But only time will tell. Good idea and good implementation are two completely different things. And of course, I'm currently working on a Java project for the guv, and we were told "performance is not important". Go figure.
Another question is will the soon-to-be-confirmed REAL head of PTO continue this plan or will he decide to cost cut and eliminate the hiring of engineers in favor of less expensive choices?
The rampant hypocrisy of SS is truly entertaining. I'm sure they don't see it, and would insist that any censorship is GOOD censorship as long as it's "for the children".
http://www.theonion.com/onion3534/missing_the_po in t.html
The point most of these responses (with some notable exceptions) seem to miss is the fact that what little code the guy produced DIDN'T WORK. I've worked with plenty of major geeks (polymaths, multiple science PhDs, etc) most of whom were quirky (ranging from entertaining to downright frightening). The geniuses may have been frustrating, confusing, and hard to deal with, but the stuff they produced WORKED. That's why they are called geniuses. Someone who is freaky and produces crap code isn't a "quirky genius", they're a "quirky luser".
The time for action is now. Call your congressweasel and let them know what a severe violation of civil rights this is. More important, let them know that this will affect EVERYONE, including huge businesses that may lose hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars from lost data when the RIAA's "experts" trash a hard drive (their technical experts have, from what I've seen of them in action, fewer technical skills than my cat). Sure, some will go for the rights issues, but if you also point out how many of their corporate sponsors stand to lose craploads of money, it's a nice added incentive.
Furthermore, STOP SUPPORTING THE RIAA!!! Don't buy albums from RIAA members. There's a lot of great music that isn't issued on major labels, go out and find it! Support indie artists and labels, and show the RIAA that if they want to create an entertainment police state, you will not be participating.
How do they even know what's being burned
on
RIAA To Target CD-R
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· Score: 1
So will I now have to sign a release form stating that I will only use the blank CDs I'm buying for data? Or are they going to tax all blank CD buyers in order to cover the "costs" of the ones who use blanks for burning music? I've backed up my entire music collection as MP3s on about 100 blank CDs. My last employer went through about that many CDs EACH WEEK backing up workstations/servers/etc etc etc. So let's say in the course of a year I buy 20 music CDs, and one or two blank CDs to back them up. Why should my employer have to pay a tax on the the 5000 CDs they use in that period to the RIAA?
Of course, they'll force it through, just like they got good ol' Al Gore to force through a tax on tape recorders during the 80's.
Qwest has more important financial priorities. Such as paying Joe and Sol (the two most hated men in Colorado by a long shot) hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses this past year (despite the stock being down by 50%). I wonder how much bonus they'd have gotten if the company had performed well?
as we are (slowly) learning, when you deal with a monopoly such as {telco/cable co/power co/water co/etc} you pays your money and you takes your chances. They promise minimal service and maximum hassle in exchange for as much of your money as they can squeeze out of you. I'm far less concerned about the business practices of Microsoft, where there are options ad nauseum, than I am about true officially sanctioned monopolies such as those listed above, which are basic necessities (well, cable isn't since cable isn't a necessity).
The reason you don't see RMS making a big stink about other things that use GNU but don't credit it in their title is that bitching about Linux gets him lots of media attention. Maybe it's just me but if RMS wants a pure GNU OS maybe he should write a kernel instead of co-opting someone elses. As Guido said "Flame away, I am full of love".
Rather than listening to a bunch of zealots (for or against either position), why not consult the man who originally *wrote* Linux and is the head honcho of continuing development:
rms asked me if I minded the name before starting to use it, and I
said "go ahead". I didn't think it would explode into the large discussion
it resulted in, and I also thought that rms would only use it for the
specific release of Linux that the FSF was working on rather than "every"
Linux system.
I never felt that the naming issue was all that important, but I was
obviously wrong judging by how many people felt very strongly about it. So
these days I just tell people to call it just plain "Linux" and nothing more. - Wired 9/97
I've seen him express similar sentiments elsewhere several times, but that was the first one I came up with in a cursory google search.
While I like Mandrake as a newbie distro, I was not terribly pleased w/ 8.0. No hot swap USB is a major deal breaker for me, as I use a USB KVM (gotta get the iMac in there). I was intrigued to see Mandrake PPC listed on their site, however, and will be giving that a try Real Soon Now.
