Ok, I was with you until you started talking about IBM and HP following Sun's lead. Just in case you haven't noticed, both IBM and HP have been selling lots of Linux where there is a market today; at the server end of the spectrum. IBM is doing its best to get out of the desktop market completely because of the razor thin margins there. Why should they go back in just because there's a free desktop OS available?
Nahh, what's really needed is for a big player to quietly push some money to Codeweavers so they can finally finish Wine 1.0. Get that out the door, and a switch from a Windows OS on the desktop to Linux becomes a lot more doable. And Sun isn't doing that (at least not yet).
Why don't you ask the Dixie Chicks (who made by most estimates something like $750 million for their label on one record) how much money they have in the bank?
Someone already asked that question. The answer? Less than $1 million each. And they honestly believe that they got one of the best recording deals available in Nashville.
Now, you may hate country music. But don't you think that's just a bit of a rip off of the artists?
Seems to me that maybe Prince, Janis Ian, IceT, and Courtney Love have a point. It's time the artists dumped the record companies!
I remember from a discussion with a politics student some 20 years ago that power was defined as the ability to break an agreement/promise with impunity.
Wow, what an incredibly cynical and twisted view of the world. Her professors and her reading weren't doing her any favors, were they? Hadn't she ever heard that rulers "...govern only with the consent of the people"?
IOW, even the most despotic tyranny on Earth only operates because the people allow it to. I know it seems counterintutitive, but it's true. Why do totalitarian and authortarian regimes spend so much time trying to control the means of communication? So their citizens have no means of discovering the truth. In almost every single case, once the truth is sufficiently understood by the governed, the regime in question either goes through a radical transformation or is replaced.
So, we need a fifth power relationship defined:
Transformational: We understand that you've been screwing us, and we're not going to take it anymore!
The thing is, all of the power relationships that she defined assumed coercion and duplicitous behavior on the part of at least one of the parties. While that, unfortunately, is the reality of much of the world it is NOT the whole story. 300 firemen in NYC are simply one of the most recent shining examples of selflessness that occur every single day, all over the world.
There's a proverb that is repeated many times in a series that I'm re-reading. I think its origin is Hindu, but I'm not sure. In any case, it rings true in any situation and in any culture; "Only the soul matters, in the end." Understand that, and you understand how to build a healthy power relationship. That leads to a sixth power relationship definition:
Cooperative: We both want what's best for both of us, and we both recognize that we bring different strengths to the table.
Wait just a second. The infection in this particular tarball was caught only 6 hours after it was done because the guy was using install software that checks the MD5 hash. IOW, it did exactly what you were proposing. After that, he did some digging to determine exactly what the problem was, and reported his results. You know as well as I do that means that the offending tarball will be replaced with a correct one before the day is out.
So, tell me again how this shows that a huge time investment to spot this kind of exploit again? Compared to what? HP having a YEAR to solve a bug, then threatening the reporter with the DMCA when he had the balls to post it?
In my mind, this case again points out the overwhelming advantages of running OSS whenever possible.
You know, I just don't get these "doesn't work like a Windows app" comments. Maybe I'm just incredibly dense, I don't know. As far as I'm concerned Mozilla is plenty close enough to Windows standards to work.
Besides, I think the whole "gotta look like Windows or else no one can learn to use it" is overblown. I work for a company that made a conscious decision to provide the bare minimum in training when we migrated 24,000 users from 15 different email platforms to Notes. No joke. These people were using everything from PROFS to MS Mail to Exchange to HP OpenMail to you name it.
Initially, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when we first announced that we were not providing more than a quick reference card and an online quick help. Strangely enough, the Help Desk didn't get many calls. Neither did the email support staff or the LAN admins. And we didn't lose mail. Actually, usage picked way, way up once people didn't have to search through 15 different imported addressbooks to find someone's email address.
And if there's an app that doesn't fit the Windows mold, Notes is it!:) In terms of ease of use, Mozilla's interface is a direct copy of IE when compared to Notes.
The main Mozilla menu bar says File Edit View.... to Help just like most current Windows apps. Most of the submenus are equivalent to Windows apps.
