Bottom line: pick a product that meets your requirements, don't pick your requirements based on your selection (IS Project Mgmt 101).
Unless of course you're working in the real world where some clueless suit reads something in Computerworld, and decides that the hot new product du jour is their strategy.
At GM, the word on the street is that GM is not refreshing Unix boxen for using Unigraphics, and are instead moving to Micros~1 Windoze NT. Why? Because NT workstations are supposed to somehow be cheaper than HP-UX and Solaris boxen, despite the fact that operating and and administrating these boxes isn't going to be any cheaper. Factors like stability, reliability, and performance are being completely ignored. According to UG Solutions, NT is the greatest thing since sliced bread, therefore NT is the now the preferred solution of choice.
The USPS is only privatized to the point that it is the only government program that is entirely self sufficient. Its still a government agency, and is not a contractor...if it were truly privatized, then other companies like UPS or Federal Express would be to bid for the contract.
haps they didn't invent it, but Speech Recognition has been around on the Mac since around 1995.
IBM has had speech recognition for at least as long. Maybe they didn't have a marketable product, but I remember IBM commercials going to around 1990 stating that they were working on speech recognition. (Remember the commercials with "writing mrs. wright right away" or some such thing?
If microsoft hadn't existed, the PC would have been IBM's mac
First of all, realize that the reason we have multivendor hardware is IBM, and its allowing Microsoft to license DOS to other hardware vendors.
Besides that, there's a possiblity that the Macintosh might never have existed if it weren't for Microsoft. MS played an important role in the development of the Mac. Since they were writing applications for the Mac, they got to play with prototypes, and had significant input in the design of the finished product.
The previous poster is partially correct. Some of Windows 1.0's (!) GUI was in fact invented by a former Apple employee. Anyone who has seen Windows prior to 3.0 knows that the buttons look strickingly similar to the Macintosh's 2D buttons and things like the design of the pulldown menus and the centered headings on the top of dialog boxes, the location of the control box, etc were certainly derived from the Macintosh.
Windows 3.0's "new" look and feel (3D buttons, etc.) was in fact derived from OS/2's. However, the design of the GUI's internals were definitely not derived from OS/2 code...Microsoft wanted to base PM's GUI on Windows, while IBM said no way, we have our own GUI code that we want to implement.
But I firmly believe that had Apple not introduced the world to Macintosh, computers would be much to use. Gates has got to give them some Had the Mac never existed, we would still probably have some sort of GUI-based system today since concepts and even limited implementations were in place before the Mac was born, but I guarantee you wouldn't be like what we see today in Mac OS, Windows, KDE/Gnome, BeOS, etc.
You are in some part correct. Apple's Macintosh was very important in the evolution of personal computers and continues to play an important role.
However, you miss something very key. Apple did not invent the GUI by any stretch of the imagination. They essentially stole it from Xerox PARC. Virtually all the important technologies we use today (GUIs, mice, Ethernet, laser printers, PostScript) were invented at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. When Xerox decided to can the Star, its researchers went off to various companies. The man who became the founder of Adobe (err...whats his name...) was a researcher at PARC. Many of the folks who worked on Macintosh's GUI were former Xerox employees.
So if you have to give credit to someone, not only would you have to credit Apple, but you would also have to credit Xerox, even though it never came up with a marketable product.
So next time you see Bill Gates talking about how Microsoft is changing the world, remember who he following.
And remember who Apple followed.
I should also point out that since the Macintosh, Apple really hasn't had any significant innovations. (Anyone who thinks that the iMac is any kind of technological innovation needs to be shot. A good marketing innvotation, perhaps:) Most of the important innovations (HTTP/HTML, Java, etc.) have come out of other companies and not Apple or Microsoft.
Anyone who has read Stephen Manes'(of PC Magazine fame) excellent biography of Bill Gates, Gates,(a very gutsy book...Billion-dollar Billy had very little input on the direction of the book...this book was written before Windows 95 became a reality), will realize that Gates is not driven by money or power. He's a game player who is driven to win. At all costs.
From Gates' perspective, in order for him to win, everyone else playing the game has to lose. This why Microsoft has driven everyone out of business that has tried to compete with them. When Netscape threatened Microsoft's business by declaring Navigator a software platform, Gates saw this as a potential for Netscape to win. Since he didn't want to see that happen, he ordered the development of Internet Explorer, and its subsequent integration into Windows, as a way of marginalizing Netscape's competitive advantage.
Putting Netscape out of business was not done for the sake of putting Netscape out of business per se...Netscape had a possibility to win (with Navigator), and Gates wanted to see that they couldn't win. The fact that they staked their whole business on turning Navigator into a platform to take on Windows was the reason they were put out of business, and that's basically Netscape's fault, not Microsoft's.
