This might be funny, but I read about 3.4 a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't wait, so I left my computer to download the darn thing all night long. Not two weeks pass, and the new version is up.
Oh well. It's good to have multiple versions of things around.
Usually the difficulty is in forecasting the number of CDs required. You can burn 2000 CDs ahead of time, but what if only 200 people turn up?
People figure out these sorts of things every day. For example, in a manufacturing business, how do you know whether to produce 200,000 units or 8,000,000 units of some product? What if you produce 200,000 and there is some enormous demand, you can't meet it, and then your competition gets all of your customers because it reacts faster? Or, what if you produce 8,000,000 units and end up with 7,800,000 in inventory, with no place to put them, and a big loss after paying to manufacture the units?
The answer is to use historical information to forecast the future. How many people attend LUG installfests in various cities? These things have not been done for the first time. Using that demographic information and a map, you can forecast the likely attendance in future installfests. Higher-than-expected attendance can be overcome by having a CD duplicator at the installfest that can make, say, 10 CDs simultaneously. It might be slow, but at least you can continue to provide CDs should the supply begin to run low (ask people to bring blank CDs just in case). If attendance is lower than expected, the surplus CDs can be taken (or shipped) to the next installfest, or they can be sold for cheap (to cover expenses plus a little profit to fund future installfests) on a Linux website. In fact, I would make a distribution specially designed for installfests, containing information about various distributions (those distros might fund a portion of the events to convert users of brand "XP" OSes) to help people make the switch. I would offer to sell packages of 1, 10, or 100 of these CDs from a website, for people to perform their own installfests. Or, if the CDs become a bit outdated, mail them AOL style. There are unlimited possibilities.
Also, in a very businesslike manner, you could compare the one-time cost of buying a mass-copying unit to the recurring cost of pressing CDs. Whichever is cheaper could be the way to go.
I think it would be really awesome if some idiots pay thousands upon thousands of dollars for some cool email addresses, and when Gmail goes live for real, everything is reset and someone else gets that address for free. That would just be so awesome. I'd really like if it did happen just to see all the lawsuits that would arise from it. Well, did I mention I'm a lawyer?
Ever watch Monster Garage? One time they took one of those Volkswagon bugs and made it into a car that could float in a swamp. There was a big propeller inside and all kinds of other crazy stuff. I think it would be bitchin to build something like that in a cooler car.
If the availability and speed of CD writers causes a problem at Installfests, then why not make up a distributed system for making these CDs? If you can get, say, 1000 Linux users to each make 2 copies of a Linux installation CD, and then mail those two CDs to the LUG ahead of time, then you'd have 2000 CDs ready to go.
The only problem I can think of is verifying that what's on the CD isn't malicious code. Hmmmmm... That's a tough one. Maybe a better idea would be for Linux users around the world to each donate some money to a nonprofit organization created for the purpose of Linux Installfests. That nonprofit would then have thousands of copies of Linux CDs pressed each day, at a cost of almost nothing per CD. I can see how it would be in the best interest of all Linux distro makers, and all companies that use Linux as part of their strategy (e.g., IBM) to donate a few cents from each CD they sell to this organization. This organization would then routinely ship crates of CDs to LUGs around the world, for the purpose of installing on folks' computers, and giving them the CD as their welcome gift to the Linux community. If a nonprofit can't be started, then why not donate some of those CD duplication units that can make 10 CDs at once, or at least the funds to buy those things...
By making this community grow as much as possible, we will all be doing a great thing. It is likely that companies will produce hardware drivers, application software, and other products for Linux. It is likely that by experimenting with Linux, a lot of people will become a lot smarter about computers, and the ratios of 1337 users to the idiot users (that Microsoft helped create with its talking paperclips) will be more favorable.
Finally, some other folks mentioned network boots. Yes, I think this is a good idea. But still give folks a CD so they can reinstall if they hose their system.
I think the cost of your first patent should be proportional to various measures. It would be computed with a complicated formula that involves your assets over the past few years, your gross and net income, and other factors. Each time you apply for a patent, the above would be computed, and then it would be multiplied by a multiplier that is basically "persistent" (that is, kept track of) across all of your patent applications.
