There's no alternative. Windows isn't bad, it's not perfect but not bad.
With such well thought out reasoning (There's no alternative?) I have only one thought regarding you.
For those that have the time, go search usenet for someone going by the nick simon777. He has also used other nicks, but this is his most common. Comp.os.linux.advocacy is his usual haunt. He spends countless hours a day posting as simon/steve/mike/amy/etc. telling Linux people that there are no alternatives to Windows and that there is absolutely no reason to use anything but Windows.
Most posts are just like this one. Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. Only Microsoft and Bill Gates truly know what you want. If you feel you want something else, then you just don't understand yourself quite properly. Don't fear, Bill Gates will rescue you from yourself and show you the one true way.
Yeah, whatever. Pull the other one, maybe you shake lose a little more change.
While this point has been argued into the ground, and I know that you won't believe it, Microsoft didn't make the first GUI, and certainly still don't make the only GOOD GUI. I can think of at least three other ones that I would rather use, and if I really put my head to it, I could probably think of more. There's MacOS (not only a better interface for morons, but way before Microsoft's), Amiga (another good gui that came before Microsoft) and many of the X interfaces. While you point out that Unix wasn't on PCs at the time (a point that could again be argued), there were still good interfaces available for it. And if they weren't any good, then why did Microsoft steal so many ideas from them.
Note, I did say that not any of these invented the GUI. It came before all of them, but they were/are the most widely recognized. At the moment I would say BeOS rocks as far as interface goes, but without applications it's still doomed.
For my money (or lack thereof most of the time) I prefer Enlightenment quite a bit (although I stick myself in KDE at work so that others don't feel lost). I certainly think it is a superior alternative to most available GUIs today. But, only time will tell if something else comes along.
Even if the original poster actually had a point about MS being the first GUI (good gui, yeah right) that doesn't mean that they deserve to survive forever. If they believe in the free market like they claim to, then let them make a superior product. Otherwise, let them die.
You totally rock. I've been venting a lot lately on the advocacy groups at trolls. It's nice to see someone else let loose on somebody. And this is pretty deserving.
BTW, I worked at Gateway when they bought Amiga, and there was so much excitement from the management about it that I seriously thought they were going to hold a press conference just to show the world how they could wet themselves in unison. Of course, I was also there when they totally lost interest in the Amiga. And why did they lose interest? Simple, the Amiga kicked ass when it was alive. But now, it isn't innovative anymore. If the new Amiga manages to come up with something cool, good for them. But I'm honestly sick of seeing this "Amiga is going to rock your world biatch" diatribe that I have been seeing lately. When it's actually done something call me.
Another great christian idealism. We are supposed to be kind to one another, but only if we like the people. If we don't, then we can just make up stuff that "God" said to make our viewpoint sound better. Perfect, you really are a "good" christian aren't you?
You need look further than your own Bible to see that God put us here for a special purpose, which He will reveal to us when He is ready.
Grandma? Seriously, why is it that christians refuse to believe that the bible is just as fallible as any other human creation. Yes, it is supposed to be the word of God, but it is the word of God as interpreted by people. Even in christianity, this is the way it is taught. But some of them still insist that the bible is like some kind of recipe book to the way the earth was created. The bible itself doesn't support this view (to God a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day, what does this say about the seven day period of creation?).
Those that refuse to open thier minds are doomed to never allow any more information into them. Personally, I like to keep pumping info into my brain, but my grandma turned me totally off of christianity at a very young age. All that ranting about "Jesus wants you to have short hair" and "Jesus wants you to do what I tell you" is just too freaky for me to comprehend. Maybe I missed something in my bible class, but I don't think that Jesus was meant as a way for elders to control youngsters.
While it would be "cool" as you say to see this happen, I am wondering: If a neutron star were to hit the Earth, or the sun, or even another planet in our solar system, how the hell would you "see" the "special effects" (as you put it)? I'm not an expert at this sort of thing, but my understanding is that with a neutron star the mass is great enough that having it even pass by our solar system very close could be enough to knock planets out of orbit and screw up our sun's orbit in the galaxy and all sorts of other havoc. If this is true, even space travel to a far away place wouldn't really allow you to "see" this as it happened, as you would either be too far away to see it, or be sucked into the resulting ping-pong like action happening between planets and sun. Of course, I could be completely wrong on this.
I realize you are just joking around, but frankly, I know people that get all crazy when you say something about how fast some things travel in the universe. They start getting all paranoid and stay up nights looking through a telescope trying to see if we are "about to get it". That's really sad, but I suppose those people probably aren't interested in the reality of it. Everyone needs something to worry about. Some people just worry more about things they have no control over than the rest of us. It may seem neurotic, but to each his own.
DISCLAIMER P.S. If you actually get to this point, you really should seek professional help. It's OK to wonder about it, but letting it consume you is way too far out to be good for your mental health.
While this isn't completely in line with what you are saying (trying to find a place to measure from) I have always wondered about something and your comment made me think of it again. If moons orbit around planets, planets orbit around stars (for the most part), the stars orbit around the center of the galaxy (I believe this is the case, anyone with other stories?), then isn't it probable that galaxies are actually orbiting around something (somewhere in the midst of the group of galaxies). Possibly, this level of orbits and larger bodies to orbit around continues for infinity, but I would think that somewhere is a central point that all matter in the universe orbits around. While I know it won't happen in my lifetime, I have always wondered if it would be possible to find this central point of orbit. This would be the perfect thing to measure from, as it would most likely be the actual "mile marker".
