Let me also add, that historically I am a GNOME user, but I regularly use KDE3 for:
1) To learn it.
2) Asteroids:)
3) Because its there.
There are great many things I like about both desktops and I will probably use both for the rest of my life. This move by Red Hat could make my life much easier.
Frankly this is a win - win situation. Red Hat now has a more well-rounded desktop with a more unified feel that they can sell to corporate customers. Furthermore, has anything really changed? Red Hat's KDE desktop was a piece of crap, and their Gnome wasn't much better. I've never met a Red Hat user who didn't tear out one or the other and replace it with either the latest build of their favorite desktop or something entirely different. Hell, the first thing I do when I install a new Red Hat box is install Ximian. You have the same choices you had before, today.
Just for the record, kids have always been snatched up by sick and twisted individuals. It's just that within the last six months it's suddenly become "en vogue" to broadcast it on the six oclock news once again since there's apparently nothing better going on in the world.
Whether or not its being reported more or less, doesn't detract from the fact that there is a problem. And many of the cases reported recently were such big stories because of the audacity with which the crimes were staged. Some of the more recent stories, I will readily admit were more hysteria driven, like the shark attack stories last year. In many of those cases, this device would not have been of much help, except maybe the little girl in Philly, who fortunately got away in the end anyways.
Kids have been kidnapped for decades, and they always will be, sometimes from the most caring and protective of households, I'm not debating that, I'm saying that any device with claims to 'assist' the situation is only going to make it worse, as it takes yet another responsibility off the parental units.
I'm not saying that this tool is going to eliminate adbuctions. I am not saying that this device should be used as a form of babysitter for bad parents, because the truth is bad parents are going to be bad parents with or without this device. At the risk of sounding like some politician:) , its the children I'm concerned about. If this device can save the lives of a handful of children who would otherwise be dead, then the tool can hardly be making the situation worse.
Stopping kids from getting hurt is all well and good, having one of these is fine, as long as you don't for a second let yourself be disillisioned into thinking that it's really anything other then a "Toy" that your kid will undoubtly take apart to tinker with, trade to a friend for some baseball cards, or leave at home on the dresser on a regular basis. Not to mention that they'll never carry it anywhere once they get old enough to realize that "Mom and Dad know where I'm at when I've got this thing with me!" I guess I should have explained myself better in my original post... not all parents are bad parents, and not eveyrone who'd buy one of these is going to be an idiot about it.. but I'm just so tired and sick of watching people these days find new ways to pawn their responsibility off onto others and/or gadgest...
I agree with you completely, but the important thing is this device is no different than a car seat. If Joe Idiot wants to put a rear-facing seat facing forward, or any seat in the front passenger seat, then they have just graduated to the class of BAD parent. But, just because some idiot should have gotten a vasectomy at age 13, doesnt mean we should not bother with them.
Look at the statistics of car alarms and "The Club". They do not eliminate theft, they mitigate it. Professionals and people hell bent on stealing your car WILL steal your car. Joyriders will keep looking.
The same goes for the watch. I'm sure it isn't easy to cut the band, but I gurantee it can be done. If the motive is kidnapping for profit, then they are going to grab your kid no matter what. The random sexual predator however, is going to go for an easy mark. If you don't believe that just read your local paper and see how many aborted kidnappings happen because the kid squirmed away or started screaming. Most of these perpetrators are not persistent, patient maybe, but not persistent.
The device was created with a lock. Of course the sick bastard could just cut the kids hand off, you have to hope that either A) he doesn't realize what it is. or b) recognizes what it is and simply leaves your kid alone.
Of course, an unselfish/noble individual would prefer (A) and that the guy is caught quickly before any harm is done, but I think many parents would be happy with (B).
No parent can be there 100% of the time for their child. In the past six months, kids have been taken from their bedrooms, school yards, as well as their front yard.
It maybe "en vogue" to blast parents for their irresponsibility, but there are some things that all parents are defensless against.
I have a little girl coming this January, and I'm terrified. We live in a world full of sick and twisted individuals and there are practical limits to what parents can do to protect their children.
Hell, my parents were the best parents anyone could hope for, but that doesn't mean they were permanently adjoined to my hip 24x7. I was often alone at the bus stop. Sometimes I decided to walk home from school or from a friends house. I would periodically walk to the store less than 1000ft from my house. And sometimes, I would run off somewhere to do something they expressly forbade me to do.
