Relate this to some recent research that, unsurprisingly, proved how racist people are less empathic towards people of other races. Empathy is a vital indicator of many other human characteristics being its premise. I perceive it falling, clearly, in Italy (trust me, I have sufficient experience with young people); but... I cannot honestly tell why it does so sharply. I can point some obvious causes; for instance, the raise of families with a single child. Single children usually too late discover they're not the centre of the world. As for computer gaming, when I was young, I played with my ZX Spectrum and my classmates had it too, or they had the Commodore 64. We played a lot, honestly, so I cannot think of video gaming as an issue. But there is really one thing that is so evident that I cannot imagine why it so underestimated: I'm talking of the quality of TV series for children. [Living in Italy, I may miss some correct title]. Of course we had some police stuff, but think about "Eight is Enough", "Little House on the Prairie", even "My friend Arnold", though set in the world of rich people, really thaught you something. Families had problems, real problems; I mean, life was hard and shows were close to reality by many aspects, we really suffered of the sufference of figures in the show. Young people in the current TV shows for children live in a sort of colourful, forever-happy world. They get over any (ridiculous) problem in matter of minutes. They cannot acquire our children empathy because they are just meant to be happy and funny. I do not know about the USA panorama, but it is very difficult in Italy to make young people watch some TV show that really can tell them something.
I've been using Gimp for a long time and what I miss more is the lack of the 16bit/channel support. Basic shapes cannot be trivially drawn, too, it's a pity, though there are plugins and some tricks with the selection tools. In general, you would not find Gimp an all-purpose tool though quite advanced. Gimp is the only tool that I've used in both Linux and Win, otherwise all under Linux. Cinepaint is great with pictures, quite more oriented for that field, has 16bit/channel and tools like those to change the "exposure" are quite good. It is a bit unstable, this is not so good, and some tools do not work as you'd expect (for instance you may get stuck with a copy-and-paste if not working under the right colour depth). Also, the interface is really outdated, everybody's hope is that the new development cycle will make it better. Krita is potentially very interesting for a number of reasons, first of all its flexibility with plugins. I have high expectations regarding it. Alas, it is yet a bit incomplete according to me but what stopped me from using it is that it crashes each time I try to load a very large TIFF in it (~4500x3000 16 bit/channel sRGB). Maybe it's that specific TIFF format, I did not check. But most of all, I think that your problem shall be seen from a different perspective: even Photoshop may be not the best choice for doing some things (often an overkill, hardly it will not let you do it). Many things depend on the workflow and maybe you will find out that what you usually do can be perfectly worked out with some open source or cheap tools. Those things that you do not need to do often and that you cannot complete with one tool, may require a couple of them, but as long as they are uncommon that would not choke your work. Find out what you really do most often! As for colour management, it may be a have been a pain in Linux buit things are improving fast. Stay tuned...
Does anybody remember what happened to Stacker? Was code from that company copied by Microsoft? The problem is not with Microsoft, the problem is with monopoly. Any company big enough is crushing competition with any mean or letting it survive until there is some business-related reason to kill it. Any company big enough will always freeze any advancement unless somebody else can provide a better solution and bring it to the masses. Any company big enough will simply stop technical advancement completely if not under some kind of pressing necessity. These are not ethical principles, this is undeniably history. This without regard for principles like technical advancement, customers' care, politeness, fair play... whatever. MS has been behind competition in all areas most of the time, though users are so stuck with its products that they do not find the time, the curiosity or the occasion to change. MS can do it and rely on it, because the world of computers is dominated. MS products are not so bad actually, anybody who has used a number of proprietary products especially on enterprise environments can confirm this... there is so much crap around that MS sometimes even "shines", even though well-known open source programs are usually better and especially far more flexible, the problem is not current quality, the problem is in the way MS cares for quality: just when forced; the problem is rather... "political". A modern society cannot afford to depend on 90% of its computers running on this ground. After many years working in the IT sector -mostly with Linux, some with Solaris but also many with Win products-, I have seen a number of things that only a monopolist can afford to deal with such carelessness. I remember how I was astonished when found that NT servers would do odd things when the mouse was unplugged. A server??? I remember how we had a Red Hat _alpha_ version for Sparc (!) running without a stop for 5 years serving a number of requests day by day and a much-more-recent and much-more-patched NT server that required an impressive number of reboots along the year... Yet, MS was selling. A lot. It is frustrating if you are born loving science, research and advancement to see how, in the end, market rules can prevent things going the right way. This happens in the IT sector, but this may also happen in any other, and possibly more relevant one (such as those of pharmaceutics or medicine). It is a matter of policy that should be applied in all areas of human interest, to prevent big companies from putting obstacles to advancement. Besides, a monopolist in any PC is just a potential threat to everybody's security. But that's another, well-known and underestimated story.