Of course, I could be wrong on this. Since no one really knows (at least no one on earth) if the universe is infinite, maybe the universe itself is part of a larger collection of universes all orbiting some other central point. Perhaps somewhere in this multi-verse (in theory) space-time actually plays into the orbits themselves.
OK, anybody reading this comment must realize that there are reasons that I didn't take up astronomy as a career. I get to thinking in terms of "is the universe really infinite" and "is there a multi-verse based on space-time" and end up driving myself nuts. But, I would still think that there must be a central point somewhere that all matter travels around that is "stationary". And while I took a long time to say it, that is the point I was trying to make.
Have you compared the prices of the two. Rambus is about twice as much in small sizes, and up to four times as much when you get above 128MB.
As far as foaming at the mouth: If Rambus can convince the industry to pay them a fee for every piece of SDRAM and DDR then they can drive the price of SD and DD up through the roof. Therebye causing Rambus RAM to look cheaper and keeping PC prices in the air. That is what people are foaming at the mouth about. Why let the prices go up, up, up and have an inferior technology shoved down your throat. That kind of makes me foam right now.
I'm one of those Linux crazed folks, and personally, I agree with you. I don't like MS any more than most Linux people, but I also am kind of sick of Intel dominating the market. Intel thought they could make some extra cash off of RAMBUS, therefore they pushed it. I'm not real good at understanding hardware (not at the low technical level anyway) but I have seen quite a few studies that show how poor Rambus actually performs compared to existing technologies. I personally don't want to buy another Intel chip. When I need x86 compatibility I will go for AMD. But for my personal use I will probably start buying some other processors. I like the Alpha a lot (haven't used one a little while though) and wouldn't mind trying out the newer PowerPC machines, Apple or IBM. Netwinder also interests me, although I don't like the idea of StrongARM basically being in Intel's pocket.
Intel hasn't does as poorly in some cases as MS has, but that doesn't mean that I don't hold them in contempt when they do screw up. This is a major problem, and if they are stupid enough to insist that Rambus is the way of the future, then I hope they go down in flames with them.
I remember hearing something about his a while back. But I think that the only ways to make magram viable are to either use it as a substitute for what we have now (breaking it into sections, as the article describes: one for what is now ROM, one for what is now Hard Drive Space, and one for what is now RAM, which would be wiped on reboot) or to come up with an absolutely solid operating system. Frankly, I don't think any OS right now is capable of performing one hundred percent of the time.
Imagine, something on your system hoses up and causes a lockup. No problem, you go to reboot, but magram would keep the exact same information in memory, so on power-up you have the same lock-up right there. While I like the idea of what magram could do for computing, I think at the moment we aren't ready for it. Maybe just as a hard drive replacement (that would rock, a hard drive as fast as RAM), but not as a complete memory solution.
This is exactly the same crap that people in the Windows camp say about Linux.
"If Linux was any good, everyone would use it, therfore, Windows must be better."
While I think certain things can be said for Windows on the desktop, when it comes to people in general, they don't use what is best for any given job, they use what has been shoved down thier throat the most often. In this case, mose people haven't seen anything but x86 (unless you count the iMac, which some people seem to think is the first computer Apple ever created) so that's what they use. Sorry, saying a monopoly is a monopoly and therefore must be good just isn't a solid argument. I've seen the same said about MS, yet people don't generally agree with that mentality.
I say, let the Linux market build slowly. We don't have to get every user on to Linux right now. Who cares? I know, there are a lot of times Windows programs are needed at the moment, but I personally don't think that justifies bringing Win32 over to Linux. Doing that encourages programmers to just make a Windows version. Look at Corel. They are selling a Windows version of WordPerfect Office to run on Linux. It is in a Linux box, it is labled as Linux, but no matter how you slice it it is actually a Win32 application. This is not what we need. We need native apps that take advantage of Linux. Not apps that take advantage of Windows running on Linux. Again this is my opinion.
Exactly. Since I already have two servers at my company and a large file server at my home (hey, I have lots of shit at home) running on the current LVM, will I be told to piss off when the current LVM is dropped and IBM's is used because it is so much better.
Lately I have started to see some odd things happen because of companies coming in from left field with things for Linux. All of a sudden, all of the existing projects dealing with the same subject are ignored and the business's is automatically assumed to be better than an "bunch of hacker losers" could ever put together. Frankly, I will be extremely dissapointed if this IBM based LVM takes over and the current LVM is dropped. I would hope that the current LVM can use code from the IBM version in future versions and just keep growing. That would be much better than telling people that they are just purely screwed if they use the current one.
But, that's just my opinion. Of course, I'm usually wrong. Maybe IBM's really is worth pissing off existing users in favor of future users. But I would definitely want to see it in action before making the call to rebuild my current three servers.
Have you ever seen the movie Braveheart? The scene at the end where Wallace says they need the nobles (after spending so much time basically opposing them) and his friend tells him he is being an idiot (basically). Well, we could end up in a trap too. And I think that is why people are being cautious. We need interest, but not every bit of corporate interest is necissarily a good thing.
And before I am corrected, I already know that scene in Braveheart is not based on reality. Most of the movie wasn't. I've read several books on the subject of the real William Wallace, and the movie was more based on the legend of Robin Hood mixed with some of the actual story of William Wallace mixed with a little more of the word of mouth legends of William Wallace that developed over time. The movie itself alluded to this as they showed scenes with people talking about things after the fact and making the stories "larger than life".
