The script "ps2pdf" has been part of the Ghostscript package installed on every Linux, Solaris and BSD system for a long time.
What do Adobe think of that?
They probably think "That's not going to be installed automatically on 90% of business computers; who cares?" Office, of course, will be. But while that is a dramatic and real difference, I don't think there's anything they can or should be able to do about it.
Personally, if it means that people stop using Word as the format of choice for passing around complex documents, I'm all for it.
What advantage is there to having every HTTPS site interactively prompt you whether to accept the certificate or not?
Well, firstly "every" in this case amounts to about three sites per year so it's no big deal. But in general I think I'm a better judge as to whether the site I'm on is the real thing than some distant CA.
As I said in my original post, I have no reason to trust or believe in Verisign's (or any other third party) ability to accurately judge who they are giving certificates to nor do they have any legal responsibility to me to get it right. So what use are they?
If I know I'm at play.com then all I want is: encryption for the checkout, and a warning if next time I arrive the certificate has changed. A certificate generated by play.com gives me both, so what care I for Verisign?
The thing that seems strange to me is that there has NEVER been any reason to trust Verisign/Thwate and the rest of them. They're just a bunch of nobodies that came from nowhere and got a few deals signed in the early days. They have a licence to print money yet they do absolutely nothing for users as far as I can see.
So if I wanted to know about Quantum Mechanics I'd be better off going to the library and reading books by people who know about it rather than asking some random folks. Is that what you're getting at?
The first thing I do with a browser is delete all the certificates and tell it to ask me on a case-by-case basis. Since I don't trust Verisign/Thawte at all the whole system is fairly worthless.
At the end of the day, what has Verisign or anyone else ever done to deserve unquestioning trust from me, a person with no legal recourse to challenge their decisions about who to issue certificates to?
Is it POSSIBLE to disagree with net neutrality and not get modded down?!?!?!?
Hey, you think you have problems? Try pointing out that Macs are overpriced, ugly, unreliable, badly made pieces of plastic crap which are almost impossible to get repaired when they breakdown yet again. Then you'll see moderation!
Regardless of Bush's denial of global warming, the hurricanes hit profits at Exxon, for instance, as the drop in production was not matched by the increase in price.
*any* perceived negative influence on supply will cause a spike in price. Regardless of the market.... oil, fish, Xboxes, it doesn't matter.
Yes, I think we've established that we agree on this; you just don't seem to understand that perceved influence is not the same as real demand from industry. Oil is not the same as shares: it is actually consumed in a real process.
guess their profits couldn't be because they have increased number of gallons sold, could it?
No.
Shell's profits, for example, are up a third this year. The company makes almost nothing on the sale of petrol; the vast bulk is from extraction.
Exxon's profits have reached record levels, but again most was not from refined goods but sales of extracted crude.
Like I originally said: when oil prices rise, oil costs usually do not. It is a highly profitable (and old) business to talk up demand in such a situation when you own lots of shares in the oil companies (or are directly employed by them like Chaney is).
I have to say that people like yourself are an endless source of amusement to me. You prattle on about "conspiracy nuts" and "Michael Moore" (none of whom's books or films I have ever read or seen) and ignore facts which are public record.
Wolfowitz has never hidden his pre-2001 demands that a pretext for the invasion of Iraq should be found. The DoD has never tried to suppress the fact that the "mobile chemical plants" were British-made weather ballon trucks which were approved for export by the US DoD. The receipts for Rumsfeld's sales of WMD to Saddam are on record in the minutes of the Senate Banking Committee, and Bush Snr has never denied that Saddam was installed as a puppet who turned on his master. These things are trivial facts which a four year old can confirm.
The conspiracy is not on this side of the argument: it is on the pro-Bush side. That is the side which is not happy with the established record. It is pro-Bushers who scramble around looking for some feeble piece of evidence to refute common knowledge. They are the conspiracy nuts, for they are the ones wanting to pass off masses of very clear evidence as being manufactured.