In Italy, the title "engineer" is obtained by completing the probably-hardest academic course available. This is reasonable, because it is a title. I am an engineer, and a number of programmers do code far better than me, many administrators administer better than me, etc... So this is what it is: a title. Hard to get, implies you studied a lot about math, physics, computing, but that remains. I can say if anybody is not engineer because he did not graduate, but I would not say that one does not know about engineering because he is not a graduate: that is another matter. Question is: why does a court care about this? I mean: in real world, you should be judged by what you have done, not by what a title says that you can do. This is for the court. To continue with the Italian case, there are things that you cannot do if you do not have that title (e.g.: signing some ministerial projects), so you can never find yourself in the position of determining if you are an engineer or not: what is illegal for a non-engineer is clear in advance. So, again, why would a court care? Perhaps, to set rules about what a programmer is allowed to do and what he is not, like in my country?
In Italy, the probably-worst ruling regarding these matters is in force. Anybody who simply owns any device capable of playing music (or displaying TV content) must pay a tax, which is higher in case he does it in a public place. Presumably, cabs are considered to be public places. This tax is mainly destined to the Ministry of Telecoms. Also, any music station and singer are required to pay relatively high fees to the SIAE when playing a piece. SIAE is a structure that should defend music right owners... but I let you imagine how it actually is an instrument to reduce the possibilities of independents... and music is not getting anything better!
Of course I think that Forbidden Planet was to be in, yet I also think that Metropolis is absolutely outstanding from most points of view (Moroder's re-edition is more suitable for our times). In general, "classics" seem to be forgotten from this list, apart from "The Day Earth...", and there seem to be a strong bias toward recent titles. Apart from that I'm obviously convinced that no schema could ever list a proper parade for what is inherently a matter of taste and opinions...
I'm sorry for those that do not see this as a great problem, yet this is part of a larger trend towards the bulding of fences against freedom of reasearch.
And, there is much more.
The trend to claim rights on food has gone beyond from covering really new food. Large companies are extending their grip on vegetables that exist since a long time and have also been able to stop some food importation from poor countries where such vegetables have been used for a long time.
A strongly hit country, for instance, is India. Someone has actually patented or tried to patent Basmati Rice, black pepper, mustard, etc... all eaten for centuries.
Oh! I forgot to say that these well-known companies often are the same ones that introduced genetically-modified food in Europe illegally, for years, relying on the late intervention of law enforcerers (it's always been more profitable to pay a fine later rather than stopping a good business...)
I do not exactly know about the situation in the USA, but in Italy and in Europe the problem is more felt from a general point of view than from the point of view of university studies, which are not affected so much.
I think that we should broaden our perspective and really understand what's going on because all of these facts are tightly related...
The implications of the Goedel theorem are well known since a long time, yet there is an intriguing thing about the work around the Omega number: to me it is the first time that someone studies the properties of the origin of uncertainty in a such practical manner. Actually, Goedel and Turing works remained a way to say what could not be done and used marginally to state that something is impossible, but I never saw a formula that tells about non-knowledge.
Perhaps you will be able to write formulas that resemble the formulas of certainty (anything we currently write down, folks!) but the presence of the omega number will turn them into the exact opposite. Odd, isn't it?
We tested the new image format some months ago (in the sense that we tested its usage with the plugin) and I must admit that decompression is quite fast and compression ratio is quite noteworthy.
I seem to remember that the compression process is a bit slow but I'n really sure about it.