This sounds so familiar to me. And it's really too bad. Businesses now don't do things that make sense (what, hire someone that actually knows the job?) they do things that save them money or make them money right now (let's get some idiot off the street, give them a fancy title and no money). That is the way to quickly save money. You can hire any idiot to take care of computers, because Microsoft says that they should just take care of themselves. I know, I've seen this mentality at many businesses, and the last one I was at was a prime example.
They hired a person that was an egineer to be the "network administrator". Since he was the only one there that knew how to hit the power button, he was elected when it was decided they wanted Windows instead of basing everything off of the AS/400. Not that that part was a bad decision per se (but I would have chosen another solution) but they picked someone that had a computer at home (he must be good because he knew how to change the toolbars in Word) to be the computer expert for the company. Oh well, in twenty years that company won't exist anymore, and niether will the company that I am at now (they are doing everything they can to be a clone of the previous company) because they make stupid decisions. Unfortunately, that is the way things are now. No one thinks in terms of long range goals. They look at something and say, "We need something quick, we need it cheap, and we want it NOW!" and forget all about trying to make something that will last. But that's what America is devolving into, a cesspool of stupidity.
They've also contributed significantly to the WINE project, yet the author COMPLETELY missed that aspect. Hmmmmmmmmmm.....
Personally (and hold the flames, this is my opinion a concept many slashdotters have a hard time dealing with) I feel that WINE is a giant waste of resources. I don't think we should try to promote the user of the Win32 interface on top of Linux. Win32 is well known to have problems even running on it's native OS, why do we think we will make it better by putting Linux under it. WINE runs things just like they run on Windows. There is this persistant crashing problem that programs under WINE exibit (just like under Windows). Why do we want to turn Linux into a clone of Windows? I thought the whole purpose of Linux was to be an inexpensive alternative to proprietary Unix. If you don't think I know what I am talking about, feel free to email me (my real address is right there) and tell me what an idiot I am. I've heard it before and it still hasn't changed my opinion. Win32 should stay in Windows land. It was something I tried to leave behind, yet even under Linux applications are dragging it along.
I loved Corel when they had a real Unix/Linux version of WordPerfect, why did they have to use the Win32 version for WordPerfect 2000? Just another attempt to use Windows software under Linux, and it will make Linux look once again like a cheap (and bloated) Windows clone. Why?
I'm 26 and still play with Legos and Transformers (the old ones) whenever I get a chance. Damn if I couldn't have some fun with Legos (as a battleground/fortress) and some Transformers to play out a battle. Oh wait, I think I've given away too much of my personal life.
If you want a real 3D interface, check out http://threedsia.sourceforge.net. This is a truly 3D evironment that allows for file management, chatting, and network "travel". It is only partly functional as of right now, but very cool.
I can honestly say that I have never used drugs (beyond cough syrup) and never had the desire too. Also, I have seen friends die from overdose, and other friends fall apart as drug use consumed them.
Having said that I still think that the "WAR ON DRUGS" is a stupid and pathetic cause. Personally, I feel the government needs to stop trying to protect people from themselves and let them go at it. If they want to OD, let them. If they want to get bombed every weekend, let them. If they want to do things that seem stupid to the majority, let them. I just feel like the only regulation of drug use is that you shouldn't be driving a car when using (just like drunks). Other than that, let a person do whatever he wants with them. As long as I'm not forced to use them, I don't want to keep others from them.
This may sound cold, but if people use them to the point that it hurts thier lives, so be it. They made that choice, it is up to them to deal with the consequences. Eventually, those that are stupid enough to abuse will fall apart and disappear from society (not entirely, but they will not be significant anymore, just like most drunks aren't). If others are hurt, then we do something abou it. If they hurt a spouse/child/friend (physically hurt) then they are locked up. The abuse would happen, but it would also be dealt with if it got to the point of hurting others. Isn't that what happens with alch?
This would end the little pockets of filth that have sprung up in many cities that are based on the "business" of drugs. Make it so you can buy your drugs at a decent business, and that will end the damn run-down crime-ridden inner cities. It would also deal with the big drug cartels. Allow drugs to be imported, and tax them. There you go, end the illegal status, and make some money for the government at the same time. Now what's wrong with that?
Why would they? Dell gets by charging more for Linux loaded computers. Last I checked it was about $100 more for a Linux load on a machine than a Windows load on the same machine. Really sad.
With certain upgrades, the only way to get Windows to run properly is a full reinstall. Why? Because it will be convinced, no matter what you do, that the original hardware is still in the machine and then it will get all confused it finds the new hardware. I don't care how many times you delete the driver, or even the files the driver consists of. It just isn't made of hardware upgrades. Now, adding hardware, maybe it can handle, but if you remove something, you just as well reinstall. It's much easier than fighting Windows inability to deal with changes.
Now Linux on the other hand. I can set it up on my dual PII 333 with NVIDIA RivaTNT and EsoniqPCI and then move the hard drive over to my Pentium 133 with ATI RageII and SoundBlaster AWE64 and it just works. Reconfigure X, set it to load the SoundBlaster module instead of the Ensoniq one and that's it. Try doing that with Windows.
Re:Spread the message, brothers
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 1
You have to really search to find a company that doesn't charge more for a Linux machine than for the same machine with Windows. I realize that there are plenty of Linux only OEMs, but most people will go to Dell, see that it costs $100 more to put Linux on the machine (which still doesn't make any sense, no matter how little Windows costs them) and forget it, because they aren't going to spend more on something when they aren't even sure what it is. Hopefully this will change, but I'm not holding my breath.
Re:Ask not for whom the bell tolls...