(This is of course, my own extrapolation from what I've read in Gates and does not in anyway represents the author's or anyone else's opinions)
Gates' view that Microsoft is responsible for the personal computer revolution is understandable from a limited point of view. Windows is what put PCs in gramdma's house. Of course thinking that the point-and-click GUI interface that is responsible for this feat is the sole ordinance of Microsoft is just silly. GUIs were invented at Xerox PARC years before Microsoft or even Apple had anything to do with them.
Yes, I know, there's tech support and all that, but..
And even then, how many pirates are calling technical support? Most people who need technical support are going to pay for the software in order to get that technical support.
If my company hadn't spent the money on those seats, where would have it gone? To pay someone's maybe? Building a better business? I don't know, and I don't care. My point is that the money hasn't been to the economy in general, it has just been lost to Microsoft.
But has it really been lost to Microsoft in the first place? Would someone who has pirated a piece of software have been likely to actually purchase that software? Probably not. The fact that they copied the software means that they are unwilling to pay the piper for the price of admission. Sure they may have wanted the software, but that doesn't mean that they were willing to purchase it.
Look at Red Hat. Red Hat makes money selling Linux distributions despite the fact that it is legal and even encouraged to make as many free copies as possible. People wind up paying for the software because they want to be supported by Red Hat, they want manuals, and they want the convenience of getting a professionally mastered CD-ROM. People who copy the software or buy a Cheap Bytes disk weren't likely to buy the Official Red Hat distribution because they either didn't need the technical support or the manuals.
For that matter, what the Post Office? Sure, we've got usps.gov, but its also usps.com. Surely the USPS part of the government and not allowed to be a.com.
Here's another example, folks. Those of you who thought Apple was somehow different from Micros~1 or Intel or the other G&S meisters out there have just gotten a cold shower.
Apple needs to clear this PR disaster up quickly or they will start losing market share again.
To Apple: C'mon guys, lets get the act together. Customer service is the biggest thing to differentiate you from your competition. People aren't going to buy your boxes, no matter how "superior" you might think they are if you don't take care of the customer. Customers are why you are in business.
I can't believe so many companies, especially Silicon Valley companies miss this mark. Just putting out a good product isn't enough. Turn your nose at your customers, and they'll just go elsewhere.
A law is a law; judges exist to uphold the law. The theory this country's legal system is that it is run by laws, not judges, as much as possible.
I agree with spirit of your post. Too many times the law is overlooked by judges and juries around the country. Judges and juries tend to make decisions by how the feel about it, and not sticking to the law. A perfect example is Roe V. Wade, but lets not go there shall we?:)
So let's look at this. If it's not legal in California to give loans for gambling, then if you loan someone for gambling, IT'S ILLEGAL.
I'm not sure that the article said that it was illegal, only that courts in California "frown upon" loans given out for the purpose of gambling.
And despite the way people VIEW credit cards, any purchase you make on a credit card IS A LOAN.
While IANAL, I would have to question whether a purchase on a credit card is actually a LOAN per se... Credit cards are more like overdraft protection at a bank, except that you never have a balance. If she had written a CHECK for $70,000, and, assuming she could get that much overdraft protection (not likely, but this is a hypothetical situation:) would you fault the bank for giving her loan?
The fact that the transaction was automatically by a computer does NOT make it legal in any way
Agreed. But for a law to be effective, it has to be enforceable. For instance, the CDA, which made it illegal to allow minors to view "harmful" material on the Internet, was struck down and one of the reasons was that the law was not enforceable (besides the fact that it was too broadly worded). How would you expect the credit card company to police itself against "making a loan" to Californian online gamblers? Should they simply not do business with online casinos? What about the people in other states where loans to pay for gambling aren't illegal? Sounds like this judge is looking for a good way to effectively end online gambling.
Personally, I would say that the California law, or at least this ruling, is unconstitutional, perhaps in violation of the first amendment. You could make the case that online gambling is a form of expression and that supressing that expression is censorship -- hence in violation of the first admendment.
So which law do you think the judge has a higher obligation to uphold? The law about not making loans to gamblers or the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America? I think the answer is pretty clear.
Only yesterday they had a fire safety prevention at our "All People Meeting". Among the tips: "Watch what you throw in the trash."
No, I'm not trying to be funny. I think its just a little ironic, with October being "Fire Safety Month" and all...
BTW--I agree with what some other folks have posted. Stuff like this doesn't seem to belong on Slashdot...it seems a little, well...personal. But I guess what you decide to post is your choice...