Unless, of course, the developer in question doesn't drink alcohol. Gift certs to online stores (thinkgeek or copyleft, for example) may be better. I've been trying to get my mom to send me gift certs instead of gifts for about 12 years with no luck yet. Sigh, yet another trip to the mall to return a very nice sweater that I would never wear under any circumstances.
If you REALLY want to start slow, check out WinLinux (which comes with several distros, including Mandrake). Get comfortable with the general concepts, and then (as many people have suggested already) try several versions.
When I got started, I went with Debian (still a 1.x version; Slackware (a 6.x version) and Red Hat (a 5.x version). Having zero experience outside Windows these were fairly harrowing (esp deb and slack) but I got through it and read a LOT (sidenote: if your local library is any good, they'll have some decent books on linux in general, check out as many as you can and READ THEM ALL). Depending on the degree of technical competence and interest I recommmend different things. To my NT admin friends who want serious stuff and know their hardware back and forth, I tell them to go with deb, slack or a BSD. My wife, on the other hand, who just wants word processing, email, and web surfing on a box that doesn't blue screen every 20 minutes I went the Mandrake route, and my brother wanted more multimedia support so I pointed him to SuSE. I have changed "favorite" distros so many times I've lost count, all that matters is that you find one you're comfortable with, which only comes about by experimentation.
Re:the sad truth about DSL
on
Rhythms Flatlines
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It is not free market. Once company was given a monopoly and now smaller companies are trying to compete and are being beaten to death by thugs who buy off the state legislators and the PUC's so they don't have to pay fines or play fair. A free market would mean everyone has an equal opportunity, definitely NOT the case here.
Sorry, my fault they went under
on
Rhythms Flatlines
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I seem to have a curse. Two of my last three employers are no longer (and the third is in critical condition).
Seriously tho', Rhythms was incredibly disorganized internally (at least in May-Nov 1999 they were). Poor communication, lack of clear goals, the usual internal politics etc. The development group was mostly overpriced/underskilled consultants who really did a lot of damage. About June of 99 they decided to hire the decent consultants (yours truly included) and drop-kick the rest, and that was certainly a good first step. Their Director of Development (Jamie Horgan) after about Nov of 99 was awesome but I don't think he could single handedly save the company from what ultimately killed them: Incumbent telcos. Going head to head with those monstrosities is begging to go out of business. You think MSFT is bad? Try dealing with Qworst, and it was only that much harder for Rhythms because the CEO defected from Qworst (it took a LONG time for Rhythms to be able to offer DSL service in their own town, because Qworst kept dragging their feet as punishment for her leaving to compete). I consider myself extremely lucky that I'm moving to a state that does not have Qworst.
Re:PCs are SO much better than Macs!!!!
on
Mac Rants
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
Yes, obviously you're right. Windows is better than Mac, I bow to your superior logic. I don't know anything about computers, which is why I do research and evaluation of emerging technologies for a living. I haven't met anyone other than Win fanatics who think that the iMac sucks, and most hard core Mac users I know have at least one (of course, they are all graphics and video production people so they must not know anything.).
PCs are SO much better than Macs!!!!
on
Mac Rants
·
· Score: 1
I've never ONCE had a PC crash when I opened too many things at once! PCs running Windows are faster, better made, more reliable and make you thinner and smarter as well.
In all seriousness, this is probably the worst opinion piece I've read ever. He provides no support for his contention that the Mac is underpowered (he made a comment about not being able to run more than one app at a time, has he used a Mac in the last 10 years?). I run a G3-500 iMac at home that easily outperformed the PIII-700 IBM Thinkpad I was using for Win2k Pro. Open up Outlook, Excel, and Photoshop on the thinkpad and you have to reboot. Open Entourage, Excel, and Photoshop on the iMac and no problem (both machines with 192M RAM). So this guy hates Macs, big deal. Hardly makes him a credible source of critique since he made his mind up long before he wrote the article.