Right clicking almost anywhere on an open window gets you an appropriate submenu. Pause the mouse over any button and you get a quick help textbox. Status bar at the bottom with updates. Network connection to show online status. Lock icon to indicate encrypted state.
As for mail; I went from Netscape 3.x to Netscape 4.x to OE. I moved off of OE over two years ago to the Mozilla mail client. Heck, when I first switched I was using Mozilla Mail and ignored Mozilla Navigator for about a year while it matured.
Does the user interface need some polish? Yes. For example, the Addressbook UI could use some work. The help could use some examples to better explain how to do certain operations. There are other things that I've run into that aren't perfect, but nothing major.
Do I think it deserves a higher rating than 6/10? Yes. Personally, I'd put it between 8 and 9 out of 10. That's primarily because I love the tabbed browsing and far, far better built in security controls. I regard both of these as UI issues. But that's just me. Maybe you like rebuilding your PC after virii attacks?:)
Reread his post. Bruce ADMITS that maybe his emotions may be influencing his view of the sentence. He simply states that if it were him he would have worded it a little differently.
You wonder why the third world hates you? You wonder why a bunch of crazy arabs fly planes into your buildings?
Umm, you do know that those crazy Arabs killed people from 84 different countries when the Twin Towers collapsed, right? So tell me again how this terrorist act was aimed at just the US? Go ahead, I'm all ears.
So, you haven't noticed that the latest service packs silently re-enable automatic updates if it's been disabled? We're still struggling with how to build a process to push the newest updates down because of this particular 'feature'.
I'm taking this out of context a bit, I just had to respond to this phrase:
Pretending that after women being explicitly, completely subservient in Western culture until the 1970's
I think my great grandparents would have a couple of things to tell you. My great grandfather emigrated to the US from a Serbian enclave in Croatia in 1902. He worked his butt off to save the $37.50 steerage passage to bring over his wife and eldest surviving child (the oldest died before he reached 1 year) by 1904.
Once she got to Northern Minnesota, she almost immediately opened a boarding house for the young men working in the mines. For nearly 20 years she kept as many as 20 men at a time fed and in clean clothes (not easy when dealing with iron ore dust), raised 4 kids to adulthood, buried 4 more kids, acted as a matchmaker for lots of young couples, a counselor for the young women in the neighborhood, took care of the family finances, handled lots of church related stuff.
The surviving kids tell of a loving mom who was always singing, but expected them to work their tails off both in and out of school. All of them agree that their dad respected and loved her dearly. He was really broken up when she died in 1928 from grief at the news that her mother and brother had died in the Old Country. He pulled himself together and picked up where she left off in taking care of the kids and the family finances.
Now, does that really sound like a woman that was oppressed? A woman who was subservient to her man? Remember, this was a woman born and raised as a peasant in the Baltics, not exactly the most modern society of the time. So, how does that fit with your statement? And no, from what I've been told my those who were there she wasn't that much of an exception.
4. Make it easy for the user to find out how to do things. Good idea. You don't need any sort of special app. though. Just an additional menu labeled 'How do I' at the top level, nested as needed. Not a technology problem anyway, but a good configuration suggestion.
Mandrake 8.x does this by default. 'I want to' -> Listen to Music/Administer my system/Play Games etc. Nested a couple of levels deep so it's pretty comprehensive. A fair amount of choice for each task, but not overwhelmingly so.
6. Die stray processes, die! Also pretty rare. The only process I ever had do this was Mozilla (and maybe the old Netscape - I can't remember) and the last time it happened was at least six months ago. Anyway, hardly seems worth it when you can just fix the particular offending applications.
This happens to me all the time whenever I try to use KDE Media player, Xine, or XMMS. It's related to sound somehow. Don't know why.
8. Sound support. Used to be a pain. Nowadays it 'just works' for me, so I've actually forgotten why it was so hard before. I think this is fixed for most people.
