Good point. For people who don't know computers, or don't know them very well, Windows or Macs work very well. Since the interface is practically the same, there's little point in differentiating either unless you have particular non-Mac software you need to run.
Linux is definitely for people who understand computers better then your standard "Joe Six-Pack". As such, it is better for certain types of processes and apps.
Windows may have more stuff available at the store, but Linux, IMAO, is more flexible.
It does boil down to what you need, and what you can use.
Well, you could measure uptime by multiplying the number of processors by the number of OSes per processor (or if that is not the same for all processors, just take the total number of OSes running) and find out when that number of OSes have crashed (let's call that a crash-set). Average that out over several crash-sets and you could theoretically call that uptime.
Now, can you do the same thing over Linux? If you can, measure it the same way, and see how it compares to Win2K. Then compare the uptimes and see which one is better.
Not really. Radio stations can use a variety of methods to get around this. There is, AFAIK, no standard contract for a radio station to play a certain song.
And there are many ways that a radio station can play a song more often then others without paying more money for it (i.e. the publishers are not asking for money or even paying the station):
1) Play a few songs, including the one you want to play often, and ask listeners to call in to vote on the one they like best. Play the ones they liked best again later. If this doesn't result in playing that song again, skew the results so it does.
2) Have each DJ play it at least once during their shift. You'll get the song played 4-6 times a day this way.
3) Hold a promotional event around the album the song is on. The publishers of the album will help with this, more often then not. Give away free albums, posters, concert tickets to listeners who call in when the song is played. Do this all week long. You can play the song more often then normally because people are winning something.
See how this can be done?
Now, here's the problems that the publishers have with web-broadcasting:
1) You never know who's playing your songs. Publishers love looking at station demographics as this affects their marketing strategy.
2) You never know how they got your song. Did they download it illegally? Get a dupe from a friend?
3) Song quality. Radio stations tend to get new copies of CDs if the old ones get messed up. Web-casters rarely have enough money to replace damaged music. Song quality does affect how the song is received by listeners. If it's really grainy or scratchy, then what incentive does someone who doesn't own the album have to go buy it?
4) Royalties. Let's face it. People are greedy. Not just song publishers, kids. Also, when recording from a radio broadcast, you're likely to get a bad recording. If recording from a web-cast, you can (not will, can) get much better quality for your own home recordings. Publishers hate the thought of anyone owning the album without paying for it.
...is that it isn't always possible to have a concerted mass snail-mail effort. A lot of the time, riders and amendments are tacked to bills at the last minute. In cases like that, it isn't possible to get snail mail to the guv'mint in time. E-mail is quicker, although it is more easily ignored.
Exactly. Most government e-mail systems are either run only by staffers, which means that any responses are based only on whether the staffer feels like responding, or they are run automatically, which means that you automatically get a response, in form letter e-mail, no matter what you send. (Side note: it used to be auto-reply always, but after a spoof on the government servers, you generally only get one auto-response a day.)
Now, the staffers are the ones who generally read the e-mails eventually, if for no other reason, then to look through them for credible threats. They are the ones you have to impress, so if you are going to send one of these e-mails off, you need to be articulate, use proper spelling, and above all, don't swear. Swearing gets it File-13'd very quickly.
Also, e-mails can be easily ignored, as it is relatively simple to set up a system where you randomly generate an e-mail account on a free server, send a form letter to the guv'mint, and
repeat until bored.
One of the only things that I see coming of this, other then Headline News coverage, is that the government servers might not be up to handling this much extra e-mail. Yes, I'm sure they get a lot, but depending on how the e-mail spoolers are configured, this might shove it over the limit.
I've seen work into resolving nP complete into polynomial time, but it is at the very basic stages. The best I've seen is, in worst case, cubic time, but it still can't be proven. (That, and most of the nP theory behind the cubic solution is heavily beyond my understanding.)
What you really have to look at is that while the computer is solving this shortest path, it is not loading the page. It has to find the path before it can even load the first graphic or bit of text. And while it is not loading that web page, the user is sitting there waiting. Maybe on a 1 GHz, it takes a lot less time then on my 'old' 166 MHz, but depending on how the nP algorithm is coded, you could still have a lot of time where the browser is just sitting there, apparently doing nothing (at least from the user standpoint).
And I think I can speak for a large chunk of the online populace when I say I find that waiting for a web page to load is one of the more boring things I can think of doing.
