I did check my facts -- by going to the IBM US web site and examining the purchase options for various products.
Did you buy direct from IBM or though a reseller? Nothing to prevent a reseller from substituting OSs. But you're still paying for the license fee for that copy of Windows you didn't want. Plus you have no hope of getting technical support for your configuration.
I just looked at the web sites for IBM UK and IBM Hungary. Both seem to say that they only support Windows on Thinkpads. I notice that they don't sell over the web -- more emphasis on resellers in Europe?
I get conflicting signals myself. My guess is that there are pro- and anti-Linux factions. Perhaps IBM'ss hassles with Red Hat were giving ammunition to the ALs, and the new deal with SuSE/Novell will make all the difference.
Here's when you should get excited: when you see one those characters in the cute IBM commercials starts having nighmares about a nerd with glasses!
So what? IBM's wants Novell's (or rather SuSE's) Linux expertise, so they bought in. Doesn't mean they have to use every product that Novell sells.
When I pointed out that IBM wasn't doing desktop Linux, I was just trying to caution people that their Linux push is not beginning of the TuxMillenum. It would be nice if IBM made a real push to challenge Microsoft on the desktop, but it's not like they have some kind of obligation.
It does bother me that you can't buy an IBM personal system wihtout paying MS a license fee. I was under the impression that MS was no longer allowed to force vendors to do that.
And if were just a matter of getting Linux in front of people and convincing them that they should try it, there'd be some chance of that. But that's not what you need to challenge MS on the desktop. You need to deal with all the interoperability and retraining issues.
That's why you see so few Macs in corporate offices, even though it's widely acknowledged that Macs are easier to use.
Linux enthusiasts seem to have trouble grasping how conservative the desktop marketplace is. If simply presenting people with a reasonable alternative were all you needed to do, MS would have lost its dominance long ago. Linux is by no means the first challenger.
The optimist in me is hoping that IBM will stick to its guns this time.
Really, they never manned the guns in the first place. The IBM sales organization found it easier to sell Windows-based systems than ones based on Windows, and was never made to toe the line.
Another reason OS/2 was doomed from the start: people don't like to buy technology from their competitors. That's why AT&T finally had to spin off its manufacturing arm, so it could sell stuff to competing phone companies. I don't know how hard IBM tried to get Compaq or Dell to bundle OS/2, but it would have been a hard sell.
As for Linux, IBM hasn't yet manned all the guns there either. They're selling it strictly as a server OS. You hear noises about them moving to Linux as a standard desktop, but so far these are just noises -- every IBM laptop, desktop, and workstation still comes with Windows pre-loaded!
It's the huge marketing, sales, and support organizations that make me feel tingly!
But before you get too enthusiastic, remember that they're treating Linux strictly as a server OS. Go to their web site and try to find a single desktop, workstation, or laptop that does not come bundled with Windows. You don't even have the option of buying the system witout an OS!
Why dont they do like Sony on their Minidisc players (recompress in their format then upload on the device)
I used to own a player that worked that way, and it was not cool. Cruddy Philips software was a pain to install (it was officially unsupported on Win2K, but you could make the driver work if you were clever) and tended to lock up.
I suppose Vorbis would be less of a pain, since you can always find software to translate from MP3 to Vorbis. But life is a lot simpler if you don't need special software to access your device. The best MP3 devices act like a plug-and-play disk drive, and let you download files with a simple copy.
I think you're mistaken about the NDA. As for the patent, that can be justified as a way of preventing people from introducing incompatible changes in the format.
The crucial question is not whether there are NDAs or patents, but who you trust. And no, I don't trust MS, and I'm guessing you don't either. With their compulsive bit-twiddling, and their underhanded tactics, they will always demand a watch-your-back attitude. My only point is that their apps should be a lot more open then they were when the native format was a trade secret and the interchange format (RTF) was a nightmare to parse.
It's also an important point that Word 2003 is not tied to any Microsoft Schema. MXML is just the default. You can plug in any schema you want using the built-in schema engine. (Which, astonishingly, uses the W3C schema language with no MS "improvements".) The idea is that Word can be made the part of any XML-based workflow. But it doesn't seem to have occurred to them (or maybe they're just too arrogant to consider this a threat) that you could wire Word to use the OO schemas in place of MXML. Which would eliminate the problem of Word/OO interoperability. Which is the only issue keeping people from using OO.
I suppose there will be some selection for radiation resistence, but I wouldn't expect to see a lot of rad-proof animals. Wild animals often get sick from various causes, and get picked off by predators. The ones that are more resistent to radiation will have some advantage, but that's only one survival factor among many.