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 2
The sad thing is that no matter what MS does to alienate it's users (actual legal users, the ones that pay the bills for them), people are still going to love them. It's really sad, but it's true. People enjoy MS, and have been led to believe by the (popular) press and by inept systems administrators over the years that MS is the be all/end all of the computer world.
I watched a news show this morning with Steve Ballmer crying about how poorly the government is treating MS. Then he went on to say that when this case is appealed, MS will win, because only this judge thinks they did anything wrong. Then they went out into the street and asked people just walking by what they thought. The ones that had any opinion at all (and most just shrugged and said it doesn't matter) said that MS is a great company that has made computers what they are and that if MS dies, so will all computer manufacturing. People are actually starting to believe this crap. MS has told them for so long that they are great, and the popular press has agreed, and now people (easily led to believe stupid crap) believe it. So, I don't think people are going to stop and think this over until they hit the point where MS controls absolutely everything that they need to control (if this breakup doesn't go through) to keep from being harmed. If the breakup goes through, people will buy MS-APPS and MS-OS based software just because they think "MS is all there is".
It will take years to change this thinking. Slowly it should change, but humanity on the whole is pretty stupid. The ones with the money are actually in charge of things, and they like MS because a lot of them have connections with them. Too bad.
As long as MS can't find a way to make the GPL and BSD licenses illegal, I am not going to worry overly about it. Most people are pretty dense when it comes to what is good for them. They need to be told what to think, which is sad, but Linux and BSD aren't going to die, unless MS can find a way to outlaw them. I don't think they are that powerful (yet) and don't think they ever will be (hopefully) so I'm not living my life in fear of MS.
I believe that you have touched on something that is perisitent throughout "SOCIETY" (Yuck, I feel tainted) at the moment (moment being relative to history).
The fact is that most of society at the moment seems to just be living thier blahsey lifestyles and just doing what they can to get by. But they don't want to put any effort into anything, and they sure as hell don't want to tie themselves to something (why is the divorce rate so high?!?). People are always looking for something they can get out of if they need to. They don't want to commit, because that would mean taking a risk. Marriage is looked at now as "going steady" was looked at thirty years ago. "It's not that big of a deal if things don't work out, we'll just get a divorce." People don't want to be tied down. Why buy a home, when you can rent and then complain to the landlord, or just leave if the place gets trashed. If you buy, you may have to put some work into the home at some point.
A few years ago, this trend started to sink in on me. I was finishing my high school years (what a crock) and started to realize how totally twisted around my generation was. They were looking everywhere for something to believe in (this was worse in the city I moved to for my last couple years of High School than it was in the small town I had come from). They were told to look to the future, but the present looked pretty dark. Anytime you started to believe in someone or something it would fall apart. Case in point (for me) the metal bands that had always stood up for individual rights (in our young minds) and told the world to fsck off if they didn't like them, started to fold and play the same radio pop crap that all the other one hit wonders were trying to play. Instead of saying, "We love our fans, screw what everyone else says." they started saying, "Screw what our old fans think, we want some fscking money." (Metallica anyone?)
It isn't just music either. Anything original, or that shows a little bit of individuality is quickly shut off. Look at TV (not the best deep thinking area, but bear with me here). There was a kick-ass show a couple of years back that started called Harsh Realm. It was (in my opinion) the most original idea and most well thought-out world to hit TV in a long, long time. About the time the series really began to develop it's personality to the point where it was completely recognizable it was cancelled. Why? Because the mindless masses hadn't instantly tuned in. Now, I understand that the network needs to make money, but they used to allow a new show a season to make fans (and if I recall, the show had just started to really develop it's fanbase with it's fifth episode, about the time it was cancelled) not just a couple of shows. This is just a symptom of the way the world works now. If it don't give you instant gratification, then fsck it.
I know it sounds like I'm preaching gloom and doom, but I'm not. I'm just being realistic. I'm tired of watching these things happen and everyone that is interested in making things better just shrugs and says, "Oh well, can't do nothing about that." We can, it just takes a little effort. I want to buy things, because I don't like playing by the rental rules. I change things, I fiddle with them until they aren't recognizable, so rental and leasing aren't really an option for me on most things. But there is a tendancy right now in the computer world to only allow leasing. It is becoming very difficult as a consumer to just purchase a PC without being told that you have to do the lease (try telling a Gateway salesman that you want to purchase the PC, not just lease it). Why do the PC manufacturers like you leasing/renting equipment. Because you pay for it twice, and then you send it back to them. Why would I want to do that? I wouldn't, but some people don't think it through. Pay for it once and keep it, or pay for it basically twice and give it back. If you are the trade-in type, go for it. Maybe you think you are saving yourself hassles. But don't believe you are getting the deal of a lifetime.
Sorry for my rant folks. I realize the people that are going to read this probably aren't the ones that need to hear this. (Slashdotters typically have a brain and know how to use it, not all of them I know.) But we need to question things every once in a while. Too many people just sit back and say they can't do a thing. But they can. Go looking for things that you can purchase (instead of the "easy to lease" things that are everywhere). Avoid buying on hype (my strongest machine is a Pentium II 333, why do I need the latest GHZ monster to do my work), think things through. If you can't find a cause, or a hero, or something to believe in, make something to believe in. Start a cause, start a movement. The Free Software Movement and Open Source Movement have given me a little hope for the future. Not all of humanity are completely brain dead. But even these are showing signs of the stupidity of masses of people. Now the rule seems to be the more people you add into the equation, the more likely the end result will be stupidity and thoughtless greed. But there is still hope. Don't fall prey to the old theory that you can't do anything. Do something. There's got to be something you can do, figure it out and do it.
