I'm guessing this is mostly a "know thy enemy" kind of thing; the more they learn and explore about Linux, they more they can try to poke holes in it or create F.U.D.. I'm guessing the rewards would be great for someone within MS who can come up with fundamental low-level areas where they can say Linux falls down as compared to XP (whether they are actual, or not).
Microsoft has gotten away with the browser bundling because it was a first offence.
Not really. There has been one thing after another, which used to be third party, which is not bundled with Microsoft's OS, driving niche after niche out of business. There was a day when TCP/IP stacks weren't provided by the OS, and there was thriving business in third parties providing these.
Now it might seem "obvious" that a TCP/IP stack should be part of the OS, but at one point, it wasn't. Same with browsers. And now with Anti-virus. Microsoft will continue to leverage their monopoly, and continue to expand their dominance, one market at a time.
I don't know about the World of Warcraft worlds, but in the console gaming worlds, it often seemed that the cheater guides were a big part of their business model. Create a game with a bunch of tricks and puzzles, then publish an expensive book showing you how to solve them. Seemed like pretty standard fare.
To me, it seems pretty clear cut, that if someone else wants to solve those same puzzles, and publish and sell their experiences doing so, it shouldn't be a "copyright violation" as long as they don't include any copyrighted material.
I'd just as soon see a lot of competition in this field, to drive those prices down, and keep the game makers main incentive, the creation of quality games, not game guides. (Nowadays, most games seem to have pretty good free walkthroughs available on the 'net, thankfully.)
Not directly related, but I've always been very sensitive to very high pitched sounds. I can always tell when a TV or CRT is on in a house (even with the volume off), but the high pitched sound (from the flyback transformer, I guess). I find it a bit annoying, but not to the point of being debilitated by it.
When I used to work in a stereo shop, with dozens of TV's, they used to use me to go around and turn them all off (after the feeds were shut off, so they were just black screens), since I could hear if any of them were still on, and generally pinpoint which one fairly quickly.
I'm rather curious how common this is, as I don't think I've come across anyone else who could hear these ranges.
I don't see why one should be so skeptical of the claims (other than being skeptical of *any* claim to a certain degree). Targeted training by computer can be incredibly effective. I remember in high school, having to learn huge lists of authors and the books they wrote; it just wouldn't stick with me. So I wrote a little program on my Z-80 box, that quizzed me, focusing heavily upon the ones I had trouble with. It was amazing how such a simple tool, that focused upon my mental weaknesses, kicked me into shape. I was a whiz with the lists in no time.
I wouldn't be surprised at all that a computer driven tool that focuses on training a lazy eye, could be many magnitudes more efficient that more manual training means.
I have even seen a physical hole punched in some commercial floppies, to thwart copying. You try and copy that whole disk, and your heads could be in serious jeopardy. Nasty. (But kinda creative:)
The apple hard drive was actually quite ingenious. It used a stepper motor (maybe four ticks per track-width, allowing for the quarter trakc thing?); I remember looking at the source code that did the disk seeking/reading. It estimated how far it had to go to get to the desired track, stepped to where it hoped it would be, read a sector, which had a track ID on it. If it was right, then fine; otherwise, it figured out how much further in which direction it had to go, and then gave it another shot, honing in on the track.
Rather creative, and probably kept hardware costs lower than they might otherwise have been. Adding a software enhancement to lower hardware costs, can be a very intruiging approach at times.
No, it's really not. The whole point of dynamic (shared) libraries is that they are shared. Windows may be terrible at dealing with different versions of the same shared library, but Unix is not.
Well, Unix may be better than Windows, but it ain't perfect. I tried to install ActiveState's Komodo on Linux. It wanted an earlier version of GLIBC++. Tried to fool it with a symlink, hoping that the library would be backwards compatible enough. Not. Segfault. So I hunted down the old version, wouldn't install due to conflicts. Forced the install of the library. Komodo ran, but occasionally segfaulted; maybe because of the library, maybe not, but I eventually gave up on it.
I'm so sick of everyone making their software depend on MySQL. If you're software is any good it should be able to run on more then one DB, at least Postgres.
Sadly, I have found, that there are some basic operations that require non-standard-SQL. I wish SQL were just a *bit* more rich, so it weren't necessary. (One example, if I'm not mistaken, is last_insert_id(), to find the last value in an autoincrement insert. Not possible to do atomically without a server-specific function.) There are a handful of other examples.
The "immedate tow" policy isn't necessarily evil. On freeways, cars off at the side are a danger to themselves, others, and causes of major delays for tens of thousands of people. Getting cars off the freeway as soon as possible makes a lot of sense for the common good of safety and expediency on the freeway.
People do have the choice to *not* drive on the freeway, if they don't like this policy. Yes, it will be slower, but the freeways would also be slower than they could be, without this policy.