Well, yes, the way you describe it is nothing new, and actually quite greedy.
One of the problems is it's not like you can reasonably perform least path planning with a Web browser. I mean, when you click on a link, you are getting routed from one site to another, but it's generally along the same routers, unless something really wierd is going on. (Servers down, heavily allocated, etc.) So trying to find a dynamic path that is the Internet 'path of least resistance' while increasing connection time works against each other. Because everyone wants to connect to the web sites faster, and they generally don't care how it is done.
Perhaps not the best attitude to take as a customer, but a lot of the typical web surfers are barely computer-literate.
Exactly. There is no reasonable way to determine whether the owner(s) of an.mp3 database actually own the tapes/CDs that the music files were originally from. Unless the RIAA is going door-to-door (not that I'd let them in) to check ownership, there is no way to enforce this law. You know, innocent until proven guilty and all...
Actually I kind of like this idea now. I can just see someone with thousands of.mp3s. The RIAA is sure that at least some of them are pirated, and jump the gun, only to find out that this guy owns a lot of music CDs. It only needs to happen once for them to be hit with counter-suits.
One comment on the personal search and seizure laws: It all depends on your jurisdiction, and what the cops can convince the judge of. Again, like with most cops, most judges are pretty cool about such things, but some judges, especially the technologically inept ones, really frown on some of this stuff, and are just looking for ways to broaden the scope of the law.
While that kind of thing can be overturned on appeal, by that point it may be too late, especially reputation-wise. A simple, but not always easy to follow rule is "Never put anything on the laptop (or PDA) that you're not ready to have read by anyone." If it means that you have to store your secure files or porn pics somewhere else, so be it, but PDAs and laptops are a lot more accessible and much more easily stolen.
Actually, it may be 'technically' unethical, but Rehnquist would not have to recuse himself unless the MS case actually got to the Supreme Court. IMAO, he should not have given an opinion at all, but based on the overwhelming majority to send it back to appeals, it really doesn't matter.
Is it wrong? Maybe. Does it actually have an effect on the disposition of the case? Not really.
The Appeals Court will view the case pretty much the same way. The Supreme Court returns cases to the Appeals Court, or refuses to hear them, all the time. Just because one of the Justices is related to one person involved with the MS case is really irrelevant. Again, it would make a difference if it came to the Supreme Court, but that's an arguement for if it ever happens, which I highly doubt, no matter what MS pulls.
MIT and UCSD have too much of a reputation to risk by rubber-stamping anything, much less a system that is getting as much bad press as Carnivore.
And, quite honestly, I doubt anyone heavily involved in the IT field has not heard of the Carnivore system at this point. The Sr. VP of IITRI's asserations that he is unaware of other institutions' opinions is pretty thin. This has gotten a lot of press in various ways. I've seen stuff on CNN, Headline news, and on MSNBC.com. To not be aware of the general opinions of Carnivore, you'd have to deliberately be unaware and ignorant on purpose.
Frankly, it doesn't surprise me that some of the institutions don't want to weigh in on Carnivore, but it bothers me when some profess ignorance on this scale.
Depends. If it started out damaged, you could probably get a new one. Most stores have a limited return and exchange policy (within 10 days, usually). A friend of mine bought and beat a game in one day. It was supposed to be a tough game, but there you go. He took it back, and got a different game. Now, if you go back four months after you bought it, you'll get laughed at.
*nod* Most of the typosquatting areas are simply advertising sites, such as most of the types squatters listed a few days ago on MSNBC.com. (The article is no longer listed, or I would have linked it.)
The typosquatters included typo'd version of washingtonpost.com, yahoo.com, and microsoft.com. (The last one surprised me a bit. You'd think that microsoft would have accidentally acquired all of the typos around their name...)
Like I said, most of these were advertising sites, shilling various banner ads and the like. A couple were porn sites, but not very many compared to the total list.
Because they want the rest of the world (or free world, from a non-MS standpoint) to switch to their products. Will it work? Probably not. I can't see a lot of people buying OL2000 just to be able to read e-mails from people with/using OL2000.
It's far simpler to go with a free e-mail service like altavista (just one example) then to deal with the major hassle that MS has become, especially with this new "product".
Exactly what I was wondering. If the receiver just "happens" to have the decoder key, that's all well and good... but how does he or she get it? If you send it on the same PTP connection, then it theoretically (or not just theory, depending on who you ask) intercept it and decode these secure transmissions. If you send it by e-mail, snail mail, etc. it can also be intercepted.
