These guys may think they're clever and have published a paper that discredits all coders today. But have they weighed the consequences of their lack of faith? When they die they will go to Coder Heaven and be questioned by St. Carmack at the PERL-y Gates. Do they really think he'll be impressed by their rhetoric? Really, I'd like to be there when they're blinded by a lightmap on the road to Bumpmapicus...
Well shit, in 600 years I'll take my own goddamm air car and go visit it myself. Needless to say I'm still impatiently awaiting my cure for old age and (naturally) my flying cars but these are pesky details...
>If I sell software and profit ONLY from software sales, why would I force you to pay for additional products in order to use that software? If the software is salable on its own, then your argument fails.
No, this is in fact the strength of the argument. Picture it like this: you go out and buy Windows XP because you're an average Joe and think it's the only way you can use your new digital camera, and after all, Microsoft is promising you it's faster than all previous versions of Windows. (A whole thread in itself...) You get it home and realize it's slower than snot on your Pentium 400. So what do you do? Either you write off the $150 for the software or you go buy a new computer. When you buy the new computer, guess what? You buy a second copy of XP!
Now I know what you're thinking, no company can afford to be so contrarian and abusive to users. To knowingly force you to buy two copies of their product. But they can. Microsoft is a monopoly and knows it. They know you can't take your toys and go home. You want a computer? Buy Windows. For the average Joe there is absolutely no choice.
And lastly, Microsoft profits directly from hardware sales, you can't oversimplify by calling them a software-only company. Because they force every PC to be shipped with an OEM license. Hence hardware sales are part of their bottom line.
Although I'm not a librarian I think people sometimes lose sight of the fact that libraries are in many ways a foundation of democracy and freedom.
A bit over the top, you say? Well, libraries go hand-in-hand with free education, which most people consider a basic right. They also provide free access to information, often information critical of government or other establishments. Libraries provide uninhibited access to information for rich or poor, white or black. Many of us take for granted the ability to buy a $20 book and read it at our leisure, but just because we're largely a rich society does not magically make your local Barnes & Noble a "noble" enterprise. But your local library is.
In fact, readers of Slashdot who believe in freedom of information should be vehemently in support of libraries as the original source of the concept that information should be freely available to the populace. Recent copyright laws attack the library establishment as much as they do individuals. While the concept of rows of dust-covered tomes my be getting a bit outdated, libraries are actually about education and access to information, not just books...
Actually, I think you need to be more cynical, to suggest XP bloat wasn't engineered is highly, highly implausible. For this to happen we need to assume that the big-wigs in Redmond got into a room together to discuss a major slump in OEM sales and the following two questions were never asked:
1. "Could this possibly be related to the massive PC purchase slump affecting everyone in our industry?"
Also, no one asked:
2. "I wonder if there's any way we can fix the problem?"
To suggest that companies have this sort of fatalistic "we're screwed and there's nothing we can do to fix it" mentality is simplistic at best. Do you honestly think companies don't have these discussions?
Since a huge proportion of us who have publicly-accessible Wi-Fi networks do so by choice you have to wonder what the value of tracking users is. If people use my hub I'm okay with it as long as they're not abusing it, more power (or bandwidth) to them. I don't need to track people using my hub, if I didn't want them I would spend a few minutes reading about security and prevent people from using my hub. The only people who would need to track users would be corporations but their security departments are so damn paranoid they're barely ready to admit Ethernet may be secure, let alone cool shit like Wi-Fi.
Unfortunately my take on this situation is a bit more sinister. Your post mentions that NT 5.0 (Windows 2000 Pro) requires 64M of RAM, yet NT 5.1 (Windows XP) requires 128M of RAM. Why the twofold increase for a minor upgrade? Well, consider two things:
1. Windows XP was released during one of the slowest hardware sales slumps in PC history. All the big players were hoping to see XP spur sales. Not coincidentally, for many people XP required a new PC. 2. Microsoft can only stand to benefit from these PC sales in the form of OEM licenses.
