No, it just means that a link from slashdot should be on the list as a potental site vulnerablility:-)
That's actually a good point. Think about how many sites have been wiped out either momentarily or (sometimes) permanently, and all the money a good/.ing has cost many individuals and companies for excess bandwidth. The sites that even have the capability to block direct/. linking always seem to implement it after the fact.
In light of the problems/. creates, wouldn't it be wise for server admins all over the world to take it for granted that they might be linked to by/., or a handful of other similar sites, and just block direct links from those sites by default? It's not a total solution but it would sure help.
The question is meaningless. We don't have to "like" ICANN just because they did something "right" today (sort of). Nor do we have to dislike an organization or person that is mostly good if they do one bad thing.
Maybe life isn't black and white. Maybe things aren't just "good" and "bad". Maybe a rational human mind can simultaneously hold two opposing ideas. Maybe an organizations historical competence and intent isn't changed by a single isolated action.
Don't know why I bother. Here, I'll just go for my guaranteed +5, Funny. "You like ICANN today because they're beating up on Verisign, who you don't like even more. Be sure to tune in tomorrow so we can tell you how you feel about Microsoft!"
Pfeh. Anyway, who's this "we" you all keep talking about?
Using the land area for Iraq given by the CIA, CIA Factbook, and the 12 billion people you estimate will soon inhabit the Earth, then each of these people would have about 388 square feet of land in Iraq.
Eh? My math may be rusty, but I think you may have made a mistake in your math of a couple orders of magnitude. The figure I get is 3.6 square centimeters per person if you tried to stuff 12 billion people into Iraq.
Just as important, lets take a look at the "arable land" statistic: 11%.
Consumer: "Yes, let's build more wind/solar power plants." Power company: "OK. The best location for that is site A." Consumer: "What? That will ruin the view!" Power company: [sigh]
Power company and everyone else on the planet: "We need to build more wind/solar/hydro/nuclear/fusion power plants! More, more, more!"
Me: "How about if we just make new, smaller, ultra-efficient electronic devices to replace all the old, inefficient devices and machines. And, how about we use common sense and modern contraception techniques to halt the massive population upswing and gradually bring down the world's population to a manageable, sustainable level over the next thousand years or so.
"The Earth can only comfortable sustain about 1-3 billion people without massive depletion of all natural resources. The way things are going, all energy-producing natural resources will quickly be depleted as the population rises to 12 billion and beyond within a few decades. The demand for energy will be so high that every field will need to have wind generators, every lake and river will need a hydro-electric dam, every home need solar panels on the roof, and every state will need a handful of nuclear and fusion power plants.
"There will no longer be enough space or water for humans to live comfortably. Every city will be like Tokyo or Mexico City. The Earth will no longer be a nice place to live."
Power company and everyone else on the planet: [incredulous stares and prolonged silence, then] "Use less energy? Keep the population down to a manageable level? Humans need space and water?!? You're a madman! And besides, using contraception goes against [a couple of religions that are followed by half the population of the world]. We're supposed to propagate like locusts until we've destroyed everything! It says so right here! You're talkin' crazy talk."
What exactly gets archived when you do that, though? Your home directory? All the 3rd party software you've installed? I'm not familiar with that procedure and it's never really been clarified in the forums.
I must be smoking crack. I could have sworn I had a flamebait rating just a couple of minutes ago. GIVE ME BACK MY FLAMEBAIT RATING, YOU IMPERIALIST BASTARDS! I have my rights!
Disclaimer for any humor-disabled mods: This was a joke. We now return you to your regularly scheduled modding.
Wow, my first Flamebait rating, and I wasn't even trying. Note that I never said I minded the fact they were talking about a naughty little computer threesome, I was just surprised to see it on a public website. Because, I know a lot of other people who would get really offended by it. You can't say it wasn't blatant, because there was just no other way to interpret it.
This goes to the other guy who also thought I was complaining. I found the ad quite amusing. Nobody knows what I'm talking about anyway, so I'll shut up.
Apple does seem to be reckless in letting its users beta test, but this sort of thing happens all over the place, not just with Apple and OS X.