So what is the receiver supposed to do... guess?
Storing all of your friends (or clients, branches or whatever for corporations) could get complicated and/or take up too much space, depending on how big your circle of friends is, and what kind of encryption we're talking about.
Anyone have any answers? (Germane answers preferred.)
Hrm... this time next year, 2 GHz processors? (The 1 GHz was first announced about 6 months ago, right?) So that means we're likely to have 4 GHz processors in March of 2003? Cool... maybe by then I can afford something better then a 233 MHz...
Now, does the cost of processors go down in anywhere near a nominally similar relationship? When we have 2 GHz processors, will the 1 GHz processor cost half (or close to half) as much?
Okay, it could be considered censorship if all computers in Great Britain had these limitations on them (not allowed to visit certain sites, use e-mail, etc.), but since this is only in the libraries, it is not censorship. If you can go elsewhere to access what you want, it's not like it's such a big deal, right?
Look at it this way. They're not saying that you can't use e-mail. They're saying that you can't use e-mail while at that library. In a like manner, you can't read a Playboy magazine in the middle of a high school classroom, but the school is not saying that you can't read the same Playboy at home.
The library is free to prohibit certain types of activities. You are free to pursue them elsewhere.
All that having been said, I seem to recall a story about a library here in the U.S. that prohibited use of the library computers to access certain types of sites (read porn). It was found to be Unconstitutional, and so the library let the patrons go to porn sites. But, IIRC, they set up a charge system where if you went to an 'adult' site, you paid so much per hour to do so. (Nothing ever said they had to provide this access free of charge.)
*nod* And the search capabilities seem to be remarkably moronic. On a friend's computer, I watched him wade through all sorts of files that weren't even germane to the parameters he'd searched for. In the end, it all comes down to how people describe the files they are sharing over Gnutella.
On the plus side, he eventually did manage to find every single.mp3 he was looking for... it took him a while, but the thing of it is, some of these files he couldn't find at all on Napster.
Is there any reasonable way to determine usage stats for Gnutella?
In terms of game boxes, I tend to think that people recognize Sony more then Microsoft. Frankly, the big boys when it comes to game boxes are Nintendo, Sega, and Sony (not necessarily in that order). So, in a sense, MS is stepping into an arena that is already fairly well defined and dominated by others.
Will the X Box succeed? Well, I'm not going to buy one, but that's just me. If there are enough interesting games for it, it should sell. If the games blow chunks, the X Box will tank no matter how good it itself is.
I'd also like to note that if the X Box even does moderately well, it will probably be followed in a couple of years by a new model (in the manner of Nintendo, Sony and Sega)... but I don't see any 2nd stage MS gamebox being backwards compatible for some reason...
Okay, I have to admit, the GUI does look nice. It looks like they actually took some time to do decent graphics.
I have to ask though... anyone know how much of a hard drive hog this thing is going to be? If it follows any other MS product, it's bound to take more space then needed, but some program stats, even at this stage, would help.
Also, is this a new overall OS or just for certain products? (In other words, is it a PC OS, yet another NT upgrade, or what?)
One would hope so, but I tend to doubt it. Frankly, Redhat should not be used by 'newbies' at all... it should only be used by people who know what they are doing. Unfortunately, the various flavours of Linux are becoming enough of a popularity item that security really needs to be addressed in a major way.
Well, we might continue to orbit nothing (I'm not sure... I tend to think that at a minimum the inner few planets would eventually get sucked it), but Earth would still be doomed. Since light cannot escape a black hole, all the plants on Earth would inevitably be doomed, and take most of the animals with them (following the food chain).
Now I have to wonder... do black holes emit heat? They're detected, IIRC, by X-ray emissions, and X-rays can be used to heat metals, at the very least... so would Earth still be "warm"? Or would it be radioactive from higher X-ray bombardment? (The Van Allen belts can only stop so much...)
Slashdot Mirror
Good point. For people who don't know computers, or don't know them very well, Windows or Macs work very well. Since the interface is practically the same, there's little point in differentiating either unless you have particular non-Mac software you need to run.
Linux is definitely for people who understand computers better then your standard "Joe Six-Pack". As such, it is better for certain types of processes and apps.
Windows may have more stuff available at the store, but Linux, IMAO, is more flexible.
It does boil down to what you need, and what you can use.
