India also has a staggering number of people who live in appalling subhuman conditions. Here, educate yourself about an aspect of your country that you (and those who proudly proclaim themselves as being part of the "upwardly mobile middle class") probably wished would just disappear if they ignore it for long enough.
You know, India is a wonderful country, a place of amazing beauty and incredible social and cultural contrasts. I can't really say I've ever met an Indian I dind't like (and I've met a lot of them). That's not something I can say for people from other countries. There's something about Indians that is just outgoing, engaging and nice. I've spent many evenings talking with Indian friends, listening about religious festivals, food, customs and other aspects of their lives (I'm also an 'expat' of sorts).
But people like you need to lighten the fuck up. The parent was making a joke. I can't believe how many times I've seen this shit here on Slashdot where someone from India gets all huffy because of some stupid comment and trots out the "India is the biggest democracy" bullshit argument, as if that meant anything. You are still essentially a third world country. No amount of posturing will get you out of there, and you shouldn't fly off the deep end when someone points out that maybe India (as China and so many other emerging nations) is not such an absolutely hot place to live. All countries have problems and issues. But you guys have made ignoring and denying those into an art form, especially to foreigners.
BTW, I have Indian friends who could not point out the Netherlands or Sweden in a map of Europe. Generalizing about the ignorance of a group of people based on their nationality is stupid.
True, but surely you can compute an average. The typical Slashdork user is not average. The average is Yahoo, Google, MSN, Amazon, etc. It's amusing how for the past year or so I've seen people post stats from W3C Schools as "proof" that FF's share was increasing. As if that was more accurate (or a better representation of the average) than, say, the Google zeitgeist. Of course it was a fanboy that cause Google to pull zeitgeist because he argued that Linux should be 0.4% as opposed to 0.3% or some ridiculous bullshit like that.
As a side note, Slashnot used to publish browser stats. Ever wonder why they don't anymore?
I don't think that's exactly accurate. Once in a while (maybe once every 6 months or so?) Slashdork gets bombarded by the usual massive crapflooding attack that we all chuckle at. The last one was that "I'm an open proxy, ban me!" rant that was a mix of logged-in and AC posts.
A few years ago there was the flood that involved thousands of accounts and an attack that lasted about two days. No ACs involved. I believe this was when the CAPTCHA thing was introduced to posting by new/low karma accounts.
I don't think Taco&Co are sufficiently smart to hold off these types of things, and they probably never will. They are amost exclusively reactive when working on their defenses.
Of course every attack brings on a new series of countermeasures that end up fucking up everyone else , because the "admins" have never grown away from the "w3 r 1337 h^x0rz" bullshit attitude and so any QA on their code or infrastructure would be considered a girlie thing to do. Ergo, 503 hell.
Having said all of the above I consider it unfortunate that they even have to deal with this type of shit, however: a) that's their fucking day job; and b) they have largely brought it on themselves over the years by insulting anyone who has a suggestion or constructive criticism about the way they do things. There's always shoveling shit or flipping burgers for a living.
While I agree that creating an account is not really that big a deal, I don't think AC posting should be removed.
First, all you need is an asshole with some mod points, bias and a grudge (I've yet to find one of those around here of course) to get that account to negative karma, and then the account is useless. It would be a pain in the butt to create one account per month (assuming an average AC posting pattern), since you need a different email address each time. Not to mention pointless drain on resources.
Second, I've seen way too many good AC posts, and crapflooding and persistent trolls rarely operate in AC mode, so I don't think you can draw a line between these behaviors and AC posting.
If anything, ACs should be allowed to top-post but forbidden from replying. This would make it harder to engage in the never-ending "u r teh stupidd and i hateing u" bullshit flamebait replies, the "first post" threads and such phenomena, but would still allow ACs to speak their mind. In the off chance that they felt the need to reply to a post they could reference it with a URL in their top post. It would be a rare occurrence anyway as most good AC posts are replying to the article anyway (well, that's my perception).