Meanwhile, Wolfowitz, Rice, Cheney, and Bush happily line their pockets, safe in the knowledge that no one is going to stop them no matter how many Americans (let alone insignificant foreigners) die to let them do it.
that tells you that they are actually using those functions
Not necessarily. They could be unhappy knowing that they ave paid for those functions. Many phone shops carry very little stock these days of basic models because there's no margin in them. Consequently, people end up buying functionality they never use and that can be annoying.
Well, everything Bush has said for the last four years seems designed to make it harder for the "softliners" to do anything about the nutters without looking like traitors, so I'd count that as support. I also think that it's been going on too long and too consistantly to be an accident.
perceived shift with suppliers or consumers
That was my point, in fact. The shift is in perception and not in real production or consumption (which is gradually increasing). That shift is caused by warmongering which makes people worry about supply without actually reducing it in reality. That's what I meant by the fluctuation being artificial rather than "natural". Fear-led stockpiling is not quite the same mechanism that is at work with, for example, China coming on-stream with a rising genuine demand for oil.
I could cite example after example
Oddly, after making the right point you gave wrong examples. All were of genuine increases in demand/reduction in supply rather than of a perception of a coming shortfall.
Your other assertions generally fall apart in the face of simple economics. Oil prices have gone up and oil company profits have gone with them. You are implying (nay: stating) that there is no connection. That is nonsense.
Saddam was not a "US-installed secular dictator". If yo so much as watch the History channel you'd know that he was part of the Ba'ath party revolutionaries, and has spent his entire adult life involved in the violent seizing of power.
Which is why the CIA hired him to assassinate the previous leader of Iraq. He failed and had to hide in Egypt while someone else finished the job. Then he was installed.
This is not secret information and has been confirmed time and time again by the people involved.
Osama and Saddam did not hate each other, and they are far from "incompatible."
You know nothing. They tried to kill each other! Even Bush has admitted (three times that I've seen) there was no connection. What is your problem with that simple fact? Rumsfeld was much closer to Saddam than Bin Laden ever was or could be.
So who's making the extra money? The nations of OPEC.
Yes, that's right: the government adjourns and goes out to dig for oil and gas. Or maybe they outsource it to companies like Exxon and Haliburton. Most oil extraction in Venezuela, for example, is carried out by Exxon.
es, the price per barrel has gone up due to simple economics that a 7th grader could understand
A 7th grader might think s/he understands (in fact you apparently do think you understand) but in real life the price of oil has been fluctuating far more rapidly than a simplistic demand/supply model would allow. Insecurity about oil supply affects the level of stockpiling, which is a type of artificial demand. Fears over the US's insane support for Iran's hardliners is driving oil prices up beyond the "natural" increase in price caused by China etc.
7th grade economics and 5th grade politics are a poor mechanism for understanding the reality of political decisions in a country like the US.
Erm, you're guilty of logical fallacy, namely argumentum ad crumenam or "an appeal to wealth".
No. I'm basing the assertion on the fact that oil is the best explanation for most of the actions of those people. Without the oil argument many of their actions, such as invading Iraq, make no sense. Rice having an oil tanker named after her and having worked with Dick Chaney as directors of Chevron oil (the only post our great defender of democracy was ever voted into), and the fact that Bush's wealth and his importance generally is based on the family's oil wealth are what we call "evidence" of the significance of oil in these people's motives. See, didn't even need some spurious links.
Afghanistan was invaded, rightly, because of the fact that the evil regime (it had been evil for years, of course, but it was only being evil to dirty rag-heads, so no one in the US cared) was protecting OBL. Unlike, say, Iraq who wanted him dead. It was a great bonus that invading Afghanistan allowed the construction of the major oil pipeline that is now the only asset in the country being given any real protection by the US/UK. But like I say, it was a bonus. Admittedly Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld had said it should be a major US objective to build that pipeline, but even so I don't think that was the only reason nor do I think that post-911 the US would not have invaded if the pipeline was not a goal.
As to the bullshit about Iraq and 911: dream on, sucker. There was no connection unless you count the fact that Saddam and OBL hated each other and had tried to overthrow/kill the other. Some Iraqis may have been involved in the outlying regions of 911 but it is a gross exageration to suggest that they were carrying out government policy.