Slashdot Mirror
With such well thought out reasoning (There's no alternative?) I have only one thought regarding you.
For those that have the time, go search usenet for someone going by the nick simon777. He has also used other nicks, but this is his most common. Comp.os.linux.advocacy is his usual haunt. He spends countless hours a day posting as simon/steve/mike/amy/etc. telling Linux people that there are no alternatives to Windows and that there is absolutely no reason to use anything but Windows.
Most posts are just like this one.
Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. Only Microsoft and Bill Gates truly know what you want. If you feel you want something else, then you just don't understand yourself quite properly. Don't fear, Bill Gates will rescue you from yourself and show you the one true way.
Yeah, whatever. Pull the other one, maybe you shake lose a little more change.
While this point has been argued into the ground, and I know that you won't believe it, Microsoft didn't make the first GUI, and certainly still don't make the only GOOD GUI. I can think of at least three other ones that I would rather use, and if I really put my head to it, I could probably think of more. There's MacOS (not only a better interface for morons, but way before Microsoft's), Amiga (another good gui that came before Microsoft) and many of the X interfaces. While you point out that Unix wasn't on PCs at the time (a point that could again be argued), there were still good interfaces available for it. And if they weren't any good, then why did Microsoft steal so many ideas from them.
Note, I did say that not any of these invented the GUI. It came before all of them, but they were/are the most widely recognized. At the moment I would say BeOS rocks as far as interface goes, but without applications it's still doomed.
For my money (or lack thereof most of the time) I prefer Enlightenment quite a bit (although I stick myself in KDE at work so that others don't feel lost). I certainly think it is a superior alternative to most available GUIs today. But, only time will tell if something else comes along.
Even if the original poster actually had a point about MS being the first GUI (good gui, yeah right) that doesn't mean that they deserve to survive forever. If they believe in the free market like they claim to, then let them make a superior product. Otherwise, let them die.
You totally rock. I've been venting a lot lately on the advocacy groups at trolls. It's nice to see someone else let loose on somebody. And this is pretty deserving.
BTW, I worked at Gateway when they bought Amiga, and there was so much excitement from the management about it that I seriously thought they were going to hold a press conference just to show the world how they could wet themselves in unison. Of course, I was also there when they totally lost interest in the Amiga. And why did they lose interest? Simple, the Amiga kicked ass when it was alive. But now, it isn't innovative anymore. If the new Amiga manages to come up with something cool, good for them. But I'm honestly sick of seeing this "Amiga is going to rock your world biatch" diatribe that I have been seeing lately. When it's actually done something call me.
Another great christian idealism. We are supposed to be kind to one another, but only if we like the people. If we don't, then we can just make up stuff that "God" said to make our viewpoint sound better. Perfect, you really are a "good" christian aren't you?
Grandma?
Seriously, why is it that christians refuse to believe that the bible is just as fallible as any other human creation. Yes, it is supposed to be the word of God, but it is the word of God as interpreted by people. Even in christianity, this is the way it is taught. But some of them still insist that the bible is like some kind of recipe book to the way the earth was created. The bible itself doesn't support this view (to God a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day, what does this say about the seven day period of creation?).
Those that refuse to open thier minds are doomed to never allow any more information into them. Personally, I like to keep pumping info into my brain, but my grandma turned me totally off of christianity at a very young age. All that ranting about "Jesus wants you to have short hair" and "Jesus wants you to do what I tell you" is just too freaky for me to comprehend. Maybe I missed something in my bible class, but I don't think that Jesus was meant as a way for elders to control youngsters.
Just my opinion.
Oh dude, you rock! I needed a laugh. And I'm just punchy enough this afternoon that this one sent me to the floor laughing.
BTW, have you heard how fucking KOOL macos x is?
(sorry, couldn't resist)
While it would be "cool" as you say to see this happen, I am wondering:
If a neutron star were to hit the Earth, or the sun, or even another planet in our solar system, how the hell would you "see" the "special effects" (as you put it)? I'm not an expert at this sort of thing, but my understanding is that with a neutron star the mass is great enough that having it even pass by our solar system very close could be enough to knock planets out of orbit and screw up our sun's orbit in the galaxy and all sorts of other havoc. If this is true, even space travel to a far away place wouldn't really allow you to "see" this as it happened, as you would either be too far away to see it, or be sucked into the resulting ping-pong like action happening between planets and sun. Of course, I could be completely wrong on this.
I realize you are just joking around, but frankly, I know people that get all crazy when you say something about how fast some things travel in the universe. They start getting all paranoid and stay up nights looking through a telescope trying to see if we are "about to get it". That's really sad, but I suppose those people probably aren't interested in the reality of it. Everyone needs something to worry about. Some people just worry more about things they have no control over than the rest of us. It may seem neurotic, but to each his own.
DISCLAIMER
P.S. If you actually get to this point, you really should seek professional help. It's OK to wonder about it, but letting it consume you is way too far out to be good for your mental health.
While this isn't completely in line with what you are saying (trying to find a place to measure from) I have always wondered about something and your comment made me think of it again. If moons orbit around planets, planets orbit around stars (for the most part), the stars orbit around the center of the galaxy (I believe this is the case, anyone with other stories?), then isn't it probable that galaxies are actually orbiting around something (somewhere in the midst of the group of galaxies). Possibly, this level of orbits and larger bodies to orbit around continues for infinity, but I would think that somewhere is a central point that all matter in the universe orbits around. While I know it won't happen in my lifetime, I have always wondered if it would be possible to find this central point of orbit. This would be the perfect thing to measure from, as it would most likely be the actual "mile marker".