Do not ask me wether the plugin is strongly optimized or its the format in itself which is smart, I'm just talking about results.
OpenBSD certainly is a strongly secure O.S., and such level of security is also -but not only- due to some facts: it has a small, then more maintainable, code base; its developement can exploit the experience matured by all other OSs out there. Actually, it is no secret that most security bugs stem from bad programming attitude and that security-conscious programming is possible. I do not need OpenBSD at the moment, but to know that there is an OS programmed with security always in mind helps me sleep well, for when I'll need it I'll know where to find one.
I totally agree with the body of the Slashdot article. To pair Open Source and "chaos" may be acceptable from a certain point of view, but to state that commercial products come from a "serious" production environment is disputable by anybody who works in the IT industry, where usually the lack of time and and any sort of quick-and-dirty practices live. From the "artisan" of software, that made the history of IT by writing custom code for single machines, and who often became unreachable after a couple of years (like his source code from him, erased from the messy piles of diskettes), to the most modern firms, whose SW products often come with bugs so evident that just a fool would think may pass a serious, basic quality test -that's to say, it never underwent any quality test-, the IT commercial industry could not provide such controlled development of software. I'm sorry for speaking such words like I'm saying something against my collegues, but there is really nothing like that: we all know that there are so many external factors that make usually impossible to test software at the desired level, the level developers really would like to come. Think about the history of security algorithms, that displays how "close" means real threat, and of how companies and organizations have probably been aware of the limits of their code but went on confiding that such limits could not be discovered -or not in a certain of time-. Would this have ever been possible in an open source environment? Not to mention the poor quality of support that's often met when asking companies to solve a problem with their products... Open source gives a chance to ask somebody else for help, real-time help, close products do not. I think that the view expressed by the man who criticized open source in favour of commercial products has a point -yes- but much more "intellectual" than practical. I will partially agree with him the day that 90% of the software companies will provide what he's talking about, presumably when the whole process of SW making, included test and support will be rewarded as much as really due...
Partly agree, but enterprise needs may vary
on
Why Not MySQL?
·
· Score: 1
I'm a happy user of MySql for various purposes, including use for small e-commerce solutions. I am aware of what it lacks (its creators are, too) and I agree with the document in the sense that in most enterprise environments it does not provide the required features (I consider the lack of real atomicity the major problem); though, it may be also true that some of such features may not be needed in certain situations, for instance when critical data is written by a single source and accessed by many, that happens very often (but it is just an example). The TCO of MySql is so low that you can always rely on it until you need something different without fear of having made the wrong investment.
I'm an engineer that works in Italy, but I also often write on magazines (favoutite topic: Linux!); consequently, I know various journalists and reporters. The thing is, there is a large number of them (should I say "us"?) who are requested to write on any subject without actually knowing anything about it, or just because they think they know enough. But I see that this is a common plague for all topics, not just computing... I do not consider Italian press to be valid, but I suppose this situation may occur in other countries.
It is the "average" or "above average" indication that surprises me. I gonna think that this can be a tool to spot promising minds exploiting teachers' stupidity. What better mind than that of outcasts, ready to leave all for a more comfortable position, without all the bells and whistles required to recruit an happy chap? I really think this can be a second purpose, so that NSA can file more data about you. Greetings from Italy!
My experience in Italy says that 90% of PC users think that MS is a sort of "only one existing choice". The fact that big machines and servers cannot even run Windows is often unknown, mostly as it is unclear to people that things very different from PCs exist -the existence of something unusual is probably due to that strange thing called Apple! If the White House plays a role in the game, the MS brand will be strenghtened among the IT-unaware ones, because those will see it as a necessary move. To them, to hit MS means to endanger the world of computing! I would understand such need if only Windows could do what it does, but we have alternatives!
I'm mostly a C programmer and do not write Perl programs, but I very often have to modify Perl CGI's made by others, and everytime the thing frightens me! Perl is very useful for small programs, but I think that as long as the attitude of writing poorly commented code and there is no effort for, at least, some style guidelines, non-Perl specialists will avoid this, still very useful, language. The "you can do it in many ways", according to me, is becoming a sort of "do it the fastest way", which is not good for maintainance... This is a lone request to all Perl programmers!