Yeah, and I made another comment just a few minutes ago, because I realize one of the problems here is that we keep comparing Apple with Microsoft and their screw ups. I probably shouldn't have even brought them into the conversation.
Comparing one company with some other company's low standards is not the path to excellence. The simple fact that they're putting out buggy updates and not getting slammed for it should be enough. Kudos to Apple for pulling the really buggy updates, but it would be so much better for them and us if they did some good beta testing in the first place.
Wouldn't they only need like a few hundred Mac gurus beta testing these updates in order to catch 99.9% of the bad problems? It just seems sloppy, and we shouldn't compare them with anyone else and say, "look, these guys are sloppy too!"
I've never had to reinstall any of my machines and that was going from Windows 3.1 thru 2000 before I switched.
I have personally experienced not one but two individual Win2K machines that got hosed, not by any update, but by attempting to uninstall Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum. After the uninstall the machine would get a STOP error and a nice blue screen when you tried to boot it. At the time I did some Googling and searching on Microsoft's website, and came up with pages full of literally dozens of people with the exact same problem, and no known solution. No patch from Roxio, no update from Microsoft that I could find. They knew about the problem but didn't know how to fix it. I think I even tried a "repair" install from the CD, and the system was still unbootable. So, reformat, reinstall. It does happen. I never ran into the like on Win9x, that's another reason I'm still trying to stay away from Win2K/XP. You don't know what's going on under the hood, and neither do they!
Right, because with Microsoft a complete reinstall is required when the wind changes direction.
SSSssshhh! I've got 5 Windows machines in the room with me. Don't give them any ideas.
What does this mean? There's a patch to uninstall the "updates"? Do the updates backup the files they overwrite so you can go back to where you were, cleanly? Where can I get this patch, I haven't heard of it before.
There are a few very loud people with problems.
And those people and the severity of their problems were unimportant?
Actually, MS patches DO cause problems, as equally minor, but there is no fix other than reformatting.
Last I checked you could "back out" a lot of the hotfixes and service packs from the Add/Remove Software control panel, from Win2K onward. Is that not correct? But I think one of the main problems here is that we're even bothering to compare Apple's updates to Microsoft's updates! Other companies and operating systems shouldn't be held to the (very low) standards of whatever Microsoft does. They should be held to a higher standard.
If you hate Apple so much, please, do me a favor and go use Windows instead!
Oh, now that kind of language is completely uncalled for, sir! I don't hate Apple and I don't like Microsoft, I'm just pointing some problems. This isn't a "you're with us or against us" deal, my friend. I'll just stay right here on my Linux laptop, thankyouverymuch.:) Which, BTW, hasn't been unretrievably hosed by any sort of update, ever, as far as I know. And that's very comforting.
You know what's funny is, even with all these problems I'm very glad the small non-profit that I work for (as tech person) runs all Macs instead of Win2K/XP. I'm very glad indeed, every day.
This a a stupid troll that deosnt know the facts.. but i might a well reply [...] no its not a repeated thing
Thanks for your wonderful comment, but I must disagree. I've read about a lot of people having severe problems with practically every update since 10.2.1. It's just that the relative number of people with severe problems was a lot higher with 10.2.4 (or was it.5) which is probably what you are referring to. I mean, come on, we're looking at 10.2.8 here which was so bad that they (once again!) pulled it. Having something happen more than once means it's a repeated thing, BTW.
And what is it with Macs and RAM? If you read the MacFixit article you'll see users saying that removing a 256MB RAM module fixed their problems! I thought that if a RAM module had no errors and worked with the motherboard, then it just plain worked. How does a software update stop your computer from working with a module of a certain size? What difference does it make what size it is? Bleh. I really like my G4 at work but at this point I still wouldn't buy one, and it's mostly because of these weird problems that I've never even heard of happening on other hardware and operating systems. Macs just seem too fragile to me, and that outweighs the fact that they are nice to work with. Guess what, that's a personal opinion, you don't have to argue with it. You get to have your own! Honest.
and they pulled it in hours did ms ever do that with a service pack?
