Is it not the case that back in the day, the sort of article written by O'Gara would not have caused such a reaction simply becuase writing a letter to the editor to complain required effort? Now that it is easy to fire up your favourite email editor and compose your protesting prose WITH CAPSLOCK ON, every fanboy and his dog is going to do it.
I'm not defending O'Gara - I think that her article was appalling - but I don't defend the unthinking responses that were generated either.
More like Land Shuffler than Land Walker. Still, if it gets you to the Post Office to collect your pension, who's worried how fast it actually travels? It is not like anyone is actually going to complain, is it?
But what is the OS? Back in the day the OS was a simple hardware abstraction level with some I/O and process control. These days it is much, much more.
Surely the OS is that software which enables you to operate the computer with an acceptable level of functionality. Given that, does the Linux kernel cut it?
GNU/Linux is an operating system, and includes far more than just the kernel. It includes glibc and all the other essential libraries for user space, a shell, command line utilities for interacting with the kernel, amongst other things. Try using Linux without the GNU bit, and you will be disappointed.
I agree that there is a lot of chuff bundled with XP that is not part of the OS, and also with RedHat Linux, SuSE Linux, etc.
If you really are going to be pedantic, compare the Linux with the core Windows kernel.
Not to be a downer but, how do we know they didn't miss anything?
Like the man said...
There are bugs we know we know. There are bugs we know we don't know. There are bugs we don't know we know. There are bugs we don't know we don't know.
Regardless of what I feel about Linux and Microsoft, this comparison is between the code base of Linux 2.6 kernel and Windows XP.
If you were to compare the code base of a complete GNU/Linux distribution with that of Windows XP, what would be the outcome then?
However, the benefits of the open source software development model are proved by the facts pertaining to the number of bugs in the Linux 2.6 kernel - 985 in 5.7 million is still well below industry average.
A couple of years ago I worked on an embedded linux project, and we used the linux real-time and pre-emptive patches on the target. We actually applied the same patched to kernel of one of the development workstations to see if we could notice any difference, and within 15-minutes of booting, those that could were recompliling freshly patched kernels. The responsiveness of the system was so much better - start-up, multi-tasking, windowing, everything.
Never looked back, especially since they made us all redundant, and closed the site...:-)
My wife and I decided (against the grain) not to install any kind of baby monitoring devices, hi-tech or otherwise. All our friends did. We slept, they didn't. They worried, we didn't. Maybe we are just laid back, but we never spent an entire evening checking the baby monitor for functionality, as a friend once did!
um, I did RTFA, and was still able to make that statement, since I have experience with the firewall in XP SP2, and like I say, it does the job.
So, your desktop isn't safe because rouge software might remove the firewall or open ports? Well, it sounds like your usage policy is screwed, and you have not installed virus protection...
Why should I have known better? My son had NEVER had a seizure before playing this game. EVER. It is not like I was taking a chance - I thought that I was reducing risk by not allowing him to play games that came with warnings - not because he was epileptic (which he wasn't) - but because they can be harmful. I trusted - wrongly - the fact that some games had warnings and others not, that the latter were safe.
Erm... We did play the game on a PC with an LCD monitor fed by a digital signal. Damn glad I bought that new system now. Imagine what would have happened if we'd played it on that dodgy old monitor that is now in the loft...:-)
I'm not looking for someone to sue. I'm looking to find out if the community thinks that this is an important issue or not. I'm looking to find out if I can bring pressure to the industry to tighten the labelling of games up. I'm looking to make sure that this doesn't happen to my son again. I'm lucky - I was playing the game with him at the time. What if I hadn't been?
Actually, I didn't know my son was sensitive to this sort of thing before letting play the game. When I choose a game, I check everything I can about it, and this also includes lighting effects because I am aware that there can be issues with some kinds.
I now know what might trigger my sons seizures, but before playing this game, my son had never had a seizure. And I had played the game (extensively!) before he had. To be honest, the game was pretty tame throughout, but the problem was with the final level. In hindsight, I think it had been developed almost independently of the rest of the game (ok, it used the same engine, etc.) as the monitor changed resolution when the level started. The graphics were fairly blurred and the lighting quite intense. I think that these things caused the problem. As it happened I was playing the game with my son at the time, had I not been, I would not have known the issues with the final level unless I had played the game through to completion before letting him play. I had played enough myself to give me the feeling that the game was suitable for him, but this proved not to be the case.
Before playing the game in question, my son had NEVER had a siezure of any kind, epileptic or otherwise. I thought I was being reponsible by checking the games I purchased.
It was a PC version of the game, to run on my PC, which does not come with a warning. Even if my PC had come with a warning, I am interested in the requirement for labelling games clearly, not to sue somebody over this.
To sue somebody over this is not my reason for asking this. To clarify the situation and understand if the labelling of games is mandatory is my main aim. If it is not mandatory, should it be, and can I put pressure on the industry (well, not me as an individual) to effect a change?
That's nothing...
on
Cube House
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Since I started to work at home, I have turned my house into a cube. Much to my wife's consternation, I might add...
Slashdot Mirror
Is it not the case that back in the day, the sort of article written by O'Gara would not have caused such a reaction simply becuase writing a letter to the editor to complain required effort? Now that it is easy to fire up your favourite email editor and compose your protesting prose WITH CAPSLOCK ON, every fanboy and his dog is going to do it.