After the first two patents you are awarded, the multiplier will begin to double with each new patent you apply for. This will help to prevent companies for applying for stupid schitt patents, because it will increase their multiplier. They will only do it on stuff that's really worth it. Oh, but to be fair, as time passes between patent applications, the multiplier will begin to decrease slowly, so if you are legitimately developing stuff that is HARD to develop, then it makes sense that you'll have a few years between patent applications.
Furthermore, the length in time of a patent would depend on many factors, such as the ones described in the first paragraph (e.g., a huge multinational's patents might last 1/3 as long as a garage enthusiast who stumbles across some great invention), the industry involved (e.g., software patents would last, say, two years at MOST), the difficulty and expense incurred in making the invention (which would have to be kept track of and audited, or else this number would be assumed to be ZERO), etc. Also, the amount you intend to charge for selling the invention individually, and for licensing the patent would be taken into account. That is, if it will legitimately take you ten years to break even on the costs of developing your invention, that will likely increase the time length of your patent (but no patent will ever last more than 20 years). However, if you say the unit cost will be two cents and the licensing will cost ten bucks, just to get a long patent life, and then you start selling the units at $5000 and the licenses and $10000000000000000000000000, then the patent office would actually monitor that and reduce the term of your patent accordingly. Say, you could deviate up to 15% (plus an adjustment for inflation or deflation, to make things fair) in price increases, and up to any amount in decreases, without suffering a shortened patent
The above should help aspiring inventors working in their garages or basements. But all of that simply means that huge multinational corporations will create a holding company to create a single patent and then license that patent for 0.00000000000000000001 cents per millenium. To avoid that, the law would state a few things: First, that the computations above would also apply to the licensees of a patent, and that licensee, in addition to paying license fees, will have to pay a licensing tax. In other words, say Microsoft invents something, opens a tiny company for the sole purpose of holding the patent, to make the patent application cheap, and then licenses it to itself for really cheap, and to others at exhorbitant prices, and then cites trade secrets when refusing to tell anyone what the price it pays is. What I'm saying here would mean that Microsoft would pay the peanuts to its holding company, but it would pay hundreds of thousands in patent licensing taxes to the government. However, that will not hold true for any nonprofit endeavors. So if some joe shmoe GPL developer or academic licenses the same patent, he wouldn't pay jack schitt in taxes, because if the license is for nonprofit reasons, there will be notaxes on patent licenses.
Finally, where will all these horrendous fees and patent taxes go? They will fund a better patent office, where many more patent examiners will be able to take a lot more time and resources to examine and really research these patents.
Oh, and there was one other thing that I forgot: A working model MUST be built and WORKING according to the patent. No more patenting ideas. You must be able to demonstrate that it works according to plan before you can patent it.
Oh puh-leeze. Okay, so I'll admit, there are cool, tasteful, artistic PC case mods, like this one.
I just looked at that "this one" of yours, and I think it's a pretty bitchin'-lookin' retro-stylin' PC case. True, I wouldn't have one of those in my own house, but if you've got a 1940's-1950's style house, with all kinds of old appliances (they don't make 'em like they used to), then this case would fit right in.
are ugly and frankly are the computer equivalent of that.
But I replied to you because I wanted to say how right you are about this one... Cuz guess what? rice_burners_suck!!
Conclusion? Case mods done with good taste are cool. Stupid looking case mods look really dumb.
You know, I'm glad this article didn't go the way of, "The Gimp r0xx0rzzzz!!! Photosh0p iz th4 suxx0rz cux i7 ain'7 GPL!!!!!!!!!11111111"
I think it would be really awesome if the Gimp someday became as good as Photoshop and then surpassed it. But what's probably more likely is Adobe making a Linux native version of Photoshop, and that's not very likely either.
In order for projects like the Gimp to do the less likely of the above two (that is, exceeding Photoshop in usability and quality), it would basically need to be re-engineered to do everything Photoshop can do and more, with much more flexibility. This will only happen if a lot of people and companies start contributing money to the project, so that top talent can be hired full time to carry this out. The same way that billions are being applied to Linux.
You know, Internet2 might be separate from Internet1, but I think it won't be that way for long. I thought of this the first time I heard of Internet2, which was years ago.
Think about it. All it takes is ONE host on Internet2 providing a connection to ONE host on Internet1. And it *will* happen. Just wait and see. Maybe it will happen for illegitimate reasons, but I think it will happen for very legitimate reasons. Someone will need access for some reason or another, and there you have it.