If you understood anything about the relationship between the US-installed secular dictator Hussain and the religious-cult of Bin Laden, you would also understand that the two are and were totally incompatable.
Is it helping us at the gas pump? No? Oh, thats also caused by those "oil men" being so greedy, eh?
Exactly. It's not meant to help you at the gas pump.
Remember that when the price of oil goes up 20 dollars a barrel as it has recently, the cost of producing it hasn't gone up a cent. All that 20 dollars is pure profit.
I can see where you're coming from, and the "New Pearl Harbour" comment by Wolfie and Rumsfeld back in 1999 certainly does make me wonder sometimes, but I disagree on two points:
1 Bush is not a patsy. He is a member of the cabal who is perfectly happy to be seen as "too dumb to sin". Makes any future trial a LOT easier. But he is in it up to his neck for the same reason Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld are: he's an oil man. Nothing more and nothing less. Oil and oil shares are the only things he cares about and he's as happy as the rest of them to kill a few hundred or thousands (especially if they are foreigners) to get them. Iran is just sabre-rattling to boost the price of oil and their collective pension funds.
2. I think Bush simply ignored the warnings because he and his friends thought it was going to be a small attack like the van bomb. That would have been enough of a "Pearl Harbour" for the PNAC. He was genuinely shocked when the scale of it became clear. He must have been thinking about what would happen if the story of all the warnings he'd had came out before his friends in the media clamped the lid on it. He had a close shave but Fox et al came to the rescue and people like John O'Neil were literally buried in the bad news and shock.
Now the reality bit: all empires have been founded on economics. They have to be. It is only in the post-WWII era that governments have decided to pretend otherwise (around the time the War Department became the Defence Department). The reality is that America needs Iraq's oil and now it has it. And if they did not, the American economy would be in deep shit very soon. In the old days this would have been explained openly - proudly - and then the troops sent in. Britain did it all the time. Japan did it. Germany and Italy did it. The Romans did it (grain mostly rather than oil). It's a fact of life. What has changed is that an extra layer of hypocrisy has been added. But there's nothing unusual about invading a country with or without a pretext to seize its resources, even if it means letting someone attack you first when you could have stopped them. The alternative is to drastically change your way of life, a way of life that these guys at the top simply worship and can not even imagine changing just because a bunch of dirty foreign rag-heads object! The idea actually makes them feel ill; you can see it on their faces when they talk about countries that have oil and aren't being properly servile. They hate that. They are by their own definition the pinacle of human achievement and despise anyone who does not vocally agree with that assessment. Look at Bush's crack about the London anti-war protests. The rabble are not entitled to an opinion.
A hundred years ago Wolfowitz would have got a medal, now he gets a cushy job in the World Bank. He successfully defended the American Way of Life(tm). And if you read his speeches and letters about why a pretext for invading Iraq had to be found, I think you'll see that's what he thought all along.
Imperialists are all the same in every place and every time.
Clearly, any law which exists to protect law-breakers has an internal contradiction. It is up to the individual as to which side of that contradiction to stand on: to obey their SF-312 and thereby allow someone else to act unlawfully, or to break the law and thereby prevent the other person(s) from breaking the law.
Keeping classified information secret when it reveals an abuse of the law is the coward's way out of the dilemma. Even if the actions revealed are not illegal, but simply immoral, the dilema does not go away. Unless you are a spineless weakling who kowtows to the government in the way that the original American rebels refused to do theirs. If you are going to roll over and let (largely unelected) people in the administration act without fear of observation or accountability, you might as well still be living under King George III.
It's high time the people who have taken it upon themselves to sabotage this administration be brought to justice.
Any member of the administration who has done nothing wrong has nothing to fear. Right?
Uhm, I'm pretty sure niche doesn't mean exceptionally widely deployed.
It certainly can do. A bolt which is used on buses around the world is in a niche compared to, say, windscreen glass.
I can go practically anywhere and see OAPs in electric buggiess, but that doen't mean electric buggies are about to "break out" into the mainstream of transport systems; they're deployed everywhere and still a niche product.
