Oh, and now all I get is "Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity."
Thanks for the link. I have not read the book but it's on my list. One of the reviewers addresses the 10-to-1 issue and states that the more productive programmers had more private workspaces. So is it the people? Or the atmosphere?
I have had constant false positives while watching Law & Order. Leaving it on for that makes the show unwatchable. But with all other shows it's really good.
That is a wacky default setting (having the desktop search input box run a web search), but it is configurable so that the default is to do a desktop search. My own opinion is that Google Desktop is a great idea, but-- so far-- a fairly poor implementation. One thing I find cool is the ability to search multiple machines at the same, but I am leery of sharing my indexes via google.com, rather than directly across my own network. Not to mention that the Advanced Search interface is horrible. And the indexing isn't reliable to the point where it doesn't interfere with the system.
Can anyone recommend a Linux/Open Source alternative?
Games not running under Vista as well as under XP does not prove that Vista is spending 20-30% of CPU cycles on DRM-related activity. In fact, it doesn't even prove that the CPU is the bottleneck. It could just as easily be RAM or disk I/O.
I am assuming that MP3 is still a DRM-free format and that WMP11 actually rips to standard MP3. These could be faulty assumptions. But WMP11 does rip to MP3. As far as I can tell it's as easy to do as sticking the CD in the CD-ROM drive and clicking the big "Rip" button/tab/whatever. You may need to preset the format to mp3 in Options.
drm ridden? So far I've been able to exercise all the Fair Use rights that I've wanted to on my Vista machine. Often, with ripit4me and DVD shrink, it is capable of backing up DVDs that no Linux application I've found will play or transcode (which means I can pop them in my MythTV system and actually play them). The latest version of MediaPlayer does at least as good a job of ripping a CD to MP3 as anything I've found on Linux. Are my Fair Use copies somehow encumbered with DRM that I'm not aware of, or are you just making stuff up?
So far the most serious problem I'm having with my Vista system is that I don't seem to get any sound when playing DVDs with MediaPlayer. And it doesn't come with an excellent huge library of free software and a fully functional development environment like, say, Ubuntu does. So would I want Vista to be my only option? No way. Is it the absolute worst thing ever and the end of the world? Not even close. If you are willing to use any proprietary OS, Vista is a decent enough option from what I've seen (and I like it a lot more than what I've seen of Mac OS X).
it is the application vendors who beat the drum. The operating system is the chicken of the software world - it's just there to carry the flavoursome software that the end user actually wants
And these days Microsoft is the single most important application vendor out there. Microsoft Office is the only "must have" application for the average home user. And MS is doing a lot of work to make sure that ISVs and competitors are left in the dust with Office2007's totally new UI that is not part of.NET and not even available from MS as a buyable component.
What GP is missing is that Vista does break a lot of existing software with its new security model. I have been unable to get an old CD label printing program to run at all, and I can't seem to get my Handspring Visor to sync, even though all the software seems to install and run (I have seen a workaround documented, but I can't get the Visor to cooperate with a crucial step in that).
What I'm not seeing in Vista, or in any of the points Russinovich is making, is any difference from how privileges and security work in Linux. The only difference I'm aware of is that Windows does not have a central repository of just about anything it is possible to build and deploy on Windows, like Ubuntu does (for example). This means that sooner or later users will download something questionable and want to install it. But if Linux had any market share at all in the regular user space, those same kinds of questionable downloads would be available for Linux and those downloads would be equally capable of tricking the user into running it as root. I suppose the fact that none of us can audit the code to Windows is a security risk of sorts, but most Linux users probably don't audit the code to Linux, either. And even if we did, how many of us would recognize security holes when we saw them?
How does Vista give you any less control over the software you run than XP? I've been seeing a lot of vague claims about how Vista is so much worse than predecessors, and I'm really not finding anything conclusive to back that up. Windows Genuine Advantage and some HD-DVD stuff are hardly the end of the world if you've already bought into the notion that proprietary software and encrypted media are OK. And if you are really into controlling your software, why would you want to wrap DX10 anyway? The games in question are undoubtedly closed-source.