I'm sure I'll find myself in the minority (it's OK, I'm used to that: I'm a leftist in Colorado). I thought that, Jar-Jar aside, Episode one was quite good. I saw the original when it came out many many many times in the theater, I was in the target audience for all the toys for Star Wars/Empire/Jedi. In spite of all that, I thought Episode one stood well as a prequel.
I've been running an IBM A20M for about a year, and I've installed a bunch of stuff (I used the laptop as a guinea pig a lot). RH 6.2 was squirrely until I upgraded the kernel to 2.4, RH 7 was a breeze as were Mandrake 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2. Debian was a little more challenging, but I still got it up and running in less time than it took to download and install all of the hotfixes/service packs/etc for Windows 2000 Pro. I finally settled on KRUD which was even easier to get going than Mandrake.
He didn't break the law. He did something in his home country that was legal in his home country. This is analagous to being at your job in Oklahoma and doing legal work for your employer and then visiting France and talking about your work and being arrested for it.
Given the crap quality of my qwest access, I welcome MSN. I'd even welcome AOL at this point. For the last several months (long before Code Red) my DSL has been going down 70-90 times EACH DAY (sometimes a lot more) and staying down anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours. Qworst tells me there's nothing wrong on their end, and I know nothing has changed on my end.
Slashdot Mirror
But only time will tell. Good idea and good implementation are two completely different things. And of course, I'm currently working on a Java project for the guv, and we were told "performance is not important". Go figure.
Another question is will the soon-to-be-confirmed REAL head of PTO continue this plan or will he decide to cost cut and eliminate the hiring of engineers in favor of less expensive choices?
The rampant hypocrisy of SS is truly entertaining. I'm sure they don't see it, and would insist that any censorship is GOOD censorship as long as it's "for the children".
o in t.html
http://www.theonion.com/onion3534/missing_the_p
In spite of the blatant vested interest of Sun, the piece is a studied and accurate indictment of the .Net initiative.
I would still like to see something like this come from someplace like Gartner as well, however.
>I mean, how many closed WINE forks does the world need?
18.
As an aspiring cyber-terrorist, I resent being compared to idiot script kiddies!
;)
The point most of these responses (with some notable exceptions) seem to miss is the fact that what little code the guy produced DIDN'T WORK. I've worked with plenty of major geeks (polymaths, multiple science PhDs, etc) most of whom were quirky (ranging from entertaining to downright frightening). The geniuses may have been frustrating, confusing, and hard to deal with, but the stuff they produced WORKED. That's why they are called geniuses. Someone who is freaky and produces crap code isn't a "quirky genius", they're a "quirky luser".
Of course, you can also switch between them fairly painlessly on the same box. Yet another reason I love linux...
>>and I have to put up with "My shit doesnt stick" attitude.
Doesn't stick to what?
The time for action is now. Call your congressweasel and let them know what a severe violation of civil rights this is. More important, let them know that this will affect EVERYONE, including huge businesses that may lose hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars from lost data when the RIAA's "experts" trash a hard drive (their technical experts have, from what I've seen of them in action, fewer technical skills than my cat). Sure, some will go for the rights issues, but if you also point out how many of their corporate sponsors stand to lose craploads of money, it's a nice added incentive.
Furthermore, STOP SUPPORTING THE RIAA!!! Don't buy albums from RIAA members. There's a lot of great music that isn't issued on major labels, go out and find it! Support indie artists and labels, and show the RIAA that if they want to create an entertainment police state, you will not be participating.
Of course, they'll force it through, just like they got good ol' Al Gore to force through a tax on tape recorders during the 80's.
as we are (slowly) learning, when you deal with a monopoly such as {telco/cable co/power co/water co/etc} you pays your money and you takes your chances. They promise minimal service and maximum hassle in exchange for as much of your money as they can squeeze out of you. I'm far less concerned about the business practices of Microsoft, where there are options ad nauseum, than I am about true officially sanctioned monopolies such as those listed above, which are basic necessities (well, cable isn't since cable isn't a necessity).
The reason you don't see RMS making a big stink about other things that use GNU but don't credit it in their title is that bitching about Linux gets him lots of media attention. Maybe it's just me but if RMS wants a pure GNU OS maybe he should write a kernel instead of co-opting someone elses. As Guido said "Flame away, I am full of love".