Still broken for me. When it works it's great, but hangs for no apparent reason. Initial startup seems to be on a random timer. I sometimes get the KDE welcome chime after working for an hour on other stuff. I frequently never get it.:( Creative Labs SB Live! card. Works fine in Win2k, of course. Wish I could figure out what's wrong.:(
You're confusing the installation and configuration processes with application use. The point the original poster made was that he made the mistake of showing a bit of the command line interface for installation and configuration to a non-geek and she freaked. This, unfortunately, is NOT an uncommon reaction.
GUIs are important because most people (myself included) have a more intuitive grasp of images than they do of text. This becomes especially true when you're looking at tasks that are done rarely.
Think about it for a second. As has been said many many times already, a typical mom doesn't want to be a sysadmin. She doesn't want to be a developer. She's a typical user. She wants to turn on the PC and have it Just Work.
So, for everyone's sake DON'T SHOW HER THE COMMANDLINE INSTALL that you'll use remotely to administer her PC. Instead, show her Konqueror, or Galeon, or Mozilla. Show her Jabber, or Gaim, or ??. Show her FreeCiv. Show her NetHack. Show her PySol. Show her software for burning music CDs so she can listen to her music while running (after you've properly configured the PC to run it, of course).
For almost 2 years they have had the gall to claim that only IE and Netscape 4.x are secure enough to log in to their site. Konqueror, Netscape 6.x, Mozilla, and Galeon all return a page saying that the client in use is not secure enough.
I have talked to several people at Capital One over the past year or so trying to get a straight answer as to what they saw as 'insecure' with all of these other browsers. I never got a straight answer, nor did I ever get a satisfactory answer as to WHEN they would start supporting something besides an ancient browser and the leakiest browser on the planet.
I've given up waiting for them to clean up their act. I'm pulling my credit card business and moving it to a company that wants my money.
"The Internet sees censorship as damage, and routes around it."
Filter all content without a DRM flag? Umm, there's FAR too much legitimate traffic on all kinds of ports with no need for a DRM flag for this to be feasible. Therefore, what you propose would only be possible in the narrowest sense for specific applications. So, as has already been pointed out, new applications doing the same job without DRM will inevitably pop up.
Nope, the DoD isn't playing along, one official in the DoD is. Granted, it's one with a lot of pull, it's NOT the whole DoD.
For those of you who have never had the joy of watching the DoD from the inside, let me assure you that it's not a monolithic organization by any means. First, you've got the turf wars between the civilian agencies like DISA (Defense Informations Systems Administration(?)), DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), DLA (Defense Logistics Agency) and the traditional military branches.
Then you've got the turf wars in each branch of the military. You've got the turf wars between MAC (Military Airlift Command), SAC (Strategic Air Command), and TAC (Tactical Air Command) in the Air Force. And the turf wars between the submariners, the surface fleet, and the Gator Navy (Marines and the associated ships) in the Navy. And the turf wars between the Armored and Infantry in the Army. And I haven't even gotten around to the Coast Guard (which falls under Naval command during time of war) or joint commands like NORAD!
Believe me, the DoD hasn't signed off on anything yet. The fact that Stenbit is taking an opposing viewpoint for a study that he may have initiated and probably approved (the Mitre Corp one mentioned in the article) tells me that behind the scene the battle lines have been drawn and a lot of fur is flying.:)
You guys in the Army got to go to bed? In the Navy, you were awakened your first day in boot camp. After that, you were never allowed to go to sleep. Why do you think we're all so nuts?:)
Steve, Steve, Steve. Did you even bother to read the letters in question? At no time does the good Dr. ever advocate a trade barrier of any sort. Red herring, my boy.
Turn away from the Dark Side, my young Jedi. The Penguin and the Daemon shall be your salvation.:)
Someone else pointed out this works pretty well, but his term was awful short. 2 years isn't enough time to do it justice. Consider at least a 4 year term of enlistment and aim at one of the technical specialties. Besides, it's a great way to see other parts of the world.
I signed up for 6 years to get into the 1 year Electronic Technician school. After I was done with school at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center near Chicago, I was stationed in Hawaii for 3 years, then Guam for about 18 months. Other guys from my class were lucky enough to go "haze grey and underway" and see places like Sydney Australia, Tokyo, Thailand, Madagascar, Naples Italy, etc.