I'm not defending O'Gara - I think that her article was appalling - but I don't defend the unthinking responses that were generated either.
Actually, HTML is a protocol for assisting in the presentation of information. HTTP is a protocol for transferring information.
More like Land Shuffler than Land Walker. Still, if it gets you to the Post Office to collect your pension, who's worried how fast it actually travels? It is not like anyone is actually going to complain, is it?
But what is the OS? Back in the day the OS was a simple hardware abstraction level with some I/O and process control. These days it is much, much more.
Surely the OS is that software which enables you to operate the computer with an acceptable level of functionality. Given that, does the Linux kernel cut it?
GNU/Linux is an operating system, and includes far more than just the kernel. It includes glibc and all the other essential libraries for user space, a shell, command line utilities for interacting with the kernel, amongst other things. Try using Linux without the GNU bit, and you will be disappointed.
I agree that there is a lot of chuff bundled with XP that is not part of the OS, and also with RedHat Linux, SuSE Linux, etc.
If you really are going to be pedantic, compare the Linux with the core Windows kernel.
Like the man said...
There are bugs we know we know.
There are bugs we know we don't know.
There are bugs we don't know we know.
There are bugs we don't know we don't know.
Regardless of what I feel about Linux and Microsoft, this comparison is between the code base of Linux 2.6 kernel and Windows XP.
If you were to compare the code base of a complete GNU/Linux distribution with that of Windows XP, what would be the outcome then?
However, the benefits of the open source software development model are proved by the facts pertaining to the number of bugs in the Linux 2.6 kernel - 985 in 5.7 million is still well below industry average.
A couple of years ago I worked on an embedded linux project, and we used the linux real-time and pre-emptive patches on the target. We actually applied the same patched to kernel of one of the development workstations to see if we could notice any difference, and within 15-minutes of booting, those that could were recompliling freshly patched kernels. The responsiveness of the system was so much better - start-up, multi-tasking, windowing, everything.
:-)
Never looked back, especially since they made us all redundant, and closed the site...
My wife and I decided (against the grain) not to install any kind of baby monitoring devices, hi-tech or otherwise. All our friends did. We slept, they didn't. They worried, we didn't. Maybe we are just laid back, but we never spent an entire evening checking the baby monitor for functionality, as a friend once did!
um, I did RTFA, and was still able to make that statement, since I have experience with the firewall in XP SP2, and like I say, it does the job.
So, your desktop isn't safe because rouge software might remove the firewall or open ports? Well, it sounds like your usage policy is screwed, and you have not installed virus protection...
As far as I can tell, the firewall in SP2 does a very good job protecting the desktop, which it is designed for.
What? You want to protect more than your desktop(s)? So, get a hardware firewall already!
Maybe the organ donation system should be opt-out. How many more lives would that save?
...a machine that can look towards the future
The Germans have had this for a long time: Fernsehenapparat.
...most hard disk manufacturers have reduced their warrenties from 3-years to 1-year in the not so distant past?
Why should I have known better? My son had NEVER had a seizure before playing this game. EVER. It is not like I was taking a chance - I thought that I was reducing risk by not allowing him to play games that came with warnings - not because he was epileptic (which he wasn't) - but because they can be harmful. I trusted - wrongly - the fact that some games had warnings and others not, that the latter were safe.
Erm... We did play the game on a PC with an LCD monitor fed by a digital signal. Damn glad I bought that new system now. Imagine what would have happened if we'd played it on that dodgy old monitor that is now in the loft... :-)
It was a PC game. And yes, I will be informing the game's publisher of this.
I'm not looking for someone to sue. I'm looking to find out if the community thinks that this is an important issue or not. I'm looking to find out if I can bring pressure to the industry to tighten the labelling of games up. I'm looking to make sure that this doesn't happen to my son again. I'm lucky - I was playing the game with him at the time. What if I hadn't been?
Actually, I didn't know my son was sensitive to this sort of thing before letting play the game. When I choose a game, I check everything I can about it, and this also includes lighting effects because I am aware that there can be issues with some kinds.
I now know what might trigger my sons seizures, but before playing this game, my son had never had a seizure. And I had played the game (extensively!) before he had. To be honest, the game was pretty tame throughout, but the problem was with the final level. In hindsight, I think it had been developed almost independently of the rest of the game (ok, it used the same engine, etc.) as the monitor changed resolution when the level started. The graphics were fairly blurred and the lighting quite intense. I think that these things caused the problem. As it happened I was playing the game with my son at the time, had I not been, I would not have known the issues with the final level unless I had played the game through to completion before letting him play. I had played enough myself to give me the feeling that the game was suitable for him, but this proved not to be the case.
Before playing the game in question, my son had NEVER had a siezure of any kind, epileptic or otherwise. I thought I was being reponsible by checking the games I purchased.
It was a PC version of the game, to run on my PC, which does not come with a warning. Even if my PC had come with a warning, I am interested in the requirement for labelling games clearly, not to sue somebody over this.
To sue somebody over this is not my reason for asking this. To clarify the situation and understand if the labelling of games is mandatory is my main aim. If it is not mandatory, should it be, and can I put pressure on the industry (well, not me as an individual) to effect a change?
Since I started to work at home, I have turned my house into a cube. Much to my wife's consternation, I might add...
That'll piss Darl off.
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