I think this device, as is, is perfect for its target market, small children. For my teenager, I would prefer a device that they could turn on and off, so that they can control when it should act like a distress beacon. There comes a time, where you have to respect your kids right to be a kid.
I could be way off, but I think I recall seeing somewhere that Owen was not a Skywalker at all. That would make sense in that it would have allowed Vader to easliy find Luke. So he was hidden by Obi-Wan much in the same manner that Leia was hidden with Bail Organa.
I just moved into my town a little over two years ago, and learned shortly after moving in that the School District had just launched a major effort to completely overhaul their IT infrastructure. The bill was enormous as the district opted for MS products across the board.
Interestingly enough, it turned out that the guy in charge of the whole implementation, was one of my best friends. A truly brilliant guy, he has always been firmly entrenched in the world of Novell and Microsoft. When I told him, that they really should be looking at Linux for the file, print, and web services he immediately began to recite so much recycled FUD I thought I was talking to Bill Gates himself. Myself and another friend of mine spent hours debating Linux and other open-source solutions, and in the end he conceded some points, but was still largely unmoved.
Well, to make a long story short, he called me last night to tell me that the bill for the School work was getting a little too high for their budget, and they were shopping around for vendors with some Linux experience. His boss, who's even more Pro-MS, told him that they can't lose this contract and that someone needs to "ramp-up" on Linux fast.
We install Linux on his box tomorrow! When it comes to the education market, cost is king.
Actually at all the retail outlets around here, Red Hat usually has the lowest price distro on the shelf. For some reason, when it comes to SuSE and Mandrake they only stock these monstrous packages that contain 50 mail clients, 100 newsreaders, and at least 20 text editors on 7+ CD's and retail for $80+. However, they do stock the base Red Hat(slightly more packages than the download version) for $30 to $40.
Red Hat has very little hope of drawing people away from Windows. $10 or $20 bucks is not going to persuade someone to give up a $200 operating system for a $40 one. If they were interested in saving a few bucks they would have switched already.
IMHO, this move is brilliant for Red Hat. There are a bunch of commercial Linux distros competeing for a very small pie. If Red Hat wants to survive they need to take as much of that pie as possible. Does that suck for Mandrake and SuSE? It certainly does, but if they want to stay in the game, they need to find a way to hold on to their piece and even take a a bit of Red Hat's.
You do realize that a lot of people live around those two right? Just because the names don't ring a bell for you doesn't mean there aren't a couple million people within an hours drive of each.
Granted, there are a few large cities unrepresented.
You are both right. Let me first say that, 300 million (pulled out of thin air, I really don't know how much Eazel burned through, and I don't care.) doesn't get you very far. I would suspect they spent at least 50 million on legal/financial expenses from contract negotiations (they had many contracts with other businesses), accounting, and auditing. Throw in the VERY high cost of marketing, which is a very necessary evil and all the other common business expenses and you can almost get to 300-million. As for the employees working from home? Very few investors would give you a dime if they knew that. The stigmatism of working from home = not working at all is VERY strong in the minds of the people who control purse-strings. Most investors are very rigid individuals.
Now this isn't to say there wasn't some mismanagement of funds there. In fact, I am confident of it. A lot of startups at that time, were living in a dream world, I doubt Eazel was any different.
The bottom-line is don't be surprised if a company burns through 300 Million in a year, it's easy to do legitimately. Just be shocked if after that year they have nothing to show for it. In Eazel's defense, Nautilus is pretty nice, but the same work could probably have been done with lower expenditures.
I've been reading Slashdot off and on for a long time, and this is the first time I ever heard about 'subscriptions'.
Thanks for brining it up. If there is one thing I _try_ to do is to support the open source companies I believe in. I purchase about 90% of the distros I use, even if I've downloaded them to try them out.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me also add, that historically I am a GNOME user, but I regularly use KDE3 for:
:)
1) To learn it.
2) Asteroids
3) Because its there.
There are great many things I like about both desktops and I will probably use both for the rest of my life. This move by Red Hat could make my life much easier.
I know I'm not alone either.
Frankly this is a win - win situation. Red Hat now has a more well-rounded desktop with a more unified feel that they can sell to corporate customers. Furthermore, has anything really changed? Red Hat's KDE desktop was a piece of crap, and their Gnome wasn't much better. I've never met a Red Hat user who didn't tear out one or the other and replace it with either the latest build of their favorite desktop or something entirely different. Hell, the first thing I do when I install a new Red Hat box is install Ximian. You have the same choices you had before, today.
