Yup. And if the formatting of that MS Word file is complex enough, it won't be the same in both programs. THAT is the problem. For simple stuff, it's fine. For medium complexity stuff, it's almost always fine. Start throwing in complex equations and complicated formatting, and it starts breaking. Not a whole lot, but enough to make it incompatible for those uses.
And people who are writing essays, and need to submit them, correctly formatted, to a professional publication that requires submission in MS Word format.
And people who need Excel because it does things that OO.o spreadsheets just can't do yet.
It's not just the macros. I do IT support for a chemistry department at a large university, and OO.o just doesn't do the math, even at the undergrad level. If your assignment is to create a spreadsheet with all your results data, have it do some calculations, then draw a graph, you're pretty much stuck with MS Office. We tried OO.o in our lab -- it would have saved the department something like a grand -- and we had to put MS Office back on after a week, because no one could do their homework.
"It might Cost X amount of dollars to switch documents to work with OpenOffice, but after that initial cost, there's no extra licensing cost in using OO, as any documents created in OO should work properly in OO."
This is true. And in many cases it's a good argument.
But think about an office that has spent 10 years creating custom spreadsheets with custom equations in them that just don't work in OO.o. The math just isn't there, nor are the graphing features. OK, so they could find different ways to do the same work, but what will it cost them? What does it cost to convert 10 years of custom documents to a new format? And how is the company supposed to pay for it?
Looking at long term costs is important, but you also have to look at the short term costs. I suspect in a lot of cases you're right, and the short term cost will be minimal. But it's certainly not in every case.
There's a simple reason many people need MS Office: compatibility. When you submit an article to a scientific journal, or a federal grant application commitee, or to a literary journal, or a fiction magazine, or a publisher or any sort, they want it as an MS Word document with specific formatting. Yes, that's not in every field, but it's in enough of them. Maybe that will change someday, but for now, I have a couple hundred users who would quite likely be willing to switch to linux, if only we could get MS Office for them.
Which is better? Having people run a closed OS and a closed offfice suite, or an open OS and a closed office suite? You'll note that open/open isn't a choice there... that's just how it is for a lot of people. Not all, or even probably most, but a lot.
It rarely gets over 100F, but summer temps are usually in the high 90s. It stays below 40F for the whole winter.
I don't have (or really need) A/c, because my house is well insulated, and the (finished) basement stays below 70 all summer. I don't have a pool (though I'd like to), and I have an electric stove, dishwasher, clothes-washer and dryer. Thankfully, I don't have electric heat, although I did the last place I lived. My TV and computer monitor are both CRTs, but the TV at least doesn't see a lot of use -- averages out to probably about an hour a day.
Even there, though, I managed to cut my January use in half just by improving the insulation. As other people in this thread have said, that's the big one. It's relatively inexpensive, it's fairly easy to put in, and it can make a massive difference in both heating and cooling expenses.
I'm not even thinking about cost... just kWh; prices vary, but a kilowatt-hour is a kilowatt-hour, regardless of what you're charged for it (or whether I understand it as a unit of measure).
There is that... I live in New England, so even though we complain about the heat in the summer, I mostly don't bother with A/C.
On the other hand, my house is pretty tightly built, and heavily insulated (for its age -- I'll be making it better over the next few years), so it stays reasonably cool. I've lived in places where A/C was vital, and they were a lot more expensive.
Though a few grand in insulation and awnings could save you that much in a couple of years of reduced air conditioning, so I'd be inclined to say it's worth it if you live in the southwest.
There's an important step that this guy missed: cutting consumption. I have a roughly 3000 square foot house, and the most I've used since August '07 is 700kWh in a month... and that was a month when I had visitors for basically the whole month, so we used a lot more power. My average is around 500.
Now... we don't know how big this guy's house is, or how many people live there. But really... 1,635kWh? That seems pretty excessive for any reasonable house. Maybe if he's got a bunch of servers on all the time, and has electric heat, and lives in a cold climate, but it still seems high.
All of this brings up some important questions...
on
Obama's "ZuneGate"
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· Score: 1
...such as: "if everyone here is so excited about privacy issues, why are we spending our time debating what hardware someone uses in their private life?"
Also, "who the heck CARES what music player he uses? He's presumably happy with it, so why should it matter to anyone else?"
