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User: Daniel+Phillips

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  1. Re:lvalue on the right on Red Hat Uncloaks 'Java Killer': the Ceylon Project · · Score: 1

    Because the bugs associated with mistakenly using = vs. ==, I always put the constant value being compared on the left.

    So you're the one. Can't say how much I hate reading code like that. Thankfully, that particular annoying affectation should be a thing of the past now that GCC warns when you do that.

  2. Re:Why is it sneaky? on Windows Already Up and Running On ARM Architecture · · Score: 1

    MS (or M$ if you must) plays for the long term. Their rep is better than Sony in the current console market, partially because they handled the RROD situation pretty well, even if they did take a loss. I get the feeling the next set of consoles will pay them back in spades. Just speculation though.

    My working assumption is that the next console generation will not look at all like the current one. In the modern world, console hardware simply can't keep up with general purpose computers. Nintendo got it right: retro/cute thrives while cutting edge dies. Witness how many exclusive franchises both Sony and Microsoft lost this generation.

    Or another way of putting it: the console market as we knew it is dead, Sony and Microsoft killed it. This hundred dollar graphics card with 4 times the power of a PS3 or Xbox 360 says I'm right. The future of gaming looks more like Android than it does another round of fire breathing, solder melting walled gardens.

  3. Re:Why is it sneaky? on Windows Already Up and Running On ARM Architecture · · Score: 1

    The mere thought of using an ipad for word processing makes me shudder. Wait, you're also into three legged racing, right?

  4. Re:Something to watch on Red Hat Uncloaks 'Java Killer': the Ceylon Project · · Score: 1

    What in god's name makes you think we want the legions of mindless Java programmers to join us?

    Oh I don't know, the fact that they write most of the business code out there?

  5. Re:C#/Mono similar? on Red Hat Uncloaks 'Java Killer': the Ceylon Project · · Score: 1

    mono is out there and hasn't been sued yet

    Yet.

  6. Re:Why is it sneaky? on Windows Already Up and Running On ARM Architecture · · Score: 1

    With arm, Microsoft has to start from zero and compete on a level playing field. Something it has never been good at.

    Yeah, like with the console market. They really flubbed that one. [/sarcasm]

    Indeed, about 8 $billion worth of flub at last count. While Nintendo knew what they were doing and massively raked in the cash. I call that epic flub.

    see, Microsoft's plan was to leverage it's PC games monopoly into a console games monopoly by knocking out Nintendo and Sony. Unfortunately, neither was knocked out so that plan failed and worse, the entire console market was discredited by unreliable hardware. Plus Microsoft diluted its focus in a major way and lost $8 billion or so. Not good at it, you bet.

  7. Re:Why is it sneaky? on Windows Already Up and Running On ARM Architecture · · Score: 1

    I'd love to have office on my ipad, or at least a subset of it. Outlook, Powerpoint, Word, and Excel. That would TRULY justify the purchase.

    Perhaps you bought the wrong kind of computer. I would think that a USB port is essential for any device you hope to use as a general purpose computer. Printer? Mouse? You probably better get adjusted to the idea that your ipad is a glorified TV.

    I will grant you that Apple and Microsoft are working well as a team to shoot each other's feet off.

  8. Re:Why is it sneaky? on Windows Already Up and Running On ARM Architecture · · Score: 1

    The target platform here is not fully-functional desktop PCs with ARM processors, it's tablets and other appliance-style devices.

    That's exactly the problem for Microsoft. Nobody is clamoring for Microsoft Office on an ipad, please correct me if I'm wrong :-)

  9. Re:Why is it sneaky? on Windows Already Up and Running On ARM Architecture · · Score: 0

    They already showed off Office for ARM months ago.

    Shown in a demo, but nobody has tried it, I wonder why? Can you provide a link to a review please?

  10. Re:Why is it sneaky? on Windows Already Up and Running On ARM Architecture · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's about frickin' time! As usual MS take the longest to get on the trend train.

    It's too little, too late. Even if Microsoft was able to get "true" Windows working perfectly on arm, what about all the 3rd party apps? What about Office? Outlook? Anything that matters in the Microsoft ecosystem?

    With arm, Microsoft has to start from zero and compete on a level playing field. Something it has never been good at.

  11. Re:Why is it still called "science"? on Computer Science Enrollment Up 10% Last Fall · · Score: 1

    Spoken like someone who never studied computer science. Perhaps you have never heard the name Alan Turing or read the works of Donald Knuth? Surely not with understanding.

  12. Re:Oh, stuff it. on Sony's Case Against Geohot Has Been Settled · · Score: 1

    Then came the real working hack. First we got slews of updates as Sony tried to stay one step ahead, which was just a giant headache for people who just wanted to play a damn game.

    It's not our fault that Sony is evil. This is just one of the many reasons why owning a PS3 is a very unpleasant experience. Have you had to scroll through the multiple iterations of the online "user agreement"? One word for the experience: humiliating. I did not buy a PS3 to be humiliated. Nor did I buy it to spend hundreds of dollars on repairs that Sony should have made for free.

  13. Re:What a waste of time and space on Facebook Opens Their Data Center Infrastructure · · Score: 1

    So you think that just because the subject has been written about extensively a data center will just assemble itself magically in an optimal configuration?

  14. Re:Faceboook on Facebook Opens Their Data Center Infrastructure · · Score: 1

    Actually Google tried to keep the container based design secret, only trouble was everybody else thought of the same (obvious) thing. See Sun's "black box".

  15. Re:What a waste of time and space on Facebook Opens Their Data Center Infrastructure · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But didn't you just demonstrate the value by listing off the issues as you perceive them? Next step is discussion of your points to see if they are/are not addressed. Congratulations on your contribution to the open development process.