But you're wrong. There is a difference between GM and long-term breeding. GM introduces modified genes directly which are selected non-randomly and may not even originate in the species being modified. It's essentially an invasive process outside the normal reproductive cycle. Long-term breeding programs do rely on cross-breeding and selective breeding and so they are a kind of manipulation or management, but those use "natural" mechanisms of reproduction to accomplish the goal. I think the difference is quite important and that we end up comparing apples and oranges here. To minimize the concerns of invasive genetic manipulation by saying that selective breeding is also genetic manipulation is to side-step the underlying concern. Of course, it is still incumbent on those asserting a causative relationship between GM foods and any negative outcome to prove that relationship.
The idea of the post you're replying to was to package dependencies inside the application. That way, you can indeed install 16 applications each having a dependency on 16 different versions of the same library, with no problems whatsoever.
In your example... every application for Mac OS X is entirely statically compiled? They don't even link to system libraries that one can reasonably assume an Mac OS X install has?
It's possible that my willingness to consider Apple fairly against Windows and Linux evaporated back before they came out with OS X. I have seen nothing compelling about OS X or Apple's offerings since that convince me that they're much more than a fashion statement. Your single example touting one system against one other system is good information, but not compelling on its own. There is definitely some trend among the IT crowd to gravitate towards Macs lately, but they don't seem to be making any serious inroads elsewhere-- which makes me think some of that supposedly newfound popularity among techies is a protest against Windows (more fashion than reason). I recognize that some element of it is a desire to have a UNIX that actually works on the hardware (especially a laptop) without a lot of hand-holding. In all, I'd say the ongoing base for Apple is people used to Apple, people who believe Apple's marketing about Mac being really easy, and people who think Apple is cool.
The cost of having Windows preinstalled is not zero. Think about it. If Microsoft wasn't raking it in on the sale of Windows licenses, they wouldn't be going to such great lengths to try and prevent piracy of their software. They could easily just charge for support contracts, but they don't.
"You might have a point if you use a more realistic example of software that simply is written to run on Linux at all." should read "You might have a point if you use a more realistic example of software that simply is not written to run on Linux at all."
Yeah, that's right. Windows is easy and Linux is hard.
Nonsense. The real issue here is not that Linux desktops need to progress anywhere. I use both Windows and Linux for hours a day and they both have their share of frustrations and joys. Your Quake example is a joke, since most people don't care about playing games like Quake on their computers. You might have a point if you use a more realistic example of software that simply is written to run on Linux at all. But so what? There's lots of great Linux/Unix-only software that I can't run on Windows. Although, I must say that I think the free software aspect of most Linux software makes it much more likely that a Windows port exists for good Linux software than a good Linux port exists for good Windows software.
The problem for Linux on the desktop is not usability or availability of games or a host of other problems at this point. It's things like lagging support for new versions of ubiquitous software, like Flash. It's the non-existence of any Quicken products for Linux. It's the fact that OpenOffice is a relative new-comer and MS Office/Works products have been around since the 80s. At most major computer retailers, the only operating system you can buy pre-installed on a machine is Windows. The average user never installs an operating system. Mac has a devoted base of people willing to pay a premium price for Apple products, why I'll never know, since Apple's offerings have been an inferior price-to-value proposition since at least the release of Windows 2000.
Apple is able to be profitable by serving a niche that is almost more fashion-driven than anything else. For the rest of the world there is only one choice: Windows. Linux isn't on the table. Not because of any real reason why average folks couldn't be just as happy with it, but because the perceived cost of a new computer doesn't include a component for operating system and applications expense. The bundling is the problem. The fact that MS has overwhelming market share is the problem. The fear of trying something new is the problem. People are already scared of their computers--even many IT professionals I've met seem to have limited understanding of how computers actually work. People know Windows, so they stick with Windows.
Until the consumer is informed that their hardware purchase includes a hefty charge for a Windows license and is offered Linux as an alternative (presumably at a different price point), they are not going to know or care about Linux or why they would want to consider it. They're already paying for Windows so they have no incentive to care about anything else.