Of course, I could be wrong on this. Since no one really knows (at least no one on earth) if the universe is infinite, maybe the universe itself is part of a larger collection of universes all orbiting some other central point. Perhaps somewhere in this multi-verse (in theory) space-time actually plays into the orbits themselves.
OK, anybody reading this comment must realize that there are reasons that I didn't take up astronomy as a career. I get to thinking in terms of "is the universe really infinite" and "is there a multi-verse based on space-time" and end up driving myself nuts. But, I would still think that there must be a central point somewhere that all matter travels around that is "stationary". And while I took a long time to say it, that is the point I was trying to make.
Have you compared the prices of the two. Rambus is about twice as much in small sizes, and up to four times as much when you get above 128MB.
As far as foaming at the mouth: If Rambus can convince the industry to pay them a fee for every piece of SDRAM and DDR then they can drive the price of SD and DD up through the roof. Therebye causing Rambus RAM to look cheaper and keeping PC prices in the air. That is what people are foaming at the mouth about. Why let the prices go up, up, up and have an inferior technology shoved down your throat. That kind of makes me foam right now.
I'm one of those Linux crazed folks, and personally, I agree with you. I don't like MS any more than most Linux people, but I also am kind of sick of Intel dominating the market. Intel thought they could make some extra cash off of RAMBUS, therefore they pushed it. I'm not real good at understanding hardware (not at the low technical level anyway) but I have seen quite a few studies that show how poor Rambus actually performs compared to existing technologies. I personally don't want to buy another Intel chip. When I need x86 compatibility I will go for AMD. But for my personal use I will probably start buying some other processors. I like the Alpha a lot (haven't used one a little while though) and wouldn't mind trying out the newer PowerPC machines, Apple or IBM. Netwinder also interests me, although I don't like the idea of StrongARM basically being in Intel's pocket.
Intel hasn't does as poorly in some cases as MS has, but that doesn't mean that I don't hold them in contempt when they do screw up. This is a major problem, and if they are stupid enough to insist that Rambus is the way of the future, then I hope they go down in flames with them.
I remember hearing something about his a while back. But I think that the only ways to make magram viable are to either use it as a substitute for what we have now (breaking it into sections, as the article describes: one for what is now ROM, one for what is now Hard Drive Space, and one for what is now RAM, which would be wiped on reboot) or to come up with an absolutely solid operating system. Frankly, I don't think any OS right now is capable of performing one hundred percent of the time.
Imagine, something on your system hoses up and causes a lockup. No problem, you go to reboot, but magram would keep the exact same information in memory, so on power-up you have the same lock-up right there. While I like the idea of what magram could do for computing, I think at the moment we aren't ready for it. Maybe just as a hard drive replacement (that would rock, a hard drive as fast as RAM), but not as a complete memory solution.
This is exactly the same crap that people in the Windows camp say about Linux.
"If Linux was any good, everyone would use it, therfore, Windows must be better."
While I think certain things can be said for Windows on the desktop, when it comes to people in general, they don't use what is best for any given job, they use what has been shoved down thier throat the most often. In this case, mose people haven't seen anything but x86 (unless you count the iMac, which some people seem to think is the first computer Apple ever created) so that's what they use. Sorry, saying a monopoly is a monopoly and therefore must be good just isn't a solid argument. I've seen the same said about MS, yet people don't generally agree with that mentality.
I say, let the Linux market build slowly. We don't have to get every user on to Linux right now. Who cares? I know, there are a lot of times Windows programs are needed at the moment, but I personally don't think that justifies bringing Win32 over to Linux. Doing that encourages programmers to just make a Windows version. Look at Corel. They are selling a Windows version of WordPerfect Office to run on Linux. It is in a Linux box, it is labled as Linux, but no matter how you slice it it is actually a Win32 application. This is not what we need. We need native apps that take advantage of Linux. Not apps that take advantage of Windows running on Linux. Again this is my opinion.
Exactly. Since I already have two servers at my company and a large file server at my home (hey, I have lots of shit at home) running on the current LVM, will I be told to piss off when the current LVM is dropped and IBM's is used because it is so much better.
Lately I have started to see some odd things happen because of companies coming in from left field with things for Linux. All of a sudden, all of the existing projects dealing with the same subject are ignored and the business's is automatically assumed to be better than an "bunch of hacker losers" could ever put together. Frankly, I will be extremely dissapointed if this IBM based LVM takes over and the current LVM is dropped. I would hope that the current LVM can use code from the IBM version in future versions and just keep growing. That would be much better than telling people that they are just purely screwed if they use the current one.
But, that's just my opinion. Of course, I'm usually wrong. Maybe IBM's really is worth pissing off existing users in favor of future users. But I would definitely want to see it in action before making the call to rebuild my current three servers.
Have you ever seen the movie Braveheart? The scene at the end where Wallace says they need the nobles (after spending so much time basically opposing them) and his friend tells him he is being an idiot (basically). Well, we could end up in a trap too. And I think that is why people are being cautious. We need interest, but not every bit of corporate interest is necissarily a good thing.
And before I am corrected, I already know that scene in Braveheart is not based on reality. Most of the movie wasn't. I've read several books on the subject of the real William Wallace, and the movie was more based on the legend of Robin Hood mixed with some of the actual story of William Wallace mixed with a little more of the word of mouth legends of William Wallace that developed over time. The movie itself alluded to this as they showed scenes with people talking about things after the fact and making the stories "larger than life".
OK, sorry about the off topic bit.