Seems like there have been a couple of MS "updates" that caused serious problems, which they then pulled. But I can't recall, exactly. Maybe not, in which case Apple has a leg up in that department. But pulling a buggy update isn't the same as not releasing a buggy update in the first place. Keeping the OS running like clockwork when you control most of the hardware is supposed to be easier, at least that's what everyone always says when we say we want Apple to port OS X to x86.
Just a side comment, it's really convenient to be able to call anyone you disagree with a Troll and make their comments disappear. I'm starting to realize how negatively that affects our communication here.
Yeah, it's really funny to watch this repeated update fiasco and see how almost nobody even utters a peep of anything negative about it. If this were Microsoft making all these screwups with point updates you know we'd be all over them, tearing them to pieces. I've made comments a few times and gotten zero attention and no responses.
I see a lot of comments from people like "it worked with my system" or "it's only a few people that are affected" or "most of the affected systems had third-party software/hardware installed, they should have known better". It's all so idiotic.
It's really not the number of affected systems that keeps me from installing my own update, it's the severity of the symptoms. Apple keeps releasing these updates that are supposed to fix things, and then it's like, "Oh by the way, there's a small chance that this will hose your system so bad that you won't be able to boot up anymore or repair your system with the CD repair tools or uninstall the update, and the only way to repair your system will be to reinstall the OS from scratch from the CD. You won't even be able to boot into "Safe Mode". But that's ok, right, because you all have spare huge-ass hard drives that you can use solely for backing up your entire main drive, and you'll do that before you try this update, just in case something goes wrong." I've literally seen dozens of people on the Apple discussion forums saying exactly that, "Just back up your whole drive with Carbon Copy Cloner or something before you do any sort of update, and everything will be cool. No problem."
Huh? How is that acceptable? No way to uninstall if you have problems? Systems hosed so bad they can't be repaired by any known method short of a complete reinstall?
Microsoft is bad enough, but I don't recall a lot of their updates causing people to need to reformat and reinstall from scratch once a month. To this day I can't understand why Apple isn't getting ripped to shreds for these terrible update problems. Is it just because only a few people are affected and everyone else just doesn't care? If you don't believe me that the problems were that bad, you just need to spend some time checking out the discussion forums on Apple's website, and probably other Apple discussion websites, where they talk about the 10.2.1-10.2.8+ updates.
Oh, and I see you've gotten a "Troll" rating already. Congratulations. That's what you get when you buck the tide, buddy. We'll show you. Maybe this post will bring in my first "Troll" rating. Keep your fingers crossed.;)
Did anyone else see the same advertisement I did, with the two G4s, one monitor and a KVM switch? "Can't you guys just take turns?" "How cute, a happy threesome, all thanks to our KVM switch."
That is some funny s**t, but it's also so blatantly sexual and "perverted" that I was really surprised it was allowed on a non-adult website. Funny as hell though.
My software update has been coming up for weeks saying there was a 10.2.6 update (which I haven't applied yet because I'm leery of all the problems others have had with point updates). The last time it popped up was a couple of days ago, but it still didn't say anything about a 10.2.7 update. And now there's a 10.2.8 that's already been pulled?? I was hoping they'd get their act together by now. They're practically making Windows Update look good by comparison.
No power means you can't keep up, and suddenly the 5-10 feet between you and the other cars seems way too close.
Huh? I may be misinterpreting what you mean, but in order to drive safely you have to have a minimum of 3 seconds of space between you and the cars in front and behind you. On a 65MPH freeway that equates to almost 300 feet. If everyone left that much space we would very rarely have multiple car accidents. People are idiots.
You probably meant the space on each side (at least I hope so), but still, people are idiots and almost never leave enough space between their vehicle and the one in front of them. I think we should pass a law that revokes any insurance benefits for people who don't leave enough space. You could probably cut the total number of automobile "accidents" by a third in a couple of years, if you had some way to enforce that.
This is like saying table salt is poisonous because it contains Chlorine.