  16. Re:Faceboook on Facebook Opens Their Data Center Infrastructure · · Score: 2

    A stark contrast to Google's nigh-on paranoid stance, the point of which I never really understood. It will be very interesting to see whether Facebook's open approach ultimately results in a lower infrastructure cost than Google's traditional secrecy. In this case my money is on open. Now how can I get some of that IPO? (Not a Facebook fanboy by any means, privacy issues are deeply disturbing.)

    The cool thing about the Google/Facebook rivalry is, it's Linux vs Linux. I guess we'll be seeing more of that.

  17. Re:The More The Merrier! on Google Adds Tablet UI Elements To Chrome OS Betas · · Score: 1

    Coward much?

  18. Re:The More The Merrier! on Google Adds Tablet UI Elements To Chrome OS Betas · · Score: 1

    Google has some pretty smart people, and I'm sure they've got something up their sleeves.

    I wouldn't count on that. Google has its share of flat out failures, some of which are kept on perennial life support for no good reason.

  19. Re:Hate to rain in on your parade, mr fanboy, but. on Bashing MS 'Like Kicking a Puppy,' Says Jim Zemlin · · Score: 1

    Specialist-quality in Windows-land (where the specialists are paid in the ballparks that we linux mob expect to be paid), they know their shit. They can script as well as we do, they understand LDAP, DNS, mail and file servers, they know their hardware, they know their comms, they can troubleshoot well and will pull a packet sniffer as quickly as we do, and they think the same (bad) things we do of ye olde server apps that run with a GUI in a logged-in console that needs to be checked every morning, they understand and can implement security on their platform, and if you throw something like ESX 3.x their way (with an underlying linux OS to manage the host) they don't shit a brick, they sit with the doco and figure the thing out. In my experience, with a pay-bracket as a basis for comparison, they're competent.

    I guess most Windows admins are not paid very much then because the ones I have met generally have few skills beyond clicking dialog buttons, rebooting and reinstalling.

    And I have met a lot of them, including at Google where the disparity in skill level was all the more obvious. In fact, the only decent Windows admins I have ever met are Linux admins first, Windows as a sideline.

  20. Re:The will to be free on Bashing MS 'Like Kicking a Puppy,' Says Jim Zemlin · · Score: 1

    I don't think you can use that excuse any more. In the early days of netbooks Linux had a head start. For whatever reasons the majority of people preferred windows. I remember reading that retailers were reporting a high return rate on the linux versions, can't remember where I read that though.

    I am quite sure that Microsoft still bullies and intimidates their stable of OEMs, however tactics have been modified slightly in order to game the antitrust oversight committee. Now, OEMs are threatened with withdrawal of coop marketing funds or withdrawal of access to licenses at the most favorable price, either of which increase the price to the end user enough to seriously harm the vendor.

    Just try to buy a machine from Dell that is identically specced to one of their Windows-only machines. You can't. Why not? Because Microsoft is mortally afraid of customers knowing exactly how much they can save by going with Linux.

    In a free market, Linux on desktop PCs would do very well indeed and Microsoft knows it. That's why Microsoft does everything in its power to prevent the PC market from being free.

  21. Re:Hate to rain in on your parade, mr fanboy, but. on Bashing MS 'Like Kicking a Puppy,' Says Jim Zemlin · · Score: 0

    Specialist-quality in Windows-land (where the specialists are paid in the ballparks that we linux mob expect to be paid), they know their shit. They can script as well as we do, they understand LDAP, DNS, mail and file servers, they know their hardware, they know their comms, they can troubleshoot well and will pull a packet sniffer as quickly as we do, and they think the same (bad) things we do of ye olde server apps that run with a GUI in a logged-in console that needs to be checked every morning, they understand and can implement security on their platform, and if you throw something like ESX 3.x their way (with an underlying linux OS to manage the host) they don't shit a brick, they sit with the doco and figure the thing out. In my experience, with a pay-bracket as a basis for comparison, they're competent.

    I guess most Windows admins are not paid very much then because the ones I have met generally have few skills beyond clicking dialog buttons, rebooting and reinstalling.

  22. More like kicking a bear on Bashing MS 'Like Kicking a Puppy,' Says Jim Zemlin · · Score: 1

    Kicking Microsoft is more like kicking a bear than kicking a puppy. Sorry Jim, you got it wrong one more time.

  23. Re:Not only that on Bashing MS 'Like Kicking a Puppy,' Says Jim Zemlin · · Score: 2

    Neither has won, neither has lost, they both continue to exist alongside one another.

    Much as the Neanderthals continued to exist beside Homo Sapiens.

  24. Re:The will to be free on Bashing MS 'Like Kicking a Puppy,' Says Jim Zemlin · · Score: 1

    If that is true, then why does Linux fare so poorly on the desktop?

    Perhaps because Microsoft successfully prevents OEMs from installing it by default?

  25. Re:The will to be free on Bashing MS 'Like Kicking a Puppy,' Says Jim Zemlin · · Score: 1

    Linux *IS* far superior to Windows 7 on the desktop as well as everywhere else; it's just that most users are too brainwashed and too brain-dead to realize it.

    I would have to agree with you there. On the few occasions I find myself stuck with running Windows I am constantly asking myself how anyone can suffer through all that awkwardness, all those limitations and all that just plain weird behavior. What's up with the scroll bar button jumping back to where you started if you don't drag carefully exactly where the scrollbar is? Tons of stupid little things like that. I just don't get it. A modern KDE desktop leaves any version of Windows completely in the dust usability wise, plus is sitting on top of a way more useful OS. Seems to me like Windows got stuck in the nineties.