The military takes continuing education seriously. Many officers, for example, will have 3 or 4 degrees under their belt. It's not uncommon for senior enlisted personnel to have master's degrees.
I can speak for my experience in the Navy. I took college classes from the University of Maryland and other institutions while on shore duty. Those classes were available some larger ships as well. I understand that the DoD has even arranged for some classes to be offered as distance learning for smaller commands. The classes are offered at a 90% or 75% discount, depending on circumstances.
If you're not American, the details will be different but the basics will still be there. Running an efficient, modern military is one of the most demanding tasks the human race ever set itself. Any successful military will have the same demands for top shelf, highly skilled people.
Think about it. Some of the best technical training in the world, access to CHEAP college courses, paid for travel, an incredible amount of responsibility at a very young age, the opporunity to work with people from many many backgrounds in as close to a colorblind environment as exists anywhere in the world, and the knowledge that you're serving your country.
The down side includes ungodly hours, relatively low pay, and the very real, if definitely limited, possibility that someone might take a shot at you.
For me, it wasn't even a close decision. I enlisted in March of my senior year to guarantee a seat in the Naval school that didn't open up until September. I have several regrets about dumb choices in my life. My decision to enlist for 6 years DEFINITELY isn't one of them. 19 years after I got out, I'm working on really cool stuff and getting paid quite well.:)
USN '77-'83 Great Lakes NTC '77-'79 Lakland AFB, San Antonio, Texas '79 NAVCAMSEASTPAC, Wahiawa, Oahu, Hawaii '79-'81 USS Cochrane, DDG 21, Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii '81-'82 NAVCAMSWESTPAC, Agana, Guam '81-'82
That's strange. I had no problem at all with the cups default printer definition. OpenOffice 641c(?) on Mandrake 8.2 printed everything I could throw at it.
"At this point, everything has been standardized, IT execs only know MS products, MS services, and IBM compatible computers. They've never known a world where you chose what computer systems had a available version of the software your company needed -- there is no longer such an issue. And they love Bill for that."
An overgeneralization with less truth in it than you realize. I know several senior IT managers at my company who would LOVE to get out from under Microsoft. Two basic problems hold us back. First, a pure non-Microsoft environment is not possible at this point in time due to heavy dependency on dozens of existing legacy Win16 and Win32 apps bought by the business units, not us. Replacement of those apps frequently isn't possible because alternatives don't exist. Yes, I seriously mean that alternatives don't exist. We're talking about application markets measured in less than $10MM worldwide. You get one Mom and Pop shop sewing up one of these markets and milking it for 15 years. Until WINE can handle this messy stuff, we can't convert desktops.
Second, converting over to anything else requires time, money, and people that are already heavily overcommitted on key infrastructure projects. At best, all we can do is pick and choose those applications and servers that are coming up for major upgrades. Yes, we're looking at OSS for those, but it takes time, fellas. We're not going to get there in the next two years. 5 years would be optimistic. 10 years? Who knows?
Unfortunately, Devon is correct. There was a slashdot article linking to a story last summer about a construction firm that posted the building code for one of the states. Texas, I think, but I'm not sure.
The guy _lost_ his court battle to post _a_copy_of_a_law_ because the building association (bunch of big contractors, basically) claimed the law was copyrighted by them! It blew my mind when I read it. This country has some of the most bizarre laws in the world, I swear.
It was on the Sundance channel late last month
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I tuned in about 10 minutes into it. I think this guy's review is dead on. It's a great story that's well told, but it goes flat at the end because of the way that they chose to talk about the stock prices.
I don't think it would have mattered quite as much if they had shown next to the stock price crash the continued growth in installations and spent some time looking at the whys and wherefores of that.
A lot of people in this thread are saying that Echostar is trying to get out of broadcasting local TV because they don't have the bandwidth to do it properly. Then how come in just the last month:
1) my local UPN finally became clear enough to watch 2) One of the two PBS channels showed up and it's clear 3) The WB affiliate moved over from the 2nd satellite and it's clear 4) The only true independent left just showed up and it's as clear as the rest 5) The PAX affiliate 50 miles from the metro center is coming in clear?