So after all those posts saying that how Linux is so much more stable then NT, it is now that we can surmise that well, yeah, the box is more stable, but only if you have a second console to be able to telnet into with in the case that X locks up the display...
You can also change to a virtual terminal to kill the X server, provided your keyboard isn't locked out, even if Ctrl-Alt-Backspace doesn't seem to work.
Let's not forget that LOTS of people have networks at home now. Telnetting in isn't impossible...you don't even need a second Linux box. Although, you are correct in stating that if X crashes AND locks out your keyboard AND you can't telnet in, you're pretty well hosed.
However, on my box, which is AMD K62 450 with a Riva 128 board, X quite rarely crashes. I had a few problems in the beginning when I didn't make a big enough swap partition, but after that, its smooth sailing. The only applications that can totally hose X on my system are Netscape and StarOffice, and in that case, I tend to place the blame on those applications, which are severely bloated and buggy.
X doesn't use all the available memory on some video cards
Well, in the case of XFree86, this is mostly due to the fact that good specs aren't available to the writers of the drivers, which often have to reverse engineer things to get a driver, or if there is no specific driver, the user is forced to use the SVGA server, which is pretty generic.
However, to play devil's advocate here, I'll make the case that you should really pick hardware that works well with your chosen platform, not the other way around. Since software is the reason you're using the computer in the first place, the software must dictate what hardware you will run, and not the other way around. Macintosh fans can scream 'til their blue in the face that their hardware platform is somehow "superior" to my generic Intel-based box, but since the software I need doesn't run on Macintoshes, they'll never persuade me to change my hardware.
The same holds true for peripherals. If you're using Linux, you're obviously not going to buy a winmodem. You can't fault Linux for not having winmodem support, you have to say well, since Linux doesn't support winmodems, I simply will choose not to buy one. If you follow the logic, then you'll have to say the same thing about video cards: if Linux (or in this case XFree86 in particular) doesn't support a given video card fully then it becomes obvious that you shouldn't buy that card until such support becomes available.
X is a lot more pickey about what monitor it runs on.
Not at all. If you're monitor isn't directly supported in the config files or by your favorite X configuration utility, you can always program the refresh rates yourself. X will work with ANY monitor your video card supports.
X crashes leave Linux in an unuseable state
Not always. Most of the time, if X crashes, I'm able to fix it.
Kernel prevents X from accessing memory it needs in order to run..
Well, if thats true, then that statement would apply to any X server, not just XFree86. However, a blanket statement such as this one is most certainly false. While I could forsee that in some instances, the kernel might not allow X to allocate memory, if this happened all the time X would be unusable. The fact that the majority of Linux users have no problem using X on standard configurations would seem to point to the contrary.
I attended the Unigraphics User Group Conference in Detroit (well, actually Dearborn) recently, (UG is high-end CAD/CAM/CAE package originally developed by EDS and used extensively in mechanical design by companies like Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, and General Motors) and Sun Microsystems was there. (And yes, they were handing out StarOffice CDs:)
The Sun rep I talked to basically said the same thing Quandt said about Linux needing to be more scalable, but he was certain with the way development is going that it won't be long.
He also mentioned that Sun would be increasing its support for Linux in a big way but he couldn't say more than that because he was apparently under some sort of NDA.
Corporate support is increasing, and I know more than a few GM people were greatly interested in Linux, and StarOffice in particular. I've been asked to install StarOffice on our Sun boxes...(despite the ban on Open Source software at GM...apparently since its supported by Sun it MUST be good.:_
...that keep the sun out of your car when you put them on the windshield? Actual warning label from one:
WARNING: DO NOT DRIVE WITH SCREEN IN PLACE.
(Duh.)
Hair dryers inevitably have:
WARNING: DO NOT USE IN BATHTUB OR SHOWER.
(in case you were stupid enough to actually want to dry your hair whilest washing it.)
And I thought I'd seen it all until someone at GM actually hurt themselves picking up a large (21") CAD monitor. They actually went and WEIGHED every single piece of computer equipment and labeled it (no I'm not making this up). For instance, on Compaq Deskpros (in slightly-smaller than AT-sized desktop cases):
WEIGHT: 28 LBS.
Caution: BULK/WEIGHT may require TEAM LIFTING and/or MECHANICAL ASSISTANCE.
Team lifting for a DESKTOP COMPUTER CASE??? Gimme a break. Yeah, mechanical assistance. We'll just use one of those big ELECTROMAGNETS to pick the computer case up from the top. No problem.:)
...that you guys at id don't have enough creativity and are primarily a platform company. You spend all the time on the engine, and not enough time making cool virtual worlds, and cool characters and stuff. Basically he said that anyone who wants an engine can just buy yours.
