But can you guarantee that will last forever? Dictators have risen from otherwise liberal democracies, and it's not inconceivable that it'll happen again. Once you have all that infrastructure in place, it's trivial for a malicious leader to use it to persecute.
How about the criminals that HAVEN'T been caught using fake ID? I wouldn't be surprised if there were ten times the number of criminals using well-forged ID or identity theft - once you have a universal trusted ID card, once you have a good fake you're above suspicion.
Finally, it'll cost £90 for something that essentially benefits only the government.
I really don't know what hardware people are running - but ever since Linux got SB support in the early 90s, I've *never* had a problem with sound. Of course, on desktop machines I use a distro designed for the desktop.
The thing is with Apple, they have control over the hardware so it's very easy for them to get everything working straight out of the box. Linux has to deal with parts bin machines. I bought my PowerBook precisely because it WASN'T a parts bin machine and everything would work out of the box.
Given a hardware selection solely made up of well supported stuff, I can have a Fedora Core or CentOS system work right out of the box, too.
Windows XP on the other hand - even on our HPaq machines at work - doesn't detect *any* hardware - not the chipset, the extremely common Intel onboard graphics, the extremely common onboard Intel NIC - instead I have to grope around the HPaq site to find the drivers. CentOS or FC3? Within half an hour of putting the first CD in, I can have a working machine with all hardware fully operating and a complete office suite.
So what we have here: Apple - everything works out the box, but then again, OS X hardly supports any hardware because Apple only ships a very limited range of hardware. Windows - Most things are not supported out the box but vendors all make Windows drivers. Linux - OSS drivers for a vast range of hardware, but almost non-existent vendor support.
i.e. Linux cannot win. Microsoft, with all their financial might, doesn't need to bother writing drivers because the hardware makers all write the drivers for them. RedHat with a tiny fraction of the wealth of Microsoft has to make it all fit together themselves because the manufacturers won't lift a finger to help. Apple solves the problem by merely supporting a tiny amount of hardware and then controlling the hardware that goes into Apple computers.
Linux does have something similar to DirectX - SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) and since I'm working on a project that uses SDL, I have to say it works just fine and making an OpenGL program work with SDL+sound is just fine. SDL supports graphics, input, networking, sound and music. It's also multiplatform - it's not a Linux subsystem - it runs on BSD too. It also runs on Windows.
Actually, ALSA doesn't do that - I've had multiple programs using ALSA directly. (There's a configuration option for mixing that's apparently turned off by default, but seems to be turned on with Fedora Core).
The real problem with ALSA is the hideous state of the documentation. I'm not surprised you haven't found out that ALSA quite happily mixes - because the documentation is abysmal. The developer documentation (i.e. the docs that tell you how to access the API) are even worse - just a bunch of random examples without any worthwhile description of what functions and parameters do, so you end up having to cut and paste in bits of random example code and fiddling with it till it works. Then you run it on a different machine and find it doesn't work properly, and have to grope around with the code until it starts working again on both machines.
One thing I've noticed -- and it's not just that I'm getting older -- is that young adults are a lot less mature than 20 years ago
Umm, yes it is you just getting older - sorry. Stuff I've heard my dad and grand-dad tell me shows that it's been the same all along. Old people have cursed the 'youth of today' for millennia.
I do the opposite. I look like a normal, clean living person (no tattoos, no piercings), yet I'm a dope fiend! Get the best of both worlds that way, good professional career, yet I can spend the weekends at the 'bake sale'.
I'm surprised the Navy isn't just using UTC for the time base of its servers. The time zone of the client should be set in the user's locale information - or does Outlook not support the Outlook client being in a different TZ to the Exchange server?
If they have configured their proxy to not allow HTTP CONNECT work on port 80, it won't work. However, since HTTPS always requires HTTP CONNECT to be available from a proxy, it's guaranteed to work.
