Having used both Win and *nix desktop OS's, I can say that migrating to all Linux could be difficult for those users who have grown accustomed to the speed and ease of Windows. Pretty much anyone who uses a PC day to day can configure and control a Windows box on Day 1, the same cannot be said for Linux. The screens and menus are different, as is file management. There's also the question of "Office" apps. that need to be learned, StarOffice is good, but it's not MS Office that EVERYONE (virtually) can use!
There's also the inevitable transfer of data from Windows platforms to Linux platforms. Yes, the data should transfer seamlessly, but ITRW, we all know that that doesn't occur.
An interesting idea, and good for Linux as a whole, but I doubt the German govt. will pocket ALL of that $116M US.
Have faith. Cedar Rapids has had cable internet access for 2+ years now, and my in laws in Spencer (pop 12000) now have it throught the local utility there. It's coming, be patient.
Sad but true, if it's in the license agreement that "Thou shalt not resell this OS", then that's the way the ball bounces, cookie crumbles, yadda yadda. It sucks, but that's the bitter pill that we as the consumer will probably have to swallow.
OTOH, if a person wants to DONATE a computer/software to a charity, or a school, I think MS ought to shut their collective legal yaps and let the charity/school get what productivity they can out of the thing, gratis. Nailing the Red Cross or a rural elementary school $100US for a 6 year old version of Win95 borders on criminal...I mean, how many BILLIONS does Gates and company really need?
So long as schools and charities are not using their software to pirate or commit crimes, MS ought to make themselves into a shining white knight and give their OS away to them. They do that, and the govt' will suddenly seem like the bully, rather than MS.
I've received replies from the offices of Tom Harkin and Jim Leach in response to emailed letters. The responses were, of course, generated by aides, but they were on topic.
1. 6 hour battery life? Come on!!! A Palm will run for a month on a pair of AAA's. Even if battery is bumped up to 24 hours, still not real convenient. Hate to have to dock my watch everynight for a recharge. And what if I travel? Yet another thing to carry along to charge batteries (cell, laptop, shaver, watch, HOLY DC ADAPTERS BATMAN!)
2. Privacy! Yes, it's damn convenient to have your watch act as your EZ-Pass when you go through a toll gate (either highway or public transportation), but the privacy types will be all up in arms over this (If 'they' can track you at Grand Central, they can track you ANYWHERE!!!).
"Remember all those tapes that NASA has that they don't have the drives for anymore, or don't know the format? Paper doesn't have that sort of problem. Again, they need to ensure that whatever they produce can be moved on to whatever the current technology is "
Agreed. But, plain text (.txt) is portable to ANY platform, and standard.jpg digital image files are almost as portable. Also,.PDF has managed to carve out a good niche for itself, as has.DOC.
If the creators of this project stay away from proprietary file formats, they ought to be OK. As a backup, and for posterity, there ought to also be a paper copy of all this data stored in a vault somewhere, or at least microfiche...some hard, non digital media to preserve should the world collapse. Of course, we'll have to be sure that the Barbarian's don't burn our libraries!:)
For the record, the WD drives that I have seen used SINCE the 3.1 GB 3 platter drives have all been great performers. Certainly, some failures, but not many. I have a 10GB WD that is going on close to 3 years w. nary a problem.
When WD released their 3.1 GB IDE HDD (Caviar 33100)in mid 1998, it was among the first 3 platter, 3 GB + capacity HDD's that were available. Soon after, these drives starting clunking. The procedure was to RMA the drive to WD, and they would replace it with equal or better. It took more than a year for WD to finally admit that the design of the drive was flawed. The company I used to work for, and other OEM's, were left having to explain to their customer's why their data had disappeared, and why their new drives were failing. Very bad policy.
IBM should learn from this, and quickly admit if there is a quality problem. Most people will forgive errors if told the truth and their problem is resolved quickly.
I was as shocked as anyone by the attacks, and have shed my own share of tears, despite the fact that I, thankfully, did not know anyone directly impacted by the attacks.
However, it is important that we DO get on with our lives, and try to return to those things that interest us, be it on personal or professional levels. Reading the various topics here, be they informative or trivial, is how some people deal with it, and how some people live their lives.
Will any of us ever be the same after 9/11? I doubt it. All we can hope for is some level of normalcy to return to our now slightly more chaotic, less secure worlds.
I'd hope that they've tested this thing 9 ways from Sunday. Hate to be 6-12 months into my ownership of one of these, and suddenly have the scanner stop working. Let's hope it's a rugged, fail resistent (IE, SIMPLY made), piece of hardware, that can be overridden by some alternate means.