With that theory in mind, then it seems like watching TV for another third of the day is actually another fanstastic adaptation intended to save energy.;)
In other words, the theory makes no sense. If we were awake all 24 hours of a day and using more energy asa result, we could simply consume more energy to make up for it. It would take less time to eat a fourth square meal a day than it would to spend eight hours in bed.
Further, the argument that sleep is necessary to preserve higher brain functioning may be supported by evidence of same in humans. But cross-species it doesn't hold up. Healthy cats sleep as much as 60% of the day. Healthy humans average around 35%. Healthy guinea pigs only a few hours, and not all at the same time.
Given all that we don't know about sleep, I'm feeling a bit on the old-fogey conservative side of the fence: no way I'd want to be taking these types of drugs at this point. On the other hand, being able to get by on less than 8 hours a night without impairment would be fantastic. Or exhausting.
Except that this is not a double-blind study or a set of self-evident premises or a set of mutually agreed on source data. In this case we have very much subjective and/or disputed data at the heart of the argument. Because of this the biases of the reporters are very important. Not because they are evil, but because they are human.
No one thinks that there should be a Wikipedia article for every dime-store romance novel ever published
Why not? They have a list of role-playing games, by genre, with each game name linked to either an existing article about the game or to a blank article waiting to be written. Collectible card games: same thing. Board wargames: even longer list. Most of these games are not note-worthy in any real sense. I've been a game lover my whole life and many of these games are obscure enough that I've never even heard of them. Perhaps this idea of what is worthy to be included is somewhat subjective? Romance novels are at least as worthwhile and as much of a cultural phenomenon as games. Why wouldn't they be afforded the same treatment, if someone were inclined to compile the data?
I recently installed MythTV on an Ubuntu Dapper system and had a lot of trouble with the packaged version. Installing from source available at mythtv.org worked quite well, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, and now all I get is "Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity."
Anybody got a link to a mirror?
You are confusing "hang" with "crash".
Thanks for the link. I have not read the book but it's on my list. One of the reviewers addresses the 10-to-1 issue and states that the more productive programmers had more private workspaces. So is it the people? Or the atmosphere?
I have had constant false positives while watching Law & Order. Leaving it on for that makes the show unwatchable. But with all other shows it's really good.
Quotes.
That is a wacky default setting (having the desktop search input box run a web search), but it is configurable so that the default is to do a desktop search. My own opinion is that Google Desktop is a great idea, but-- so far-- a fairly poor implementation. One thing I find cool is the ability to search multiple machines at the same, but I am leery of sharing my indexes via google.com, rather than directly across my own network. Not to mention that the Advanced Search interface is horrible. And the indexing isn't reliable to the point where it doesn't interfere with the system.
Can anyone recommend a Linux/Open Source alternative?
Games not running under Vista as well as under XP does not prove that Vista is spending 20-30% of CPU cycles on DRM-related activity. In fact, it doesn't even prove that the CPU is the bottleneck. It could just as easily be RAM or disk I/O.
I am assuming that MP3 is still a DRM-free format and that WMP11 actually rips to standard MP3. These could be faulty assumptions. But WMP11 does rip to MP3. As far as I can tell it's as easy to do as sticking the CD in the CD-ROM drive and clicking the big "Rip" button/tab/whatever. You may need to preset the format to mp3 in Options.
drm ridden? So far I've been able to exercise all the Fair Use rights that I've wanted to on my Vista machine. Often, with ripit4me and DVD shrink, it is capable of backing up DVDs that no Linux application I've found will play or transcode (which means I can pop them in my MythTV system and actually play them). The latest version of MediaPlayer does at least as good a job of ripping a CD to MP3 as anything I've found on Linux. Are my Fair Use copies somehow encumbered with DRM that I'm not aware of, or are you just making stuff up?