Yes I'm cynical but I've always been of the belief that the bloat in XP is engineered, not the simple result of bad programming. To think that the project managers and marketing don't talk about these sorts of things is naive
Tee-hee, this is my favourite quote from the article:
Those companies, which include Linux firms, use a special "free software" license called the General Public License that bars any payment.
If it was a Linux site I would be offended but it's comical to see such silly things in print. I'm sure RMS is squirming in his seat over this one, I just think it's good fun.
"Pssst! Bob! What does GPL stand for?"
'Uh... I think it's General Public License, dude...'
Sorry, what I meant was "she's a worthless media slut who will either strip on stage for a bill or will wear a fucking psycho drug addict dress to the Grammys or a new Armani dress depending on what will get her more publicity..." Didn't mean to say she was the same as the rest, sorry for the evasiveness...
That Linux trojan/virus writers have learned to aim at Linux sysadmins by taking control of very recent patches and adding trojan horses. Seems the best way to attack a Linux system is to try to interrupt the many vigilant admins as they faithfully download patches on the same day they're released... Windows trojans survive on the dearth of upgrades, not their spread...
When he wants out of America they detain him. When he wants back into America they refuse him. If he was smart he'd send them a note pleading with them to find him guilty.
Question: is the average Word user made more or less free by having the source code to Word?
More free. While most Word users will never write a new version, some would and you could see Word for Linux, a thin version of Word sans-bloat, and all kinds of cool things.
On the contrary, proprietary software must respect the needs of its users, otherwise they won't buy it.
Sorry, but the last version of Office that anyone ever needed was Office 97. However companies are literally forced to buy new versions because Microsoft refuses to support the older and PerfectOffice is a laughable alternative
List 3 things you use every day in Office XP that weren't in Office 97.
Though she's as bad as the rest, Courtney Love had it right when she asked how much she, as an artist, would be getting in refunds due to RIAA awards against MP3.com and similar services. If her balance hasn't been positive due to these offensive attacks then we can only assume this is only about fat, bald bureaucrats at the RIAA. I'd love to proven wrong but...
Sorry... Sorry, pardon me and excuse me, apologies for what I'm about to say... But, the tools used to compile kernels are crap and are one of the main deterrents to new users adopting Linux.
I've been running Linux for about 1.5 years and love it, considering myself a novice but a very literate one at that. I've compiled my own kernels but NVidia and other binary RPMs prevented my ever using one.
But really, I've been in computers for 15 years and as much of a Linux goof as I am I can talk carrier signals and user contexts and the OSI model and blah blah... But compiling a kernel is still a frightening chore. While many distros help to resolve this with nicely compiled binary kernels it doesn't help us when tonnes of web pages out there suggest we compile our own kernels and as inexperienced goofs we try.
What I'd really like to see is something seamless, that does not die unexpectedly, with explanations in human language. Not sure if this tool is it but I've gotta concede there is tonnes of room for improvement.
It may interest you to know that only about 4% of American oil comes from the Gulf, let alone Iraq. 80% is produced domestically and most of the remaining comes from South America and Africa. Hence it's ludicrous to suggest that an American attack on Iraq will raise local oil prices.
This begs the question, if American dependence on Gulf oil is a myth, why are the Americans ready to wage war? Well, most of America's allies rely on Gulf oil so control of Iraq means control of Europe and Asia. Does it all make sense now???
No, but they're probably stone-cold killers one and all. After all, computer gaming trains you to be a killer, it's like murder simulators.
I'm gonna go watch some Kung-Fu movies since they'll turn my fat ass into a lean fighting machine...
Gaming ain't what it used to be...
on
The Aging Gamer
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Back in my day gamers were all young and we had to use our imaginations! Screens only had four pixels and the only colour we had was black. Then some upstart invented amber and it's been all downhill since then...