I prefer SuSE over other distros mainly because I find most of the stuff I need in one box. Using it both at work and home, I have always found rather uncomfortable to carry the 6 CD's with me -but I do it-. The thing is... how often do I find a DVD drive in a office? And at a friend's? I fear that I will have to carry the CD's with me anyway. Sigh!
I think this time is K7 time, but it's still x86
on
Coppermine vs. Athlon
·
· Score: 1
I've followed all the news about the K7 for a long time, but I have to admit that I do not know much about the Coppermine. The main feeling I have is that the K7 is a lot more innovative than Coppermine, and that it leaves a lot more to do on its platform based on the magic Alpha design. Intel seems to be exploiting all the possible core technology to push an unconvincing design. Perhaps the best of their innovative effort has gone into the IA64. Consent me a final thought... If that old damned x86 legacy were not, we would probably be 5-6 years ahead. Think of Intel mass production coupled with better designs that minor sellers like Apple-Motorola-IBM still provide with quite less MHz!
Here in Italy, nearly all shops show widescreen TVs, and some people buy them. The offer is rich for all brands, not just Philips. I'm surprised to see that US people do not pay attention to widescreen, esp.ly considering that we still have a minimal catalogue of DVD titles in comparison with the US one. Why buy sorround systems, etc... and not a widescreen TV?
Do you feel that Linux should play a role in setting new, really open standards, esp. within Posix specifications, also in favour of other Posix-compliant operating systems?
I'm not honestly dissatisfied with Office. I do not use it because I use Linux, but I think that it's great and it would be great on any OS. And you would not be obliged to use it, right? But -and it's a big butt- I'm used in exchanging docs using the RTF format, or even text when possible, to allow anybody use them without pain, and I hate those that send me DOC version 11, 12, 13, 3000, etc. just because it's the latest format. That's my fear: will the Linux platform become Word/Excel-slave in the very moment it's becoming an acceptable documentation platform? Will Office users force the others to accept the new formats, like it's always been, after that it's been a peaceful oasis for the really universal formats? No, I don't think that I want this.
Slashdot Mirror
Relate this to some recent research that, unsurprisingly, proved how racist people are less empathic towards people of other races. Empathy is a vital indicator of many other human characteristics being its premise. I perceive it falling, clearly, in Italy (trust me, I have sufficient experience with young people); but... I cannot honestly tell why it does so sharply. I can point some obvious causes; for instance, the raise of families with a single child. Single children usually too late discover they're not the centre of the world. As for computer gaming, when I was young, I played with my ZX Spectrum and my classmates had it too, or they had the Commodore 64. We played a lot, honestly, so I cannot think of video gaming as an issue.
But there is really one thing that is so evident that I cannot imagine why it so underestimated: I'm talking of the quality of TV series for children. [Living in Italy, I may miss some correct title]. Of course we had some police stuff, but think about "Eight is Enough", "Little House on the Prairie", even "My friend Arnold", though set in the world of rich people, really thaught you something. Families had problems, real problems; I mean, life was hard and shows were close to reality by many aspects, we really suffered of the sufference of figures in the show. Young people in the current TV shows for children live in a sort of colourful, forever-happy world. They get over any (ridiculous) problem in matter of minutes. They cannot acquire our children empathy because they are just meant to be happy and funny. I do not know about the USA panorama, but it is very difficult in Italy to make young people watch some TV show that really can tell them something.
I've been using Gimp for a long time and what I miss more is the lack of the 16bit/channel support. Basic shapes cannot be trivially drawn, too, it's a pity, though there are plugins and some tricks with the selection tools. In general, you would not find Gimp an all-purpose tool though quite advanced. Gimp is the only tool that I've used in both Linux and Win, otherwise all under Linux.
Cinepaint is great with pictures, quite more oriented for that field, has 16bit/channel and tools like those to change the "exposure" are quite good. It is a bit unstable, this is not so good, and some tools do not work as you'd expect (for instance you may get stuck with a copy-and-paste if not working under the right colour depth). Also, the interface is really outdated, everybody's hope is that the new development cycle will make it better.