So far the most serious problem I'm having with my Vista system is that I don't seem to get any sound when playing DVDs with MediaPlayer. And it doesn't come with an excellent huge library of free software and a fully functional development environment like, say, Ubuntu does. So would I want Vista to be my only option? No way. Is it the absolute worst thing ever and the end of the world? Not even close. If you are willing to use any proprietary OS, Vista is a decent enough option from what I've seen (and I like it a lot more than what I've seen of Mac OS X).
it is the application vendors who beat the drum. The operating system is the chicken of the software world - it's just there to carry the flavoursome software that the end user actually wants
And these days Microsoft is the single most important application vendor out there. Microsoft Office is the only "must have" application for the average home user. And MS is doing a lot of work to make sure that ISVs and competitors are left in the dust with Office2007's totally new UI that is not part of .NET and not even available from MS as a buyable component.
What GP is missing is that Vista does break a lot of existing software with its new security model. I have been unable to get an old CD label printing program to run at all, and I can't seem to get my Handspring Visor to sync, even though all the software seems to install and run (I have seen a workaround documented, but I can't get the Visor to cooperate with a crucial step in that).
What I'm not seeing in Vista, or in any of the points Russinovich is making, is any difference from how privileges and security work in Linux. The only difference I'm aware of is that Windows does not have a central repository of just about anything it is possible to build and deploy on Windows, like Ubuntu does (for example). This means that sooner or later users will download something questionable and want to install it. But if Linux had any market share at all in the regular user space, those same kinds of questionable downloads would be available for Linux and those downloads would be equally capable of tricking the user into running it as root. I suppose the fact that none of us can audit the code to Windows is a security risk of sorts, but most Linux users probably don't audit the code to Linux, either. And even if we did, how many of us would recognize security holes when we saw them?
How does Vista give you any less control over the software you run than XP? I've been seeing a lot of vague claims about how Vista is so much worse than predecessors, and I'm really not finding anything conclusive to back that up. Windows Genuine Advantage and some HD-DVD stuff are hardly the end of the world if you've already bought into the notion that proprietary software and encrypted media are OK. And if you are really into controlling your software, why would you want to wrap DX10 anyway? The games in question are undoubtedly closed-source.
But you're wrong. There is a difference between GM and long-term breeding. GM introduces modified genes directly which are selected non-randomly and may not even originate in the species being modified. It's essentially an invasive process outside the normal reproductive cycle. Long-term breeding programs do rely on cross-breeding and selective breeding and so they are a kind of manipulation or management, but those use "natural" mechanisms of reproduction to accomplish the goal. I think the difference is quite important and that we end up comparing apples and oranges here. To minimize the concerns of invasive genetic manipulation by saying that selective breeding is also genetic manipulation is to side-step the underlying concern. Of course, it is still incumbent on those asserting a causative relationship between GM foods and any negative outcome to prove that relationship.
The idea of the post you're replying to was to package dependencies inside the application. That way, you can indeed install 16 applications each having a dependency on 16 different versions of the same library, with no problems whatsoever.
In your example... every application for Mac OS X is entirely statically compiled? They don't even link to system libraries that one can reasonably assume an Mac OS X install has?
What's so unmanageable about hard disk encryption?
The test doesn't exclude certain types of mileage from the calculation, it changes the type of driving done to be more like how people actually drive.
It's possible that my willingness to consider Apple fairly against Windows and Linux evaporated back before they came out with OS X. I have seen nothing compelling about OS X or Apple's offerings since that convince me that they're much more than a fashion statement. Your single example touting one system against one other system is good information, but not compelling on its own. There is definitely some trend among the IT crowd to gravitate towards Macs lately, but they don't seem to be making any serious inroads elsewhere-- which makes me think some of that supposedly newfound popularity among techies is a protest against Windows (more fashion than reason). I recognize that some element of it is a desire to have a UNIX that actually works on the hardware (especially a laptop) without a lot of hand-holding. In all, I'd say the ongoing base for Apple is people used to Apple, people who believe Apple's marketing about Mac being really easy, and people who think Apple is cool.