You don't understand free software at all... Free software is about letting the market decide, and if they decide that the removal of the Taiwanese flag from Redhat 8.0 is acceptable then you should know where you stand. Don't assume that market forces will support you just because your story is sad...
I would tend to agree with you, making interfaces look similar is overall a good thing, particularly when it's only the distribution doing it, not a more central or insidious group.
After all, RedHat is strong because of its popularity, not its monopoly power. If RedHat genuinely ignores consumer interests they will crash in flames. They understand this, so don't think they took the united UI lightly. They must ride the crest of user desires or perish in the process.
The marriage of two UIs was inevitable and will make the KDE vs. GNOME debates more objective. We can stop hearing about how KDE/GNOME "looks" so much nicer and know that soon the market will decide solely on technical merit. We should be excited about this, consistent interfaces may help a WM to win based on its abilities, not the skins it has available...
Man, Penn and Taylor are my favourite comedians of all time, I had no idea they worked for RedHat... Guys I totally loved that time you threw the glass of water in the talk-show host's face, and you rocked on Fear Factor!;-)
Wha? I wasn't saying games kill... We all have a funny story about a time we were locked in deathmatch battle and nearly peed ourselves because we didn't want to leave to go to the bathroom. However none of us have sat at our computer playing for 80+ hours straight. Games were just the rather fortunate instrument of this guy's demise, he died because he was dumb. My point was abundantly apparent to anyone who wasn't... uhm... "uninformed".
Because JPL's budget is not a dot-oh fraction of the federal budget, it's actually a dollar figure. So no matter how small.5% may be they still need to manage to it and the many billions of dollar that it entails. I know it sounds cool to say the the NASA budget is only ".5%" of the entire federal budget but that's still billions of dollar to those of us who don't oooohhhh and aaahhhh over numbers. If you think JPL makes no ripple then you are very naive indeed...
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These guys may think they're clever and have published a paper that discredits all coders today. But have they weighed the consequences of their lack of faith? When they die they will go to Coder Heaven and be questioned by St. Carmack at the PERL-y Gates. Do they really think he'll be impressed by their rhetoric? Really, I'd like to be there when they're blinded by a lightmap on the road to Bumpmapicus...
Well shit, in 600 years I'll take my own goddamm air car and go visit it myself. Needless to say I'm still impatiently awaiting my cure for old age and (naturally) my flying cars but these are pesky details...
>If I sell software and profit ONLY from software sales, why would I force you to pay for additional products in order to use that software? If the software is salable on its own, then your argument fails.
No, this is in fact the strength of the argument. Picture it like this: you go out and buy Windows XP because you're an average Joe and think it's the only way you can use your new digital camera, and after all, Microsoft is promising you it's faster than all previous versions of Windows. (A whole thread in itself...) You get it home and realize it's slower than snot on your Pentium 400. So what do you do? Either you write off the $150 for the software or you go buy a new computer. When you buy the new computer, guess what? You buy a second copy of XP!
Now I know what you're thinking, no company can afford to be so contrarian and abusive to users. To knowingly force you to buy two copies of their product. But they can. Microsoft is a monopoly and knows it. They know you can't take your toys and go home. You want a computer? Buy Windows. For the average Joe there is absolutely no choice.
And lastly, Microsoft profits directly from hardware sales, you can't oversimplify by calling them a software-only company. Because they force every PC to be shipped with an OEM license. Hence hardware sales are part of their bottom line.
Although I'm not a librarian I think people sometimes lose sight of the fact that libraries are in many ways a foundation of democracy and freedom.
A bit over the top, you say? Well, libraries go hand-in-hand with free education, which most people consider a basic right. They also provide free access to information, often information critical of government or other establishments. Libraries provide uninhibited access to information for rich or poor, white or black. Many of us take for granted the ability to buy a $20 book and read it at our leisure, but just because we're largely a rich society does not magically make your local Barnes & Noble a "noble" enterprise. But your local library is.