You wouldn't get rid of "first post" itself, but maybe it would be a bit better reading experience overall. Who knows. But removing ACs altogether seems a bit of a harsh knee-jerk thing to do.
In any case, it will be all over once TxMxP sends that email to Taco, since he will never implement a change to his pet blog as suggested by a user, no matter how good it happens to be. Never.
This is Microsoft's fault, plainly. Not the poor bastards who were taken in.
Really now. Let's say that we give these people Linux. Actually, let's say we give them OS X. Let's say then that we give 10 million of them OS X, to make it a worthwile target.
Then, let's write some malware for it. Something they have to download. Maybe it will ask for their root password. Have you ever seen a Mac user being asked for their root password when working on something? They just type it in blindly and go on with what they were doing. They might as well be running as root.
So, this piece of malware maybe exploits a vulnerability that they cannot be bothered to patch, but that's not necessary at all. And it turns their machine into a spam-spewing zombie bot.
Download something, install it on your machine. You get malware. Surprise. This has nothing to do with the fact that it's BT, because BT is open to everyone. It's the user's responsibility, as always. As with Kazaa, LimeWire and any other P2P technology or just downloading "that really cool screensaver" using your web browser.
Of course this won't stop some people from blaming Microsoft somehow.
You're on crack. Look around the net for player components. Just one example: You'll find one called 'Bass' that has the basic functionality to do anything you want. And it's free. DirectX and its cousin technologies are documented up the wazoo (no one would write games for Windows if that wasn't the case). What 'COM objects' are you babbling about? Are you talking about extending WMP through ActiveX? That would be a tad stupid considering you want to get rid of it to begin with, wouldn't it?
Are you claiming that Real's lame-ass bullshit complaint is a lack of API documentation? For fuck's sake. RealPlayer would actually be usable if it used something that's standard to Windows. And WMP can use any codec you throw at it, "free", "open" or otherwise. How about you show us what is not documented that applies to this particular case?
I will give you the capability for WMP to be completely uninstalled, however this is an issue that relates to Windows file protection and it can be circumvented, albeit not easily. I do it to remove Outlook Express from my computers.
So I kind of got lost here - what was it you were whining about?
ActiveX that is often cited as one of the Top 5 reasons why companies do not convert to Linux
Is it your opinion that this is the result of ActiveX being something other than a useful technology for building "rich" web applications?
I'm not entirely sure what the perfect solution to this would have been
Well, everybody clapped right up to today when a few slashbots realized there are a few European consumers that are going to get a crippled version of Windows for the same price thanks to the technological wisdom of a few EU bureaucrats.
Antitrust law is supposed to protect consumers, not screw them. But of course it's Microsoft so whatever action is taken against them is A-OK.
WMP but the.wmv codec itself from inclusion in the default install, or specifying that Microsoft must include DivX, XVid
That's a great idea. Since Real is far more popular than WMP perhaps the US government can threaten RealNetworks with a $6M/day fine unless they stop including their codec with their player and start including every competing codec under the sun. Including WMP.
Your quippy comment about the parent trolling because of the comparison notwithstanding, that would only be fair. After all it was RealNetworks who started whining about WMP, which is interesting given that their POS player is positively evil compared to WMP and every computer I've bought in the past five years has included it pre-installed.
The EU can now force Dell, IBM and Lenovo to deploy the crippled version of Windows. And if consumers won't buy the PCs, they can force them to buy as well.
They're on a roll, might as well go all the way. After all, they're doing it for "the people". It's not like this was all a result of RealNetworks lobbying. No siree!
Exaples of packages that owe their existance to economics
If you want to characterize the provision of low cost or free alternatives to commercial software products as "innovation", fine. I'm sure I can find a way to make a case that SQL Server innovates as well, even though it was initially based on Sybase code. And so on.