Does it HELP? Yes. You're likely to find that without a degree you have fewer prospects and make less money; that's where I'm stuck. That said, I have a job, and I'm making as much as I really need, even if I'd like to be making more. So it's not like it's impossible to get a decent job without a degree... it's just harder.
At least, they're not required to provide support as long as they don't care if no-one uses their project. After all, I, and many other people, are unlikely to use a piece of software when I don't know whether it will work with my hardware, or do anything that aids me in any way.
Now, that doesn't say they should provide infinite support forever with no compensation, but they should, in my opinion, consider whether they want people to use the product before deciding to, say, remove the web page and all the existing support documentation.
For example, from what I understand, you only need to try playing t on a device which isn't "Marlin-enabled", for it to become very visible right there. I fail to see what counts as "breaking the law" if I merely take my bought song and try to play it on my old car stereo. Care to explain?
Sure, it's easy: they failed in their goal, and their claims are pure advertising bullshit. Doesn't have anything to do with my original point.
How _do_ you enforce a DRM without locking access to certain parts of the "pipeline"?
Damned if I know. I don't design this stuff. Personally, I suspect it's impossible. That would be why there have been so many attempts, and zero successes.
I thought that it was up to the courts to decide if a law has been broken?
True. Tell you what... let's outlaw door locks. After all, no one can say whether someone who enters your house at three in the morning and loads your stereo, television, and other valuables into a truck is a burgler except the courts. And safe deposit boxes. And every other type of security device.
My point here is, as it has always been in these discussions (to stretch the definition of the word "discussion" to its breaking point), that DRM is the equivalent of a lock. If well designed, it should do what a door lock does: keep lawbreakers out, while letting in the people you want to let in. The fact is, no one has yet come up with a good design for DRM: it never keeps out the lawbreakers for long, and it generally keeps out some people you want to let in. That doesn't mean the concept is flawed; just the execution.
I think you're right. Most people don't get bored, and stand up to announce to the room "I'm gonna go STEAL something." But on the other hand, most people think nothing of downloading music or movies or software without paying for it. They don't think of it as stealing, and they don't think of themselves as thieves. Kind of like most people don't think of themselves as liars, but most people have told an occasional lie. I'm not making a moral judgement here: that's how people are. Yeah, it might be nice if it wasn't true, but what the hell. We're people, not sheep.
It's also important to notice my specification: "most people will steal digital media (as opposed to physical media)" etc. I'm not saying most people will walk into a shop at the mall and slip a new pair of shoes in their backpack. That's pretty rare. But people don't think of downloading music as stealing; it's just what everyone does. I work in IT, and I've found illegally copied music, movies, or software on about 90% of the computers I service. Some of those people were horrified when I explained that they'd been breaking the law, and stopped doing it. Some just said they were going to keep doing it, because no one would ever catch them. These aren't bad people: they're grad students, undergrads, faculty members with PhDs, and professional staff. They just don't see that it's really illegal.
What "high-moral-horse"? I just said most people will steal digital media, given the opportunity. I didn't say, as you apparently read it, "most people are evil satanists who enjoy killing babies and will burn in hell someday." You're right: I have broken speed limits. I have downloaded software and music illegally. None of that invalidates my point. In fact, it strengthens my argument: I'm part of most people. So are you.
So... um... what was your point again? Right... your point was that you enjoy ranting at people, but aren't quite bright enough to read their arguments and respond sensibly.
That would, in fact, be why I suspect this won't be a successful implementation. I said people needed to interpret what they said correctly, not that they were going to do what they said.
They don't mean invisible to everyone. They mean invisible to people who aren't breaking the law. Frankly, that's good enough for me, in this case; if it doesn't interfere with my legitimate use of a game or my music, I don't have a real problem with it. Yeah, it'd be nice if DRM weren't necessary, but when you get right down to it, most people will steal digital media (as opposed to physical media) when they think they can get away with it. I'm not going to debate whether that's morally wrong or not, but it IS against the law.
Now, of course, I'm not convinced this company is going to be successful in creating effective DRM that doesn't interfere with legitimate use, but it'd be interesting if they managed it.
The point is not how full of bullshit either one is.
The point is that, despite being set in a brilliantly envisioned and almost impossibly complete fictional universe, the writing in the Silmarillion is crap. It reads like a badly written textbook, with the added drawback that it ought to be fun to read, but isn't.
Don't get me wrong: Tolkien accomplished something amazing with his creation of Middle Earth. I just wish he'd been a better writer.