So will somebody explain to me why MS FUD is news? It'd be news if MS said anything about OO that wasn't FUD.
Re:launch it allready! *dammit*
on
NASA Tests X-43A
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· Score: 0
Either way, the best they can claim is that maybe we'll have a practical Scramjet 10 years from now. Not the sort of thing that enthuses congresspeople.
If there were only some way to work scramjets into the war on terrorism....
Plus they credit her with coining the term "bug". The squashed moth was a joke. "Bug" was slang for electronic glitches long before then.
Re:launch it allready! *dammit*
on
NASA Tests X-43A
·
· Score: 3, Informative
There gonna launch in about 10 minutes. But so what? That's just the booster rocket. The actually test will occur off over the Pacific where nobody can see it. And it will only last 10 seconds!
And probably irrelevent, since there's no funding for future tests.
I'm guessing, but it occurs to me that it might be hazardous to bath in a hot spring if you didn't know how often the volcanic source heated up or cooled down.
Can you imagine this woman cruising around on her overpowered cycle, blasting through the abandoned town, in a paper suit?????!!!!
Anyway, relying on little technological protections is a strategy for people who want to feel safe. In a situation like this, real protection comes from acting safe.
Even without ozone depletion, sun exposure is something you have to be careful about. People get the chills at the thought of visiting Chernobyl, but think a nice "healthy" tan is no problem. Wrong!
What's radiation gear supposed to do? She can't possibly ride her bike if she wears a lead vest, like your dentist has. Her father's gear probably doesn't have any actual shielding. It just protects him from getting fallout on his clothes and skin, and in his lungs. And it's too bulky to use just for walking around -- you would just wear it when you had to work in a "hot" area.
The meltdown didn't turn the dead zone into one big glowing mass. It just created fallout: radioactive dust. Elena mostly avoids dangerous levels of radiation by avoiding dust. The roads she loves to scream down are relatively safe, because those smooth asphalt surfaces only accumulate dust between rain storms. But once off the roads, keep an eye on your dosimeter!
That actually used to be an issue in the U.S. Before they banned surface testing, fallout would appear downwind from the blast sites. At first, the radiation levels were dismissed as too low to be hazardous. But living things have a way of accumulating fallout. Cow's milk started to show worrysome levels, and women experienced high incidences of breast cancer.
I actually use Vim for most of my HTML authoring. But if I had to maintain a web site of any size, I'd want tools that took the pain out of designing style sheets, maintaining links, etc.
Well, if you know a backer who will underwrite the production and distribution of a Major Motion Picture starring a unknown Ukranian Biker Chick... Brother, can you spare 10 million bucks?
Oh God. I just had a horrible thought. I shouldn't say it. If I say it, it will probably happen. If I don't say it, nobody will even think of it. But I can't help myself:
I agree with your basic point: any kind of link between voter and ballot would break secrecy. And yes, the secret ballot is necessary to prevent votor intimidation. (Vote selling is also an issue.) But I have to object to your equating secret ballots with democracy. The standard for Anglo-American democracy was the public meeting, right up until the early 20th century. The secret ballot wasn't even invented until 1857, and wasn't introduced into American elections until 1889.
I've long felt that something was lost when we went to secret ballots. It was a necessary step, but it eliminated a lot of the discourse and participation that's essential to a healthy democracy.
The world is full of small risks. Deal with it. You can't escape radiation -- you need it to live! (Unless you're an abyssal sea-dweller, of course.) But you probably run less risk from every-day radiation then you do from driving 10 MPH over the speed limit on your way home from work!
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Did you buy direct from IBM or though a reseller? Nothing to prevent a reseller from substituting OSs. But you're still paying for the license fee for that copy of Windows you didn't want. Plus you have no hope of getting technical support for your configuration.
I just looked at the web sites for IBM UK and IBM Hungary. Both seem to say that they only support Windows on Thinkpads. I notice that they don't sell over the web -- more emphasis on resellers in Europe?
Here's when you should get excited: when you see one those characters in the cute IBM commercials starts having nighmares about a nerd with glasses!
When I pointed out that IBM wasn't doing desktop Linux, I was just trying to caution people that their Linux push is not beginning of the TuxMillenum. It would be nice if IBM made a real push to challenge Microsoft on the desktop, but it's not like they have some kind of obligation.
It does bother me that you can't buy an IBM personal system wihtout paying MS a license fee. I was under the impression that MS was no longer allowed to force vendors to do that.
