley when it is in front of a car in front of me, when it is coming up behind me, or when it is approaching from a cross street. Your car must have too much sound insulation from outside noise. That can be a bad thing.
Harley's are not made to enjoy the road, they are made to annoy others. Why else would they have those offensively loud tailpipes? Do the morons who ride them actually think they look and/or sound "cool"?
:-)
Actually the factory Harley pipes (with the crossover pipe) are way too quiet, which is why most people buy aftermarket pipes right away. You don't get that 'blat blat, blat blat' sound at idle with the factory pipes.
Seriously, loud pipes save lives. Anyone who isn't deaf who says "I didn't see any motorcycles around" if they hit a Harley, in my book has no excuse.
Seriously though, most Harleys are quiet compared to my Chevelle... So nyea nyea to you.
If people install Linux anticipating Office,
What I expect Microsoft is thinking is that it is more likely that people will delay installing Linux anticipating MS-Office.
Then they can drag out their ship schedule indefinitely. Even if they ever ship a product, they can do to it what they did to the Mac versions of Office. Bloat them by making them run huge Windoze compatibility libraries. Make parts of it run in P-code to make it run slower. Always make sure it is released later or is behind versions to the current Windoze version.
Frankly, I don't like using MS-Office when I am occasionally forced to at work on Windoze. I won't buy it even if a Linux version comes out because Microsoft doesn't deserve my money. I wouldn't even pirate it and run it because there are other more palatable alternatives already on Linux.
But what worries me is that while MS-Office on Linux would help give Linux credibility with PHB types and ease transitions for some newbies... and maybe even make cross-platform work easier, which are all good things, at least in the short term. The danger is that Microsoft would use MS-Office as a weapon against the Linux community (or at least the large distribution vendors) the way they do against the Mac.
Once MS-Office was on Linux, chances are too great that it would squeeze out most if not all of the competition and leave a large portion of users dependant on Microsoft. Another danger is that MS could use it as a way to either force people to a new "Microsoft Linux" distribution, or more likely that Microsoft may decide to 'anoint' one particular distribution as the 'standard', which would not only hurt diversity in the Linux world, it could possibly lead to that distribution being controlled by Microsoft in the future.
Personally, I think Microsoft may be starting these vaporware rumors in an attempt to try to derail Lotus from porting SmartSuite or to reduce Corel's resolve in porting the rest of WordPerfect Office. Vaporware is one of the ways that Microsoft crushes their competitors without even delivering a product because companies and venture capitolists are reluctant to fund any development that might come into future competition with Microsoft.
It's amusing to note that IBM didn't compare the Linux cluster to its own hardware. I'd be curious to know how a 12-way RS/6000 S70/S7A running AIX under HACMP would stand up to the Netfinity/Linux assult.
This demo was done at a Linux show. Linux on RS/6000 is still a work in progress, so it is not surprising that they aren't ready to show that. Doing a demo with AIX at that show would have been a political faux pas.