Very true. But part of the procedure around here requires something like 3 years worth of annual reviews to show the problem, meetings with about a dozen people whose offices are on the other end of the state, and a massive amount of other paperwork.
When someone is costing you thousands of dollars with each mistake they make, and they're making three or four a day, it's not practical to fire them. Instead their job is eliminated, and they're bumped off to some other department.
There's a difference between keeping people protected from bad management and allowing them to destroy their department.
I work for a large state university. All full-time professional jobs have the option of being part of the union. If you're not part of the union, you're required to pay them a fee for doing all your contract negotiation -- dues turn out to be about $15 a month higher, but they buy you great dental insurance and discounts on things like museum admission (actually, most are free), travel arrangments, cell phone service, and all sorts of other things.
Working under a union-negotiated contract, I'm also guaranteed a 40 hour work-week, reasonable vacation and sick leave, decent pay (I work for the state, so it'll never be great, but it's decent), and I can't easily be fired without cause.
Now, that said, I think the union has too much power here. There are people who can't be fired, even though everyone knows they're incompetent, simply because the paperwork is a pain. The amount of administrative overhead for dealing with the union is horrific; it mostly comes down on the university administration, so I don't have to deal with much, but there's a tremendous amount of it. There are a lot of other issues, as well. The examples other people have come up with -- states where union workers are required by law, where no one can do anything without the union's approval -- are all good examples. They're rediculous. The point of the union is to keep the company from taking advantage of the workers, not to allow the union to take advantage of everyone else.
But overall? I'm glad to be working a lower-paid union job. I've been offered higher pay in industry jobs (more than doubling my pay, actually), but you know what? I think it's unreasonable to be expected to work 80 hours a week and be on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year. I'll take my moderate pay and pleasant working environment any day.
Well... yes, it's not very good at that, either. But they're probably more likely to notice if the paperwork went through their office then if it was published in a trade journal for a trade they know nothing and care less about.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. And if the formatting of that MS Word file is complex enough, it won't be the same in both programs. THAT is the problem. For simple stuff, it's fine. For medium complexity stuff, it's almost always fine. Start throwing in complex equations and complicated formatting, and it starts breaking. Not a whole lot, but enough to make it incompatible for those uses.
People doing things other than writing essays.
And people who are writing essays, and need to submit them, correctly formatted, to a professional publication that requires submission in MS Word format.
And people who need Excel because it does things that OO.o spreadsheets just can't do yet.
It's not just the macros. I do IT support for a chemistry department at a large university, and OO.o just doesn't do the math, even at the undergrad level. If your assignment is to create a spreadsheet with all your results data, have it do some calculations, then draw a graph, you're pretty much stuck with MS Office. We tried OO.o in our lab -- it would have saved the department something like a grand -- and we had to put MS Office back on after a week, because no one could do their homework.
"It might Cost X amount of dollars to switch documents to work with OpenOffice, but after that initial cost, there's no extra licensing cost in using OO, as any documents created in OO should work properly in OO."
This is true. And in many cases it's a good argument.
But think about an office that has spent 10 years creating custom spreadsheets with custom equations in them that just don't work in OO.o. The math just isn't there, nor are the graphing features. OK, so they could find different ways to do the same work, but what will it cost them? What does it cost to convert 10 years of custom documents to a new format? And how is the company supposed to pay for it?
Looking at long term costs is important, but you also have to look at the short term costs. I suspect in a lot of cases you're right, and the short term cost will be minimal. But it's certainly not in every case.
There's a simple reason many people need MS Office: compatibility. When you submit an article to a scientific journal, or a federal grant application commitee, or to a literary journal, or a fiction magazine, or a publisher or any sort, they want it as an MS Word document with specific formatting. Yes, that's not in every field, but it's in enough of them. Maybe that will change someday, but for now, I have a couple hundred users who would quite likely be willing to switch to linux, if only we could get MS Office for them.
Which is better? Having people run a closed OS and a closed offfice suite, or an open OS and a closed office suite? You'll note that open/open isn't a choice there... that's just how it is for a lot of people. Not all, or even probably most, but a lot.
These are Phd totting educators! They will be able to adapt quite quickly to the new software.
Ah... such a pleasant dream... faculty, able to adapt to minor changes and new things.
It rarely gets over 100F, but summer temps are usually in the high 90s. It stays below 40F for the whole winter.