Kierthos
Well, you could measure uptime by multiplying the number of processors by the number of OSes per processor (or if that is not the same for all processors, just take the total number of OSes running) and find out when that number of OSes have crashed (let's call that a crash-set). Average that out over several crash-sets and you could theoretically call that uptime.
Now, can you do the same thing over Linux? If you can, measure it the same way, and see how it compares to Win2K. Then compare the uptimes and see which one is better.
Kierthos
Not really. Radio stations can use a variety of methods to get around this. There is, AFAIK, no standard contract for a radio station to play a certain song.
And there are many ways that a radio station can play a song more often then others without paying more money for it (i.e. the publishers are not asking for money or even paying the station):
1) Play a few songs, including the one you want to play often, and ask listeners to call in to vote on the one they like best. Play the ones they liked best again later. If this doesn't result in playing that song again, skew the results so it does.
2) Have each DJ play it at least once during their shift. You'll get the song played 4-6 times a day this way.
3) Hold a promotional event around the album the song is on. The publishers of the album will help with this, more often then not. Give away free albums, posters, concert tickets to listeners who call in when the song is played. Do this all week long. You can play the song more often then normally because people are winning something.
See how this can be done?
Now, here's the problems that the publishers have with web-broadcasting:
1) You never know who's playing your songs. Publishers love looking at station demographics as this affects their marketing strategy.
2) You never know how they got your song. Did they download it illegally? Get a dupe from a friend?
3) Song quality. Radio stations tend to get new copies of CDs if the old ones get messed up. Web-casters rarely have enough money to replace damaged music. Song quality does affect how the song is received by listeners. If it's really grainy or scratchy, then what incentive does someone who doesn't own the album have to go buy it?
4) Royalties. Let's face it. People are greedy. Not just song publishers, kids. Also, when recording from a radio broadcast, you're likely to get a bad recording. If recording from a web-cast, you can (not will, can) get much better quality for your own home recordings. Publishers hate the thought of anyone owning the album without paying for it.
Just some points...
Kierthos
Why does this sound like the plot for a really bad sci-fi movie?
Kierthos
...is that it isn't always possible to have a concerted mass snail-mail effort. A lot of the time, riders and amendments are tacked to bills at the last minute. In cases like that, it isn't possible to get snail mail to the guv'mint in time. E-mail is quicker, although it is more easily ignored.
Kierthos
Exactly. Most government e-mail systems are either run only by staffers, which means that any responses are based only on whether the staffer feels like responding, or they are run automatically, which means that you automatically get a response, in form letter e-mail, no matter what you send. (Side note: it used to be auto-reply always, but after a spoof on the government servers, you generally only get one auto-response a day.)
Now, the staffers are the ones who generally read the e-mails eventually, if for no other reason, then to look through them for credible threats. They are the ones you have to impress, so if you are going to send one of these e-mails off, you need to be articulate, use proper spelling, and above all, don't swear. Swearing gets it File-13'd very quickly.
Also, e-mails can be easily ignored, as it is relatively simple to set up a system where you randomly generate an e-mail account on a free server, send a form letter to the guv'mint, and
repeat until bored.
One of the only things that I see coming of this, other then Headline News coverage, is that the government servers might not be up to handling this much extra e-mail. Yes, I'm sure they get a lot, but depending on how the e-mail spoolers are configured, this might shove it over the limit.
Just a thought...
Kierthos
I've seen work into resolving nP complete into polynomial time, but it is at the very basic stages. The best I've seen is, in worst case, cubic time, but it still can't be proven. (That, and most of the nP theory behind the cubic solution is heavily beyond my understanding.)
What you really have to look at is that while the computer is solving this shortest path, it is not loading the page. It has to find the path before it can even load the first graphic or bit of text. And while it is not loading that web page, the user is sitting there waiting. Maybe on a 1 GHz, it takes a lot less time then on my 'old' 166 MHz, but depending on how the nP algorithm is coded, you could still have a lot of time where the browser is just sitting there, apparently doing nothing (at least from the user standpoint).
And I think I can speak for a large chunk of the online populace when I say I find that waiting for a web page to load is one of the more boring things I can think of doing.
Kierthos
Well, yes, the way you describe it is nothing new, and actually quite greedy.