I can't imagine how this whole comment got +5. As a previous comment has stated quite clearly, any substance in the universe is toxic if ingested in (im)proper quantities. Including Fluoride and yes, even Sodium Cloride (table salt). It's necessary for human survival but an overdose will kill you just as easily as anything else. If you're lost at sea and try to drink saltwater to stay alive, you won't last long. Pure water will also kill you if can manage to drink about 16 gallons during a 24-hour period. That's right, H20 is a toxic substance, in the right quantities. You need X amount to survive, but Y amount will kill you.
Just because something isn't deadly in minute, uningested quantities, like the fluoride in your toothpaste, doesn't mean it's perfectly safe to be drinking it every day of your life. It's worse with chemicals like fluoride because they have a cumulative effect as they build up in the body, like lots of heavy metals and dioxins. So anyone who says we shouldn't necessarily have fluoride in the drinking water definitely has a point.
The comment I'm replying to is not only ignorant but dangerously ignorant. Please mod it down.
why is it that there is STILL no well-integrated filesystem crypto in any of the Open Source operating systems, including the security-oriented OpenBSD? No, loopback crypto kludges don't count at all.
My loopback crypto filesystems, set up on Mandrake Linux 9.0/9.1, don't seem all that kludgy to me. It was easy enough to set up and very easy to use. Except that I still have to mount my encrypted filesystems via the command line, what's up with that? If anyone knows of any GUI mount programs that are smart enough to detect a password prompt and bring up a dialog for the user, I'd really like to know about it. Actually, if anyone knows of any good GUI mount programs *period*, I'd like to see them.
Other than that, my crypto filesystems are very easy to use. All I did to set it up initially was check a box and fill in a passphrase.
Just one question about all these wonderful new "office" suites. They all use the same, standardized, open file formats by default, and are 100% compatible with each other, right? Right?
Because that would be a huge benefit of moving away from MS Office, right? Because all these different office suites are totally compatible and interchangeable, even though they can never be totally compatible with the secret, changing MS Office formats.
So I don't have to keep saving in DOC just to exchange files between StarOffice and GNOME Office and KDE Office, right? I can save in some new, default, standard, universally recognized file format, and easily exchange files between all these different programs without any translation problems or confusion, right?
And Microsoft will quickly be forced to create a patch for their Office products so they can read and write this new open file format that the whole world is suddenly standardizing on because it's used by default by every open source office suite in the world, right?
Or am I smoking crack and about to get my first -1, Troll rating for openly wondering why there is still no apparent single, open, standard, widely used file format? One to compete on solid ground with the single, closed, proprietary file formats from Microsoft and others that we all revile on a daily basis.
We've had 15 years or more to replace DOC and its brethren. Where is the replacement for DOC? Or the replacement that can be used for anything, like a combination of DOC, XLS, PPT, PUB, etc? I'd really, really, really like to know. Because until I know that, I feel pretty stupid telling people to drop the nice, simple, standard (de facto if not de jure) Microsoft Office file formats. When they ask what they're supposed to use instead, I have no answer.
Why in the name of all that's Holy is every one of these "guessing" posts getting moderated up to +5?
Likely he never had it published because he himself subscribed to the advice that one's trunk should be burned.
Or likely you and everyone else like you don't know enough about the situation to be opening your mouths. The linked article said A) the book is good, and B) no publisher would publish it because it was too racy for the morals of the 1930s. Is there something complicated about reading the article?
I normally don't care that no one reads the damn article, as it makes for some fun discussion. But it seems like every highly moderated post today is spouting the same sort of theory that for some reason the book must be bad, and for basically the same reason, that Heinlein "didn't bother to publish it", when the facts are that he sent it around to various publishers and they refused to publish it. Everyone here seems to assume they know what happened and why. Well, according to the article, you're all wrong. Moderators, please read the article before moderating.
Can someone please read the article...
on
New Heinlein Novel
·
· Score: 1
instead of throwing out guesswork all the time? The article I just read said,
1. It's a good book. 2. It wasn't published in the 30's because it has some "racy" content.
Oh yes, I agree completely. The whole situation is very complicated and confusing. Let's rely solely on guesswork!