How do you respond to that? Do you forsee a time when id will concentrate more on making unique games than on just building the next cool engine? Do you see building first-person games that are more like RPGs with more involved in strategy and puzzle solving, ala Heretic only with things like NPCs and more role-playing and interaction than "attack-and-slash."?
There was a doom-engine game that supported this (I can't think of the name, but I think it was put out by the company that does Duke Nuke 'em) You were a soldier breaking into military bases... shoot I can't think of the name, but it was one of the first Doom-engine games that let you look up and down...
Anyways, IIRC, it was pretty crappy and didn't support all sound cards...but it gave us the idea to implement intercoms (the cheap wired ones from Radio Shack) on all the PCs on our network.
There aren't that many, but there are a few. Where I work, I know of at least two women who work on my floor (of about 60 people) who have IT-related degrees. At least two more are engineers. I find most of the women in my organization are project managers (which is no easy profession, really) but since my organization is very technical in nature, most are at least competent in understanding technical details, even if they aren't IT people or engineers themselves.
In my industry, though, there are LOT of women who are engineers. I'd say the ratio is not quite 50/50, but maybe 60/40. (I hold the same respect for engineers that I do IT people. Both fields are HIGHLY technical in nature and many engineers are competent hackers).
Oh yeah, and for female Linux hackers, check out LinuxChix I'm sure its a good start anyways.
Personally, I'd like to meet a few female hackers. Especially if they're hot...:) Drop me an e-mail:)
[soapbox-mode ON] What's so bad about them? Because the run UMSDOS, which is slow? Because users don't have to tinker with cryptic config files?
My first distro was Slackware. I set it up on a UMSDOS to try it out (because I didn't want to have to wipe out "working" system...little did I suspect that my machine wasn't working half as well it does now:) Even then, it was still hard: I had to manually configure everything. Now its easier. So what?
Myself, I compare this my online experiences. When I first started out online, I had to figure out how to configure cryptic terminal emulator packages like ProComm (not even PLUS!) and learn silly things like baud rate, parity, stop bits. I had to learn to use download and upload protocols. I had to configure my offline mail reader with an ASCII text file (BlueWave). Later, when I setup my own BBS, I had to learn goofy things like FOSSIL drivers and mailer frontend software.
Then comes along things like Prodigy and AOL and they RUIN EVERYTHING. Now anyone and their mother can get online with point and click.
So what? It means more people get to be online. It means that people who don't care about computers the way hackers do, people who use comptuers as a TOOL can finally get to enjoy the things that we have come to enjoy.
The same holds true for Linux. If point and click installation programs that install the thing non-destructively on Windows boxes is what it takes for Linux to reach critical mass, SO BE IT. It means that Linux will get used by a wider audience and the community will grow. People will see why we like Linux so much, and maybe they'll switch to a full Red Hat or Debian distribution. Maybe they'll toss out Windows, and if enough people do that, so long Microsoft, so long Windows. The world will be a better place.
I'll tell you straight off. I like Open Source software. I like the idea of open source. I like the idea of being able to hack the source if I don't like something. I like the idea that the developers are more open to my ideas and willing to implement my patches.
However, I'm not an OSS zealot. I'll use/any/ tool if it does the job. Personally, I think the "standard" Linux development tools like gcc/egcs, gdb and DDD, etc. are great tools. They are well written and are open source.
But, Linux currently lacks true, professional RAD tools. Sure, things like kdevelop exist, but these tools are very spartan compared with the ease, functionality and power of things like C++Builder, which makes it very easy to develop standard desktop, as well as full-blown client/server database applications. These tools have things like builtin support for dBase, Paradox, Access, Oracle, etc. They also make UI development a piece of cake. Given time, open source RAD tools will flourish. But until they do, people who need to get good software done in a hurry will really, really need something like C++Builder and Delphi on Linux.
And if you can't handle that, then I challenge you to write your own open source RAD tools. make them just as good as C++Builder and Delphi, if not better. You'll be doing your part to make open source software development better for us all. Just don't whine when someone picks a closed source tool over an open source once when it is clearly superior. Thats what OSS is all about: if you want people to choose OSS, then make it a no-brainer. I know if I had to choose between two simliar tools, then yes, I would pick OSS everytime.
Slashdot Mirror
Bottom line: pick a product that meets your requirements, don't pick your requirements based on your selection (IS Project Mgmt 101).
Unless of course you're working in the real world where some clueless suit reads something in Computerworld, and decides that the hot new product du jour is their strategy.