One of the problems is it's not like you can reasonably perform least path planning with a Web browser. I mean, when you click on a link, you are getting routed from one site to another, but it's generally along the same routers, unless something really wierd is going on. (Servers down, heavily allocated, etc.) So trying to find a dynamic path that is the Internet 'path of least resistance' while increasing connection time works against each other. Because everyone wants to connect to the web sites faster, and they generally don't care how it is done.
Perhaps not the best attitude to take as a customer, but a lot of the typical web surfers are barely computer-literate.
Kierthos
Exactly. There is no reasonable way to determine whether the owner(s) of an .mp3 database actually own the tapes/CDs that the music files were originally from. Unless the RIAA is going door-to-door (not that I'd let them in) to check ownership, there is no way to enforce this law. You know, innocent until proven guilty and all...
.mp3s. The RIAA is sure that at least some of them are pirated, and jump the gun, only to find out that this guy owns a lot of music CDs. It only needs to happen once for them to be hit with counter-suits.
Actually I kind of like this idea now. I can just see someone with thousands of
Kierthos
One comment on the personal search and seizure laws: It all depends on your jurisdiction, and what the cops can convince the judge of. Again, like with most cops, most judges are pretty cool about such things, but some judges, especially the technologically inept ones, really frown on some of this stuff, and are just looking for ways to broaden the scope of the law.
While that kind of thing can be overturned on appeal, by that point it may be too late, especially reputation-wise. A simple, but not always easy to follow rule is "Never put anything on the laptop (or PDA) that you're not ready to have read by anyone." If it means that you have to store your secure files or porn pics somewhere else, so be it, but PDAs and laptops are a lot more accessible and much more easily stolen.
Kierthos
Actually, it may be 'technically' unethical, but Rehnquist would not have to recuse himself unless the MS case actually got to the Supreme Court. IMAO, he should not have given an opinion at all, but based on the overwhelming majority to send it back to appeals, it really doesn't matter.
Is it wrong? Maybe. Does it actually have an effect on the disposition of the case? Not really.
The Appeals Court will view the case pretty much the same way. The Supreme Court returns cases to the Appeals Court, or refuses to hear them, all the time. Just because one of the Justices is related to one person involved with the MS case is really irrelevant. Again, it would make a difference if it came to the Supreme Court, but that's an arguement for if it ever happens, which I highly doubt, no matter what MS pulls.
Kierthos
MIT and UCSD have too much of a reputation to risk by rubber-stamping anything, much less a system that is getting as much bad press as Carnivore.
And, quite honestly, I doubt anyone heavily involved in the IT field has not heard of the Carnivore system at this point. The Sr. VP of IITRI's asserations that he is unaware of other institutions' opinions is pretty thin. This has gotten a lot of press in various ways. I've seen stuff on CNN, Headline news, and on MSNBC.com. To not be aware of the general opinions of Carnivore, you'd have to deliberately be unaware and ignorant on purpose.
Frankly, it doesn't surprise me that some of the institutions don't want to weigh in on Carnivore, but it bothers me when some profess ignorance on this scale.
Kierthos
Depends. If it started out damaged, you could probably get a new one. Most stores have a limited return and exchange policy (within 10 days, usually). A friend of mine bought and beat a game in one day. It was supposed to be a tough game, but there you go. He took it back, and got a different game. Now, if you go back four months after you bought it, you'll get laughed at.
Kierthos
*nod* Most of the typosquatting areas are simply advertising sites, such as most of the types squatters listed a few days ago on MSNBC.com. (The article is no longer listed, or I would have linked it.)
The typosquatters included typo'd version of washingtonpost.com, yahoo.com, and microsoft.com. (The last one surprised me a bit. You'd think that microsoft would have accidentally acquired all of the typos around their name...)
Like I said, most of these were advertising sites, shilling various banner ads and the like. A couple were porn sites, but not very many compared to the total list.
Kierthos
Because they want the rest of the world (or free world, from a non-MS standpoint) to switch to their products. Will it work? Probably not. I can't see a lot of people buying OL2000 just to be able to read e-mails from people with/using OL2000.
It's far simpler to go with a free e-mail service like altavista (just one example) then to deal with the major hassle that MS has become, especially with this new "product".
Kierthos
You forgot that they also have to defeat cut-and-paste, saving the information to disk, spoofing a clock, etc.
Kierthos
Exactly what I was wondering. If the receiver just "happens" to have the decoder key, that's all well and good... but how does he or she get it? If you send it on the same PTP connection, then it theoretically (or not just theory, depending on who you ask) intercept it and decode these secure transmissions. If you send it by e-mail, snail mail, etc. it can also be intercepted.