Am I the only one that thinks this whole strategy, the whole situation of having to shut down the entire network and clean each individual node (PC) before you start up the network again, is quite literally insane? Every time I read about something like this it reminds me of someone trying to plug up enough holes in a sieve to make it hold water. Next time some idiot (i.e., the Dean) brings in his infected personal computer and hooks up to the university's internal network, don't they just get to start this whole Chinese Fire Drill all over again?
Madness. Isn't there a better way to do things? Why does anyone in the IT world even put up with this? Why does *anyone* put up with this? Would having everyone run Linux/UNIX/MacOS X even make any difference, or would it just be a matter of time before some new worm broke out and they had to take down the whole network and clean every Linux PC the same way they're doing with Windows PCs? Or, to rephrase, if you took Microsoft out of the equation, would this situation even be possible?
I'm looking for some serious discussion, not jokes.
Slashdot Mirror
That's actually a good point. Think about how many sites have been wiped out either momentarily or (sometimes) permanently, and all the money a good /.ing has cost many individuals and companies for excess bandwidth. The sites that even have the capability to block direct /. linking always seem to implement it after the fact.
In light of the problems /. creates, wouldn't it be wise for server admins all over the world to take it for granted that they might be linked to by /., or a handful of other similar sites, and just block direct links from those sites by default? It's not a total solution but it would sure help.
Makes sense to me.
The question is meaningless. We don't have to "like" ICANN just because they did something "right" today (sort of). Nor do we have to dislike an organization or person that is mostly good if they do one bad thing.
Maybe life isn't black and white. Maybe things aren't just "good" and "bad". Maybe a rational human mind can simultaneously hold two opposing ideas. Maybe an organizations historical competence and intent isn't changed by a single isolated action.
Don't know why I bother. Here, I'll just go for my guaranteed +5, Funny. "You like ICANN today because they're beating up on Verisign, who you don't like even more. Be sure to tune in tomorrow so we can tell you how you feel about Microsoft!"
Pfeh. Anyway, who's this "we" you all keep talking about?
Consumer: "Yes, let's build more wind/solar power plants."
Power company: "OK. The best location for that is site A."
Consumer: "What? That will ruin the view!"
Power company: [sigh]
Power company and everyone else on the planet: "We need to build more wind/solar/hydro/nuclear/fusion power plants! More, more, more!"
Me: "How about if we just make new, smaller, ultra-efficient electronic devices to replace all the old, inefficient devices and machines. And, how about we use common sense and modern contraception techniques to halt the massive population upswing and gradually bring down the world's population to a manageable, sustainable level over the next thousand years or so.
"The Earth can only comfortable sustain about 1-3 billion people without massive depletion of all natural resources. The way things are going, all energy-producing natural resources will quickly be depleted as the population rises to 12 billion and beyond within a few decades. The demand for energy will be so high that every field will need to have wind generators, every lake and river will need a hydro-electric dam, every home need solar panels on the roof, and every state will need a handful of nuclear and fusion power plants.
"There will no longer be enough space or water for humans to live comfortably. Every city will be like Tokyo or Mexico City. The Earth will no longer be a nice place to live."
Power company and everyone else on the planet: [incredulous stares and prolonged silence, then] "Use less energy? Keep the population down to a manageable level? Humans need space and water?!? You're a madman! And besides, using contraception goes against [a couple of religions that are followed by half the population of the world]. We're supposed to propagate like locusts until we've destroyed everything! It says so right here! You're talkin' crazy talk."
Me: [sigh]
There was no FA to R.
Yes, but was there an R to the FA?
An H to the SO?
A G to the SA?
Lemme hear ya say, "Heyyyy, hooo!"
Where am I? What? No thank you, I think I've had enough Red Bull for today...
The ability of X11 to evolve has let things like KDE's tearable panes come to the fore.
;)
Wow, you completely misspelled two words in a row there...
ObDisc: Yes, I'm a KDE user.
Oh for fuck's sake. Check it out:
:P
Well for fuck's sake, thanks for the link.
What exactly gets archived when you do that, though? Your home directory? All the 3rd party software you've installed? I'm not familiar with that procedure and it's never really been clarified in the forums.
