There are consequences for not upgrading. Namely lack of support, problems sharing files with people who have newer versions, and the certainty that you'll have to upgrade anyway (and then have to import your own files, with all the hassle that involves) when your old computer finally dies.
These consequences are real. They don't go away just because people refuse to deal with them. That's why we need a stable, open document format that will always work, and isn't subject to the compulsive, undocumented tweaking MS formats are subject to.
...is how much in the way of legal bills did Seidel run up getting the supoena quashed. If it was a lot, we should be outraged. And if we're outraged, we should express our outrage in a constructive manner: go to her web site, click on "donate" and drop a few bucks in her kitty.
And don't say "She can get damages from that shyster for his misuse of the legal system". That's a lot harder to do than people seem to realize.
There's auditing and then there's auditing. What a government software audit? A few civil servants on a deadline who scan the code looking for likely security holes. By contrast, open source software is poked and prodded by hundreds, or even thousands, of well-motivated geeks.
Nowhere in his exit statement does Bender contradict the rumors about him being forced out. Instead he gives the standard "leaving to pursue other interests". This is a conventional explanation people give to avoid antagonizing their former colleagues. This concept might be strange to shot-from-the-lip Slashdotters, but it is common among people who don't view life as extended flame war.
You give a quote that seems intended to contradict the story, but doesn't really — this isn't just about whether or not the XO should run Windows. Besides, you don't say who you're quoting. One of your sock puppets, perhaps?
large companies with more money than sense who buy support contracts. If you think it's stupid to pay for support, you know very little about IT.
Most ordinary users get a free ride. No they don't. The ones that are competent enough to dispense with support are basically providing support to themselves. The time and expertise they spend fixing their own problems isn't without value, even if they enjoy the self-support process.
And what about the users who aren't technical enough to support themselves? Either they go to friends (which can be pretty hard on a friendship if there's a lot of work involved) or they find some local computer hippy who will help them for a small fee. Neither of these counts as a free ride.
I'm no expert, but casual reading tells me that the F-22 is slightly less stealthy than the F-117, but also a lot less expensive to maintain. All those angular surfaces and matte finishes are too labor intensive. They do look cool though.
Besides, I think we're entering an era of "good enough" weapons systems. At least I hope we are. The U.S. spends more on defense than the rest of the planet combined. But is our military might proportionally higher? I really doubt it. And the main reason is that we spend way too much money on fancy toys. Time to get back to basics.
Somebody's about to chime in with $5K toilet seats. Beside the point. Every government procurement program in the world has corruption problems, and ours are probably much less severe than most.
The advantage of the metric system has nothing to do with cesium. (Which U.S. measurement uses too, BTW.) The advantage is that 90% of the planet uses it. Having to convert back and forth is expensive and accident-prone. It also makes U.S. products less competitive.
It may be convenient for you to use your knuckles as a ruler, but I can think of very few applications for which knuckles are a practical measuring tool. And that's assuming that every person has one-inch knuckle spacing — which they don't.
Converting in your head is OK when you're buying produce (about two U.S. pounds per KG). But I write computer hardware manuals, and sometimes I have to give things like chassis depth and torque settings. Tricky to do write even with access to conversion software.
Anyway, any conversion is a temptation to invoke Murphy's Law, as the operators of the Mars Climate Orbiter and the crew of Air Canada Flight 143 will testify.
OK, silly nitpick I have to raise every time we talk about traditional versus metric measures: the U.S. has never used Imperial units. That system was invented in the 1820s, when the U.S. had long since ceased to be part of "The Empire". The U.S. uses something called "Customary Units" which is a collection of English units that were common at the time the U.S. declared independence. Most of the common unit names are the same, and some of the definitions are the same (or at least equivalent), but the system as a whole is quite different.
So 2.5" drives are not 2 1/2 evil imperial inches, they're 2 1/2 good republican inches!
Not necessarily. Free software isn't really free: you have to pay somebody to maintain it. Which means that that some of the $60 billion that customers save gets spent on support contracts.
What you really have is proprietary software vendors who sell application licenses and support contracts competing with FOSS vendors who give away applications licenses and sell support contracts. It boils down to competition on price.
I think both you and the Standish Group are making a mistake I call the RIAA fallacy. That's the assumption that every time somebody gets something for free (or very cheaply) it subtracts one from sales of a more expensive equivalent.
The truth is that cost often determines whether something gets purchased at all. If new cars are too expensive, people will make their existing cars last a year or two longer. (Or not replace their horse-and-buggy with a car, an insight that made Henry Ford rich.) People didn't even see the need for a personal computer until they became cheap enough for everybody to afford one. And if upgrading its IT is too expensive, a company will very likely make do with its existing IT.