This is all in the Twin Cities, which isn't exactly the largest market around. Aren't you guys being just a tad hard on Charlie?
Geek: Oh, because one library module amongst the thousands of files that make up our Open Source system expired. Sorry I missed it. I was busy closing some more reported security holes in our close source software.
Likely CEO reaction?
Step one: Fire the geek who installed the system.
Step two: Go back to that warm safe place called User Hell that Microsoft has made for him.
Re:So is this a distro for broadband users ?
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Well, what's wrong with putting out a basic system CD set every once in a while so those of us on slow systems can start out with that, then update as needed?
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, I was with you until you started talking about IBM and HP following Sun's lead. Just in case you haven't noticed, both IBM and HP have been selling lots of Linux where there is a market today; at the server end of the spectrum. IBM is doing its best to get out of the desktop market completely because of the razor thin margins there. Why should they go back in just because there's a free desktop OS available?
Nahh, what's really needed is for a big player to quietly push some money to Codeweavers so they can finally finish Wine 1.0. Get that out the door, and a switch from a Windows OS on the desktop to Linux becomes a lot more doable. And Sun isn't doing that (at least not yet).
Why don't you ask the Dixie Chicks (who made by most estimates something like $750 million for their label on one record) how much money they have in the bank?
Someone already asked that question. The answer? Less than $1 million each. And they honestly believe that they got one of the best recording deals available in Nashville.
Now, you may hate country music. But don't you think that's just a bit of a rip off of the artists?
Seems to me that maybe Prince, Janis Ian, IceT, and Courtney Love have a point. It's time the artists dumped the record companies!
You forgot Escalator. As others have pointed out, there have been other trademarks that that have been released due to a lack of pursuit.
Wow, what an incredibly cynical and twisted view of the world. Her professors and her reading weren't doing her any favors, were they? Hadn't she ever heard that rulers "...govern only with the consent of the people"?
IOW, even the most despotic tyranny on Earth only operates because the people allow it to. I know it seems counterintutitive, but it's true. Why do totalitarian and authortarian regimes spend so much time trying to control the means of communication? So their citizens have no means of discovering the truth. In almost every single case, once the truth is sufficiently understood by the governed, the regime in question either goes through a radical transformation or is replaced.
So, we need a fifth power relationship defined:
Transformational: We understand that you've been screwing us, and we're not going to take it anymore!
The thing is, all of the power relationships that she defined assumed coercion and duplicitous behavior on the part of at least one of the parties. While that, unfortunately, is the reality of much of the world it is NOT the whole story. 300 firemen in NYC are simply one of the most recent shining examples of selflessness that occur every single day, all over the world.
There's a proverb that is repeated many times in a series that I'm re-reading. I think its origin is Hindu, but I'm not sure. In any case, it rings true in any situation and in any culture; "Only the soul matters, in the end." Understand that, and you understand how to build a healthy power relationship. That leads to a sixth power relationship definition:
Cooperative: We both want what's best for both of us, and we both recognize that we bring different strengths to the table.
Anyone want to add others?
Wait just a second. The infection in this particular tarball was caught only 6 hours after it was done because the guy was using install software that checks the MD5 hash. IOW, it did exactly what you were proposing. After that, he did some digging to determine exactly what the problem was, and reported his results. You know as well as I do that means that the offending tarball will be replaced with a correct one before the day is out.
So, tell me again how this shows that a huge time investment to spot this kind of exploit again? Compared to what? HP having a YEAR to solve a bug, then threatening the reporter with the DMCA when he had the balls to post it?
In my mind, this case again points out the overwhelming advantages of running OSS whenever possible.
You know, I just don't get these "doesn't work like a Windows app" comments. Maybe I'm just incredibly dense, I don't know. As far as I'm concerned Mozilla is plenty close enough to Windows standards to work.
:) In terms of ease of use, Mozilla's interface is a direct copy of IE when compared to Notes.
:)
Besides, I think the whole "gotta look like Windows or else no one can learn to use it" is overblown. I work for a company that made a conscious decision to provide the bare minimum in training when we migrated 24,000 users from 15 different email platforms to Notes. No joke. These people were using everything from PROFS to MS Mail to Exchange to HP OpenMail to you name it.
