It has to be perfect. It has to be flawless. Or else it won't attract brand new users.
First of all, how many of these users installed Windows themselves flawlessly? Not a recovery, an install on new hardware with a purchased copy of Windows. Few to none that must be "attracted".
Secondly, they can buy a Linux PC over the internet as easily as from Dell or Gateway. Whether they have a compelling reason to do so is a different issue, but pre-installed Windows should be compared to pre-installed Linux for fairness.
I spent the 80's as an 8086 programmer. To throw in an obervation, the same code can be written in other languages with pointers doing exactly the same thing. It's more that of people learning what can be done with bit manipulation and pointers, for example, rather than the actual assembly syntax.
The other point is, it's not about "learning" assembler, it's about doing something substantive enough to use the equivalent. Then we're talking learning.
I think the deal was MS couldn't demand windows exclusivity, no dual boot machines, etc.
No, it's pretty significant because it was their modus operandi to freeze out any competition. They required the PC maker to pay for Windows on every CPU they made to get the "discount" price.
The nondiscount price was so expensive, and Microsoft willing occasionally to make someone an example victim for not complying, that no one dared do anything but sign the contract.
So no matter what was put on a PC, Microsoft was paid for a copy of Windows. This licensing scheme was prohibited by the Justice Department as part of the plea deal. As anyone would expect, you should be able to buy whatever OS you want without paying for Windows as well.
As anyone can see, the computer makers are still scared of what Microsoft may do to them if they actually openly comply with the anti-trust ruling.
I don't get it. You get the Win for "free" (or less) due to the nagware installed.
The manufacturer (Dell, HP, etc.) pays Microsoft a license fee out of that purchase. You may reformat it but Microsoft just ticks up its revenues and official count of newly ecstatic "Vista" customers.
These manufacturers used to have to by contract pay Microsoft this license fee whether Windows was installed or not. This was outlawed as part of the weak settlement the Republicans sweet-hearted Microsoft with as soon as they got into town.
Even with this sweet-heart wrist slap, clearly the manufacturers are just as afraid, just as monopolized. Yet they must say such things as quoted in the article so as to appear not to be participating with Microsoft in the same outlawed behavior.
They say the required words. They just don't do them.
On the other hand, we shouldn't have to depend on them living up to their lies. This is a timely thread. I searched for buying a Linux computer today, with the keyword Jacksonville, where I live.
How naive can I be.
I finally, with a lot of searching, got to a list in a Linux.org type site of Linux PC manufacturers, a similar list I saw in another post here. I looked at the web sites of several very fine companies, where you can choose your OS and distro, and I know from buying a PC from one of them a few years ago that the hardware will be quality too.
This thread is about naked PC's, and you can get them that way, but these normally come pre-installed with Linux and ready to go. And if you reinstall something else over it, you know the PC is Linux ready for that.
We should be giving our business to them rather than fighting the largest manufacturers in outlawed cahoots with Microsoft. It's the same process as buying from Dell. Just buy from someone who sells you what you want.
We did get enough protection from our glorious protectors in Washington for companies to build computers without paying Microsoft a license. Now it's up to us to buy them.
not to defend MS or dell, but the truth is, MS is well within their rights to demand that dell sell a copy with every machine to get a volume discount...
This was specifically forbidden in the anti-trust lawsuit settlement. No, they are not within their rights to continue doing that.
I don't get it. You get the Win for "free" (or less) due to the nagware installed.
The manufacturer (Dell, HP, etc.) pays Microsoft a license fee out of that purchase. You may reformat it but Microsoft just ticks up its revenues and official count of newly ecstatic "Vista" customers.
These manufacturers used to have to by contract pay Microsoft this license fee whether Windows was installed or not. This was outlawed as part of the weak settlement the Republicans sweet-hearted Microsoft with as soon as they got into town.
Even with this sweet-heart wrist slap, clearly the manufacturers are just as afraid, just as monopolized. Yet they must say such things as quoted in the article so as to appear not to be participating with Microsoft in the same outlawed behavior.
They say the required words. They just don't do them.