I've seen him express similar sentiments elsewhere several times, but that was the first one I came up with in a cursory google search.
They note all the improvements of 8.1beta1 over 8.0, but none of it seems particularly compelling. The latest versions of X, Y, and Z are de riguer at this point, and can be added to your existing install painlessly anyway. The improvements to their management tools are incremental (yes, I know it's a . release). I'll probably grab it when it's final just to see the new mgmt tools but my system (running Krud) has the latest Gnome/Evolution/Gimp/Gphoto/etc etc etc already so it's going to go on the guinea pig box basically to see if I should install it on my wife's computer.
Unless, of course, the developer in question doesn't drink alcohol. Gift certs to online stores (thinkgeek or copyleft, for example) may be better. I've been trying to get my mom to send me gift certs instead of gifts for about 12 years with no luck yet. Sigh, yet another trip to the mall to return a very nice sweater that I would never wear under any circumstances.
When I got started, I went with Debian (still a 1.x version; Slackware (a 6.x version) and Red Hat (a 5.x version). Having zero experience outside Windows these were fairly harrowing (esp deb and slack) but I got through it and read a LOT (sidenote: if your local library is any good, they'll have some decent books on linux in general, check out as many as you can and READ THEM ALL). Depending on the degree of technical competence and interest I recommmend different things. To my NT admin friends who want serious stuff and know their hardware back and forth, I tell them to go with deb, slack or a BSD. My wife, on the other hand, who just wants word processing, email, and web surfing on a box that doesn't blue screen every 20 minutes I went the Mandrake route, and my brother wanted more multimedia support so I pointed him to SuSE. I have changed "favorite" distros so many times I've lost count, all that matters is that you find one you're comfortable with, which only comes about by experimentation.
It is not free market. Once company was given a monopoly and now smaller companies are trying to compete and are being beaten to death by thugs who buy off the state legislators and the PUC's so they don't have to pay fines or play fair. A free market would mean everyone has an equal opportunity, definitely NOT the case here.
Seriously tho', Rhythms was incredibly disorganized internally (at least in May-Nov 1999 they were). Poor communication, lack of clear goals, the usual internal politics etc. The development group was mostly overpriced/underskilled consultants who really did a lot of damage. About June of 99 they decided to hire the decent consultants (yours truly included) and drop-kick the rest, and that was certainly a good first step. Their Director of Development (Jamie Horgan) after about Nov of 99 was awesome but I don't think he could single handedly save the company from what ultimately killed them: Incumbent telcos. Going head to head with those monstrosities is begging to go out of business. You think MSFT is bad? Try dealing with Qworst, and it was only that much harder for Rhythms because the CEO defected from Qworst (it took a LONG time for Rhythms to be able to offer DSL service in their own town, because Qworst kept dragging their feet as punishment for her leaving to compete). I consider myself extremely lucky that I'm moving to a state that does not have Qworst.
In all seriousness, this is probably the worst opinion piece I've read ever. He provides no support for his contention that the Mac is underpowered (he made a comment about not being able to run more than one app at a time, has he used a Mac in the last 10 years?). I run a G3-500 iMac at home that easily outperformed the PIII-700 IBM Thinkpad I was using for Win2k Pro. Open up Outlook, Excel, and Photoshop on the thinkpad and you have to reboot. Open Entourage, Excel, and Photoshop on the iMac and no problem (both machines with 192M RAM). So this guy hates Macs, big deal. Hardly makes him a credible source of critique since he made his mind up long before he wrote the article.
I'm sure I'll find myself in the minority (it's OK, I'm used to that: I'm a leftist in Colorado). I thought that, Jar-Jar aside, Episode one was quite good. I saw the original when it came out many many many times in the theater, I was in the target audience for all the toys for Star Wars/Empire/Jedi. In spite of all that, I thought Episode one stood well as a prequel.
Given the crap quality of my qwest access, I welcome MSN. I'd even welcome AOL at this point. For the last several months (long before Code Red) my DSL has been going down 70-90 times EACH DAY (sometimes a lot more) and staying down anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours. Qworst tells me there's nothing wrong on their end, and I know nothing has changed on my end.