Krita is potentially very interesting for a number of reasons, first of all its flexibility with plugins. I have high expectations regarding it. Alas, it is yet a bit incomplete according to me but what stopped me from using it is that it crashes each time I try to load a very large TIFF in it (~4500x3000 16 bit/channel sRGB). Maybe it's that specific TIFF format, I did not check.
But most of all, I think that your problem shall be seen from a different perspective: even Photoshop may be not the best choice for doing some things (often an overkill, hardly it will not let you do it). Many things depend on the workflow and maybe you will find out that what you usually do can be perfectly worked out with some open source or cheap tools.
Those things that you do not need to do often and that you cannot complete with one tool, may require a couple of them, but as long as they are uncommon that would not choke your work. Find out what you really do most often!
As for colour management, it may be a have been a pain in Linux buit things are improving fast. Stay tuned...
Does anybody remember what happened to Stacker? Was code from that company copied by Microsoft?
The problem is not with Microsoft, the problem is with monopoly.
Any company big enough is crushing competition with any mean or letting it survive until there is some business-related reason to kill it. Any company big enough will always freeze any advancement unless somebody else can provide a better solution and bring it to the masses. Any company big enough will simply stop technical advancement completely if not under some kind of pressing necessity.
These are not ethical principles, this is undeniably history.
This without regard for principles like technical advancement, customers' care, politeness, fair play... whatever.
MS has been behind competition in all areas most of the time, though users are so stuck with its products that they do not find the time, the curiosity or the occasion to change.
MS can do it and rely on it, because the world of computers is dominated.
MS products are not so bad actually, anybody who has used a number of proprietary products especially on enterprise environments can confirm this... there is so much crap around that MS sometimes even "shines", even though well-known open source programs are usually better and especially far more flexible, the problem is not current quality, the problem is in the way MS cares for quality: just when forced; the problem is rather... "political".
A modern society cannot afford to depend on 90% of its computers running on this ground.
After many years working in the IT sector -mostly with Linux, some with Solaris but also many with Win products-, I have seen a number of things that only a monopolist can afford to deal with such carelessness.
I remember how I was astonished when found that NT servers would do odd things when the mouse was unplugged. A server???
I remember how we had a Red Hat _alpha_ version for Sparc (!) running without a stop for 5 years serving a number of requests day by day and a much-more-recent and much-more-patched NT server that required an impressive number of reboots along the year... Yet, MS was selling. A lot.
It is frustrating if you are born loving science, research and advancement to see how, in the end, market rules can prevent things going the right way.
This happens in the IT sector, but this may also happen in any other, and possibly more relevant one (such as those of pharmaceutics or medicine).
It is a matter of policy that should be applied in all areas of human interest, to prevent big companies from putting obstacles to advancement.
Besides, a monopolist in any PC is just a potential threat to everybody's security. But that's another, well-known and underestimated story.
In Italy, the title "engineer" is obtained by completing the probably-hardest academic course available. This is reasonable, because it is a title. I am an engineer, and a number of programmers do code far better than me, many administrators administer better than me, etc... So this is what it is: a title. Hard to get, implies you studied a lot about math, physics, computing, but that remains. I can say if anybody is not engineer because he did not graduate, but I would not say that one does not know about engineering because he is not a graduate: that is another matter.
Question is: why does a court care about this?
I mean: in real world, you should be judged by what you have done, not by what a title says that you can do. This is for the court.
To continue with the Italian case, there are things that you cannot do if you do not have that title (e.g.: signing some ministerial projects), so you can never find yourself in the position of determining if you are an engineer or not: what is illegal for a non-engineer is clear in advance.
So, again, why would a court care?
Perhaps, to set rules about what a programmer is allowed to do and what he is not, like in my country?
In Italy, the probably-worst ruling regarding these matters is in force.
Anybody who simply owns any device capable of playing music (or displaying TV content) must pay a tax, which is higher in case he does it in a public place. Presumably, cabs are considered to be public places.
This tax is mainly destined to the Ministry of Telecoms. Also, any music station and singer are required to pay relatively high fees to the SIAE when playing a piece. SIAE is a structure that should defend music right owners... but I let you imagine how it actually is an instrument to reduce the possibilities of independents... and music is not getting anything better!