Initially, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when we first announced that we were not providing more than a quick reference card and an online quick help. Strangely enough, the Help Desk didn't get many calls. Neither did the email support staff or the LAN admins. And we didn't lose mail. Actually, usage picked way, way up once people didn't have to search through 15 different imported addressbooks to find someone's email address.
And if there's an app that doesn't fit the Windows mold, Notes is it!
The main Mozilla menu bar says File Edit View.... to Help just like most current Windows apps. Most of the submenus are equivalent to Windows apps.
Right clicking almost anywhere on an open window gets you an appropriate submenu. Pause the mouse over any button and you get a quick help textbox. Status bar at the bottom with updates. Network connection to show online status. Lock icon to indicate encrypted state.
As for mail; I went from Netscape 3.x to Netscape 4.x to OE. I moved off of OE over two years ago to the Mozilla mail client. Heck, when I first switched I was using Mozilla Mail and ignored Mozilla Navigator for about a year while it matured.
Does the user interface need some polish? Yes. For example, the Addressbook UI could use some work. The help could use some examples to better explain how to do certain operations. There are other things that I've run into that aren't perfect, but nothing major.
Do I think it deserves a higher rating than 6/10? Yes. Personally, I'd put it between 8 and 9 out of 10. That's primarily because I love the tabbed browsing and far, far better built in security controls. I regard both of these as UI issues. But that's just me. Maybe you like rebuilding your PC after virii attacks?
Reread his post. Bruce ADMITS that maybe his emotions may be influencing his view of the sentence. He simply states that if it were him he would have worded it a little differently.
Umm, you do know that those crazy Arabs killed people from 84 different countries when the Twin Towers collapsed, right? So tell me again how this terrorist act was aimed at just the US? Go ahead, I'm all ears.
So, you haven't noticed that the latest service packs silently re-enable automatic updates if it's been disabled? We're still struggling with how to build a process to push the newest updates down because of this particular 'feature'.
I'm taking this out of context a bit, I just had to respond to this phrase:
Pretending that after women being explicitly, completely subservient in Western culture until the 1970's
I think my great grandparents would have a couple of things to tell you. My great grandfather emigrated to the US from a Serbian enclave in Croatia in 1902. He worked his butt off to save the $37.50 steerage passage to bring over his wife and eldest surviving child (the oldest died before he reached 1 year) by 1904.
Once she got to Northern Minnesota, she almost immediately opened a boarding house for the young men working in the mines. For nearly 20 years she kept as many as 20 men at a time fed and in clean clothes (not easy when dealing with iron ore dust), raised 4 kids to adulthood, buried 4 more kids, acted as a matchmaker for lots of young couples, a counselor for the young women in the neighborhood, took care of the family finances, handled lots of church related stuff.
The surviving kids tell of a loving mom who was always singing, but expected them to work their tails off both in and out of school. All of them agree that their dad respected and loved her dearly. He was really broken up when she died in 1928 from grief at the news that her mother and brother had died in the Old Country. He pulled himself together and picked up where she left off in taking care of the kids and the family finances.
Now, does that really sound like a woman that was oppressed? A woman who was subservient to her man? Remember, this was a woman born and raised as a peasant in the Baltics, not exactly the most modern society of the time. So, how does that fit with your statement? And no, from what I've been told my those who were there she wasn't that much of an exception.
4. Make it easy for the user to find out how to do things.
:( Creative Labs SB Live! card. Works fine in Win2k, of course. Wish I could figure out what's wrong. :(
Good idea. You don't need any sort of special app. though. Just an additional menu labeled 'How do I' at the top level, nested as needed. Not a technology problem anyway, but a good configuration suggestion.
Mandrake 8.x does this by default. 'I want to' -> Listen to Music/Administer my system/Play Games etc. Nested a couple of levels deep so it's pretty comprehensive. A fair amount of choice for each task, but not overwhelmingly so.
6. Die stray processes, die!
Also pretty rare. The only process I ever had do this was Mozilla (and maybe the old Netscape - I can't remember) and the last time it happened was at least six months ago. Anyway, hardly seems worth it when you can just fix the particular offending applications.