I must be smoking crack. I could have sworn I had a flamebait rating just a couple of minutes ago. GIVE ME BACK MY FLAMEBAIT RATING, YOU IMPERIALIST BASTARDS! I have my rights!
Disclaimer for any humor-disabled mods: This was a joke. We now return you to your regularly scheduled modding.
Wow, my first Flamebait rating, and I wasn't even trying. Note that I never said I minded the fact they were talking about a naughty little computer threesome, I was just surprised to see it on a public website. Because, I know a lot of other people who would get really offended by it. You can't say it wasn't blatant, because there was just no other way to interpret it.
This goes to the other guy who also thought I was complaining. I found the ad quite amusing. Nobody knows what I'm talking about anyway, so I'll shut up.
Apple does seem to be reckless in letting its users beta test, but this sort of thing happens all over the place, not just with Apple and OS X.
Yeah, and I made another comment just a few minutes ago, because I realize one of the problems here is that we keep comparing Apple with Microsoft and their screw ups. I probably shouldn't have even brought them into the conversation.
Comparing one company with some other company's low standards is not the path to excellence. The simple fact that they're putting out buggy updates and not getting slammed for it should be enough. Kudos to Apple for pulling the really buggy updates, but it would be so much better for them and us if they did some good beta testing in the first place.
Wouldn't they only need like a few hundred Mac gurus beta testing these updates in order to catch 99.9% of the bad problems? It just seems sloppy, and we shouldn't compare them with anyone else and say, "look, these guys are sloppy too!"
I've never had to reinstall any of my machines and that was going from Windows 3.1 thru 2000 before I switched.
I have personally experienced not one but two individual Win2K machines that got hosed, not by any update, but by attempting to uninstall Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum. After the uninstall the machine would get a STOP error and a nice blue screen when you tried to boot it. At the time I did some Googling and searching on Microsoft's website, and came up with pages full of literally dozens of people with the exact same problem, and no known solution. No patch from Roxio, no update from Microsoft that I could find. They knew about the problem but didn't know how to fix it. I think I even tried a "repair" install from the CD, and the system was still unbootable. So, reformat, reinstall. It does happen. I never ran into the like on Win9x, that's another reason I'm still trying to stay away from Win2K/XP. You don't know what's going on under the hood, and neither do they!
Right, because with Microsoft a complete reinstall is required when the wind changes direction.
SSSssshhh! I've got 5 Windows machines in the room with me. Don't give them any ideas.
You're wrong. There is a free patch.
:) Which, BTW, hasn't been unretrievably hosed by any sort of update, ever, as far as I know. And that's very comforting.
What does this mean? There's a patch to uninstall the "updates"? Do the updates backup the files they overwrite so you can go back to where you were, cleanly? Where can I get this patch, I haven't heard of it before.
There are a few very loud people with problems.
And those people and the severity of their problems were unimportant?
Actually, MS patches DO cause problems, as equally minor, but there is no fix other than reformatting.
Last I checked you could "back out" a lot of the hotfixes and service packs from the Add/Remove Software control panel, from Win2K onward. Is that not correct? But I think one of the main problems here is that we're even bothering to compare Apple's updates to Microsoft's updates! Other companies and operating systems shouldn't be held to the (very low) standards of whatever Microsoft does. They should be held to a higher standard.
If you hate Apple so much, please, do me a favor and go use Windows instead!
Oh, now that kind of language is completely uncalled for, sir! I don't hate Apple and I don't like Microsoft, I'm just pointing some problems. This isn't a "you're with us or against us" deal, my friend. I'll just stay right here on my Linux laptop, thankyouverymuch.
You know what's funny is, even with all these problems I'm very glad the small non-profit that I work for (as tech person) runs all Macs instead of Win2K/XP. I'm very glad indeed, every day.