So what is the receiver supposed to do... guess?
Storing all of your friends (or clients, branches or whatever for corporations) could get complicated and/or take up too much space, depending on how big your circle of friends is, and what kind of encryption we're talking about.
Anyone have any answers? (Germane answers preferred.)
Kierthos
Hrm... this time next year, 2 GHz processors? (The 1 GHz was first announced about 6 months ago, right?) So that means we're likely to have 4 GHz processors in March of 2003? Cool... maybe by then I can afford something better then a 233 MHz...
Now, does the cost of processors go down in anywhere near a nominally similar relationship? When we have 2 GHz processors, will the 1 GHz processor cost half (or close to half) as much?
Kierthos
Okay, it could be considered censorship if all computers in Great Britain had these limitations on them (not allowed to visit certain sites, use e-mail, etc.), but since this is only in the libraries, it is not censorship. If you can go elsewhere to access what you want, it's not like it's such a big deal, right?
Look at it this way. They're not saying that you can't use e-mail. They're saying that you can't use e-mail while at that library. In a like manner, you can't read a Playboy magazine in the middle of a high school classroom, but the school is not saying that you can't read the same Playboy at home.
The library is free to prohibit certain types of activities. You are free to pursue them elsewhere.
All that having been said, I seem to recall a story about a library here in the U.S. that prohibited use of the library computers to access certain types of sites (read porn). It was found to be Unconstitutional, and so the library let the patrons go to porn sites. But, IIRC, they set up a charge system where if you went to an 'adult' site, you paid so much per hour to do so. (Nothing ever said they had to provide this access free of charge.)
Kierthos
Kierthos
*nod* And the search capabilities seem to be remarkably moronic. On a friend's computer, I watched him wade through all sorts of files that weren't even germane to the parameters he'd searched for. In the end, it all comes down to how people describe the files they are sharing over Gnutella.
.mp3 he was looking for... it took him a while, but the thing of it is, some of these files he couldn't find at all on Napster.
On the plus side, he eventually did manage to find every single
Is there any reasonable way to determine usage stats for Gnutella?
Kierthos
In terms of game boxes, I tend to think that people recognize Sony more then Microsoft. Frankly, the big boys when it comes to game boxes are Nintendo, Sega, and Sony (not necessarily in that order). So, in a sense, MS is stepping into an arena that is already fairly well defined and dominated by others.
Will the X Box succeed? Well, I'm not going to buy one, but that's just me. If there are enough interesting games for it, it should sell. If the games blow chunks, the X Box will tank no matter how good it itself is.
I'd also like to note that if the X Box even does moderately well, it will probably be followed in a couple of years by a new model (in the manner of Nintendo, Sony and Sega)... but I don't see any 2nd stage MS gamebox being backwards compatible for some reason...
Kierthos
Okay, there's really no way to tell what else may be on the drive other then Windows Whistler, but you view it taking up 932 Mb as "not bad"???
Ye gods... is it possible for MS to write an OS that's under200 Mb?
Kierthos
Okay, I have to admit, the GUI does look nice. It looks like they actually took some time to do decent graphics.
I have to ask though... anyone know how much of a hard drive hog this thing is going to be? If it follows any other MS product, it's bound to take more space then needed, but some program stats, even at this stage, would help.
Also, is this a new overall OS or just for certain products? (In other words, is it a PC OS, yet another NT upgrade, or what?)
Kierthos
One would hope so, but I tend to doubt it. Frankly, Redhat should not be used by 'newbies' at all... it should only be used by people who know what they are doing. Unfortunately, the various flavours of Linux are becoming enough of a popularity item that security really needs to be addressed in a major way.
Oh well, it's still better then Windows.
Kierthos
Well, we might continue to orbit nothing (I'm not sure... I tend to think that at a minimum the inner few planets would eventually get sucked it), but Earth would still be doomed. Since light cannot escape a black hole, all the plants on Earth would inevitably be doomed, and take most of the animals with them (following the food chain).
Now I have to wonder... do black holes emit heat? They're detected, IIRC, by X-ray emissions, and X-rays can be used to heat metals, at the very least... so would Earth still be "warm"? Or would it be radioactive from higher X-ray bombardment? (The Van Allen belts can only stop so much...)
Kierthos