If they allow port 443 (even via a proxy) you can use ssh. Simply set a remote SSH server up that listens on port 443, and:
ssh user@host -p 443
If it goes via a proxy, you'll need to set up a small program that does the HTTP CONNECT to your ssh server, and then have your ssh client talk to the local program. If you're using an SSH client such as PuTTY, this provides SSH access via proxy, and can do so by many methods, not just HTTP CONNECT on port 443. PuTTY, incidentally, can also act as a local SOCKS proxy and tunnel the entire internet through its ssh connection to your remote server.
What you say about IBM and H1B workers isn't true; I've worked for IBM as an H1B worker yet I do not have a Ph.D, and many of my colleagues on the project we were on were also on H1B workers. There was a critical (and genuinely rare) piece of experience we all had, but other than that we were just normal engineers.
Additionally, I was paid significantly *more* than the native IBMers because they paid me an International Service Allowance (which was generous enough I could live off it and spend hardly any of my actual salary) - so IBM was certainly not abusing the H1B system to hire cheap foreign workers because none of us were cheap.
That's what we do here. In fact, we don't actually route anything onto the Internet, and our internal DNS servers do not resolve names outside of our network.
The only outside access is via a web proxy.
But unless you have a very restrictive 'deny,allow' rule set (which we don't, because it simply wouldn't fly here), a worm can simply look up your proxy settings and use the web proxy instead. Or it can use port 443, and use HTTP CONNECT with the proxy to a remote system listening on port 443, then encrypt the traffic. To the proxy, it'll look like normal HTTPS traffic in transit. (This is the way we get SSH access to outside systems, despite not having any routing to the Internet - our SSH client uses the proxy, and connects to a remote SSH server that is set to listen on 443).
That'll be even worse. The Windows version doesn't have the look and feel of OS X. Microsoft will continue to make Windows a moving target so you can never pefectly emulate it, thus breaking the 'it just works' features of OS X (which is one of the major attractions of a Mac). Also, if the Windows emulation is too good - just like what happened to OS/2, closed source vendors will simply stop supporting OS X and tell Mac users to use Wine instead (and put up with an application that is 'graunched' to fit the Mac, rather than natively fitting like a well-made glove).
Just like too good Windows emulation turned out to be a disaster for OS/2, too good Windows emulation will be a disaster for OS X.
If OSX was to run on Dell or eMachines boxes, then Microsoft will crush them. That's why Apple will make sure OS X only runs on a Mac - because MS will immediately drop Office for OS X if they do anything else - and at that point, the platform will quickly die as a commercially viable platform.
Apple aren't going to try and compete directly with Microsoft. If they keep OS X to the Mac only, Microsoft will allow them to live. If they make OS X a general PC OS, then they will be crushed mercilessly. They are already asking to be crushed just by going to x86.
Dvorak complained that Windows sucked because the System Idle Process was using 95% cpu and making his system thrash. He really IS that stupid. He is a professional troll, and quite why his stories still feature on Slashdot's front page despite his provably moronic public statements is what I can't believe.
Dvorak is a professional troll. I don't know why someone who whined that Windows was slow "because the system idle process was thrashing 95% of cpu time!!111oneone" can ever get front page news on Slashdot. He's basically a clueless dolt.
Texting avoids the "HELLO, I'M ON THE TRAIN!" syndrome. It is quiet (silent, apart from the beep when a message comes in) and doesn't disturb people around you. You're hardly an old fogey, I'm 6 years older than you but almost exclusively use text messaging - I really don't like using phones, and my mobile has a full QWERTY keyboard so I'd rather text.
Hardly comparing like with like. Debian is a small, volunteer project with a few thousand dollars to hand. Microsoft is a giant global corporation with billions of dollars on hand. They have orders of magnitude more resources to devote to security than the Debian project.
Windows SHOULD be vastly better than Linux, given how much they charge for it and given the extreme wealth of the company behind it.
Slashdot Mirror
They are a far cry from a fascist tool...NOW.
But can you guarantee that will last forever? Dictators have risen from otherwise liberal democracies, and it's not inconceivable that it'll happen again. Once you have all that infrastructure in place, it's trivial for a malicious leader to use it to persecute.