The 2.5" form factor seems to have been standard in the server world for some time now. I could be wrong, but I think this is driven by the need to cram more and more computing power into finite rack space. And once the drive makers tooled up to make 2.5" drives for servers, it was bound to drive down the cost of 2.5" desktop drives.
But here's the sad thing: most of this technology is both produced and consumed in countries that have long since gone to the metric system. But because the U.S. sets the standards, everybody uses English Traditional units for linear measure. Which helps to advertise our arrogance and backwardness. Not as bad as starting pointless wars, but it doesn't help!
Most of the material assets ended up in the hands of whatever former Soviet republic it happened to be in. The Russian Federation ended up with most of the foreign assets, which was only fair, considering that they'd been paying the bills for the Soviet government for some time. In fact, it was their refusal to continue doing so that forced the USSR to close shop.
As for the intangibles: the Red Flag, the slogans, etc., those were just on loan from the parent enterprise, the World Communist Revolution(TM). They reverted when the local franchise was dissolved.
Basically, you're complaining that all the ideas you mention are overhyped and are dominated by inept hacks.
You're absolutely right. But so what? It doesn't detract from the achievements of the brilliant people who founded these fields. Let's stop and appreciate Edward Lorenz's achievements, and save Fixing Academic Science for another day.
OK, I'm totally dense. What you're trying to say is that a sticker that says "Linux" is unusual, and anything that's unusual makes the machine harder to sell, and thus less likely to be stolen.
Alas, that's BS. You could do a detailed replica of the Mona Lisa on your computer, and it still wouldn't affect its fencability. Somebody who deals in stolen goods moves hundreds of items a week. Who going to notice a sticker (or a Da Vinci) in that kind of traffic?
Unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics,
Great Russia has welded forever to stand.
Created in struggle by will of the people,
United and mighty, our Soviet land!
Sing to the Fatherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism's triumph lead us on!
Slashdot Mirror
Your interpretation is not without merit. However, I think that if it was a joke he would have said "rules" not "guidelines".
Joke or not, the link seems to serve its primary purpose, which is to discourage people from modding me down just because they disagree with me.
Grow up.
OK then, express your outrage with a donation to PC.
I read both. "Sanction" means disciplinary action. Sanctions might include ordering him to pay Seidel's costs, but it's not a given.
There are consequences for not upgrading. Namely lack of support, problems sharing files with people who have newer versions, and the certainty that you'll have to upgrade anyway (and then have to import your own files, with all the hassle that involves) when your old computer finally dies.
These consequences are real. They don't go away just because people refuse to deal with them. That's why we need a stable, open document format that will always work, and isn't subject to the compulsive, undocumented tweaking MS formats are subject to.
...is how much in the way of legal bills did Seidel run up getting the supoena quashed. If it was a lot, we should be outraged. And if we're outraged, we should express our outrage in a constructive manner: go to her web site, click on "donate" and drop a few bucks in her kitty.
And don't say "She can get damages from that shyster for his misuse of the legal system". That's a lot harder to do than people seem to realize.
There's auditing and then there's auditing. What a government software audit? A few civil servants on a deadline who scan the code looking for likely security holes. By contrast, open source software is poked and prodded by hundreds, or even thousands, of well-motivated geeks.
Why is software stack questionable? Beyond the conventional "it's not a standard platform", that is?
Nowhere in his exit statement does Bender contradict the rumors about him being forced out. Instead he gives the standard "leaving to pursue other interests". This is a conventional explanation people give to avoid antagonizing their former colleagues. This concept might be strange to shot-from-the-lip Slashdotters, but it is common among people who don't view life as extended flame war.
You give a quote that seems intended to contradict the story, but doesn't really — this isn't just about whether or not the XO should run Windows. Besides, you don't say who you're quoting. One of your sock puppets, perhaps?
And what about the users who aren't technical enough to support themselves? Either they go to friends (which can be pretty hard on a friendship if there's a lot of work involved) or they find some local computer hippy who will help them for a small fee. Neither of these counts as a free ride.
Indeed. Not only is this story a dupe, but it comes much too late to count as "news".
In other words, you want a Bill of Rights Bill of Rights!
I'm no expert, but casual reading tells me that the F-22 is slightly less stealthy than the F-117, but also a lot less expensive to maintain. All those angular surfaces and matte finishes are too labor intensive. They do look cool though.
Besides, I think we're entering an era of "good enough" weapons systems. At least I hope we are. The U.S. spends more on defense than the rest of the planet combined. But is our military might proportionally higher? I really doubt it. And the main reason is that we spend way too much money on fancy toys. Time to get back to basics.