On the other hand, we shouldn't have to depend on them living up to their lies. This is a timely thread. I searched for buying a Linux computer today, with the keyword Jacksonville, where I live.
How naive can I be.
I finally, with a lot of searching, got to a list in a Linuxorg (sp?) type site of Linux PC manufacturers, a similar list I saw in another post here. I looked at the web sites of several very fine companies, where you can choose your OS and distro, and I know from buying a PC from one of them a few years ago that the hardware will be quality too.
This thread is about naked PC's, and you can get them that way, but these normally come pre-installed with Linux and ready to go. And if you reinstall something else over it, you know the PC is Linux ready for that.
We should be giving our business to them rather than fighting the largest manufacturers in outlawed cahoots with Microsoft. It's the same process as buying from Dell. Just buy from someone who sells you what you want.
We did get enough protection from our glorious protectors in Washington for companies to build computers without paying Microsoft a license. Now it's up to us to buy them.
I'm surprised that slashdotters, of all people, would advocate software/hardware "appliances". It would be impossible to modify the code and distribute it to others, since it would be a piece of hardware. How is this in the spirit of OSS?
And along those lines, wouldn't Open Office running against networked files be a better choice all the way around than proprietary browser versions of office software?
Finally, the last thing I want is to have our government entirely dependant on an ADVERTISING company such as google.
Selling systems to government and business is not advertising, so you are discouraging that which actually makes it not entirely dependent on advertising. And the more software services they sell, the less dependent they are.
And what's wrong with free services suupported by advertising anyway? Radio and TV have been making a mint off of it since the beginning. Google and the internet in general are looking to get their share of those billions of dollars, a share equivalent to eyes on the internet and Google instead of tv.
But neither Google or the networks are going away anytime soon because they are mostly dependent on advertising.
How is this not Slash [wikipedia.org], from our truly and good Slashdot? Everything is there, from Score to karma to Mod points. This is far from being wiki, and much more like being slash.
It's supposed to be, they consulted CndrTaco about it. It has even more elements of eBay and Amazon as well. I don't think it has much to do with the Wikipedia process at all from what I can tell.
Apparently "citing" Wikipedia is based on pure name recognition and easier to understand than slashdot/eBay/Amazon (and who knows, probably shades of Google PageRank will be in there as well).
Why not employ unemployed qualified volunteers and also pay them to do a peer review.
Why not use free, transparent reviews from identified, publically disclosed reviewers across the internet who can be rated by everyone as to the value of their comments on the patent?
That is what the Washington Post article describes the Patent Office as deciding after talking to CmdrTaco, eBay experts, etc.
Although we'll be in uncharted waters if the Patent Office vote process looks too much like One-Click.
Why employ as "volunteers" from Oracle, HP, IBM, etc., which are known patent abusers?
Unfortunately, neither you nor the modders understand that the "volunteers" are those having their patents reviewed via internet, not doing the reviews as an institution.
Of course technical experts from those companies as well as anyone else, including any of us on slashdot, can also participate. The article describes the patent office deciding to initially follow a democratic process, allowing one vote per person, but with a slashdot/ebay type modding process to rate the top ten comments on a patent.
The planet's crusts used to lubricate with oil based lubricants until it got the memo to switch to water based lubricants.
What's even funnier than your joke is that it's rated Interesting instead of Funny and elicited some speculation on switching to water based lubricants. Holy cow:)
After reading the article (such as it is), it seems like awfully fuzzy science. They estimate that.1% of waterlogged ocean bottom is made up of water, and if.1% of the bottom of Asia (?) evaporated out, then you would have an Arctic ocean worth of water.
What, it seeped together from all over the mantle below Asia into a structural breach of some kind and condensed back into water? At that depth and pressure?
From readings of earthquake seismic attenuation they're basing this on, could you really tell if it's oil versus water (if either) doing the attenuation? I doubt it. And for that matter, does the so called waterlogged crust at.1% water density attenuate seismic activity significantly differently than dried out rock with a water bed over it (which once evaporated out, does not reenter the rock which apparently had the capacity to be entered before?).