Not everything is evil or a violation of your rights; some compromises actually are for the common good. We agree to certain rules to play in certain games; don't like the rules, don't play the games.
These are all great examples, and consistent with the general consensus of MySQL as a fairly highly scalable commercial quality database. Anybody who takes pot shots at is as a "dinky" database, is either misinformed, or (*cough* *cough*) has reason to spread F.U.D. about MySQL.
(I'm no conspiracy theorist, but some of these posts about MySQL, Sleepycat, etc., are almost comical in how obvious they pander to Oracle.)
Yes, it's GPL and dual licensed, not LGPL and single licensed. That means that the many software companies that are developing closed sourced applications using the commercial license for My SQL could be forced to either pay obnoxious Oracle-determined fees or else open up their source (or rewrite it to use a different DB).
This is one of the big dangers of GPL, IMHO. If this were done under the BSD-like license, forking for another commercial/non-commercial hybrid (or a strictly commercial product, or a strictly non-commercial, or a half dozen of each) would be possible. It strikes me as more "free."
They could. But an application as important and popular as MySQL would simply fork. Simply look at X.org vs XFree86.
But can they fork the InnoDB stuff? I got the impression seemed to be more restrictive license-wise, as well as having more enterprise grade features.
If they can, there may be hope for MySQL. Otherwise, it's another victim of the Great Database Consolidation (i.e. Takeover), of Oracle.
I firmly believe they're not "softening their image" or "supporting open source", but quashing all non-commercial competition for a few million bucks here and there.
Sigh, if only bluetooth weren't so complicated, flakey, and expensive, it could have achieved this long ago. But if it commodity wireless USB will drive down the prices, set some standards, and make some reliable hardware come out, I'm all for it.
I half think that the problem with bluetooth was expensive licensing terms. All of the other hassles would have been worked out, if it had been affordable, I believe. Anyone have insights into this?
Well congrats to him, he must have some serious talent and patience. (Coming from a fairly technically savvy person who spent a whole day gettng LIRC to work with a Dish Network receiver on MythTv. Sigh...)
The dude's mom is anal enough about her perfect living room, that she wouldn't let him put a traditional grey PC next to the TV, but she let's him put a hulk doll on top of the TV?? Wild.
If you're showing off a new product in CES, don't you make absolute positively sure that the product actually works? They should have just faked the demo with a pre-recorded video (ummm, on a *different* media).
I've had Satellite Pro's and Librettos (including the new one) which are just amazing.
But I've also had one Satellite (non Pro), and not the model in the article; it was back for repair several times (motherboard, memory, battery, DVD, mouse, etc.), and after the year warrantee was up, I just gave up on it. It was a total piece of garbage. It sure would be nice to get some compensation for the incredibly poor quality of this unit, too.
I've often seen computeres as fairly utilitarian. But Macs still have stirred me in their design (inside and out). I guess it's a bit like vehicles; we could all be driving around in utilitarian army jeeps, which would serve the purpose. But the vast majority of car buyers prefer to have some style with their car purchase.
Given the amount of time people are spending with their computers these days, both work and play (far more than most spend with their cars), having a pleasing style associated with it makes a great deal of sense.
Are there any approved fly-by-wire car systems today? Even if my power steering, power brakes, and other goodies go out on a modern car, the mechanical linkages still work, providing a high degree of safety that wouldn't be present in a pure fly-by-wire system.
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Or stop people and ask them, "do you want to buy some of my squirrels?"
I'm guessing this is mostly a "know thy enemy" kind of thing; the more they learn and explore about Linux, they more they can try to poke holes in it or create F.U.D.. I'm guessing the rewards would be great for someone within MS who can come up with fundamental low-level areas where they can say Linux falls down as compared to XP (whether they are actual, or not).
Not really. There has been one thing after another, which used to be third party, which is not bundled with Microsoft's OS, driving niche after niche out of business. There was a day when TCP/IP stacks weren't provided by the OS, and there was thriving business in third parties providing these.
Now it might seem "obvious" that a TCP/IP stack should be part of the OS, but at one point, it wasn't. Same with browsers. And now with Anti-virus. Microsoft will continue to leverage their monopoly, and continue to expand their dominance, one market at a time.
To me, it seems pretty clear cut, that if someone else wants to solve those same puzzles, and publish and sell their experiences doing so, it shouldn't be a "copyright violation" as long as they don't include any copyrighted material.
I'd just as soon see a lot of competition in this field, to drive those prices down, and keep the game makers main incentive, the creation of quality games, not game guides. (Nowadays, most games seem to have pretty good free walkthroughs available on the 'net, thankfully.)
When I used to work in a stereo shop, with dozens of TV's, they used to use me to go around and turn them all off (after the feeds were shut off, so they were just black screens), since I could hear if any of them were still on, and generally pinpoint which one fairly quickly.