As soon as the general public realizes computers don't HAVE to crash, they'll win there too.
But MY computer never crashes (Linux); so what else has it to offer? Security? Got that too.
I was under the impression that QNX's real killer feature was its real-time abilities. Isn't that a niche feature? How many people would notice the effect of going from current generation Windows and Linux to a hard-real-time version?
If the "ordinary user" is relying on Linux being the same and supporting every option in the same way then they will never be able to switch. OO will never be exactly the same as MS Office, for example.
But, if the ordinary user is running their own company or just using their computer the way my mother uses hers, then the day when they can ditch Windows for Linux with zero effort came and went five years ago.
I'm not saying that this guy is not an ordinary user, just that that term is too broad to matter. Ordinary home user? Ordinary office user? Ordinary SOHO user? Ordinary gamer? Some of these are more tightly tied to MS than others. How many Ordinary gamers can ditch Windows for the Mac with the same degree of compliance as this guy?
Unless whoever wrote that email has some affirmative copyright claim to the Linux kernel or graphics drivers, s/he does not have standing to sue for copyright infringement.
If GPL code is used in compiling a project, anyone who receives the compiled binary has the right to request the whole fo the source code. That is clearly spelt out as a condition of using the GPL code. If a company or person does not agree to that, they are free to write their own code.
It's not just about having applications available while roaming.
I's not saying that's all it's about, I'm saying that's the only worthwhile part. The rest of your examples are so dull and boring that I can barely summon the will to read them.
It seems to me that Web2.0 is just an extension of the blogging idea that doing something trivial and inane online suddenly makes it deeply exciting and important.
Not to me it doesn't. MySpace, Flickr, and MusicBrainz are just electronic versions of stamp collecting and exhibit the same "Jesus, son. Get out more." level of pointless obsession. They are things you do instead of having a life. Like posting on Slashdot. Er...
I'm not saying that any of these, and other, things are not fun for people who are interested in them. I'm just saying that they are trivia and nothing to get worked up about. They are changing the world, but only in the way that Bratz dolls and skateboarding changed the world.
I really don't see the difference between Google Maps and Google Earth.
Google maps is slow and tiresome to use for more than a few minutes. If you are doing anything which involves a lot of scrolling around Maps is just a pain. There are also some features which Earth has and Maps does not, but they're not intrinsic to the medium.
Note: I'm talking about using the satellite view here.
contrasting the two applications to prove the futility of the entire Web 2.0 concept is profoundly misguided.
Insofar as the entire Web 2.0 concept was proved futile forty years ago, I agree. Remote apps suck unless you roam a lot. Always did, always will. Even if you do roam, the vast majority of applications simply work better and faster without the problems associated with a working network connection.
Slashdot Mirror
They probably think "That's not going to be installed automatically on 90% of business computers; who cares?" Office, of course, will be. But while that is a dramatic and real difference, I don't think there's anything they can or should be able to do about it.
Personally, if it means that people stop using Word as the format of choice for passing around complex documents, I'm all for it.
TWW
Well, firstly "every" in this case amounts to about three sites per year so it's no big deal. But in general I think I'm a better judge as to whether the site I'm on is the real thing than some distant CA.
As I said in my original post, I have no reason to trust or believe in Verisign's (or any other third party) ability to accurately judge who they are giving certificates to nor do they have any legal responsibility to me to get it right. So what use are they?
If I know I'm at play.com then all I want is: encryption for the checkout, and a warning if next time I arrive the certificate has changed. A certificate generated by play.com gives me both, so what care I for Verisign?
The thing that seems strange to me is that there has NEVER been any reason to trust Verisign/Thwate and the rest of them. They're just a bunch of nobodies that came from nowhere and got a few deals signed in the early days. They have a licence to print money yet they do absolutely nothing for users as far as I can see.
TWW
Yes.
TWW
At the end of the day, what has Verisign or anyone else ever done to deserve unquestioning trust from me, a person with no legal recourse to challenge their decisions about who to issue certificates to?