Of course I think that Forbidden Planet was to be in, yet I also think that Metropolis is absolutely outstanding from most points of view (Moroder's re-edition is more suitable for our times).
In general, "classics" seem to be forgotten from this list, apart from "The Day Earth...", and there seem to be a strong bias toward recent titles.
Apart from that I'm obviously convinced that no schema could ever list a proper parade for what is inherently a matter of taste and opinions...
I'm sorry for those that do not see this as a great problem, yet this is part of a larger trend towards the bulding of fences against freedom of reasearch.
And, there is much more.
The trend to claim rights on food has gone beyond from covering really new food. Large companies are extending their grip on vegetables that exist since a long time and have also been able to stop some food importation from poor countries where such vegetables have been used for a long time.
A strongly hit country, for instance, is India. Someone has actually patented or tried to patent Basmati Rice, black pepper, mustard, etc... all eaten for centuries.
Oh! I forgot to say that these well-known companies often are the same ones that introduced genetically-modified food in Europe illegally, for years, relying on the late intervention of law enforcerers (it's always been more profitable to pay a fine later rather than stopping a good business...)
I do not exactly know about the situation in the USA, but in Italy and in Europe the problem is more felt from a general point of view than from the point of view of university studies, which are not affected so much.
I think that we should broaden our perspective and really understand what's going on because all of these facts are tightly related...
The implications of the Goedel theorem are well known since a long time, yet there is an intriguing thing about the work around the Omega number: to me it is the first time that someone studies the properties of the origin of uncertainty in a such practical manner. Actually, Goedel and Turing works remained a way to say what could not be done and used marginally to state that something is impossible, but I never saw a formula that tells about non-knowledge.
Perhaps you will be able to write formulas that resemble the formulas of certainty (anything we currently write down, folks!) but the presence of the omega number will turn them into the exact opposite. Odd, isn't it?
We tested the new image format some months ago (in the sense that we tested its usage with the plugin) and I must admit that decompression is quite fast and compression ratio is quite noteworthy.
I seem to remember that the compression process is a bit slow but I'n really sure about it.
Do not ask me wether the plugin is strongly optimized or its the format in itself which is smart, I'm just talking about results.
OpenBSD certainly is a strongly secure O.S., and such level of security is also -but not only- due to some facts: it has a small, then more maintainable, code base; its developement can exploit the experience matured by all other OSs out there. Actually, it is no secret that most security bugs stem from bad programming attitude and that security-conscious programming is possible. I do not need OpenBSD at the moment, but to know that there is an OS programmed with security always in mind helps me sleep well, for when I'll need it I'll know where to find one.
I totally agree with the body of the Slashdot article. To pair Open Source and "chaos" may be acceptable from a certain point of view, but to state that commercial products come from a "serious" production environment is disputable by anybody who works in the IT industry, where usually the lack of time and and any sort of quick-and-dirty practices live.
From the "artisan" of software, that made the history of IT by writing custom code for single machines, and who often became unreachable after a couple of years (like his source code from him, erased from the messy piles of diskettes), to the most modern firms, whose SW products often come with bugs so evident that just a fool would think may pass a serious, basic quality test -that's to say, it never underwent any quality test-, the IT commercial industry could not provide such controlled development of software.
I'm sorry for speaking such words like I'm saying something against my collegues, but there is really nothing like that: we all know that there are so many external factors that make usually impossible to test software at the desired level, the level developers really would like to come.
Think about the history of security algorithms, that displays how "close" means real threat, and of how companies and organizations have probably been aware of the limits of their code but went on confiding that such limits could not be discovered -or not in a certain of time-. Would this have ever been possible in an open source environment?
Not to mention the poor quality of support that's often met when asking companies to solve a problem with their products... Open source gives a chance to ask somebody else for help, real-time help, close products do not.
I think that the view expressed by the man who criticized open source in favour of commercial products has a point -yes- but much more "intellectual" than practical.
I will partially agree with him the day that 90% of the software companies will provide what he's talking about, presumably when the whole process of SW making, included test and support will be rewarded as much as really due...