I'm rather curious how common this is, as I don't think I've come across anyone else who could hear these ranges.
I wouldn't be surprised at all that a computer driven tool that focuses on training a lazy eye, could be many magnitudes more efficient that more manual training means.
I have even seen a physical hole punched in some commercial floppies, to thwart copying. You try and copy that whole disk, and your heads could be in serious jeopardy. Nasty. (But kinda creative :)
Rather creative, and probably kept hardware costs lower than they might otherwise have been. Adding a software enhancement to lower hardware costs, can be a very intruiging approach at times.
Well, Unix may be better than Windows, but it ain't perfect. I tried to install ActiveState's Komodo on Linux. It wanted an earlier version of GLIBC++. Tried to fool it with a symlink, hoping that the library would be backwards compatible enough. Not. Segfault. So I hunted down the old version, wouldn't install due to conflicts. Forced the install of the library. Komodo ran, but occasionally segfaulted; maybe because of the library, maybe not, but I eventually gave up on it.
A less savvy user would have quit at step 1.
Sadly, I have found, that there are some basic operations that require non-standard-SQL. I wish SQL were just a *bit* more rich, so it weren't necessary. (One example, if I'm not mistaken, is last_insert_id(), to find the last value in an autoincrement insert. Not possible to do atomically without a server-specific function.) There are a handful of other examples.
People do have the choice to *not* drive on the freeway, if they don't like this policy. Yes, it will be slower, but the freeways would also be slower than they could be, without this policy.
Not everything is evil or a violation of your rights; some compromises actually are for the common good. We agree to certain rules to play in certain games; don't like the rules, don't play the games.
Professor! I've been trying to hunt you down; imagine finding you on /.! Drop me a line, we should get together and reminisce over old times.
Love,
Mary-Anne
(I'm no conspiracy theorist, but some of these posts about MySQL, Sleepycat, etc., are almost comical in how obvious they pander to Oracle.)
This is one of the big dangers of GPL, IMHO. If this were done under the BSD-like license, forking for another commercial/non-commercial hybrid (or a strictly commercial product, or a strictly non-commercial, or a half dozen of each) would be possible. It strikes me as more "free."
But can they fork the InnoDB stuff? I got the impression seemed to be more restrictive license-wise, as well as having more enterprise grade features.
If they can, there may be hope for MySQL. Otherwise, it's another victim of the Great Database Consolidation (i.e. Takeover), of Oracle.
I firmly believe they're not "softening their image" or "supporting open source", but quashing all non-commercial competition for a few million bucks here and there.
"Barney, remember how I said we'd have to send away to NASA to calculate your bar tab? Well it came back...."
Sigh, if only bluetooth weren't so complicated, flakey, and expensive, it could have achieved this long ago. But if it commodity wireless USB will drive down the prices, set some standards, and make some reliable hardware come out, I'm all for it.
I half think that the problem with bluetooth was expensive licensing terms. All of the other hassles would have been worked out, if it had been affordable, I believe. Anyone have insights into this?
Well congrats to him, he must have some serious talent and patience. (Coming from a fairly technically savvy person who spent a whole day gettng LIRC to work with a Dish Network receiver on MythTv. Sigh...)
I hear Duke Nukem Forever is being rewritten in Perl 6.
Cool. One question remains:
The dude's mom is anal enough about her perfect living room, that she wouldn't let him put a traditional grey PC next to the TV, but she let's him put a hulk doll on top of the TV?? Wild.
If you're showing off a new product in CES, don't you make absolute positively sure that the product actually works?
They should have just faked the demo with a pre-recorded video (ummm, on a *different* media).
So, do the artists get their normal royalties for these downloads that Sony is giving away (as small as they may be)???
I've had Satellite Pro's and Librettos (including the new one) which are just amazing.
But I've also had one Satellite (non Pro), and not the model in the article; it was back for repair several times (motherboard, memory, battery, DVD, mouse, etc.), and after the year warrantee was up, I just gave up on it. It was a total piece of garbage. It sure would be nice to get some compensation for the incredibly poor quality of this unit, too.
Well put.
I've often seen computeres as fairly utilitarian. But Macs still have stirred me in their design (inside and out). I guess it's a bit like vehicles; we could all be driving around in utilitarian army jeeps, which would serve the purpose. But the vast majority of car buyers prefer to have some style with their car purchase.
Given the amount of time people are spending with their computers these days, both work and play (far more than most spend with their cars), having a pleasing style associated with it makes a great deal of sense.
Are there any approved fly-by-wire car systems today? Even if my power steering, power brakes, and other goodies go out on a modern car, the mechanical linkages still work, providing a high degree of safety that wouldn't be present in a pure fly-by-wire system.
I'm surprised such a thing can be legal.