TWW
Except that Congress and the President have now decided otherwise. Are you going to stop them?
TWW
TWW
Hey, you think you have problems? Try pointing out that Macs are overpriced, ugly, unreliable, badly made pieces of plastic crap which are almost impossible to get repaired when they breakdown yet again. Then you'll see moderation!
TWW
Funnily enough...
Regardless of Bush's denial of global warming, the hurricanes hit profits at Exxon, for instance, as the drop in production was not matched by the increase in price.
*any* perceived negative influence on supply will cause a spike in price. Regardless of the market.... oil, fish, Xboxes, it doesn't matter.
Yes, I think we've established that we agree on this; you just don't seem to understand that perceved influence is not the same as real demand from industry. Oil is not the same as shares: it is actually consumed in a real process.
guess their profits couldn't be because they have increased number of gallons sold, could it?
No.
Shell's profits, for example, are up a third this year. The company makes almost nothing on the sale of petrol; the vast bulk is from extraction.
Exxon's profits have reached record levels, but again most was not from refined goods but sales of extracted crude.
Like I originally said: when oil prices rise, oil costs usually do not. It is a highly profitable (and old) business to talk up demand in such a situation when you own lots of shares in the oil companies (or are directly employed by them like Chaney is).
I have to say that people like yourself are an endless source of amusement to me. You prattle on about "conspiracy nuts" and "Michael Moore" (none of whom's books or films I have ever read or seen) and ignore facts which are public record.
Wolfowitz has never hidden his pre-2001 demands that a pretext for the invasion of Iraq should be found. The DoD has never tried to suppress the fact that the "mobile chemical plants" were British-made weather ballon trucks which were approved for export by the US DoD. The receipts for Rumsfeld's sales of WMD to Saddam are on record in the minutes of the Senate Banking Committee, and Bush Snr has never denied that Saddam was installed as a puppet who turned on his master. These things are trivial facts which a four year old can confirm.
The conspiracy is not on this side of the argument: it is on the pro-Bush side. That is the side which is not happy with the established record. It is pro-Bushers who scramble around looking for some feeble piece of evidence to refute common knowledge. They are the conspiracy nuts, for they are the ones wanting to pass off masses of very clear evidence as being manufactured.
Meanwhile, Wolfowitz, Rice, Cheney, and Bush happily line their pockets, safe in the knowledge that no one is going to stop them no matter how many Americans (let alone insignificant foreigners) die to let them do it.
TWW
Not necessarily. They could be unhappy knowing that they ave paid for those functions. Many phone shops carry very little stock these days of basic models because there's no margin in them. Consequently, people end up buying functionality they never use and that can be annoying.
TWW
Well, everything Bush has said for the last four years seems designed to make it harder for the "softliners" to do anything about the nutters without looking like traitors, so I'd count that as support. I also think that it's been going on too long and too consistantly to be an accident.
perceived shift with suppliers or consumers
That was my point, in fact. The shift is in perception and not in real production or consumption (which is gradually increasing). That shift is caused by warmongering which makes people worry about supply without actually reducing it in reality. That's what I meant by the fluctuation being artificial rather than "natural". Fear-led stockpiling is not quite the same mechanism that is at work with, for example, China coming on-stream with a rising genuine demand for oil.
I could cite example after example
Oddly, after making the right point you gave wrong examples. All were of genuine increases in demand/reduction in supply rather than of a perception of a coming shortfall.
Your other assertions generally fall apart in the face of simple economics. Oil prices have gone up and oil company profits have gone with them. You are implying (nay: stating) that there is no connection. That is nonsense.
TWW
Exactly, top programmers can find better jobs.
Plus, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
TWW
It's hard to see how even MS's third-rate programmers could make the PNG support worse than it is in IE6.
TEE
Which is why the CIA hired him to assassinate the previous leader of Iraq. He failed and had to hide in Egypt while someone else finished the job. Then he was installed.
This is not secret information and has been confirmed time and time again by the people involved.
Osama and Saddam did not hate each other, and they are far from "incompatible."