I don't have (or really need) A/c, because my house is well insulated, and the (finished) basement stays below 70 all summer. I don't have a pool (though I'd like to), and I have an electric stove, dishwasher, clothes-washer and dryer. Thankfully, I don't have electric heat, although I did the last place I lived. My TV and computer monitor are both CRTs, but the TV at least doesn't see a lot of use -- averages out to probably about an hour a day.
Even there, though, I managed to cut my January use in half just by improving the insulation. As other people in this thread have said, that's the big one. It's relatively inexpensive, it's fairly easy to put in, and it can make a massive difference in both heating and cooling expenses.
I'm not even thinking about cost... just kWh; prices vary, but a kilowatt-hour is a kilowatt-hour, regardless of what you're charged for it (or whether I understand it as a unit of measure).
There is that... I live in New England, so even though we complain about the heat in the summer, I mostly don't bother with A/C.
On the other hand, my house is pretty tightly built, and heavily insulated (for its age -- I'll be making it better over the next few years), so it stays reasonably cool. I've lived in places where A/C was vital, and they were a lot more expensive.
Though a few grand in insulation and awnings could save you that much in a couple of years of reduced air conditioning, so I'd be inclined to say it's worth it if you live in the southwest.
There's an important step that this guy missed: cutting consumption. I have a roughly 3000 square foot house, and the most I've used since August '07 is 700kWh in a month... and that was a month when I had visitors for basically the whole month, so we used a lot more power. My average is around 500.
Now... we don't know how big this guy's house is, or how many people live there. But really... 1,635kWh? That seems pretty excessive for any reasonable house. Maybe if he's got a bunch of servers on all the time, and has electric heat, and lives in a cold climate, but it still seems high.
...such as: "if everyone here is so excited about privacy issues, why are we spending our time debating what hardware someone uses in their private life?"
Also, "who the heck CARES what music player he uses? He's presumably happy with it, so why should it matter to anyone else?"
Does it HELP? Yes. You're likely to find that without a degree you have fewer prospects and make less money; that's where I'm stuck. That said, I have a job, and I'm making as much as I really need, even if I'd like to be making more. So it's not like it's impossible to get a decent job without a degree... it's just harder.
At least, they're not required to provide support as long as they don't care if no-one uses their project. After all, I, and many other people, are unlikely to use a piece of software when I don't know whether it will work with my hardware, or do anything that aids me in any way.
Now, that doesn't say they should provide infinite support forever with no compensation, but they should, in my opinion, consider whether they want people to use the product before deciding to, say, remove the web page and all the existing support documentation.
Nope. It's intended to stop thieves from stealing, while letting everyone else do what they want, within the bounds of the law.
I sort of suspect it's going to fail, though.
For example, from what I understand, you only need to try playing t on a device which isn't "Marlin-enabled", for it to become very visible right there. I fail to see what counts as "breaking the law" if I merely take my bought song and try to play it on my old car stereo. Care to explain?
Sure, it's easy: they failed in their goal, and their claims are pure advertising bullshit. Doesn't have anything to do with my original point.
How _do_ you enforce a DRM without locking access to certain parts of the "pipeline"?
Damned if I know. I don't design this stuff. Personally, I suspect it's impossible. That would be why there have been so many attempts, and zero successes.
I thought that it was up to the courts to decide if a law has been broken?
True. Tell you what... let's outlaw door locks. After all, no one can say whether someone who enters your house at three in the morning and loads your stereo, television, and other valuables into a truck is a burgler except the courts. And safe deposit boxes. And every other type of security device.
My point here is, as it has always been in these discussions (to stretch the definition of the word "discussion" to its breaking point), that DRM is the equivalent of a lock. If well designed, it should do what a door lock does: keep lawbreakers out, while letting in the people you want to let in. The fact is, no one has yet come up with a good design for DRM: it never keeps out the lawbreakers for long, and it generally keeps out some people you want to let in. That doesn't mean the concept is flawed; just the execution.
WTF is someone so ignorant of computing devices doiing on slashdot?
Taunting people who view everything in black and white, and respond to comments without reading them.
I think you're right. Most people don't get bored, and stand up to announce to the room "I'm gonna go STEAL something." But on the other hand, most people think nothing of downloading music or movies or software without paying for it. They don't think of it as stealing, and they don't think of themselves as thieves. Kind of like most people don't think of themselves as liars, but most people have told an occasional lie. I'm not making a moral judgement here: that's how people are. Yeah, it might be nice if it wasn't true, but what the hell. We're people, not sheep.