At GM, the word on the street is that GM is not refreshing Unix boxen for using Unigraphics, and are instead moving to Micros~1 Windoze NT. Why? Because NT workstations are supposed to somehow be cheaper than HP-UX and Solaris boxen, despite the fact that operating and and administrating these boxes isn't going to be any cheaper. Factors like stability, reliability, and performance are being completely ignored. According to UG Solutions, NT is the greatest thing since sliced bread, therefore NT is the now the preferred solution of choice.
<sigh>
The USPS is only privatized to the point that it is the only government program that is entirely self sufficient. Its still a government agency, and is not a contractor...if it were truly privatized, then other companies like UPS or Federal Express would be to bid for the contract.
Yeah, there's that point too.... :)
haps they didn't invent it, but Speech Recognition has been around on the Mac since around 1995.
IBM has had speech recognition for at least as long. Maybe they didn't have a marketable product, but I remember IBM commercials going to around 1990 stating that they were working on speech recognition. (Remember the commercials with "writing mrs. wright right away" or some such thing?
If microsoft hadn't existed, the PC would have been IBM's mac
First of all, realize that the reason we have multivendor hardware is IBM, and its allowing Microsoft to license DOS to other hardware vendors.
Besides that, there's a possiblity that the Macintosh might never have existed if it weren't for Microsoft. MS played an important role in the development of the Mac. Since they were writing applications for the Mac, they got to play with prototypes, and had significant input in the design of the finished product.
The previous poster is partially correct. Some of Windows 1.0's (!) GUI was in fact invented by a former Apple employee. Anyone who has seen Windows prior to 3.0 knows that the buttons look strickingly similar to the Macintosh's 2D buttons and things like the design of the pulldown menus and the centered headings on the top of dialog boxes, the location of the control box, etc were certainly derived from the Macintosh.
Windows 3.0's "new" look and feel (3D buttons, etc.) was in fact derived from OS/2's. However, the design of the GUI's internals were definitely not derived from OS/2 code...Microsoft wanted to base PM's GUI on Windows, while IBM said no way, we have our own GUI code that we want to implement.
But I firmly believe that had Apple not introduced the world to Macintosh, computers would be much to use. Gates has got to give them some Had the Mac never existed, we would still probably have some sort of GUI-based system today since concepts and even limited implementations were in place before the Mac was born, but I guarantee you wouldn't be like what we see today in Mac OS, Windows, KDE/Gnome, BeOS, etc.
:) Most of the important innovations (HTTP/HTML, Java, etc.) have come out of other companies and not Apple or Microsoft.
You are in some part correct. Apple's Macintosh was very important in the evolution of personal computers and continues to play an important role.
However, you miss something very key. Apple did not invent the GUI by any stretch of the imagination. They essentially stole it from Xerox PARC. Virtually all the important technologies we use today (GUIs, mice, Ethernet, laser printers, PostScript) were invented at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. When Xerox decided to can the Star, its researchers went off to various companies. The man who became the founder of Adobe (err...whats his name...) was a researcher at PARC. Many of the folks who worked on Macintosh's GUI were former Xerox employees.
So if you have to give credit to someone, not only would you have to credit Apple, but you would also have to credit Xerox, even though it never came up with a marketable product.
So next time you see Bill Gates talking about how Microsoft is changing the world, remember who he following.
And remember who Apple followed.
I should also point out that since the Macintosh, Apple really hasn't had any significant innovations. (Anyone who thinks that the iMac is any kind of technological innovation needs to be shot. A good marketing innvotation, perhaps
Anyone who has read Stephen Manes'(of PC Magazine fame) excellent biography of Bill Gates, Gates,(a very gutsy book...Billion-dollar Billy had very little input on the direction of the book...this book was written before Windows 95 became a reality), will realize that Gates is not driven by money or power. He's a game player who is driven to win. At all costs.
From Gates' perspective, in order for him to win, everyone else playing the game has to lose. This why Microsoft has driven everyone out of business that has tried to compete with them. When Netscape threatened Microsoft's business by declaring Navigator a software platform, Gates saw this as a potential for Netscape to win. Since he didn't want to see that happen, he ordered the development of Internet Explorer, and its subsequent integration into Windows, as a way of marginalizing Netscape's competitive advantage.
Putting Netscape out of business was not done for the sake of putting Netscape out of business per se...Netscape had a possibility to win (with Navigator), and Gates wanted to see that they couldn't win. The fact that they staked their whole business on turning Navigator into a platform to take on Windows was the reason they were put out of business, and that's basically Netscape's fault, not Microsoft's.