You know nothing. They tried to kill each other! Even Bush has admitted (three times that I've seen) there was no connection. What is your problem with that simple fact? Rumsfeld was much closer to Saddam than Bin Laden ever was or could be.
TWW
Yes, that's right: the government adjourns and goes out to dig for oil and gas. Or maybe they outsource it to companies like Exxon and Haliburton. Most oil extraction in Venezuela, for example, is carried out by Exxon.
es, the price per barrel has gone up due to simple economics that a 7th grader could understand
A 7th grader might think s/he understands (in fact you apparently do think you understand) but in real life the price of oil has been fluctuating far more rapidly than a simplistic demand/supply model would allow. Insecurity about oil supply affects the level of stockpiling, which is a type of artificial demand. Fears over the US's insane support for Iran's hardliners is driving oil prices up beyond the "natural" increase in price caused by China etc.
7th grade economics and 5th grade politics are a poor mechanism for understanding the reality of political decisions in a country like the US.
TWW
Me too, but since I learned TeX I also don't understand why anyone uses LaTeX.
TWW
No. I'm basing the assertion on the fact that oil is the best explanation for most of the actions of those people. Without the oil argument many of their actions, such as invading Iraq, make no sense. Rice having an oil tanker named after her and having worked with Dick Chaney as directors of Chevron oil (the only post our great defender of democracy was ever voted into), and the fact that Bush's wealth and his importance generally is based on the family's oil wealth are what we call "evidence" of the significance of oil in these people's motives. See, didn't even need some spurious links.
Afghanistan was invaded, rightly, because of the fact that the evil regime (it had been evil for years, of course, but it was only being evil to dirty rag-heads, so no one in the US cared) was protecting OBL. Unlike, say, Iraq who wanted him dead. It was a great bonus that invading Afghanistan allowed the construction of the major oil pipeline that is now the only asset in the country being given any real protection by the US/UK. But like I say, it was a bonus. Admittedly Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld had said it should be a major US objective to build that pipeline, but even so I don't think that was the only reason nor do I think that post-911 the US would not have invaded if the pipeline was not a goal.
As to the bullshit about Iraq and 911: dream on, sucker. There was no connection unless you count the fact that Saddam and OBL hated each other and had tried to overthrow/kill the other. Some Iraqis may have been involved in the outlying regions of 911 but it is a gross exageration to suggest that they were carrying out government policy.
If you understood anything about the relationship between the US-installed secular dictator Hussain and the religious-cult of Bin Laden, you would also understand that the two are and were totally incompatable.
TWW
Exactly. It's not meant to help you at the gas pump.
Remember that when the price of oil goes up 20 dollars a barrel as it has recently, the cost of producing it hasn't gone up a cent. All that 20 dollars is pure profit.
TWW
1 Bush is not a patsy. He is a member of the cabal who is perfectly happy to be seen as "too dumb to sin". Makes any future trial a LOT easier. But he is in it up to his neck for the same reason Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld are: he's an oil man. Nothing more and nothing less. Oil and oil shares are the only things he cares about and he's as happy as the rest of them to kill a few hundred or thousands (especially if they are foreigners) to get them. Iran is just sabre-rattling to boost the price of oil and their collective pension funds.
2. I think Bush simply ignored the warnings because he and his friends thought it was going to be a small attack like the van bomb. That would have been enough of a "Pearl Harbour" for the PNAC. He was genuinely shocked when the scale of it became clear. He must have been thinking about what would happen if the story of all the warnings he'd had came out before his friends in the media clamped the lid on it. He had a close shave but Fox et al came to the rescue and people like John O'Neil were literally buried in the bad news and shock.