What kind of science is this? It looks like it reads for fifth graders. I remember we had some kind of similar "ain't science just fascinating" type light reading material in grade school. Must come on a web page now. Probably patented because it's on a web page. Still the same light weight fluff though.
Your Feynman quote only proves that you don't know how these people are. Many of them, like myself, know some of the men and women who are or will be flying these things.
Good point, plus a post last night indicated that testing had worked successfully against the simulator, they had to get a physical GPS nav unit to duplicate the problem.
This is like the Mars Orbiter english/metric conversion problem. You have people programming in good faith, but there was miscommunication in the specs. The sumulator apparently did not simulate the output of the GPS nav unit correctly for that switch in longitude.
But the programming worked against what was said to be the specs. So the simulator people made a mistake, but that happens to the best of us, even with the best of intentions.
...whereas I pictured this to be more like a collection of specific subsystems without an overall operating system tying them all together.
You generally have an Exec module, a kernel if you will, in a real time system.
But as to to your couple of lines out of millions issue, that wouldn't be literally a couple of lines out of one multi-million lines of code module, but out of millions of lines total from all the subsystems. I doubt any of the modules are trivial.
One of the systems judged not operationally suitable is the Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor, says the report on fiscal year 2006 test activity. Follow-on testing completed last year judged the aircraft operationally effective, but cited deficiencies in air-to-ground weapons integration and defensive avionics capability, low diagnostics accuracy, long repair times and inadequate subsystem reliability.
The US Air Force is playing down the concerns, with Air Combat Command chief Gen Ronald Keys saying the F-22 is "ready to go to war". The first overseas deployment, to Kadena AFB in Japan, begins this month. end quote
also from TFA:
Taking delivery of the first F-22 for the Pacific Air Forces at Lockheed's Marietta, Georgia plant on Monday, USAF Gen Paul Hester said the reason for sending the Raptors to Kadena is "to learn how to deploy with the F-22..."
PACAF's F-22s are being delivered to Langley for training, with the first eight aircraft to arrive at Elmendorf AFB in Alaska in August and two squadrons to be operational by the end of 2008. Eventually, Raptors will also be based at Hickam. end quote
The F-22 is judged not operationally suitable and hasn't been set up in the states for training with squadrons yet, but is being rushed straight to Japan because the Air Force says it's "ready to go to war"?
At what point are generals nothing more than administration lackeys? Whatever it is, I think we've reached it.
from the article: Taking delivery of the first F-22 for the Pacific Air Forces at Lockheed's Marietta, Georgia plant on Monday, USAF Gen Paul Hester said the reason for sending the Raptors to Kadena is "to learn how to deploy with the F-22. We get a manual with the aircraft and we are learning every day the capabilities built into the aircraft."
So although it might make for nice corporate slogan or initiative, I'm not sure free candy, soda and food is going to attract the best of the best. If so, the best of the best are mighty shallow or easily tricked.
I agree with this. And also that those great minds will become entrepreneurs sooner rather than later. It sounded like Google was trying to incubate that kind of initiative in house though. But everyone with a great idea should take their shot.
Slashdot Mirror
It has to be perfect. It has to be flawless. Or else it won't attract brand new users.
First of all, how many of these users installed Windows themselves flawlessly? Not a recovery, an install on new hardware with a purchased copy of Windows. Few to none that must be "attracted".
Secondly, they can buy a Linux PC over the internet as easily as from Dell or Gateway. Whether they have a compelling reason to do so is a different issue, but pre-installed Windows should be compared to pre-installed Linux for fairness.
rd
Just describe it with a version number, which is long standing convention in software, or stick to the stupid word naming system - pick one!
They do both. I wouldn't want to figure out the order of Hoary, Dapper, Edgy, Feisty, etc. either. That's what the version numbers are for.
rd
My gut reaction is the same as yours; "Feisty Fawn" sounds like a children's product, and I'll stick with Slackware, thank you very much.
From what I can see, it's a philosophical tribute to his native Afican animals, which is serious stuff.
From a description of Slackware on Linuxforums, the creator is quoted as answering why he had no code names as that there was no need for them.