The cost of having Windows preinstalled is not zero. Think about it. If Microsoft wasn't raking it in on the sale of Windows licenses, they wouldn't be going to such great lengths to try and prevent piracy of their software. They could easily just charge for support contracts, but they don't.
"You might have a point if you use a more realistic example of software that simply is written to run on Linux at all." should read "You might have a point if you use a more realistic example of software that simply is not written to run on Linux at all."
Nonsense. The real issue here is not that Linux desktops need to progress anywhere. I use both Windows and Linux for hours a day and they both have their share of frustrations and joys. Your Quake example is a joke, since most people don't care about playing games like Quake on their computers. You might have a point if you use a more realistic example of software that simply is written to run on Linux at all. But so what? There's lots of great Linux/Unix-only software that I can't run on Windows. Although, I must say that I think the free software aspect of most Linux software makes it much more likely that a Windows port exists for good Linux software than a good Linux port exists for good Windows software.
The problem for Linux on the desktop is not usability or availability of games or a host of other problems at this point. It's things like lagging support for new versions of ubiquitous software, like Flash. It's the non-existence of any Quicken products for Linux. It's the fact that OpenOffice is a relative new-comer and MS Office/Works products have been around since the 80s. At most major computer retailers, the only operating system you can buy pre-installed on a machine is Windows. The average user never installs an operating system. Mac has a devoted base of people willing to pay a premium price for Apple products, why I'll never know, since Apple's offerings have been an inferior price-to-value proposition since at least the release of Windows 2000.
Apple is able to be profitable by serving a niche that is almost more fashion-driven than anything else. For the rest of the world there is only one choice: Windows. Linux isn't on the table. Not because of any real reason why average folks couldn't be just as happy with it, but because the perceived cost of a new computer doesn't include a component for operating system and applications expense. The bundling is the problem. The fact that MS has overwhelming market share is the problem. The fear of trying something new is the problem. People are already scared of their computers--even many IT professionals I've met seem to have limited understanding of how computers actually work. People know Windows, so they stick with Windows.
Until the consumer is informed that their hardware purchase includes a hefty charge for a Windows license and is offered Linux as an alternative (presumably at a different price point), they are not going to know or care about Linux or why they would want to consider it. They're already paying for Windows so they have no incentive to care about anything else.
Good counterpoints.
With that theory in mind, then it seems like watching TV for another third of the day is actually another fanstastic adaptation intended to save energy. ;)
In other words, the theory makes no sense. If we were awake all 24 hours of a day and using more energy asa result, we could simply consume more energy to make up for it. It would take less time to eat a fourth square meal a day than it would to spend eight hours in bed.
Further, the argument that sleep is necessary to preserve higher brain functioning may be supported by evidence of same in humans. But cross-species it doesn't hold up. Healthy cats sleep as much as 60% of the day. Healthy humans average around 35%. Healthy guinea pigs only a few hours, and not all at the same time.
Given all that we don't know about sleep, I'm feeling a bit on the old-fogey conservative side of the fence: no way I'd want to be taking these types of drugs at this point. On the other hand, being able to get by on less than 8 hours a night without impairment would be fantastic. Or exhausting.
Except that this is not a double-blind study or a set of self-evident premises or a set of mutually agreed on source data. In this case we have very much subjective and/or disputed data at the heart of the argument. Because of this the biases of the reporters are very important. Not because they are evil, but because they are human.
Why not? They have a list of role-playing games, by genre, with each game name linked to either an existing article about the game or to a blank article waiting to be written. Collectible card games: same thing. Board wargames: even longer list. Most of these games are not note-worthy in any real sense. I've been a game lover my whole life and many of these games are obscure enough that I've never even heard of them. Perhaps this idea of what is worthy to be included is somewhat subjective? Romance novels are at least as worthwhile and as much of a cultural phenomenon as games. Why wouldn't they be afforded the same treatment, if someone were inclined to compile the data?
I recently installed MythTV on an Ubuntu Dapper system and had a lot of trouble with the packaged version. Installing from source available at mythtv.org worked quite well, though.
That works well if you can manage to be out of earshot all the time.