In fact, readers of Slashdot who believe in freedom of information should be vehemently in support of libraries as the original source of the concept that information should be freely available to the populace. Recent copyright laws attack the library establishment as much as they do individuals. While the concept of rows of dust-covered tomes my be getting a bit outdated, libraries are actually about education and access to information, not just books...
Actually, I think you need to be more cynical, to suggest XP bloat wasn't engineered is highly, highly implausible. For this to happen we need to assume that the big-wigs in Redmond got into a room together to discuss a major slump in OEM sales and the following two questions were never asked:
1. "Could this possibly be related to the massive PC purchase slump affecting everyone in our industry?"
Also, no one asked:
2. "I wonder if there's any way we can fix the problem?"
To suggest that companies have this sort of fatalistic "we're screwed and there's nothing we can do to fix it" mentality is simplistic at best. Do you honestly think companies don't have these discussions?
Since a huge proportion of us who have publicly-accessible Wi-Fi networks do so by choice you have to wonder what the value of tracking users is. If people use my hub I'm okay with it as long as they're not abusing it, more power (or bandwidth) to them. I don't need to track people using my hub, if I didn't want them I would spend a few minutes reading about security and prevent people from using my hub. The only people who would need to track users would be corporations but their security departments are so damn paranoid they're barely ready to admit Ethernet may be secure, let alone cool shit like Wi-Fi.
Unfortunately my take on this situation is a bit more sinister. Your post mentions that NT 5.0 (Windows 2000 Pro) requires 64M of RAM, yet NT 5.1 (Windows XP) requires 128M of RAM. Why the twofold increase for a minor upgrade? Well, consider two things:
1. Windows XP was released during one of the slowest hardware sales slumps in PC history. All the big players were hoping to see XP spur sales. Not coincidentally, for many people XP required a new PC.
2. Microsoft can only stand to benefit from these PC sales in the form of OEM licenses.
Yes I'm cynical but I've always been of the belief that the bloat in XP is engineered, not the simple result of bad programming. To think that the project managers and marketing don't talk about these sorts of things is naive
Tee-hee, this is my favourite quote from the article:
Those companies, which include Linux firms, use a special "free software" license called the General Public License that bars any payment.
If it was a Linux site I would be offended but it's comical to see such silly things in print. I'm sure RMS is squirming in his seat over this one, I just think it's good fun.
"Pssst! Bob! What does GPL stand for?"
'Uh... I think it's General Public License, dude...'
Sorry, what I meant was "she's a worthless media slut who will either strip on stage for a bill or will wear a fucking psycho drug addict dress to the Grammys or a new Armani dress depending on what will get her more publicity..." Didn't mean to say she was the same as the rest, sorry for the evasiveness...
That Linux trojan/virus writers have learned to aim at Linux sysadmins by taking control of very recent patches and adding trojan horses. Seems the best way to attack a Linux system is to try to interrupt the many vigilant admins as they faithfully download patches on the same day they're released... Windows trojans survive on the dearth of upgrades, not their spread...
I don't know about America, they do to Canada but here we call it "immigration". ;-)
When he wants out of America they detain him. When he wants back into America they refuse him. If he was smart he'd send them a note pleading with them to find him guilty.
Sorry, had to jump in here:
Question: is the average Word user made more or less free by having the source code to Word?
More free. While most Word users will never write a new version, some would and you could see Word for Linux, a thin version of Word sans-bloat, and all kinds of cool things.
On the contrary, proprietary software must respect the needs of its users, otherwise they won't buy it.
Sorry, but the last version of Office that anyone ever needed was Office 97. However companies are literally forced to buy new versions because Microsoft refuses to support the older and PerfectOffice is a laughable alternative
List 3 things you use every day in Office XP that weren't in Office 97.