There's lots of described philosophical differences between Ubuntu and Slackware. Children's product isn't one of them though.
rd
I spent the 80's as an 8086 programmer. To throw in an obervation, the same code can be written in other languages with pointers doing exactly the same thing. It's more that of people learning what can be done with bit manipulation and pointers, for example, rather than the actual assembly syntax.
The other point is, it's not about "learning" assembler, it's about doing something substantive enough to use the equivalent. Then we're talking learning.
rd
I think the deal was MS couldn't demand windows exclusivity, no dual boot machines, etc.
No, it's pretty significant because it was their modus operandi to freeze out any competition. They required the PC maker to pay for Windows on every CPU they made to get the "discount" price.
The nondiscount price was so expensive, and Microsoft willing occasionally to make someone an example victim for not complying, that no one dared do anything but sign the contract.
So no matter what was put on a PC, Microsoft was paid for a copy of Windows. This licensing scheme was prohibited by the Justice Department as part of the plea deal. As anyone would expect, you should be able to buy whatever OS you want without paying for Windows as well.
As anyone can see, the computer makers are still scared of what Microsoft may do to them if they actually openly comply with the anti-trust ruling.
rd
I don't get it. You get the Win for "free" (or less) due to the nagware installed.
The manufacturer (Dell, HP, etc.) pays Microsoft a license fee out of that purchase. You may reformat it but Microsoft just ticks up its revenues and official count of newly ecstatic "Vista" customers.
These manufacturers used to have to by contract pay Microsoft this license fee whether Windows was installed or not. This was outlawed as part of the weak settlement the Republicans sweet-hearted Microsoft with as soon as they got into town.
Even with this sweet-heart wrist slap, clearly the manufacturers are just as afraid, just as monopolized. Yet they must say such things as quoted in the article so as to appear not to be participating with Microsoft in the same outlawed behavior.
They say the required words. They just don't do them.
On the other hand, we shouldn't have to depend on them living up to their lies. This is a timely thread. I searched for buying a Linux computer today, with the keyword Jacksonville, where I live.
How naive can I be.
I finally, with a lot of searching, got to a list in a Linux.org type site of Linux PC manufacturers, a similar list I saw in another post here. I looked at the web sites of several very fine companies, where you can choose your OS and distro, and I know from buying a PC from one of them a few years ago that the hardware will be quality too.
This thread is about naked PC's, and you can get them that way, but these normally come pre-installed with Linux and ready to go. And if you reinstall something else over it, you know the PC is Linux ready for that.
We should be giving our business to them rather than fighting the largest manufacturers in outlawed cahoots with Microsoft. It's the same process as buying from Dell. Just buy from someone who sells you what you want.
We did get enough protection from our glorious protectors in Washington for companies to build computers without paying Microsoft a license. Now it's up to us to buy them.
rd
not to defend MS or dell, but the truth is, MS is well within their rights to demand that dell sell a copy with every machine to get a volume discount...
This was specifically forbidden in the anti-trust lawsuit settlement. No, they are not within their rights to continue doing that.
rd
What the summary actually wants to do is to buy a naked pc from some well-known pc resellers at a price below a Windows-equipped pc.
No, they were just trying to buy it at all. The price below Windows-equipped thing wasn't there.
rd
I don't get it. You get the Win for "free" (or less) due to the nagware installed.
The manufacturer (Dell, HP, etc.) pays Microsoft a license fee out of that purchase. You may reformat it but Microsoft just ticks up its revenues and official count of newly ecstatic "Vista" customers.
These manufacturers used to have to by contract pay Microsoft this license fee whether Windows was installed or not. This was outlawed as part of the weak settlement the Republicans sweet-hearted Microsoft with as soon as they got into town.
Even with this sweet-heart wrist slap, clearly the manufacturers are just as afraid, just as monopolized. Yet they must say such things as quoted in the article so as to appear not to be participating with Microsoft in the same outlawed behavior.
They say the required words. They just don't do them.
On the other hand, we shouldn't have to depend on them living up to their lies. This is a timely thread. I searched for buying a Linux computer today, with the keyword Jacksonville, where I live.
How naive can I be.