I like the idea of a backup password to allow you to still boot the machine should fingerprint ID not work. It's not quite as secure as the standard "Have something, know something" protocol, but it'd at least let you check your email until the scanner could be replaced.
Now all we have to do is pump up the voltage! Then cybernetically implant a cell phone in/on you, earbud installed into your skull, NO better yet, hardwired into your brain, microphone grafted to a tooth, and you are WIRED BABY!!
Patch a PDA into it, figure out how to pipe the display to your retina, and we're Cyborgs! All wired, all the time.....
Now where does the antennae for 802.11 go? WAIT!! I know just the place!!:)
Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
Rev 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
I've been inside an Exodus facility. If they'd spent a little less on decor and "Gee Whiz" security features, they might be in a little less trouble. Must admit though, the plasma LED and the palm scanner for access were quite cool!:)
I didn't even watch it, don't want to watch it. No matter what was done, would anyone have been happy with it? Prob. not.
I dread LOTR, no doubt there will be a holy flame war here when that is released!! "OH MY SWEET LORD....THE ELVES EARS ARE NOT POINTY ENOUGH/TOO POINTY!! HERESY!!!"
It's was pointed out by Larry Ellison that the only privacy remaining is the illusion of privacy. Face it, if you have a SSN, a bank account, a credit card, a job, and access the net/email, chances are your privacy is already screwed. Is this good or bad? Who knows, but it's the world we live in.
In reality, if our "privacy is compromised", the worst thing that usually happens is our inbox is flooded with SPAM. Credit cards are rarely hacked (never happened to me), and when it does happen, CC company usually fixes is. Oh sure, some folks get their SSN taken and their lives screwed with, but really, how many people has this happened to??
For those folks using Encryption in their day to day email......why? What are you keeping secret? What do you do that is so bloody important? Just curious....
How oh how can one of the White Knights from the OpenSource movement even think about committing such an evil, nay!, DASTARDLY thing. Why, it quakes us to our core, may god have mercy on our souls! Nay, the time of the pestilence is now upon us, one of the unshakeable has fallen, human nature hath trumped those ideals which we have held so dear and precious.
I am just SO glad that this is a OpenSource WHOOPSIE and not an MS WHOOPSIE....not in the mood for yet another call for MS blood. Get over it already.
As I've maintained for a long time now, we as a species need to start looking HARD at alternative energy. Geothermal, fuel cells, solar, wind, biomass, whatever! The article has some good ideas, maybe they won't be directly used, but they'll contribute to better ideas later on.
Big oil continues to keep us on her teat, it's a bond that we must one day break. When the wells go dry, heaven help us if we don't have a means to capture the energy around us.
Follow up--Amazon has Marble Drop, available in the "Electronic Arts Top Ten Family Fun Pack", and also available separately (ZShops). The Top Ten pack includes SimCity, SimAnt, etc. $20 for 10 games...heck of a deal!
I played a demo of this a number of years ago, never saw it in stores. Maxis (makers of SC2000) created Marble Drop, a game similar to The Incredible Machine. Might be worth looking at.
My desk is a 6 foot long piece of countertop with a rounded edge. It's placed on top of two plastic folding sawhorses w. shelves underneath each. Make it very easy to manage cables, rest a subwoofer, cable modem, router, etc. Total cash outlay was like $100, and I have room to grow....once I find a place for all the clutter that's around me.
This is not only an invasion of privacy, it will exacerbate what I consider the real problem with drunk driving laws. Namely, people who are just slightly over the limit and only slightly impaired will be cited, fined, and pay boocoo insurance premiums. They're name will be in the paper, causing embaressment to their families and risking their careers, simply because they had a 2nd drink after dinner.
DUI laws treat all offenders the same, and the threshold is becoming lower (.08, not.10, and MADD wants it lower yet!). The person who blows.09 is charged IDENTICALLY and treated the same as the hardcore drunk who can't stand up and blows.40. This is wrong.
1st timers who blow.15 and below ought to be given a chance to expunge their record and not pay astronomical insurance premiums, call it a one strike rule...you get this privledge once, after that, throw the book.
My dad got nailed for DUI when I was in Jr. High, me and my family suffered more humiliation and financial distress because of this than my dad ever did.
Slashdot Mirror
AC wrote "and then realize they have no way to power them." Ummmm...solar???
Maybe you've heard of Amway...No??? Well sit down, let's chat. HEY!!! Where you going???
Darn....guess it's back to "Lose weight now, Ask me how!!"
Anyone sending money to this guy is a foole.