How about the criminals that HAVEN'T been caught using fake ID? I wouldn't be surprised if there were ten times the number of criminals using well-forged ID or identity theft - once you have a universal trusted ID card, once you have a good fake you're above suspicion.
Finally, it'll cost £90 for something that essentially benefits only the government.
I really don't know what hardware people are running - but ever since Linux got SB support in the early 90s, I've *never* had a problem with sound. Of course, on desktop machines I use a distro designed for the desktop.
The thing is with Apple, they have control over the hardware so it's very easy for them to get everything working straight out of the box. Linux has to deal with parts bin machines. I bought my PowerBook precisely because it WASN'T a parts bin machine and everything would work out of the box.
Given a hardware selection solely made up of well supported stuff, I can have a Fedora Core or CentOS system work right out of the box, too.
Windows XP on the other hand - even on our HPaq machines at work - doesn't detect *any* hardware - not the chipset, the extremely common Intel onboard graphics, the extremely common onboard Intel NIC - instead I have to grope around the HPaq site to find the drivers. CentOS or FC3? Within half an hour of putting the first CD in, I can have a working machine with all hardware fully operating and a complete office suite.
So what we have here:
Apple - everything works out the box, but then again, OS X hardly supports any hardware because Apple only ships a very limited range of hardware.
Windows - Most things are not supported out the box but vendors all make Windows drivers.
Linux - OSS drivers for a vast range of hardware, but almost non-existent vendor support.
i.e. Linux cannot win. Microsoft, with all their financial might, doesn't need to bother writing drivers because the hardware makers all write the drivers for them. RedHat with a tiny fraction of the wealth of Microsoft has to make it all fit together themselves because the manufacturers won't lift a finger to help. Apple solves the problem by merely supporting a tiny amount of hardware and then controlling the hardware that goes into Apple computers.
Linux does have something similar to DirectX - SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) and since I'm working on a project that uses SDL, I have to say it works just fine and making an OpenGL program work with SDL+sound is just fine. SDL supports graphics, input, networking, sound and music. It's also multiplatform - it's not a Linux subsystem - it runs on BSD too. It also runs on Windows.
Actually, ALSA doesn't do that - I've had multiple programs using ALSA directly. (There's a configuration option for mixing that's apparently turned off by default, but seems to be turned on with Fedora Core).
The real problem with ALSA is the hideous state of the documentation. I'm not surprised you haven't found out that ALSA quite happily mixes - because the documentation is abysmal. The developer documentation (i.e. the docs that tell you how to access the API) are even worse - just a bunch of random examples without any worthwhile description of what functions and parameters do, so you end up having to cut and paste in bits of random example code and fiddling with it till it works. Then you run it on a different machine and find it doesn't work properly, and have to grope around with the code until it starts working again on both machines.
Umm, yes it is you just getting older - sorry. Stuff I've heard my dad and grand-dad tell me shows that it's been the same all along. Old people have cursed the 'youth of today' for millennia.
I do the opposite. I look like a normal, clean living person (no tattoos, no piercings), yet I'm a dope fiend! Get the best of both worlds that way, good professional career, yet I can spend the weekends at the 'bake sale'.
I'm surprised the Navy isn't just using UTC for the time base of its servers. The time zone of the client should be set in the user's locale information - or does Outlook not support the Outlook client being in a different TZ to the Exchange server?
If they have configured their proxy to not allow HTTP CONNECT work on port 80, it won't work. However, since HTTPS always requires HTTP CONNECT to be available from a proxy, it's guaranteed to work.
If they allow port 443 (even via a proxy) you can use ssh. Simply set a remote SSH server up that listens on port 443, and:
ssh user@host -p 443
If it goes via a proxy, you'll need to set up a small program that does the HTTP CONNECT to your ssh server, and then have your ssh client talk to the local program. If you're using an SSH client such as PuTTY, this provides SSH access via proxy, and can do so by many methods, not just HTTP CONNECT on port 443. PuTTY, incidentally, can also act as a local SOCKS proxy and tunnel the entire internet through its ssh connection to your remote server.