I finally, with a lot of searching, got to a list in a Linuxorg (sp?) type site of Linux PC manufacturers, a similar list I saw in another post here. I looked at the web sites of several very fine companies, where you can choose your OS and distro, and I know from buying a PC from one of them a few years ago that the hardware will be quality too.
This thread is about naked PC's, and you can get them that way, but these normally come pre-installed with Linux and ready to go. And if you reinstall something else over it, you know the PC is Linux ready for that.
We should be giving our business to them rather than fighting the largest manufacturers in outlawed cahoots with Microsoft. It's the same process as buying from Dell. Just buy from someone who sells you what you want.
We did get enough protection from our glorious protectors in Washington for companies to build computers without paying Microsoft a license. Now it's up to us to buy them.
rd
FTFA: He and his colleagues suggest that hominids might have gotten crabs by eating gorilla flesh, perhaps scavenging a carcass.
This speculation makes more sense than a hominid might have laid down and slept where a gorilla slept?
For an internal assimilation such as AIDS I understand, but what's so hard to figure out about this?
rd
I'm surprised that slashdotters, of all people, would advocate software/hardware "appliances". It would be impossible to modify the code and distribute it to others, since it would be a piece of hardware. How is this in the spirit of OSS?
And along those lines, wouldn't Open Office running against networked files be a better choice all the way around than proprietary browser versions of office software?
rd
Finally, the last thing I want is to have our government entirely dependant on an ADVERTISING company such as google.
Selling systems to government and business is not advertising, so you are discouraging that which actually makes it not entirely dependent on advertising. And the more software services they sell, the less dependent they are.
And what's wrong with free services suupported by advertising anyway? Radio and TV have been making a mint off of it since the beginning. Google and the internet in general are looking to get their share of those billions of dollars, a share equivalent to eyes on the internet and Google instead of tv.
But neither Google or the networks are going away anytime soon because they are mostly dependent on advertising.
rd
How is this not Slash [wikipedia.org], from our truly and good Slashdot? Everything is there, from Score to karma to Mod points. This is far from being wiki, and much more like being slash.
It's supposed to be, they consulted CndrTaco about it. It has even more elements of eBay and Amazon as well. I don't think it has much to do with the Wikipedia process at all from what I can tell.
Apparently "citing" Wikipedia is based on pure name recognition and easier to understand than slashdot/eBay/Amazon (and who knows, probably shades of Google PageRank will be in there as well).
rd
Why not employ unemployed qualified volunteers and also pay them to do a peer review.
Why not use free, transparent reviews from identified, publically disclosed reviewers across the internet who can be rated by everyone as to the value of their comments on the patent?
That is what the Washington Post article describes the Patent Office as deciding after talking to CmdrTaco, eBay experts, etc.
Although we'll be in uncharted waters if the Patent Office vote process looks too much like One-Click.
rd
Why employ as "volunteers" from Oracle, HP, IBM, etc., which are known patent abusers?
Unfortunately, neither you nor the modders understand that the "volunteers" are those having their patents reviewed via internet, not doing the reviews as an institution.
Of course technical experts from those companies as well as anyone else, including any of us on slashdot, can also participate. The article describes the patent office deciding to initially follow a democratic process, allowing one vote per person, but with a slashdot/ebay type modding process to rate the top ten comments on a patent.
Unlike here, that will require RTFA.
rd
The planet's crusts used to lubricate with oil based lubricants until it got the memo to switch to water based lubricants.
:)
.1% of waterlogged ocean bottom is made up of water, and if .1% of the bottom of Asia (?) evaporated out, then you would have an Arctic ocean worth of water.
.1% water density attenuate seismic activity significantly differently than dried out rock with a water bed over it (which once evaporated out, does not reenter the rock which apparently had the capacity to be entered before?).
What's even funnier than your joke is that it's rated Interesting instead of Funny and elicited some speculation on switching to water based lubricants. Holy cow
After reading the article (such as it is), it seems like awfully fuzzy science. They estimate that
What, it seeped together from all over the mantle below Asia into a structural breach of some kind and condensed back into water? At that depth and pressure?