Now the reality bit: all empires have been founded on economics. They have to be. It is only in the post-WWII era that governments have decided to pretend otherwise (around the time the War Department became the Defence Department). The reality is that America needs Iraq's oil and now it has it. And if they did not, the American economy would be in deep shit very soon. In the old days this would have been explained openly - proudly - and then the troops sent in. Britain did it all the time. Japan did it. Germany and Italy did it. The Romans did it (grain mostly rather than oil). It's a fact of life. What has changed is that an extra layer of hypocrisy has been added. But there's nothing unusual about invading a country with or without a pretext to seize its resources, even if it means letting someone attack you first when you could have stopped them. The alternative is to drastically change your way of life, a way of life that these guys at the top simply worship and can not even imagine changing just because a bunch of dirty foreign rag-heads object! The idea actually makes them feel ill; you can see it on their faces when they talk about countries that have oil and aren't being properly servile. They hate that. They are by their own definition the pinacle of human achievement and despise anyone who does not vocally agree with that assessment. Look at Bush's crack about the London anti-war protests. The rabble are not entitled to an opinion.
A hundred years ago Wolfowitz would have got a medal, now he gets a cushy job in the World Bank. He successfully defended the American Way of Life(tm). And if you read his speeches and letters about why a pretext for invading Iraq had to be found, I think you'll see that's what he thought all along.
Imperialists are all the same in every place and every time.
TWW
It's what?
Keeping classified information secret when it reveals an abuse of the law is the coward's way out of the dilemma. Even if the actions revealed are not illegal, but simply immoral, the dilema does not go away. Unless you are a spineless weakling who kowtows to the government in the way that the original American rebels refused to do theirs. If you are going to roll over and let (largely unelected) people in the administration act without fear of observation or accountability, you might as well still be living under King George III.
It's high time the people who have taken it upon themselves to sabotage this administration be brought to justice.
Any member of the administration who has done nothing wrong has nothing to fear. Right?
TWW
It certainly can do. A bolt which is used on buses around the world is in a niche compared to, say, windscreen glass.
I can go practically anywhere and see OAPs in electric buggiess, but that doen't mean electric buggies are about to "break out" into the mainstream of transport systems; they're deployed everywhere and still a niche product.
As soon as the general public realizes computers don't HAVE to crash, they'll win there too.
But MY computer never crashes (Linux); so what else has it to offer? Security? Got that too.
I was under the impression that QNX's real killer feature was its real-time abilities. Isn't that a niche feature? How many people would notice the effect of going from current generation Windows and Linux to a hard-real-time version?
TWW
But, if the ordinary user is running their own company or just using their computer the way my mother uses hers, then the day when they can ditch Windows for Linux with zero effort came and went five years ago.
I'm not saying that this guy is not an ordinary user, just that that term is too broad to matter. Ordinary home user? Ordinary office user? Ordinary SOHO user? Ordinary gamer? Some of these are more tightly tied to MS than others. How many Ordinary gamers can ditch Windows for the Mac with the same degree of compliance as this guy?
TWW
If GPL code is used in compiling a project, anyone who receives the compiled binary has the right to request the whole fo the source code. That is clearly spelt out as a condition of using the GPL code. If a company or person does not agree to that, they are free to write their own code.
TWW
I's not saying that's all it's about, I'm saying that's the only worthwhile part. The rest of your examples are so dull and boring that I can barely summon the will to read them.
It seems to me that Web2.0 is just an extension of the blogging idea that doing something trivial and inane online suddenly makes it deeply exciting and important.
Not to me it doesn't. MySpace, Flickr, and MusicBrainz are just electronic versions of stamp collecting and exhibit the same "Jesus, son. Get out more." level of pointless obsession. They are things you do instead of having a life. Like posting on Slashdot. Er...
I'm not saying that any of these, and other, things are not fun for people who are interested in them. I'm just saying that they are trivia and nothing to get worked up about. They are changing the world, but only in the way that Bratz dolls and skateboarding changed the world.
TWW
Google maps is slow and tiresome to use for more than a few minutes. If you are doing anything which involves a lot of scrolling around Maps is just a pain. There are also some features which Earth has and Maps does not, but they're not intrinsic to the medium.
Note: I'm talking about using the satellite view here.
contrasting the two applications to prove the futility of the entire Web 2.0 concept is profoundly misguided.
Insofar as the entire Web 2.0 concept was proved futile forty years ago, I agree. Remote apps suck unless you roam a lot. Always did, always will. Even if you do roam, the vast majority of applications simply work better and faster without the problems associated with a working network connection.
TWW