This sounds so familiar to me. And it's really too bad. Businesses now don't do things that make sense (what, hire someone that actually knows the job?) they do things that save them money or make them money right now (let's get some idiot off the street, give them a fancy title and no money). That is the way to quickly save money. You can hire any idiot to take care of computers, because Microsoft says that they should just take care of themselves. I know, I've seen this mentality at many businesses, and the last one I was at was a prime example.
They hired a person that was an egineer to be the "network administrator". Since he was the only one there that knew how to hit the power button, he was elected when it was decided they wanted Windows instead of basing everything off of the AS/400. Not that that part was a bad decision per se (but I would have chosen another solution) but they picked someone that had a computer at home (he must be good because he knew how to change the toolbars in Word) to be the computer expert for the company. Oh well, in twenty years that company won't exist anymore, and niether will the company that I am at now (they are doing everything they can to be a clone of the previous company) because they make stupid decisions. Unfortunately, that is the way things are now. No one thinks in terms of long range goals. They look at something and say, "We need something quick, we need it cheap, and we want it NOW!" and forget all about trying to make something that will last. But that's what America is devolving into, a cesspool of stupidity.
Yeah for us....
They've also contributed significantly to the WINE project, yet the author COMPLETELY missed that aspect. Hmmmmmmmmmm.....
Personally (and hold the flames, this is my opinion a concept many slashdotters have a hard time dealing with) I feel that WINE is a giant waste of resources. I don't think we should try to promote the user of the Win32 interface on top of Linux. Win32 is well known to have problems even running on it's native OS, why do we think we will make it better by putting Linux under it. WINE runs things just like they run on Windows. There is this persistant crashing problem that programs under WINE exibit (just like under Windows). Why do we want to turn Linux into a clone of Windows? I thought the whole purpose of Linux was to be an inexpensive alternative to proprietary Unix. If you don't think I know what I am talking about, feel free to email me (my real address is right there) and tell me what an idiot I am. I've heard it before and it still hasn't changed my opinion. Win32 should stay in Windows land. It was something I tried to leave behind, yet even under Linux applications are dragging it along.
I loved Corel when they had a real Unix/Linux version of WordPerfect, why did they have to use the Win32 version for WordPerfect 2000? Just another attempt to use Windows software under Linux, and it will make Linux look once again like a cheap (and bloated) Windows clone. Why?
I'm 26 and still play with Legos and Transformers (the old ones) whenever I get a chance. Damn if I couldn't have some fun with Legos (as a battleground/fortress) and some Transformers to play out a battle. Oh wait, I think I've given away too much of my personal life.
Appologies to my wife if she reads this.
If you want a real 3D interface, check out http://threedsia.sourceforge.net. This is a truly 3D evironment that allows for file management, chatting, and network "travel". It is only partly functional as of right now, but very cool.
I can honestly say that I have never used drugs (beyond cough syrup) and never had the desire too. Also, I have seen friends die from overdose, and other friends fall apart as drug use consumed them.
Having said that I still think that the "WAR ON DRUGS" is a stupid and pathetic cause. Personally, I feel the government needs to stop trying to protect people from themselves and let them go at it. If they want to OD, let them. If they want to get bombed every weekend, let them. If they want to do things that seem stupid to the majority, let them. I just feel like the only regulation of drug use is that you shouldn't be driving a car when using (just like drunks). Other than that, let a person do whatever he wants with them. As long as I'm not forced to use them, I don't want to keep others from them.
This may sound cold, but if people use them to the point that it hurts thier lives, so be it. They made that choice, it is up to them to deal with the consequences. Eventually, those that are stupid enough to abuse will fall apart and disappear from society (not entirely, but they will not be significant anymore, just like most drunks aren't). If others are hurt, then we do something abou it. If they hurt a spouse/child/friend (physically hurt) then they are locked up. The abuse would happen, but it would also be dealt with if it got to the point of hurting others. Isn't that what happens with alch?
This would end the little pockets of filth that have sprung up in many cities that are based on the "business" of drugs. Make it so you can buy your drugs at a decent business, and that will end the damn run-down crime-ridden inner cities. It would also deal with the big drug cartels. Allow drugs to be imported, and tax them. There you go, end the illegal status, and make some money for the government at the same time. Now what's wrong with that?
Why would they? Dell gets by charging more for Linux loaded computers. Last I checked it was about $100 more for a Linux load on a machine than a Windows load on the same machine. Really sad.
With certain upgrades, the only way to get Windows to run properly is a full reinstall. Why? Because it will be convinced, no matter what you do, that the original hardware is still in the machine and then it will get all confused it finds the new hardware. I don't care how many times you delete the driver, or even the files the driver consists of. It just isn't made of hardware upgrades. Now, adding hardware, maybe it can handle, but if you remove something, you just as well reinstall. It's much easier than fighting Windows inability to deal with changes.
Now Linux on the other hand. I can set it up on my dual PII 333 with NVIDIA RivaTNT and EsoniqPCI and then move the hard drive over to my Pentium 133 with ATI RageII and SoundBlaster AWE64 and it just works. Reconfigure X, set it to load the SoundBlaster module instead of the Ensoniq one and that's it. Try doing that with Windows.
You have to really search to find a company that doesn't charge more for a Linux machine than for the same machine with Windows. I realize that there are plenty of Linux only OEMs, but most people will go to Dell, see that it costs $100 more to put Linux on the machine (which still doesn't make any sense, no matter how little Windows costs them) and forget it, because they aren't going to spend more on something when they aren't even sure what it is. Hopefully this will change, but I'm not holding my breath.