I'm a happy user of MySql for various purposes, including use for small e-commerce solutions. I am aware of what it lacks (its creators are, too) and I agree with the document in the sense that in most enterprise environments it does not provide the required features (I consider the lack of real atomicity the major problem); though, it may be also true that some of such features may not be needed in certain situations, for instance when critical data is written by a single source and accessed by many, that happens very often (but it is just an example). The TCO of MySql is so low that you can always rely on it until you need something different without fear of having made the wrong investment.
I'm an engineer that works in Italy, but I also often write on magazines (favoutite topic: Linux!); consequently, I know various journalists and reporters.
The thing is, there is a large number of them (should I say "us"?) who are requested to write on any subject without actually knowing anything about it, or just because they think they know enough. But I see that this is a common plague for all topics, not just computing... I do not consider Italian press to be valid, but I suppose this situation may occur in other countries.
It is the "average" or "above average" indication that surprises me.
I gonna think that this can be a tool to spot promising minds exploiting teachers' stupidity.
What better mind than that of outcasts, ready to leave all for a more comfortable position, without all the bells and whistles required to recruit an happy chap?
I really think this can be a second purpose, so that NSA can file more data about you.
Greetings from Italy!
My experience in Italy says that 90% of PC users think that MS is a sort of "only one existing choice". The fact that big machines and servers cannot even run Windows is often unknown, mostly as it is unclear to people that things very different from PCs exist -the existence of something unusual is probably due to that strange thing called Apple!
If the White House plays a role in the game, the MS brand will be strenghtened among the IT-unaware ones, because those will see it as a necessary move. To them, to hit MS means to endanger the world of computing!
I would understand such need if only Windows could do what it does, but we have alternatives!
I'm mostly a C programmer and do not write Perl programs, but I very often have to modify Perl CGI's made by others, and everytime the thing frightens me!
Perl is very useful for small programs, but I think that as long as the attitude of writing poorly commented code and there is no effort for, at least, some style guidelines, non-Perl specialists will avoid this, still very useful, language.
The "you can do it in many ways", according to me, is becoming a sort of "do it the fastest way", which is not good for maintainance...
This is a lone request to all Perl programmers!
I prefer SuSE over other distros mainly because I find most of the stuff I need in one box. Using it both at work and home, I have always found rather uncomfortable to carry the 6 CD's with me -but I do it-.
The thing is... how often do I find a DVD drive in a office? And at a friend's?
I fear that I will have to carry the CD's with me anyway. Sigh!
I've followed all the news about the K7 for a long time, but I have to admit that I do not know much about the Coppermine. The main feeling I have is that the K7 is a lot more innovative than Coppermine, and that it leaves a lot more to do on its platform based on the magic Alpha design.
Intel seems to be exploiting all the possible core technology to push an unconvincing design. Perhaps the best of their innovative effort has gone into the IA64. Consent me a final thought...
If that old damned x86 legacy were not, we would probably be 5-6 years ahead. Think of Intel mass production coupled with better designs that minor sellers like Apple-Motorola-IBM still provide with quite less MHz!
Here in Italy, nearly all shops show widescreen TVs, and some people buy them. The offer is rich for all brands, not just Philips.
I'm surprised to see that US people do not pay attention to widescreen, esp.ly considering that we still have a minimal catalogue of DVD titles in comparison with the US one.
Why buy sorround systems, etc... and not a widescreen TV?
Do you feel that Linux should play a role in setting new, really open standards, esp. within Posix specifications, also in favour of other Posix-compliant operating systems?
I'm not honestly dissatisfied with Office. I do not use it because I use Linux, but I think that it's great and it would be great on any OS. And you would not be obliged to use it, right?
But -and it's a big butt- I'm used in exchanging docs using the RTF format, or even text when possible, to allow anybody use them without pain, and I hate those that send me DOC version 11, 12, 13, 3000, etc. just because it's the latest format.
That's my fear: will the Linux platform become Word/Excel-slave in the very moment it's becoming an acceptable documentation platform?
Will Office users force the others to accept the new formats, like it's always been, after that it's been a peaceful oasis for the really universal formats?
No, I don't think that I want this.