Microsoft was claiming that their cause was "the freedom to innovate"
To the extent that Windows has been a platform for which many other companies have innovated (and made a lot of money in the process) I'd say that's not too far off. I can even make that case for integrating IE. It's an excellent way to create applications.
while most of its new offerings have been the result of corporate buyouts and/or copying features
And this is different from open source how exactly? There are damn few original applications created by open source developers or organizations.
don't go around bragging about how innovative they are
WTF, of course they do.
simply opensourcing an existing concept (Jabber) is viewed as an innovative step
Well, you can use 'innovation' in any context you want. Certainly it's used in a very special way when applied to Microsoft: not reinventing the wheel from scratch every time == lack of innovation. It doesn't matter if you're a company buying an existing code base and incorporating it into your own product line or an open source developer borrowing ideas from other projects. Again, innovation is not a relative concept. You are either innovating or you're not. And innovation has nothing to do with price or freedom.
This is intriguing. Work with me for a second here, OK?
Mozilla for example is based on ideas, technology and a codebase developed by Netscape. How does Mozilla innovate?
Open source did not create IM, but they copied it to death. How does Jabber and the lot innovate?
MySQL is "ripping off" established commercial databases now, putting in innovative things like stored procedures, views and UFDs. Does MySQL innovate?
The GiMP is a Photoshop ripp-off, so much so that with every new version of PS the GiMP developers have rushed to provide their own substandard "alternatives" to some PS features. Does the GiMP innovate?
KDE has always looked like Windows. They copied the taskbar, the start menu, the tray notification area and so on. Does that mean that KDE does not innovate?
Wow... IrFanView and ACDSee have been out for how long now?
How funny that when it comes to Microsoft everyone has very clear memories of prior art, but when it comes to Apple or open source it's collective amnesia all around.
There is very little revolutionary innovation going on nowadays, especially in software. But there is a lot of evolutionary innovation, which ensures that software niches (like image management in this case) will likely never become stale.
Of course this is not a popular view when you must believe that your [favorite company or social movement] has been innovating up the wazoo since the dawn of time. But reality sucks sometimes.
Microsoft would already own the server, phone, and embedded spaces
And maybe they'd be sacrificing babies at midnight, too. All hail open source! Saviors of the universe!
Laugh while you can, monkey boy.
Hey, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. They want their retard slashbot prediction back, if you would be so kind. Better throw 2005 in as well.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, India is a wonderful country, a place of amazing beauty and incredible social and cultural contrasts. I can't really say I've ever met an Indian I dind't like (and I've met a lot of them). That's not something I can say for people from other countries. There's something about Indians that is just outgoing, engaging and nice. I've spent many evenings talking with Indian friends, listening about religious festivals, food, customs and other aspects of their lives (I'm also an 'expat' of sorts).
But people like you need to lighten the fuck up. The parent was making a joke. I can't believe how many times I've seen this shit here on Slashdot where someone from India gets all huffy because of some stupid comment and trots out the "India is the biggest democracy" bullshit argument, as if that meant anything. You are still essentially a third world country. No amount of posturing will get you out of there, and you shouldn't fly off the deep end when someone points out that maybe India (as China and so many other emerging nations) is not such an absolutely hot place to live. All countries have problems and issues. But you guys have made ignoring and denying those into an art form, especially to foreigners.
BTW, I have Indian friends who could not point out the Netherlands or Sweden in a map of Europe. Generalizing about the ignorance of a group of people based on their nationality is stupid.
Cheers.
True, but surely you can compute an average. The typical Slashdork user is not average. The average is Yahoo, Google, MSN, Amazon, etc. It's amusing how for the past year or so I've seen people post stats from W3C Schools as "proof" that FF's share was increasing. As if that was more accurate (or a better representation of the average) than, say, the Google zeitgeist. Of course it was a fanboy that cause Google to pull zeitgeist because he argued that Linux should be 0.4% as opposed to 0.3% or some ridiculous bullshit like that.
As a side note, Slashnot used to publish browser stats. Ever wonder why they don't anymore?