I would rather see Loom 2. Damn that game was cool, for its time. I remember how blown away I was by the music and graphics.
That's the best argument against this device anyone has mustered.
Whether or not its being reported more or less, doesn't detract from the fact that there is a problem. And many of the cases reported recently were such big stories because of the audacity with which the crimes were staged. Some of the more recent stories, I will readily admit were more hysteria driven, like the shark attack stories last year. In many of those cases, this device would not have been of much help, except maybe the little girl in Philly, who fortunately got away in the end anyways.
Kids have been kidnapped for decades, and they always will be, sometimes from the most caring and protective of households, I'm not debating that, I'm saying that any device with claims to 'assist' the situation is only going to make it worse, as it takes yet another responsibility off the parental units.
I'm not saying that this tool is going to eliminate adbuctions. I am not saying that this device should be used as a form of babysitter for bad parents, because the truth is bad parents are going to be bad parents with or without this device. At the risk of sounding like some politician
Stopping kids from getting hurt is all well and good, having one of these is fine, as long as you don't for a second let yourself be disillisioned into thinking that it's really anything other then a "Toy" that your kid will undoubtly take apart to tinker with, trade to a friend for some baseball cards, or leave at home on the dresser on a regular basis. Not to mention that they'll never carry it anywhere once they get old enough to realize that "Mom and Dad know where I'm at when I've got this thing with me!" I guess I should have explained myself better in my original post... not all parents are bad parents, and not eveyrone who'd buy one of these is going to be an idiot about it.. but I'm just so tired and sick of watching people these days find new ways to pawn their responsibility off onto others and/or gadgest...
I agree with you completely, but the important thing is this device is no different than a car seat. If Joe Idiot wants to put a rear-facing seat facing forward, or any seat in the front passenger seat, then they have just graduated to the class of BAD parent. But, just because some idiot should have gotten a vasectomy at age 13, doesnt mean we should not bother with them.
I think, meaning I'm too lazy to look, that some Police departments already use GPS in their cars.
This made me think of another use, albeit a niche use. It could seriously aid rescue workers looking for a child in a burning building.
Look at the statistics of car alarms and "The Club". They do not eliminate theft, they mitigate it. Professionals and people hell bent on stealing your car WILL steal your car. Joyriders will keep looking.
The same goes for the watch. I'm sure it isn't easy to cut the band, but I gurantee it can be done. If the motive is kidnapping for profit, then they are going to grab your kid no matter what. The random sexual predator however, is going to go for an easy mark. If you don't believe that just read your local paper and see how many aborted kidnappings happen because the kid squirmed away or started screaming. Most of these perpetrators are not persistent, patient maybe, but not persistent.
You're confusing the two techs discussed. The employee tracking uses cell phones. The kid watch uses GPS.
The device was created with a lock. Of course the sick bastard could just cut the kids hand off, you have to hope that either A) he doesn't realize what it is. or b) recognizes what it is and simply leaves your kid alone.
Of course, an unselfish/noble individual would prefer (A) and that the guy is caught quickly before any harm is done, but I think many parents would be happy with (B).
I think that is why they put a lock on it. Also so that Joe Likesmallchildren can't take it off either.
No parent can be there 100% of the time for their child. In the past six months, kids have been taken from their bedrooms, school yards, as well as their front yard.
It maybe "en vogue" to blast parents for their irresponsibility, but there are some things that all parents are defensless against.
I have a little girl coming this January, and I'm terrified. We live in a world full of sick and twisted individuals and there are practical limits to what parents can do to protect their children.
Hell, my parents were the best parents anyone could hope for, but that doesn't mean they were permanently adjoined to my hip 24x7. I was often alone at the bus stop. Sometimes I decided to walk home from school or from a friends house. I would periodically walk to the store less than 1000ft from my house. And sometimes, I would run off somewhere to do something they expressly forbade me to do.
I think this device, as is, is perfect for its target market, small children. For my teenager, I would prefer a device that they could turn on and off, so that they can control when it should act like a distress beacon. There comes a time, where you have to respect your kids right to be a kid.
"sementation fault"
Dude, that is one hell of a freudian slip. Try Viagra.
I've decided that I've been denying the FSF its due credit with my C Programming homework, as I do all my compliling with gcc.