The sad thing is that no matter what MS does to alienate it's users (actual legal users, the ones that pay the bills for them), people are still going to love them. It's really sad, but it's true. People enjoy MS, and have been led to believe by the (popular) press and by inept systems administrators over the years that MS is the be all/end all of the computer world.
I watched a news show this morning with Steve Ballmer crying about how poorly the government is treating MS. Then he went on to say that when this case is appealed, MS will win, because only this judge thinks they did anything wrong. Then they went out into the street and asked people just walking by what they thought. The ones that had any opinion at all (and most just shrugged and said it doesn't matter) said that MS is a great company that has made computers what they are and that if MS dies, so will all computer manufacturing. People are actually starting to believe this crap. MS has told them for so long that they are great, and the popular press has agreed, and now people (easily led to believe stupid crap) believe it. So, I don't think people are going to stop and think this over until they hit the point where MS controls absolutely everything that they need to control (if this breakup doesn't go through) to keep from being harmed. If the breakup goes through, people will buy MS-APPS and MS-OS based software just because they think "MS is all there is".
It will take years to change this thinking. Slowly it should change, but humanity on the whole is pretty stupid. The ones with the money are actually in charge of things, and they like MS because a lot of them have connections with them. Too bad.
As long as MS can't find a way to make the GPL and BSD licenses illegal, I am not going to worry overly about it. Most people are pretty dense when it comes to what is good for them. They need to be told what to think, which is sad, but Linux and BSD aren't going to die, unless MS can find a way to outlaw them. I don't think they are that powerful (yet) and don't think they ever will be (hopefully) so I'm not living my life in fear of MS.
I believe that you have touched on something that is perisitent throughout "SOCIETY" (Yuck, I feel tainted) at the moment (moment being relative to history).
The fact is that most of society at the moment seems to just be living thier blahsey lifestyles and just doing what they can to get by. But they don't want to put any effort into anything, and they sure as hell don't want to tie themselves to something (why is the divorce rate so high?!?). People are always looking for something they can get out of if they need to. They don't want to commit, because that would mean taking a risk. Marriage is looked at now as "going steady" was looked at thirty years ago. "It's not that big of a deal if things don't work out, we'll just get a divorce." People don't want to be tied down. Why buy a home, when you can rent and then complain to the landlord, or just leave if the place gets trashed. If you buy, you may have to put some work into the home at some point.
A few years ago, this trend started to sink in on me. I was finishing my high school years (what a crock) and started to realize how totally twisted around my generation was. They were looking everywhere for something to believe in (this was worse in the city I moved to for my last couple years of High School than it was in the small town I had come from). They were told to look to the future, but the present looked pretty dark. Anytime you started to believe in someone or something it would fall apart. Case in point (for me) the metal bands that had always stood up for individual rights (in our young minds) and told the world to fsck off if they didn't like them, started to fold and play the same radio pop crap that all the other one hit wonders were trying to play. Instead of saying, "We love our fans, screw what everyone else says." they started saying, "Screw what our old fans think, we want some fscking money." (Metallica anyone?)
It isn't just music either. Anything original, or that shows a little bit of individuality is quickly shut off. Look at TV (not the best deep thinking area, but bear with me here). There was a kick-ass show a couple of years back that started called Harsh Realm. It was (in my opinion) the most original idea and most well thought-out world to hit TV in a long, long time. About the time the series really began to develop it's personality to the point where it was completely recognizable it was cancelled. Why? Because the mindless masses hadn't instantly tuned in. Now, I understand that the network needs to make money, but they used to allow a new show a season to make fans (and if I recall, the show had just started to really develop it's fanbase with it's fifth episode, about the time it was cancelled) not just a couple of shows. This is just a symptom of the way the world works now. If it don't give you instant gratification, then fsck it.
I know it sounds like I'm preaching gloom and doom, but I'm not. I'm just being realistic. I'm tired of watching these things happen and everyone that is interested in making things better just shrugs and says, "Oh well, can't do nothing about that." We can, it just takes a little effort. I want to buy things, because I don't like playing by the rental rules. I change things, I fiddle with them until they aren't recognizable, so rental and leasing aren't really an option for me on most things. But there is a tendancy right now in the computer world to only allow leasing. It is becoming very difficult as a consumer to just purchase a PC without being told that you have to do the lease (try telling a Gateway salesman that you want to purchase the PC, not just lease it). Why do the PC manufacturers like you leasing/renting equipment. Because you pay for it twice, and then you send it back to them. Why would I want to do that? I wouldn't, but some people don't think it through. Pay for it once and keep it, or pay for it basically twice and give it back. If you are the trade-in type, go for it. Maybe you think you are saving yourself hassles. But don't believe you are getting the deal of a lifetime.
Sorry for my rant folks. I realize the people that are going to read this probably aren't the ones that need to hear this. (Slashdotters typically have a brain and know how to use it, not all of them I know.) But we need to question things every once in a while. Too many people just sit back and say they can't do a thing. But they can. Go looking for things that you can purchase (instead of the "easy to lease" things that are everywhere). Avoid buying on hype (my strongest machine is a Pentium II 333, why do I need the latest GHZ monster to do my work), think things through. If you can't find a cause, or a hero, or something to believe in, make something to believe in. Start a cause, start a movement. The Free Software Movement and Open Source Movement have given me a little hope for the future. Not all of humanity are completely brain dead. But even these are showing signs of the stupidity of masses of people. Now the rule seems to be the more people you add into the equation, the more likely the end result will be stupidity and thoughtless greed. But there is still hope. Don't fall prey to the old theory that you can't do anything. Do something. There's got to be something you can do, figure it out and do it.