Though she's as bad as the rest, Courtney Love had it right when she asked how much she, as an artist, would be getting in refunds due to RIAA awards against MP3.com and similar services. If her balance hasn't been positive due to these offensive attacks then we can only assume this is only about fat, bald bureaucrats at the RIAA. I'd love to proven wrong but...
Sorry... Sorry, pardon me and excuse me, apologies for what I'm about to say... But, the tools used to compile kernels are crap and are one of the main deterrents to new users adopting Linux.
I've been running Linux for about 1.5 years and love it, considering myself a novice but a very literate one at that. I've compiled my own kernels but NVidia and other binary RPMs prevented my ever using one.
But really, I've been in computers for 15 years and as much of a Linux goof as I am I can talk carrier signals and user contexts and the OSI model and blah blah... But compiling a kernel is still a frightening chore. While many distros help to resolve this with nicely compiled binary kernels it doesn't help us when tonnes of web pages out there suggest we compile our own kernels and as inexperienced goofs we try.
What I'd really like to see is something seamless, that does not die unexpectedly, with explanations in human language. Not sure if this tool is it but I've gotta concede there is tonnes of room for improvement.
It may interest you to know that only about 4% of American oil comes from the Gulf, let alone Iraq. 80% is produced domestically and most of the remaining comes from South America and Africa. Hence it's ludicrous to suggest that an American attack on Iraq will raise local oil prices.
This begs the question, if American dependence on Gulf oil is a myth, why are the Americans ready to wage war? Well, most of America's allies rely on Gulf oil so control of Iraq means control of Europe and Asia. Does it all make sense now???
No, but they're probably stone-cold killers one and all. After all, computer gaming trains you to be a killer, it's like murder simulators.
I'm gonna go watch some Kung-Fu movies since they'll turn my fat ass into a lean fighting machine...
Back in my day gamers were all young and we had to use our imaginations! Screens only had four pixels and the only colour we had was black. Then some upstart invented amber and it's been all downhill since then...
You don't understand free software at all... Free software is about letting the market decide, and if they decide that the removal of the Taiwanese flag from Redhat 8.0 is acceptable then you should know where you stand. Don't assume that market forces will support you just because your story is sad...
I would tend to agree with you, making interfaces look similar is overall a good thing, particularly when it's only the distribution doing it, not a more central or insidious group.
After all, RedHat is strong because of its popularity, not its monopoly power. If RedHat genuinely ignores consumer interests they will crash in flames. They understand this, so don't think they took the united UI lightly. They must ride the crest of user desires or perish in the process.
The marriage of two UIs was inevitable and will make the KDE vs. GNOME debates more objective. We can stop hearing about how KDE/GNOME "looks" so much nicer and know that soon the market will decide solely on technical merit. We should be excited about this, consistent interfaces may help a WM to win based on its abilities, not the skins it has available...
Man, Penn and Taylor are my favourite comedians of all time, I had no idea they worked for RedHat... Guys I totally loved that time you threw the glass of water in the talk-show host's face, and you rocked on Fear Factor! ;-)
Sorry, your firehose wasn't set to maximum spread. Anyone else you wanted to call an idiot while you're at it?
Wha? I wasn't saying games kill... We all have a funny story about a time we were locked in deathmatch battle and nearly peed ourselves because we didn't want to leave to go to the bathroom. However none of us have sat at our computer playing for 80+ hours straight. Games were just the rather fortunate instrument of this guy's demise, he died because he was dumb. My point was abundantly apparent to anyone who wasn't... uhm... "uninformed".
W00t! Computer games as an instrument of natural selection, you've gotta love it. And you thought we were doomed as a species....
Because JPL's budget is not a dot-oh fraction of the federal budget, it's actually a dollar figure. So no matter how small .5% may be they still need to manage to it and the many billions of dollar that it entails. I know it sounds cool to say the the NASA budget is only ".5%" of the entire federal budget but that's still billions of dollar to those of us who don't oooohhhh and aaahhhh over numbers. If you think JPL makes no ripple then you are very naive indeed...