It's also important to notice my specification: "most people will steal digital media (as opposed to physical media)" etc. I'm not saying most people will walk into a shop at the mall and slip a new pair of shoes in their backpack. That's pretty rare. But people don't think of downloading music as stealing; it's just what everyone does. I work in IT, and I've found illegally copied music, movies, or software on about 90% of the computers I service. Some of those people were horrified when I explained that they'd been breaking the law, and stopped doing it. Some just said they were going to keep doing it, because no one would ever catch them. These aren't bad people: they're grad students, undergrads, faculty members with PhDs, and professional staff. They just don't see that it's really illegal.
What "high-moral-horse"? I just said most people will steal digital media, given the opportunity. I didn't say, as you apparently read it, "most people are evil satanists who enjoy killing babies and will burn in hell someday." You're right: I have broken speed limits. I have downloaded software and music illegally. None of that invalidates my point. In fact, it strengthens my argument: I'm part of most people. So are you.
So... um... what was your point again? Right... your point was that you enjoy ranting at people, but aren't quite bright enough to read their arguments and respond sensibly.
That would, in fact, be why I suspect this won't be a successful implementation. I said people needed to interpret what they said correctly, not that they were going to do what they said.
They don't mean invisible to everyone. They mean invisible to people who aren't breaking the law. Frankly, that's good enough for me, in this case; if it doesn't interfere with my legitimate use of a game or my music, I don't have a real problem with it. Yeah, it'd be nice if DRM weren't necessary, but when you get right down to it, most people will steal digital media (as opposed to physical media) when they think they can get away with it. I'm not going to debate whether that's morally wrong or not, but it IS against the law.
Now, of course, I'm not convinced this company is going to be successful in creating effective DRM that doesn't interfere with legitimate use, but it'd be interesting if they managed it.
Well... it's good for those of us who prefer not to break the law.
But, you know, there aren't many of us around...
The point is not how full of bullshit either one is.
The point is that, despite being set in a brilliantly envisioned and almost impossibly complete fictional universe, the writing in the Silmarillion is crap. It reads like a badly written textbook, with the added drawback that it ought to be fun to read, but isn't.
Don't get me wrong: Tolkien accomplished something amazing with his creation of Middle Earth. I just wish he'd been a better writer.
Very true. But part of the procedure around here requires something like 3 years worth of annual reviews to show the problem, meetings with about a dozen people whose offices are on the other end of the state, and a massive amount of other paperwork.
When someone is costing you thousands of dollars with each mistake they make, and they're making three or four a day, it's not practical to fire them. Instead their job is eliminated, and they're bumped off to some other department.
There's a difference between keeping people protected from bad management and allowing them to destroy their department.
I work for a large state university. All full-time professional jobs have the option of being part of the union. If you're not part of the union, you're required to pay them a fee for doing all your contract negotiation -- dues turn out to be about $15 a month higher, but they buy you great dental insurance and discounts on things like museum admission (actually, most are free), travel arrangments, cell phone service, and all sorts of other things.
Working under a union-negotiated contract, I'm also guaranteed a 40 hour work-week, reasonable vacation and sick leave, decent pay (I work for the state, so it'll never be great, but it's decent), and I can't easily be fired without cause.
Now, that said, I think the union has too much power here. There are people who can't be fired, even though everyone knows they're incompetent, simply because the paperwork is a pain. The amount of administrative overhead for dealing with the union is horrific; it mostly comes down on the university administration, so I don't have to deal with much, but there's a tremendous amount of it. There are a lot of other issues, as well. The examples other people have come up with -- states where union workers are required by law, where no one can do anything without the union's approval -- are all good examples. They're rediculous. The point of the union is to keep the company from taking advantage of the workers, not to allow the union to take advantage of everyone else.
But overall? I'm glad to be working a lower-paid union job. I've been offered higher pay in industry jobs (more than doubling my pay, actually), but you know what? I think it's unreasonable to be expected to work 80 hours a week and be on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year. I'll take my moderate pay and pleasant working environment any day.
And you know he's not an American working in Japan on a long term contract how?
But of course, accusing someone of being a troll releases you from the necessity of checking facts...
Well... yes, it's not very good at that, either. But they're probably more likely to notice if the paperwork went through their office then if it was published in a trade journal for a trade they know nothing and care less about.