Linux enthusiasts seem to have trouble grasping how conservative the desktop marketplace is. If simply presenting people with a reasonable alternative were all you needed to do, MS would have lost its dominance long ago. Linux is by no means the first challenger.
Another reason OS/2 was doomed from the start: people don't like to buy technology from their competitors. That's why AT&T finally had to spin off its manufacturing arm, so it could sell stuff to competing phone companies. I don't know how hard IBM tried to get Compaq or Dell to bundle OS/2, but it would have been a hard sell.
As for Linux, IBM hasn't yet manned all the guns there either. They're selling it strictly as a server OS. You hear noises about them moving to Linux as a standard desktop, but so far these are just noises -- every IBM laptop, desktop, and workstation still comes with Windows pre-loaded!
But before you get too enthusiastic, remember that they're treating Linux strictly as a server OS. Go to their web site and try to find a single desktop, workstation, or laptop that does not come bundled with Windows. You don't even have the option of buying the system witout an OS!
And very sensitive about it!
I suppose Vorbis would be less of a pain, since you can always find software to translate from MP3 to Vorbis. But life is a lot simpler if you don't need special software to access your device. The best MP3 devices act like a plug-and-play disk drive, and let you download files with a simple copy.
The crucial question is not whether there are NDAs or patents, but who you trust. And no, I don't trust MS, and I'm guessing you don't either. With their compulsive bit-twiddling, and their underhanded tactics, they will always demand a watch-your-back attitude. My only point is that their apps should be a lot more open then they were when the native format was a trade secret and the interchange format (RTF) was a nightmare to parse.
It's also an important point that Word 2003 is not tied to any Microsoft Schema. MXML is just the default. You can plug in any schema you want using the built-in schema engine. (Which, astonishingly, uses the W3C schema language with no MS "improvements".) The idea is that Word can be made the part of any XML-based workflow. But it doesn't seem to have occurred to them (or maybe they're just too arrogant to consider this a threat) that you could wire Word to use the OO schemas in place of MXML. Which would eliminate the problem of Word/OO interoperability. Which is the only issue keeping people from using OO.
I suppose there will be some selection for radiation resistence, but I wouldn't expect to see a lot of rad-proof animals. Wild animals often get sick from various causes, and get picked off by predators. The ones that are more resistent to radiation will have some advantage, but that's only one survival factor among many.
If there were only some way to work scramjets into the war on terrorism....
Besides, if you can count the cards in a typical LV shoe without going bonkers, you're probably autistic or something...
Plus they credit her with coining the term "bug". The squashed moth was a joke. "Bug" was slang for electronic glitches long before then.
And probably irrelevent, since there's no funding for future tests.
I'm guessing, but it occurs to me that it might be hazardous to bath in a hot spring if you didn't know how often the volcanic source heated up or cooled down.
And people drink hot spring water too. But I wouldn't drink water from any spring, hot or cold, that hadn't been tested.
Anyway, relying on little technological protections is a strategy for people who want to feel safe. In a situation like this, real protection comes from acting safe.
Even without ozone depletion, sun exposure is something you have to be careful about. People get the chills at the thought of visiting Chernobyl, but think a nice "healthy" tan is no problem. Wrong!
The meltdown didn't turn the dead zone into one big glowing mass. It just created fallout: radioactive dust. Elena mostly avoids dangerous levels of radiation by avoiding dust. The roads she loves to scream down are relatively safe, because those smooth asphalt surfaces only accumulate dust between rain storms. But once off the roads, keep an eye on your dosimeter!
That actually used to be an issue in the U.S. Before they banned surface testing, fallout would appear downwind from the blast sites. At first, the radiation levels were dismissed as too low to be hazardous. But living things have a way of accumulating fallout. Cow's milk started to show worrysome levels, and women experienced high incidences of breast cancer.
I do hope Elena packs in her food and drink!
I actually use Vim for most of my HTML authoring. But if I had to maintain a web site of any size, I'd want tools that took the pain out of designing style sheets, maintaining links, etc.
Which is probably why all the characters look to me like nerdy little kids....
Oh God. I just had a horrible thought. I shouldn't say it. If I say it, it will probably happen. If I don't say it, nobody will even think of it. But I can't help myself:
I've long felt that something was lost when we went to secret ballots. It was a necessary step, but it eliminated a lot of the discourse and participation that's essential to a healthy democracy.
The world is full of small risks. Deal with it. You can't escape radiation -- you need it to live! (Unless you're an abyssal sea-dweller, of course.) But you probably run less risk from every-day radiation then you do from driving 10 MPH over the speed limit on your way home from work!