(This is of course, my own extrapolation from what I've read in Gates and does not in anyway represents the author's or anyone else's opinions)
Gates' view that Microsoft is responsible for the personal computer revolution is understandable from a limited point of view. Windows is what put PCs in gramdma's house. Of course thinking that the point-and-click GUI interface that is responsible for this feat is the sole ordinance of Microsoft is just silly. GUIs were invented at Xerox PARC years before Microsoft or even Apple had anything to do with them.
Yes, I know, there's tech support and all that, but..
And even then, how many pirates are calling technical support? Most people who need technical support are going to pay for the software in order to get that technical support.
If my company hadn't spent the money on those seats, where would have it gone? To pay someone's maybe? Building a better business? I don't know, and I don't care. My point is that the money hasn't been to the economy in general, it has just been lost to Microsoft.
But has it really been lost to Microsoft in the first place? Would someone who has pirated a piece of software have been likely to actually purchase that software? Probably not. The fact that they copied the software means that they are unwilling to pay the piper for the price of admission. Sure they may have wanted the software, but that doesn't mean that they were willing to purchase it.
Look at Red Hat. Red Hat makes money selling Linux distributions despite the fact that it is legal and even encouraged to make as many free copies as possible. People wind up paying for the software because they want to be supported by Red Hat, they want manuals, and they want the convenience of getting a professionally mastered CD-ROM. People who copy the software or buy a Cheap Bytes disk weren't likely to buy the Official Red Hat distribution because they either didn't need the technical support or the manuals.
For that matter, what the Post Office? Sure, we've got usps.gov, but its also usps.com. Surely the USPS part of the government and not allowed to be a
The way I remember it, Unigraphics was developed by McDonnell Douglas, and the division was later sold EDS.
:)
You are correct. My bad.
Here's another example, folks. Those of you who thought Apple was somehow different from Micros~1 or Intel or the other G&S meisters out there have just gotten a cold shower.
Apple needs to clear this PR disaster up quickly or they will start losing market share again.
To Apple: C'mon guys, lets get the act together. Customer service is the biggest thing to differentiate you from your competition. People aren't going to buy your boxes, no matter how "superior" you might think they are if you don't take care of the customer. Customers are why you are in business.
I can't believe so many companies, especially Silicon Valley companies miss this mark. Just putting out a good product isn't enough. Turn your nose at your customers, and they'll just go elsewhere.
A law is a law; judges exist to uphold the law. The theory this country's legal system is that it is run by laws, not judges, as much as possible.
:)
:) would you fault the bank for giving her loan?
I agree with spirit of your post. Too many times the law is overlooked by judges and juries around the country. Judges and juries tend to make decisions by how the feel about it, and not sticking to the law. A perfect example is Roe V. Wade, but lets not go there shall we?
So let's look at this. If it's not legal in California to give loans for gambling, then if you loan someone for gambling, IT'S ILLEGAL.
I'm not sure that the article said that it was illegal, only that courts in California "frown upon" loans given out for the purpose of gambling.
And despite the way people VIEW credit cards, any purchase you make on a credit card IS A LOAN.
While IANAL, I would have to question whether a purchase on a credit card is actually a LOAN per se... Credit cards are more like overdraft protection at a bank, except that you never have a balance. If she had written a CHECK for $70,000, and, assuming she could get that much overdraft protection (not likely, but this is a hypothetical situation
The fact that the transaction was automatically by a computer does NOT make it legal in any way
Agreed. But for a law to be effective, it has to be enforceable. For instance, the CDA, which made it illegal to allow minors to view "harmful" material on the Internet, was struck down and one of the reasons was that the law was not enforceable (besides the fact that it was too broadly worded). How would you expect the credit card company to police itself against "making a loan" to Californian online gamblers? Should they simply not do business with online casinos? What about the people in other states where loans to pay for gambling aren't illegal? Sounds like this judge is looking for a good way to effectively end online gambling.
Personally, I would say that the California law, or at least this ruling, is unconstitutional, perhaps in violation of the first amendment. You could make the case that online gambling is a form of expression and that supressing that expression is censorship -- hence in violation of the first admendment.
So which law do you think the judge has a higher obligation to uphold? The law about not making loans to gamblers or the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America? I think the answer is pretty clear.
Only yesterday they had a fire safety prevention at our "All People Meeting". Among the tips: "Watch what you throw in the trash."
No, I'm not trying to be funny. I think its just a little ironic, with October being "Fire Safety Month" and all...
BTW--I agree with what some other folks have posted. Stuff like this doesn't seem to belong on Slashdot...it seems a little, well...personal. But I guess what you decide to post is your choice...