You'll notice that I did not make use of the term 'wanker' anywhere in my post =)
A few years ago there was the flood that involved thousands of accounts and an attack that lasted about two days. No ACs involved. I believe this was when the CAPTCHA thing was introduced to posting by new/low karma accounts.
I don't think Taco&Co are sufficiently smart to hold off these types of things, and they probably never will. They are amost exclusively reactive when working on their defenses.
Of course every attack brings on a new series of countermeasures that end up fucking up everyone else , because the "admins" have never grown away from the "w3 r 1337 h^x0rz" bullshit attitude and so any QA on their code or infrastructure would be considered a girlie thing to do. Ergo, 503 hell.
Having said all of the above I consider it unfortunate that they even have to deal with this type of shit, however: a) that's their fucking day job; and b) they have largely brought it on themselves over the years by insulting anyone who has a suggestion or constructive criticism about the way they do things. There's always shoveling shit or flipping burgers for a living.
He wants his story back.
Yous.
Do we hate Dvorak on Tuesdays, or was that only Thursdays?
First, all you need is an asshole with some mod points, bias and a grudge (I've yet to find one of those around here of course) to get that account to negative karma, and then the account is useless. It would be a pain in the butt to create one account per month (assuming an average AC posting pattern), since you need a different email address each time. Not to mention pointless drain on resources.
Second, I've seen way too many good AC posts, and crapflooding and persistent trolls rarely operate in AC mode, so I don't think you can draw a line between these behaviors and AC posting.
If anything, ACs should be allowed to top-post but forbidden from replying. This would make it harder to engage in the never-ending "u r teh stupidd and i hateing u" bullshit flamebait replies, the "first post" threads and such phenomena, but would still allow ACs to speak their mind. In the off chance that they felt the need to reply to a post they could reference it with a URL in their top post. It would be a rare occurrence anyway as most good AC posts are replying to the article anyway (well, that's my perception).
You wouldn't get rid of "first post" itself, but maybe it would be a bit better reading experience overall. Who knows. But removing ACs altogether seems a bit of a harsh knee-jerk thing to do.
In any case, it will be all over once TxMxP sends that email to Taco, since he will never implement a change to his pet blog as suggested by a user, no matter how good it happens to be. Never.
So it's not Microsoft's fault. OK. Well, good luck on making that work sometime this century.
Really now. Let's say that we give these people Linux. Actually, let's say we give them OS X. Let's say then that we give 10 million of them OS X, to make it a worthwile target.
Then, let's write some malware for it. Something they have to download. Maybe it will ask for their root password. Have you ever seen a Mac user being asked for their root password when working on something? They just type it in blindly and go on with what they were doing. They might as well be running as root.
So, this piece of malware maybe exploits a vulnerability that they cannot be bothered to patch, but that's not necessary at all. And it turns their machine into a spam-spewing zombie bot.
Is this Apple's fault?
Of course this won't stop some people from blaming Microsoft somehow.
Are you claiming that Real's lame-ass bullshit complaint is a lack of API documentation? For fuck's sake. RealPlayer would actually be usable if it used something that's standard to Windows. And WMP can use any codec you throw at it, "free", "open" or otherwise. How about you show us what is not documented that applies to this particular case?
I will give you the capability for WMP to be completely uninstalled, however this is an issue that relates to Windows file protection and it can be circumvented, albeit not easily. I do it to remove Outlook Express from my computers.
So I kind of got lost here - what was it you were whining about?
Is it your opinion that this is the result of ActiveX being something other than a useful technology for building "rich" web applications?
I'm not entirely sure what the perfect solution to this would have been
Well, everybody clapped right up to today when a few slashbots realized there are a few European consumers that are going to get a crippled version of Windows for the same price thanks to the technological wisdom of a few EU bureaucrats.
Antitrust law is supposed to protect consumers, not screw them. But of course it's Microsoft so whatever action is taken against them is A-OK.