From readings of earthquake seismic attenuation they're basing this on, could you really tell if it's oil versus water (if either) doing the attenuation? I doubt it. And for that matter, does the so called waterlogged crust at
What kind of science is this? It looks like it reads for fifth graders. I remember we had some kind of similar "ain't science just fascinating" type light reading material in grade school. Must come on a web page now. Probably patented because it's on a web page. Still the same light weight fluff though.
rd
Your Feynman quote only proves that you don't know how these people are. Many of them, like myself, know some of the men and women who are or will be flying these things.
Good point, plus a post last night indicated that testing had worked successfully against the simulator, they had to get a physical GPS nav unit to duplicate the problem.
This is like the Mars Orbiter english/metric conversion problem. You have people programming in good faith, but there was miscommunication in the specs. The sumulator apparently did not simulate the output of the GPS nav unit correctly for that switch in longitude.
But the programming worked against what was said to be the specs. So the simulator people made a mistake, but that happens to the best of us, even with the best of intentions.
rd
Thanks for that post-incident report. I'm still reading, glad to get the answers to what happened.
rd
As shown in Vietnam and the current Iraq situation, America has great difficulty in fighting a loosely-organized resistance.
It's because we care about killing innocent civilians, and they are indistinguishable from innocent civilians.
If we can't identify the enemy, it's a good sign we shouldn't be there.
rd
...whereas I pictured this to be more like a collection of specific subsystems without an overall operating system tying them all together.
You generally have an Exec module, a kernel if you will, in a real time system.
But as to to your couple of lines out of millions issue, that wouldn't be literally a couple of lines out of one multi-million lines of code module, but out of millions of lines total from all the subsystems. I doubt any of the modules are trivial.
rd
I guess I just assumed seperation of concerns on the software level would dictate that each subsystem is self contained and somewhat small.
Dividing code up doesn't make the total smaller.
rd
Obviously whoever supplied the inertial navigation solution for the F22 hasn't quite gotten there yet...
1 1939/too-many-us-weapons-not-suitable-says-top-dod -operational.html
from a related article in flightglobal.com:
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/02/07/2
One of the systems judged not operationally suitable is the Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor, says the report on fiscal year 2006 test activity. Follow-on testing completed last year judged the aircraft operationally effective, but cited deficiencies in air-to-ground weapons integration and defensive avionics capability, low diagnostics accuracy, long repair times and inadequate subsystem reliability.
The US Air Force is playing down the concerns, with Air Combat Command chief Gen Ronald Keys saying the F-22 is "ready to go to war". The first overseas deployment, to Kadena AFB in Japan, begins this month.
end quote
also from TFA:
Taking delivery of the first F-22 for the Pacific Air Forces at Lockheed's Marietta, Georgia plant on Monday, USAF Gen Paul Hester said the reason for sending the Raptors to Kadena is "to learn how to deploy with the F-22..."
PACAF's F-22s are being delivered to Langley for training, with the first eight aircraft to arrive at Elmendorf AFB in Alaska in August and two squadrons to be operational by the end of 2008. Eventually, Raptors will also be based at Hickam.
end quote
The F-22 is judged not operationally suitable and hasn't been set up in the states for training with squadrons yet, but is being rushed straight to Japan because the Air Force says it's "ready to go to war"?
At what point are generals nothing more than administration lackeys? Whatever it is, I think we've reached it.
rd
from the article:
Taking delivery of the first F-22 for the Pacific Air Forces at Lockheed's Marietta, Georgia plant on Monday, USAF Gen Paul Hester said the reason for sending the Raptors to Kadena is "to learn how to deploy with the F-22. We get a manual with the aircraft and we are learning every day the capabilities built into the aircraft."
Another day, another lesson.
rd
from the summary:
Numerical evidence is provided rather than shear opinions.
Do those opinions come from sheeple?
So although it might make for nice corporate slogan or initiative, I'm not sure free candy, soda and food is going to attract the best of the best. If so, the best of the best are mighty shallow or easily tricked.
I agree with this. And also that those great minds will become entrepreneurs sooner rather than later. It sounded like Google was trying to incubate that kind of initiative in house though. But everyone with a great idea should take their shot.
rd