So after all those posts saying that how Linux is so much more stable then NT, it is now that we can surmise that well, yeah, the box is more stable, but only if you have a second console to be able to telnet into with in the case that X locks up the display...
You can also change to a virtual terminal to kill the X server, provided your keyboard isn't locked out, even if Ctrl-Alt-Backspace doesn't seem to work.
Let's not forget that LOTS of people have networks at home now. Telnetting in isn't impossible...you don't even need a second Linux box. Although, you are correct in stating that if X crashes AND locks out your keyboard AND you can't telnet in, you're pretty well hosed.
However, on my box, which is AMD K62 450 with a Riva 128 board, X quite rarely crashes. I had a few problems in the beginning when I didn't make a big enough swap partition, but after that, its smooth sailing. The only applications that can totally hose X on my system are Netscape and StarOffice, and in that case, I tend to place the blame on those applications, which are severely bloated and buggy.
X doesn't use all the available memory on some video cards
Well, in the case of XFree86, this is mostly due to the fact that good specs aren't available to the writers of the drivers, which often have to reverse engineer things to get a driver, or if there is no specific driver, the user is forced to use the SVGA server, which is pretty generic.
However, to play devil's advocate here, I'll make the case that you should really pick hardware that works well with your chosen platform, not the other way around. Since software is the reason you're using the computer in the first place, the software must dictate what hardware you will run, and not the other way around. Macintosh fans can scream 'til their blue in the face that their hardware platform is somehow "superior" to my generic Intel-based box, but since the software I need doesn't run on Macintoshes, they'll never persuade me to change my hardware.
The same holds true for peripherals. If you're using Linux, you're obviously not going to buy a winmodem. You can't fault Linux for not having winmodem support, you have to say well, since Linux doesn't support winmodems, I simply will choose not to buy one. If you follow the logic, then you'll have to say the same thing about video cards: if Linux (or in this case XFree86 in particular) doesn't support a given video card fully then it becomes obvious that you shouldn't buy that card until such support becomes available.
X is a lot more pickey about what monitor it runs on.
Not at all. If you're monitor isn't directly supported in the config files or by your favorite X configuration utility, you can always program the refresh rates yourself. X will work with ANY monitor your video card supports.
X crashes leave Linux in an unuseable state
Not always. Most of the time, if X crashes, I'm able to fix it.
Kernel prevents X from accessing memory it needs in order to run..
Well, if thats true, then that statement would apply to any X server, not just XFree86. However, a blanket statement such as this one is most certainly false. While I could forsee that in some instances, the kernel might not allow X to allocate memory, if this happened all the time X would be unusable. The fact that the majority of Linux users have no problem using X on standard configurations would seem to point to the contrary.
I attended the Unigraphics User Group Conference in Detroit (well, actually Dearborn) recently, (UG is high-end CAD/CAM/CAE package originally developed by EDS and used extensively in mechanical design by companies like Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, and General Motors) and Sun Microsystems was there. (And yes, they were handing out StarOffice CDs :)
:_
The Sun rep I talked to basically said the same thing Quandt said about Linux needing to be more scalable, but he was certain with the way development is going that it won't be long.
He also mentioned that Sun would be increasing its support for Linux in a big way but he couldn't say more than that because he was apparently under some sort of NDA.
Corporate support is increasing, and I know more than a few GM people were greatly interested in Linux, and StarOffice in particular. I've been asked to install StarOffice on our Sun boxes...(despite the ban on Open Source software at GM...apparently since its supported by Sun it MUST be good.
...that keep the sun out of your car when you put them on the windshield? Actual warning label from one:
:)
WARNING: DO NOT DRIVE WITH SCREEN IN PLACE.
(Duh.)
Hair dryers inevitably have:
WARNING: DO NOT USE IN BATHTUB OR SHOWER.
(in case you were stupid enough to actually want to dry your hair whilest washing it.)
And I thought I'd seen it all until someone at GM actually hurt themselves picking up a large (21") CAD monitor. They actually went and WEIGHED every single piece of computer equipment and labeled it (no I'm not making this up). For instance, on Compaq Deskpros (in slightly-smaller than AT-sized desktop cases):
WEIGHT: 28 LBS.
Caution: BULK/WEIGHT may require TEAM LIFTING and/or MECHANICAL ASSISTANCE.
Team lifting for a DESKTOP COMPUTER CASE??? Gimme a break. Yeah, mechanical assistance. We'll just use one of those big ELECTROMAGNETS to pick the computer case up from the top. No problem.
...that you guys at id don't have enough creativity and are primarily a platform company. You spend all the time on the engine, and not enough time making cool virtual worlds, and cool characters and stuff. Basically he said that anyone who wants an engine can just buy yours.