Thanks for your wonderful comment, but I must disagree. I've read about a lot of people having severe problems with practically every update since 10.2.1. It's just that the relative number of people with severe problems was a lot higher with 10.2.4 (or was it
And what is it with Macs and RAM? If you read the MacFixit article you'll see users saying that removing a 256MB RAM module fixed their problems! I thought that if a RAM module had no errors and worked with the motherboard, then it just plain worked. How does a software update stop your computer from working with a module of a certain size? What difference does it make what size it is? Bleh. I really like my G4 at work but at this point I still wouldn't buy one, and it's mostly because of these weird problems that I've never even heard of happening on other hardware and operating systems. Macs just seem too fragile to me, and that outweighs the fact that they are nice to work with. Guess what, that's a personal opinion, you don't have to argue with it. You get to have your own! Honest.
Seems like there have been a couple of MS "updates" that caused serious problems, which they then pulled. But I can't recall, exactly. Maybe not, in which case Apple has a leg up in that department. But pulling a buggy update isn't the same as not releasing a buggy update in the first place. Keeping the OS running like clockwork when you control most of the hardware is supposed to be easier, at least that's what everyone always says when we say we want Apple to port OS X to x86.
Just a side comment, it's really convenient to be able to call anyone you disagree with a Troll and make their comments disappear. I'm starting to realize how negatively that affects our communication here.
Yeah, it's really funny to watch this repeated update fiasco and see how almost nobody even utters a peep of anything negative about it. If this were Microsoft making all these screwups with point updates you know we'd be all over them, tearing them to pieces. I've made comments a few times and gotten zero attention and no responses.
;)
I see a lot of comments from people like "it worked with my system" or "it's only a few people that are affected" or "most of the affected systems had third-party software/hardware installed, they should have known better". It's all so idiotic.
It's really not the number of affected systems that keeps me from installing my own update, it's the severity of the symptoms. Apple keeps releasing these updates that are supposed to fix things, and then it's like, "Oh by the way, there's a small chance that this will hose your system so bad that you won't be able to boot up anymore or repair your system with the CD repair tools or uninstall the update, and the only way to repair your system will be to reinstall the OS from scratch from the CD . You won't even be able to boot into "Safe Mode". But that's ok, right, because you all have spare huge-ass hard drives that you can use solely for backing up your entire main drive, and you'll do that before you try this update, just in case something goes wrong." I've literally seen dozens of people on the Apple discussion forums saying exactly that, "Just back up your whole drive with Carbon Copy Cloner or something before you do any sort of update, and everything will be cool. No problem."
Huh? How is that acceptable? No way to uninstall if you have problems? Systems hosed so bad they can't be repaired by any known method short of a complete reinstall?
Microsoft is bad enough, but I don't recall a lot of their updates causing people to need to reformat and reinstall from scratch once a month. To this day I can't understand why Apple isn't getting ripped to shreds for these terrible update problems. Is it just because only a few people are affected and everyone else just doesn't care? If you don't believe me that the problems were that bad, you just need to spend some time checking out the discussion forums on Apple's website, and probably other Apple discussion websites, where they talk about the 10.2.1-10.2.8+ updates.
Oh, and I see you've gotten a "Troll" rating already. Congratulations. That's what you get when you buck the tide, buddy. We'll show you. Maybe this post will bring in my first "Troll" rating. Keep your fingers crossed.
Did anyone else see the same advertisement I did, with the two G4s, one monitor and a KVM switch? "Can't you guys just take turns?" "How cute, a happy threesome, all thanks to our KVM switch."
That is some funny s**t, but it's also so blatantly sexual and "perverted" that I was really surprised it was allowed on a non-adult website. Funny as hell though.
My software update has been coming up for weeks saying there was a 10.2.6 update (which I haven't applied yet because I'm leery of all the problems others have had with point updates). The last time it popped up was a couple of days ago, but it still didn't say anything about a 10.2.7 update. And now there's a 10.2.8 that's already been pulled?? I was hoping they'd get their act together by now. They're practically making Windows Update look good by comparison.
Huh? I may be misinterpreting what you mean, but in order to drive safely you have to have a minimum of 3 seconds of space between you and the cars in front and behind you. On a 65MPH freeway that equates to almost 300 feet. If everyone left that much space we would very rarely have multiple car accidents. People are idiots.