WMP but the .wmv codec itself from inclusion in the default install, or specifying that Microsoft must include DivX, XVid
That's a great idea. Since Real is far more popular than WMP perhaps the US government can threaten RealNetworks with a $6M/day fine unless they stop including their codec with their player and start including every competing codec under the sun. Including WMP.
Your quippy comment about the parent trolling because of the comparison notwithstanding, that would only be fair. After all it was RealNetworks who started whining about WMP, which is interesting given that their POS player is positively evil compared to WMP and every computer I've bought in the past five years has included it pre-installed.
They're on a roll, might as well go all the way. After all, they're doing it for "the people". It's not like this was all a result of RealNetworks lobbying. No siree!
If you want to characterize the provision of low cost or free alternatives to commercial software products as "innovation", fine. I'm sure I can find a way to make a case that SQL Server innovates as well, even though it was initially based on Sybase code. And so on.
Of course I am, what with my deviation from the sheep mindset.
Talk and Write
Are you saying AT&T/Bell and Ritchie invented this? ROFL!
but mostly it's a feedback loop
Right, it's a "feedback loop" when it's open source, but a "rip-off" when it's Microsoft.
To the extent that Windows has been a platform for which many other companies have innovated (and made a lot of money in the process) I'd say that's not too far off. I can even make that case for integrating IE. It's an excellent way to create applications.
while most of its new offerings have been the result of corporate buyouts and/or copying features
And this is different from open source how exactly? There are damn few original applications created by open source developers or organizations.
don't go around bragging about how innovative they are
WTF, of course they do.
simply opensourcing an existing concept (Jabber) is viewed as an innovative step
Well, you can use 'innovation' in any context you want. Certainly it's used in a very special way when applied to Microsoft: not reinventing the wheel from scratch every time == lack of innovation. It doesn't matter if you're a company buying an existing code base and incorporating it into your own product line or an open source developer borrowing ideas from other projects. Again, innovation is not a relative concept. You are either innovating or you're not. And innovation has nothing to do with price or freedom.
I mean, IE6 is really not that different from Mosaic, right? And Firefox is really not that different from NS2. Right?
Innovation is not in the eye of the beholder, and it's not a relative concept.
Mozilla for example is based on ideas, technology and a codebase developed by Netscape. How does Mozilla innovate?
Open source did not create IM, but they copied it to death. How does Jabber and the lot innovate?
MySQL is "ripping off" established commercial databases now, putting in innovative things like stored procedures, views and UFDs. Does MySQL innovate?
The GiMP is a Photoshop ripp-off, so much so that with every new version of PS the GiMP developers have rushed to provide their own substandard "alternatives" to some PS features. Does the GiMP innovate?
KDE has always looked like Windows. They copied the taskbar, the start menu, the tray notification area and so on. Does that mean that KDE does not innovate?
So it's OK to rip other people's ideas off as long as you give them away? Interesting.
There's a lot of gold to be mined from the Debian mailing lists right now, in case you run out.
Wow... IrFanView and ACDSee have been out for how long now?
How funny that when it comes to Microsoft everyone has very clear memories of prior art, but when it comes to Apple or open source it's collective amnesia all around.
There is very little revolutionary innovation going on nowadays, especially in software. But there is a lot of evolutionary innovation, which ensures that software niches (like image management in this case) will likely never become stale.
Of course this is not a popular view when you must believe that your [favorite company or social movement] has been innovating up the wazoo since the dawn of time. But reality sucks sometimes.
The "there is no slashbot collective" argument... from the slashbot collective.
Fine then, I suggest we stop cutting Google any slack for their everything-perpetually-in-beta approach.
And maybe they'd be sacrificing babies at midnight, too. All hail open source! Saviors of the universe!
Laugh while you can, monkey boy.
Hey, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. They want their retard slashbot prediction back, if you would be so kind. Better throw 2005 in as well.
Thanks!