This happens to me all the time whenever I try to use KDE Media player, Xine, or XMMS. It's related to sound somehow. Don't know why.
8. Sound support.
Used to be a pain. Nowadays it 'just works' for me, so I've actually forgotten why it was so hard before. I think this is fixed for most people.
Still broken for me. When it works it's great, but hangs for no apparent reason. Initial startup seems to be on a random timer. I sometimes get the KDE welcome chime after working for an hour on other stuff. I frequently never get it.
You're confusing the installation and configuration processes with application use. The point the original poster made was that he made the mistake of showing a bit of the command line interface for installation and configuration to a non-geek and she freaked. This, unfortunately, is NOT an uncommon reaction.
GUIs are important because most people (myself included) have a more intuitive grasp of images than they do of text. This becomes especially true when you're looking at tasks that are done rarely.
Think about it for a second. As has been said many many times already, a typical mom doesn't want to be a sysadmin. She doesn't want to be a developer. She's a typical user. She wants to turn on the PC and have it Just Work.
So, for everyone's sake DON'T SHOW HER THE COMMANDLINE INSTALL that you'll use remotely to administer her PC. Instead, show her Konqueror, or Galeon, or Mozilla. Show her Jabber, or Gaim, or ??. Show her FreeCiv. Show her NetHack. Show her PySol. Show her software for burning music CDs so she can listen to her music while running (after you've properly configured the PC to run it, of course).
See the difference?
Preach on, bro!
BTW, site to avoid:
http://www.capitalone.com
For almost 2 years they have had the gall to claim that only IE and Netscape 4.x are secure enough to log in to their site. Konqueror, Netscape 6.x, Mozilla, and Galeon all return a page saying that the client in use is not secure enough.
I have talked to several people at Capital One over the past year or so trying to get a straight answer as to what they saw as 'insecure' with all of these other browsers. I never got a straight answer, nor did I ever get a satisfactory answer as to WHEN they would start supporting something besides an ancient browser and the leakiest browser on the planet.
I've given up waiting for them to clean up their act. I'm pulling my credit card business and moving it to a company that wants my money.
One of my favorite proverbs is still applicable:
"The Internet sees censorship as damage, and routes around it."
Filter all content without a DRM flag? Umm, there's FAR too much legitimate traffic on all kinds of ports with no need for a DRM flag for this to be feasible. Therefore, what you propose would only be possible in the narrowest sense for specific applications. So, as has already been pointed out, new applications doing the same job without DRM will inevitably pop up.
Nope, the DoD isn't playing along, one official in the DoD is. Granted, it's one with a lot of pull, it's NOT the whole DoD.
:)
For those of you who have never had the joy of watching the DoD from the inside, let me assure you that it's not a monolithic organization by any means. First, you've got the turf wars between the civilian agencies like DISA (Defense Informations Systems Administration(?)), DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), DLA (Defense Logistics Agency) and the traditional military branches.
Then you've got the turf wars in each branch of the military. You've got the turf wars between MAC (Military Airlift Command), SAC (Strategic Air Command), and TAC (Tactical Air Command) in the Air Force. And the turf wars between the submariners, the surface fleet, and the Gator Navy (Marines and the associated ships) in the Navy. And the turf wars between the Armored and Infantry in the Army. And I haven't even gotten around to the Coast Guard (which falls under Naval command during time of war) or joint commands like NORAD!
Believe me, the DoD hasn't signed off on anything yet. The fact that Stenbit is taking an opposing viewpoint for a study that he may have initiated and probably approved (the Mitre Corp one mentioned in the article) tells me that behind the scene the battle lines have been drawn and a lot of fur is flying.
You guys in the Army got to go to bed? In the Navy, you were awakened your first day in boot camp. After that, you were never allowed to go to sleep. Why do you think we're all so nuts? :)
Steve, Steve, Steve. Did you even bother to read the letters in question? At no time does the good Dr. ever advocate a trade barrier of any sort. Red herring, my boy.
:)
Turn away from the Dark Side, my young Jedi. The Penguin and the Daemon shall be your salvation.