Having used both Win and *nix desktop OS's, I can say that migrating to all Linux could be difficult for those users who have grown accustomed to the speed and ease of Windows. Pretty much anyone who uses a PC day to day can configure and control a Windows box on Day 1, the same cannot be said for Linux. The screens and menus are different, as is file management. There's also the question of "Office" apps. that need to be learned, StarOffice is good, but it's not MS Office that EVERYONE (virtually) can use!
There's also the inevitable transfer of data from Windows platforms to Linux platforms. Yes, the data should transfer seamlessly, but ITRW, we all know that that doesn't occur.
An interesting idea, and good for Linux as a whole, but I doubt the German govt. will pocket ALL of that $116M US.
Have faith. Cedar Rapids has had cable internet access for 2+ years now, and my in laws in Spencer (pop 12000) now have it throught the local utility there. It's coming, be patient.
Sad but true, if it's in the license agreement that "Thou shalt not resell this OS", then that's the way the ball bounces, cookie crumbles, yadda yadda. It sucks, but that's the bitter pill that we as the consumer will probably have to swallow.
OTOH, if a person wants to DONATE a computer/software to a charity, or a school, I think MS ought to shut their collective legal yaps and let the charity/school get what productivity they can out of the thing, gratis. Nailing the Red Cross or a rural elementary school $100US for a 6 year old version of Win95 borders on criminal...I mean, how many BILLIONS does Gates and company really need?
So long as schools and charities are not using their software to pirate or commit crimes, MS ought to make themselves into a shining white knight and give their OS away to them. They do that, and the govt' will suddenly seem like the bully, rather than MS.
I've received replies from the offices of Tom Harkin and Jim Leach in response to emailed letters. The responses were, of course, generated by aides, but they were on topic.
I've got it!! USB pumps out +5VDC, recharge it through a USB interface! Some cell phones already offer this....OK! 1 problem solved!
1. 6 hour battery life? Come on!!! A Palm will run for a month on a pair of AAA's. Even if battery is bumped up to 24 hours, still not real convenient. Hate to have to dock my watch everynight for a recharge. And what if I travel? Yet another thing to carry along to charge batteries (cell, laptop, shaver, watch, HOLY DC ADAPTERS BATMAN!)
2. Privacy! Yes, it's damn convenient to have your watch act as your EZ-Pass when you go through a toll gate (either highway or public transportation), but the privacy types will be all up in arms over this (If 'they' can track you at Grand Central, they can track you ANYWHERE!!!).
Just my $0.02 worth!
"Remember all those tapes that NASA has that they don't have the drives for anymore, or don't know the format? Paper doesn't have that sort of problem. Again, they need to ensure that whatever they produce can be moved on to whatever the current technology is "
.jpg digital image files are almost as portable. Also, .PDF has managed to carve out a good niche for itself, as has .DOC.
:)
Agreed. But, plain text (.txt) is portable to ANY platform, and standard
If the creators of this project stay away from proprietary file formats, they ought to be OK. As a backup, and for posterity, there ought to also be a paper copy of all this data stored in a vault somewhere, or at least microfiche...some hard, non digital media to preserve should the world collapse. Of course, we'll have to be sure that the Barbarian's don't burn our libraries!
Yahoo News.
s ia _nuclear_submarine_13.html
:)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011008/ts/rus
For those who experience the Slashdot effect!
For the record, the WD drives that I have seen used SINCE the 3.1 GB 3 platter drives have all been great performers. Certainly, some failures, but not many. I have a 10GB WD that is going on close to 3 years w. nary a problem.
When WD released their 3.1 GB IDE HDD (Caviar 33100)in mid 1998, it was among the first 3 platter, 3 GB + capacity HDD's that were available. Soon after, these drives starting clunking. The procedure was to RMA the drive to WD, and they would replace it with equal or better. It took more than a year for WD to finally admit that the design of the drive was flawed. The company I used to work for, and other OEM's, were left having to explain to their customer's why their data had disappeared, and why their new drives were failing. Very bad policy.
IBM should learn from this, and quickly admit if there is a quality problem. Most people will forgive errors if told the truth and their problem is resolved quickly.
I was as shocked as anyone by the attacks, and have shed my own share of tears, despite the fact that I, thankfully, did not know anyone directly impacted by the attacks.
However, it is important that we DO get on with our lives, and try to return to those things that interest us, be it on personal or professional levels. Reading the various topics here, be they informative or trivial, is how some people deal with it, and how some people live their lives.
Will any of us ever be the same after 9/11? I doubt it. All we can hope for is some level of normalcy to return to our now slightly more chaotic, less secure worlds.