How do you respond to that? Do you forsee a time when id will concentrate more on making unique games than on just building the next cool engine? Do you see building first-person games that are more like RPGs with more involved in strategy and puzzle solving, ala Heretic only with things like NPCs and more role-playing and interaction than "attack-and-slash."?
There was a doom-engine game that supported this (I can't think of the name, but I think it was put out by the company that does Duke Nuke 'em) You were a soldier breaking into military bases ... shoot I can't think of the name, but it was one of the first Doom-engine games that let you look up and down ...
Anyways, IIRC, it was pretty crappy and didn't support all sound cards...but it gave us the idea to implement intercoms (the cheap wired ones from Radio Shack) on all the PCs on our network.
Now if I could only remember the name...
New Fox show: The Lone Gunmen! Yeah!
clink! clink! clink! clink!
:-)
There aren't that many, but there are a few. Where I work, I know of at least two women who work on my floor (of about 60 people) who have IT-related degrees. At least two more are engineers. I find most of the women in my organization are project managers (which is no easy profession, really) but since my organization is very technical in nature, most are at least competent in understanding technical details, even if they aren't IT people or engineers themselves.
:) Drop me an e-mail :)
In my industry, though, there are LOT of women who are engineers. I'd say the ratio is not quite 50/50, but maybe 60/40. (I hold the same respect for engineers that I do IT people. Both fields are HIGHLY technical in nature and many engineers are competent hackers).
Oh yeah, and for female Linux hackers, check out LinuxChix I'm sure its a good start anyways.
Personally, I'd like to meet a few female hackers. Especially if they're hot...
We have MANY, MANY Suns at GM. Not one of them has GTK+ on it, to my knowledge. (It wouldn't be allowed, due to restrictions on free software.)
[soapbox-mode ON]
:) Even then, it was still hard: I had to manually configure everything. Now its easier. So what?
What's so bad about them? Because the run UMSDOS, which is slow? Because users don't have to tinker with cryptic config files?
My first distro was Slackware. I set it up on a UMSDOS to try it out (because I didn't want to have to wipe out "working" system...little did I suspect that my machine wasn't working half as well it does now
Myself, I compare this my online experiences. When I first started out online, I had to figure out how to configure cryptic terminal emulator packages like ProComm (not even PLUS!) and learn silly things like baud rate, parity, stop bits. I had to learn to use download and upload protocols. I had to configure my offline mail reader with an ASCII text file (BlueWave). Later, when I setup my own BBS, I had to learn goofy things like FOSSIL drivers and mailer frontend software.
Then comes along things like Prodigy and AOL and they RUIN EVERYTHING. Now anyone and their mother can get online with point and click.
So what? It means more people get to be online. It means that people who don't care about computers the way hackers do, people who use comptuers as a TOOL can finally get to enjoy the things that we have come to enjoy.
The same holds true for Linux. If point and click installation programs that install the thing non-destructively on Windows boxes is what it takes for Linux to reach critical mass, SO BE IT. It means that Linux will get used by a wider audience and the community will grow. People will see why we like Linux so much, and maybe they'll switch to a full Red Hat or Debian distribution. Maybe they'll toss out Windows, and if enough people do that, so long Microsoft, so long Windows. The world will be a better place.
[end soapbox mode]
I'll tell you straight off. I like Open Source software. I like the idea of open source. I like the idea of being able to hack the source if I don't like something. I like the idea that the developers are more open to my ideas and willing to implement my patches.
/any/ tool if it does the job. Personally, I think the "standard" Linux development tools like gcc/egcs, gdb and DDD, etc. are great tools. They are well written and are open source.
However, I'm not an OSS zealot. I'll use
But, Linux currently lacks true, professional RAD tools. Sure, things like kdevelop exist, but these tools are very spartan compared with the ease, functionality and power of things like C++Builder, which makes it very easy to develop standard desktop, as well as full-blown client/server database applications. These tools have things like builtin support for dBase, Paradox, Access, Oracle, etc. They also make UI development a piece of cake. Given time, open source RAD tools will flourish. But until they do, people who need to get good software done in a hurry will really, really need something like C++Builder and Delphi on Linux.
And if you can't handle that, then I challenge you to write your own open source RAD tools. make them just as good as C++Builder and Delphi, if not better. You'll be doing your part to make open source software development better for us all. Just don't whine when someone picks a closed source tool over an open source once when it is clearly superior. Thats what OSS is all about: if you want people to choose OSS, then make it a no-brainer. I know if I had to choose between two simliar tools, then yes, I would pick OSS everytime.