Someone else pointed out this works pretty well, but his term was awful short. 2 years isn't enough time to do it justice. Consider at least a 4 year term of enlistment and aim at one of the technical specialties. Besides, it's a great way to see other parts of the world.
:)
I signed up for 6 years to get into the 1 year Electronic Technician school. After I was done with school at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center near Chicago, I was stationed in Hawaii for 3 years, then Guam for about 18 months. Other guys from my class were lucky enough to go "haze grey and underway" and see places like Sydney Australia, Tokyo, Thailand, Madagascar, Naples Italy, etc.
The military takes continuing education seriously. Many officers, for example, will have 3 or 4 degrees under their belt. It's not uncommon for senior enlisted personnel to have master's degrees.
I can speak for my experience in the Navy. I took college classes from the University of Maryland and other institutions while on shore duty. Those classes were available some larger ships as well. I understand that the DoD has even arranged for some classes to be offered as distance learning for smaller commands. The classes are offered at a 90% or 75% discount, depending on circumstances.
If you're not American, the details will be different but the basics will still be there. Running an efficient, modern military is one of the most demanding tasks the human race ever set itself. Any successful military will have the same demands for top shelf, highly skilled people.
Think about it. Some of the best technical training in the world, access to CHEAP college courses, paid for travel, an incredible amount of responsibility at a very young age, the opporunity to work with people from many many backgrounds in as close to a colorblind environment as exists anywhere in the world, and the knowledge that you're serving your country.
The down side includes ungodly hours, relatively low pay, and the very real, if definitely limited, possibility that someone might take a shot at you.
For me, it wasn't even a close decision. I enlisted in March of my senior year to guarantee a seat in the Naval school that didn't open up until September. I have several regrets about dumb choices in my life. My decision to enlist for 6 years DEFINITELY isn't one of them. 19 years after I got out, I'm working on really cool stuff and getting paid quite well.
USN '77-'83
Great Lakes NTC '77-'79
Lakland AFB, San Antonio, Texas '79
NAVCAMSEASTPAC, Wahiawa, Oahu, Hawaii '79-'81
USS Cochrane, DDG 21, Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii '81-'82
NAVCAMSWESTPAC, Agana, Guam '81-'82
That's strange. I had no problem at all with the cups default printer definition. OpenOffice 641c(?) on Mandrake 8.2 printed everything I could throw at it.
Unfortunately, Devon is correct. There was a slashdot article linking to a story last summer about a construction firm that posted the building code for one of the states. Texas, I think, but I'm not sure.
The guy _lost_ his court battle to post _a_copy_of_a_law_ because the building association (bunch of big contractors, basically) claimed the law was copyrighted by them! It blew my mind when I read it. This country has some of the most bizarre laws in the world, I swear.
I tuned in about 10 minutes into it. I think this guy's review is dead on. It's a great story that's well told, but it goes flat at the end because of the way that they chose to talk about the stock prices.
I don't think it would have mattered quite as much if they had shown next to the stock price crash the continued growth in installations and spent some time looking at the whys and wherefores of that.
A lot of people in this thread are saying that Echostar is trying to get out of broadcasting local TV because they don't have the bandwidth to do it properly. Then how come in just the last month:
1) my local UPN finally became clear enough to watch
2) One of the two PBS channels showed up and it's clear
3) The WB affiliate moved over from the 2nd satellite and it's clear
4) The only true independent left just showed up and it's as clear as the rest
5) The PAX affiliate 50 miles from the metro center is coming in clear?
This is all in the Twin Cities, which isn't exactly the largest market around. Aren't you guys being just a tad hard on Charlie?
I can just hear the phone conversation now:
CEO: How come my production box just locked up?
Geek: Oh, because one library module amongst the thousands of files that make up our Open Source system expired. Sorry I missed it. I was busy closing some more reported security holes in our close source software.
Likely CEO reaction?
Step one: Fire the geek who installed the system.
Step two: Go back to that warm safe place called User Hell that Microsoft has made for him.
Well, what's wrong with putting out a basic system CD set every once in a while so those of us on slow systems can start out with that, then update as needed?