You probably meant the space on each side (at least I hope so), but still, people are idiots and almost never leave enough space between their vehicle and the one in front of them. I think we should pass a law that revokes any insurance benefits for people who don't leave enough space. You could probably cut the total number of automobile "accidents" by a third in a couple of years, if you had some way to enforce that.
I guess it really was... the "Age of Beets".
Oh, wrong plant, nemmind... razafrazzit...
My loopback crypto filesystems, set up on Mandrake Linux 9.0/9.1, don't seem all that kludgy to me. It was easy enough to set up and very easy to use. Except that I still have to mount my encrypted filesystems via the command line, what's up with that? If anyone knows of any GUI mount programs that are smart enough to detect a password prompt and bring up a dialog for the user, I'd really like to know about it. Actually, if anyone knows of any good GUI mount programs *period*, I'd like to see them.
Other than that, my crypto filesystems are very easy to use. All I did to set it up initially was check a box and fill in a passphrase.
And I'm sitting here for five minutes after reading that, wondering just exactly what a computer would taste like. Does it go well with seafood?
:)
Gives new meaning to the phrase "aged to perfection", I guess.
Just one question about all these wonderful new "office" suites. They all use the same, standardized, open file formats by default, and are 100% compatible with each other, right? Right?
Because that would be a huge benefit of moving away from MS Office, right? Because all these different office suites are totally compatible and interchangeable, even though they can never be totally compatible with the secret, changing MS Office formats.
So I don't have to keep saving in DOC just to exchange files between StarOffice and GNOME Office and KDE Office, right? I can save in some new, default, standard, universally recognized file format, and easily exchange files between all these different programs without any translation problems or confusion, right?
And Microsoft will quickly be forced to create a patch for their Office products so they can read and write this new open file format that the whole world is suddenly standardizing on because it's used by default by every open source office suite in the world, right?
Or am I smoking crack and about to get my first -1, Troll rating for openly wondering why there is still no apparent single, open, standard, widely used file format? One to compete on solid ground with the single, closed, proprietary file formats from Microsoft and others that we all revile on a daily basis.
We've had 15 years or more to replace DOC and its brethren. Where is the replacement for DOC? Or the replacement that can be used for anything, like a combination of DOC, XLS, PPT, PUB, etc? I'd really, really, really like to know. Because until I know that, I feel pretty stupid telling people to drop the nice, simple, standard (de facto if not de jure) Microsoft Office file formats. When they ask what they're supposed to use instead, I have no answer.
Or likely you and everyone else like you don't know enough about the situation to be opening your mouths. The linked article said A) the book is good, and B) no publisher would publish it because it was too racy for the morals of the 1930s. Is there something complicated about reading the article?
I normally don't care that no one reads the damn article, as it makes for some fun discussion. But it seems like every highly moderated post today is spouting the same sort of theory that for some reason the book must be bad, and for basically the same reason, that Heinlein "didn't bother to publish it", when the facts are that he sent it around to various publishers and they refused to publish it. Everyone here seems to assume they know what happened and why. Well, according to the article, you're all wrong. Moderators, please read the article before moderating.
instead of throwing out guesswork all the time? The article I just read said,
1. It's a good book.
2. It wasn't published in the 30's because it has some "racy" content.
Oh yes, I agree completely. The whole situation is very complicated and confusing. Let's rely solely on guesswork!
Am I the only one that thinks this whole strategy, the whole situation of having to shut down the entire network and clean each individual node (PC) before you start up the network again, is quite literally insane? Every time I read about something like this it reminds me of someone trying to plug up enough holes in a sieve to make it hold water. Next time some idiot (i.e., the Dean) brings in his infected personal computer and hooks up to the university's internal network, don't they just get to start this whole Chinese Fire Drill all over again?
Madness. Isn't there a better way to do things? Why does anyone in the IT world even put up with this? Why does *anyone* put up with this? Would having everyone run Linux/UNIX/MacOS X even make any difference, or would it just be a matter of time before some new worm broke out and they had to take down the whole network and clean every Linux PC the same way they're doing with Windows PCs? Or, to rephrase, if you took Microsoft out of the equation, would this situation even be possible?
I'm looking for some serious discussion, not jokes.