As a result, I have decided to change the name of my first two projects to GNU/helloworld and GNU/whatisyourname.
Probably because when you look at your post you hardly notice the sc because you sig is slapping them in the face.
You should have added a little more information in there, maybe even a link.
Or were you simply focusing on speed in hopes of a first post?
Here is a neat little link on Uncle Owen
Work is REAL slow today....Ok so it isn't, I just don't want to do it.
I could be way off, but I think I recall seeing somewhere that Owen was not a Skywalker at all. That would make sense in that it would have allowed Vader to easliy find Luke. So he was hidden by Obi-Wan much in the same manner that Leia was hidden with Bail Organa.
Then again, I could be wrong.
I just moved into my town a little over two years ago, and learned shortly after moving in that the School District had just launched a major effort to completely overhaul their IT infrastructure. The bill was enormous as the district opted for MS products across the board.
Interestingly enough, it turned out that the guy in charge of the whole implementation, was one of my best friends. A truly brilliant guy, he has always been firmly entrenched in the world of Novell and Microsoft. When I told him, that they really should be looking at Linux for the file, print, and web services he immediately began to recite so much recycled FUD I thought I was talking to Bill Gates himself. Myself and another friend of mine spent hours debating Linux and other open-source solutions, and in the end he conceded some points, but was still largely unmoved.
Well, to make a long story short, he called me last night to tell me that the bill for the School work was getting a little too high for their budget, and they were shopping around for vendors with some Linux experience. His boss, who's even more Pro-MS, told him that they can't lose this contract and that someone needs to "ramp-up" on Linux fast.
We install Linux on his box tomorrow! When it comes to the education market, cost is king.
You forgot to point out to him, that The Cathedral and the Bazaar was Eric's rant, not Linus'.
Actually at all the retail outlets around here, Red Hat usually has the lowest price distro on the shelf. For some reason, when it comes to SuSE and Mandrake they only stock these monstrous packages that contain 50 mail clients, 100 newsreaders, and at least 20 text editors on 7+ CD's and retail for $80+. However, they do stock the base Red Hat(slightly more packages than the download version) for $30 to $40.
Red Hat has very little hope of drawing people away from Windows. $10 or $20 bucks is not going to persuade someone to give up a $200 operating system for a $40 one. If they were interested in saving a few bucks they would have switched already.
IMHO, this move is brilliant for Red Hat. There are a bunch of commercial Linux distros competeing for a very small pie. If Red Hat wants to survive they need to take as much of that pie as possible. Does that suck for Mandrake and SuSE? It certainly does, but if they want to stay in the game, they need to find a way to hold on to their piece and even take a a bit of Red Hat's.
You do realize that a lot of people live around those two right? Just because the names don't ring a bell for you doesn't mean there aren't a couple million people within an hours drive of each.
Granted, there are a few large cities unrepresented.
Damn! I was just about to lament having to go to Framingham from NH. I think you just convinced me, but only if they stock Capt. Morgan.
First you pray you are legal, and have no disgruntled employees.
Once they have sufficient evidence to convince a Judge, they can launch a suit and get an audit via court order. Then you're screwed.
You are both right. Let me first say that, 300 million (pulled out of thin air, I really don't know how much Eazel burned through, and I don't care.) doesn't get you very far. I would suspect they spent at least 50 million on legal/financial expenses from contract negotiations (they had many contracts with other businesses), accounting, and auditing. Throw in the VERY high cost of marketing, which is a very necessary evil and all the other common business expenses and you can almost get to 300-million. As for the employees working from home? Very few investors would give you a dime if they knew that. The stigmatism of working from home = not working at all is VERY strong in the minds of the people who control purse-strings. Most investors are very rigid individuals.
Now this isn't to say there wasn't some mismanagement of funds there. In fact, I am confident of it. A lot of startups at that time, were living in a dream world, I doubt Eazel was any different.
The bottom-line is don't be surprised if a company burns through 300 Million in a year, it's easy to do legitimately. Just be shocked if after that year they have nothing to show for it. In Eazel's defense, Nautilus is pretty nice, but the same work could probably have been done with lower expenditures.
I've been reading Slashdot off and on for a long time, and this is the first time I ever heard about 'subscriptions'.
Thanks for brining it up. If there is one thing I _try_ to do is to support the open source companies I believe in. I purchase about 90% of the distros I use, even if I've downloaded them to try them out.