I'd hope that they've tested this thing 9 ways from Sunday. Hate to be 6-12 months into my ownership of one of these, and suddenly have the scanner stop working. Let's hope it's a rugged, fail resistent (IE, SIMPLY made), piece of hardware, that can be overridden by some alternate means.
I like the idea of a backup password to allow you to still boot the machine should fingerprint ID not work. It's not quite as secure as the standard "Have something, know something" protocol, but it'd at least let you check your email until the scanner could be replaced.
Now all we have to do is pump up the voltage! Then cybernetically implant a cell phone in/on you, earbud installed into your skull, NO better yet, hardwired into your brain, microphone grafted to a tooth, and you are WIRED BABY!!
:)
Patch a PDA into it, figure out how to pipe the display to your retina, and we're Cyborgs! All wired, all the time.....
Now where does the antennae for 802.11 go? WAIT!! I know just the place!!
Bill
Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
Rev 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
I've been inside an Exodus facility. If they'd spent a little less on decor and "Gee Whiz" security features, they might be in a little less trouble. Must admit though, the plasma LED and the palm scanner for access were quite cool! :)
Bill
I didn't even watch it, don't want to watch it. No matter what was done, would anyone have been happy with it? Prob. not.
I dread LOTR, no doubt there will be a holy flame war here when that is released!! "OH MY SWEET LORD....THE ELVES EARS ARE NOT POINTY ENOUGH/TOO POINTY!! HERESY!!!"
It's was pointed out by Larry Ellison that the only privacy remaining is the illusion of privacy. Face it, if you have a SSN, a bank account, a credit card, a job, and access the net/email, chances are your privacy is already screwed. Is this good or bad? Who knows, but it's the world we live in.
In reality, if our "privacy is compromised", the worst thing that usually happens is our inbox is flooded with SPAM. Credit cards are rarely hacked (never happened to me), and when it does happen, CC company usually fixes is. Oh sure, some folks get their SSN taken and their lives screwed with, but really, how many people has this happened to??
For those folks using Encryption in their day to day email......why? What are you keeping secret? What do you do that is so bloody important? Just curious....
Oh my goodness....oh goodness, oh gracious!!
How oh how can one of the White Knights from the OpenSource movement even think about committing such an evil, nay!, DASTARDLY thing. Why, it quakes us to our core, may god have mercy on our souls! Nay, the time of the pestilence is now upon us, one of the unshakeable has fallen, human nature hath trumped those ideals which we have held so dear and precious.
I am just SO glad that this is a OpenSource WHOOPSIE and not an MS WHOOPSIE....not in the mood for yet another call for MS blood. Get over it already.
As I've maintained for a long time now, we as a species need to start looking HARD at alternative energy. Geothermal, fuel cells, solar, wind, biomass, whatever! The article has some good ideas, maybe they won't be directly used, but they'll contribute to better ideas later on.
Big oil continues to keep us on her teat, it's a bond that we must one day break. When the wells go dry, heaven help us if we don't have a means to capture the energy around us.
Follow up--Amazon has Marble Drop, available in the "Electronic Arts Top Ten Family Fun Pack", and also available separately (ZShops). The Top Ten pack includes SimCity, SimAnt, etc. $20 for 10 games...heck of a deal!
Bill
I played a demo of this a number of years ago, never saw it in stores. Maxis (makers of SC2000) created Marble Drop, a game similar to The Incredible Machine. Might be worth looking at.
Bill
My desk is a 6 foot long piece of countertop with a rounded edge. It's placed on top of two plastic folding sawhorses w. shelves underneath each. Make it very easy to manage cables, rest a subwoofer, cable modem, router, etc. Total cash outlay was like $100, and I have room to grow....once I find a place for all the clutter that's around me.
Bill
This is not only an invasion of privacy, it will exacerbate what I consider the real problem with drunk driving laws. Namely, people who are just slightly over the limit and only slightly impaired will be cited, fined, and pay boocoo insurance premiums. They're name will be in the paper, causing embaressment to their families and risking their careers, simply because they had a 2nd drink after dinner.
.10, and MADD wants it lower yet!). The person who blows .09 is charged IDENTICALLY and treated the same as the hardcore drunk who can't stand up and blows .40. This is wrong.
.15 and below ought to be given a chance to expunge their record and not pay astronomical insurance premiums, call it a one strike rule...you get this privledge once, after that, throw the book.
DUI laws treat all offenders the same, and the threshold is becoming lower (.08, not
1st timers who blow
My dad got nailed for DUI when I was in Jr. High, me and my family suffered more humiliation and financial distress because of this than my dad ever did.