What you say about IBM and H1B workers isn't true; I've worked for IBM as an H1B worker yet I do not have a Ph.D, and many of my colleagues on the project we were on were also on H1B workers. There was a critical (and genuinely rare) piece of experience we all had, but other than that we were just normal engineers.
Additionally, I was paid significantly *more* than the native IBMers because they paid me an International Service Allowance (which was generous enough I could live off it and spend hardly any of my actual salary) - so IBM was certainly not abusing the H1B system to hire cheap foreign workers because none of us were cheap.
The moment Apple tries to sell OS X for non-Apple hardware, Microsoft will crush them.
so it indeed allows for that.
The real secret is PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy, and PHP stands for Pretty Hopeless Privacy, hence the security holes!
From the old series of Dr.Who, I think pretty much everyone agrees that Tom Baker was the best Doctor of them all.
However, I think the new Doctor will give him a damned good run for his money.
That's what we do here. In fact, we don't actually route anything onto the Internet, and our internal DNS servers do not resolve names outside of our network.
The only outside access is via a web proxy.
But unless you have a very restrictive 'deny,allow' rule set (which we don't, because it simply wouldn't fly here), a worm can simply look up your proxy settings and use the web proxy instead. Or it can use port 443, and use HTTP CONNECT with the proxy to a remote system listening on port 443, then encrypt the traffic. To the proxy, it'll look like normal HTTPS traffic in transit. (This is the way we get SSH access to outside systems, despite not having any routing to the Internet - our SSH client uses the proxy, and connects to a remote SSH server that is set to listen on 443).
Actually, Newspeak would drop the 'Most' from that as being redundant; 'doubleplusungood' on its own would be entirely sufficient.
China is NOT communist. It is a totalitarian dictatorship. The two are not the same.
That'll be even worse. The Windows version doesn't have the look and feel of OS X. Microsoft will continue to make Windows a moving target so you can never pefectly emulate it, thus breaking the 'it just works' features of OS X (which is one of the major attractions of a Mac). Also, if the Windows emulation is too good - just like what happened to OS/2, closed source vendors will simply stop supporting OS X and tell Mac users to use Wine instead (and put up with an application that is 'graunched' to fit the Mac, rather than natively fitting like a well-made glove).
Just like too good Windows emulation turned out to be a disaster for OS/2, too good Windows emulation will be a disaster for OS X.
If OSX was to run on Dell or eMachines boxes, then Microsoft will crush them. That's why Apple will make sure OS X only runs on a Mac - because MS will immediately drop Office for OS X if they do anything else - and at that point, the platform will quickly die as a commercially viable platform.
Apple aren't going to try and compete directly with Microsoft. If they keep OS X to the Mac only, Microsoft will allow them to live. If they make OS X a general PC OS, then they will be crushed mercilessly. They are already asking to be crushed just by going to x86.
Dvorak complained that Windows sucked because the System Idle Process was using 95% cpu and making his system thrash. He really IS that stupid. He is a professional troll, and quite why his stories still feature on Slashdot's front page despite his provably moronic public statements is what I can't believe.
Dvorak is a professional troll. I don't know why someone who whined that Windows was slow "because the system idle process was thrashing 95% of cpu time!!111oneone" can ever get front page news on Slashdot. He's basically a clueless dolt.
Yes - specifically, the name "Machinenpistole" gives it away as a SMG rather than a fullsize machine gun.
Texting avoids the "HELLO, I'M ON THE TRAIN!" syndrome. It is quiet (silent, apart from the beep when a message comes in) and doesn't disturb people around you. You're hardly an old fogey, I'm 6 years older than you but almost exclusively use text messaging - I really don't like using phones, and my mobile has a full QWERTY keyboard so I'd rather text.
Hardly comparing like with like. Debian is a small, volunteer project with a few thousand dollars to hand. Microsoft is a giant global corporation with billions of dollars on hand. They have orders of magnitude more resources to devote to security than the Debian project.
Windows SHOULD be vastly better than Linux, given how much they charge for it and given the extreme wealth of the company behind it.
To the US? I doubt Hitler would have tried to use an atom bomb against the US - more likely he'd have made a V3 rocket to carry it to London.