Somebody's about to chime in with $5K toilet seats. Beside the point. Every government procurement program in the world has corruption problems, and ours are probably much less severe than most.
The advantage of the metric system has nothing to do with cesium. (Which U.S. measurement uses too, BTW.) The advantage is that 90% of the planet uses it. Having to convert back and forth is expensive and accident-prone. It also makes U.S. products less competitive.
It may be convenient for you to use your knuckles as a ruler, but I can think of very few applications for which knuckles are a practical measuring tool. And that's assuming that every person has one-inch knuckle spacing — which they don't.
Converting in your head is OK when you're buying produce (about two U.S. pounds per KG). But I write computer hardware manuals, and sometimes I have to give things like chassis depth and torque settings. Tricky to do write even with access to conversion software.
Anyway, any conversion is a temptation to invoke Murphy's Law, as the operators of the Mars Climate Orbiter and the crew of Air Canada Flight 143 will testify.
OK, silly nitpick I have to raise every time we talk about traditional versus metric measures: the U.S. has never used Imperial units. That system was invented in the 1820s, when the U.S. had long since ceased to be part of "The Empire". The U.S. uses something called "Customary Units" which is a collection of English units that were common at the time the U.S. declared independence. Most of the common unit names are the same, and some of the definitions are the same (or at least equivalent), but the system as a whole is quite different.
So 2.5" drives are not 2 1/2 evil imperial inches, they're 2 1/2 good republican inches!
If you don't care for the latest tech, nobody's forcing you. But don't pretend you're a typical user.
Not necessarily. Free software isn't really free: you have to pay somebody to maintain it. Which means that that some of the $60 billion that customers save gets spent on support contracts.
What you really have is proprietary software vendors who sell application licenses and support contracts competing with FOSS vendors who give away applications licenses and sell support contracts. It boils down to competition on price.
I think both you and the Standish Group are making a mistake I call the RIAA fallacy. That's the assumption that every time somebody gets something for free (or very cheaply) it subtracts one from sales of a more expensive equivalent.
The truth is that cost often determines whether something gets purchased at all. If new cars are too expensive, people will make their existing cars last a year or two longer. (Or not replace their horse-and-buggy with a car, an insight that made Henry Ford rich.) People didn't even see the need for a personal computer until they became cheap enough for everybody to afford one. And if upgrading its IT is too expensive, a company will very likely make do with its existing IT.
The 2.5" form factor seems to have been standard in the server world for some time now. I could be wrong, but I think this is driven by the need to cram more and more computing power into finite rack space. And once the drive makers tooled up to make 2.5" drives for servers, it was bound to drive down the cost of 2.5" desktop drives.
But here's the sad thing: most of this technology is both produced and consumed in countries that have long since gone to the metric system. But because the U.S. sets the standards, everybody uses English Traditional units for linear measure. Which helps to advertise our arrogance and backwardness. Not as bad as starting pointless wars, but it doesn't help!
Most of the material assets ended up in the hands of whatever former Soviet republic it happened to be in. The Russian Federation ended up with most of the foreign assets, which was only fair, considering that they'd been paying the bills for the Soviet government for some time. In fact, it was their refusal to continue doing so that forced the USSR to close shop.
As for the intangibles: the Red Flag, the slogans, etc., those were just on loan from the parent enterprise, the World Communist Revolution(TM). They reverted when the local franchise was dissolved.
La Marseillaise sure sounds a lot more civilized when they sing it in Casablanca. I guess it helps that I don't speak French!
The clip I link above stops just before the most famous joke in the movie. Fortunately, that's available in a separate clip.
Basically, you're complaining that all the ideas you mention are overhyped and are dominated by inept hacks.
You're absolutely right. But so what? It doesn't detract from the achievements of the brilliant people who founded these fields. Let's stop and appreciate Edward Lorenz's achievements, and save Fixing Academic Science for another day.
OK, I'm totally dense. What you're trying to say is that a sticker that says "Linux" is unusual, and anything that's unusual makes the machine harder to sell, and thus less likely to be stolen.
Alas, that's BS. You could do a detailed replica of the Mona Lisa on your computer, and it still wouldn't affect its fencability. Somebody who deals in stolen goods moves hundreds of items a week. Who going to notice a sticker (or a Da Vinci) in that kind of traffic?
http://www.navyband.navy.mil/anthems/ANTHEMS/Russia.mp3
Unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics,
Great Russia has welded forever to stand.
Created in struggle by will of the people,
United and mighty, our Soviet land!
Sing to the Fatherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism's triumph lead us on!