Personally, I think that instead of building a bunch of separate networks, they should build more high-speed infrastructure for the Internet. Bigger pipes and more of them, more satellites, etc. Then, the speed will be there for just about anything, and communications within organizations can be protected with VPNs or other technologies.
Either that, or build many "parallel" Internets, each with specific purposes (science, government, business, 1337 h4x0rz, etc.) with highly controlled firewalled connections between them for allowing legitimate traffic to go between them.
I think this is excellent. I bet if you'll wait about two months, news will appear that Cisco and IBM are going to deploy Linux instead of a proprietary OS in these systems.
16K RAM for $22; 10 megabyte hard drive, 5 meg fixed and 5 removeable, with 14- inch platters; 25-character per second printer.
You think that's advanced technology, eh? You should come to my place sometime and check out my ENIAC. You have to be the 1337est of the '1337 to operate this thing. No hard drive. No mouse. No graphics... hell, there ain't even a CLI for cryin' out loud! (Real Programmers don't need no stinkin' user interface.) To enter commands into this baby, you gotta connect hundreds upon hundreds of wires, kind of like they did in the old telephone switchboards, where a human operator connected your call.
And best of all, this computer does it all.
Want to multiply two numbers in just 3 milliseconds? Done.
Want security even the likes of OpenBSD can't beat? Done.
The designers of this system knew what they were doing. The inability to store a program means that this system CANNOT get a virus, ever, period. Of course, then Von Neumann had to come along and invent stored programs, and the next thing you know, Outlook automatically executes email attachments...
Now it's time for someone to blast me on my misuse of commas or something.
Yes, as a matter of fact, you stated, "Now, notice the use of ironic here," when, I presume, you meant to say "irony" in place of "ironic." I assure you that the erroneous grammar, spelling, and punctuation were not employed in error, but rather because I just love to write as crappily as possible when passing judgment on others' writing.
I am well aware of the minor differences between things like "not unlike" and "like" or "I could care less" and "I couldn't care less" but I am complaining about their misuse (when it is obvious that the speaker or writer intends a different meaning).
...allows you to record a concert... legally. It works because it's run by the venue, direct from the mixing board...
Where the hell is Disney or the RIAA or Microsoft or the MPAA, stuffing billions of dollars into some congressman's pocket to make this practice illegal?!?!?!?!!!?!???!!! This kind of behavior will not be tolerated! Copyright holders should not have the right to copy copyrighted material any more than the general public should! After all, if a copyright holder copies his work for distribution or other purposes, that sets a bad example for the rest of the general public! I think there should be new international laws that make it illegal to create, possess, buy, sell, or otherwise traffic in any kind of information, whether fixed on any kind of medium (paper, hard drives, your brain, a memory chip, etc.) or not. It should be punishable by 100 years of extreme nonstop torture, without the benefit of death.
This is what I love about Slashdolt. They'll post a story a hundred thousand million billion trillion quadrillion... googleplex long story on the front page about a product called J(Rweuf or JI@#K or RJ(@J#J or something, and talk about how wonderful it is, but NOWHERE is there any mention of what the thing doez. It reminds me of the mindless advertisements placed in business magazines: "By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions." Does that say anything? No. It's pure duckspeak. If they sell computers, they'll put a picture of an island in their ad and tell you to streamline enterprise results or something... What a crock of shit.
Yesterday, Apple released iTunes 4.5, which deliberately broke the 4.2 authentication scheme, which had been successfully reverse-engineered. However, crazney has been at it again, and within 24 hours of downloading iTunes 4.5, has broken the new scheme, and added more features to this library along the way. If you want to incorporate iTMS support in your program, give libopendaap a go!
I agree that Sun would have to have to do something dramatic to avoid what is looking more and more like an inevitability at this point,
Do you hear that sound, Mr. McNealy? That is the sound of inevitability...
Might they have anything in the works that could save them? What could it be?
I heard from some secret sources deep inside Sun that they're developing a new product called Sun Java Desktop. Basically, it will run a completely proprietary operating system that Sun invented all by themselves, but I hear that it will somehow, through some other proprietary software, support the running of Linux programs. But it's definitely not Linux, I'm told. I trust this information, though, because I met the guy who told me this at the pub while drinking too much Guinness, and he seemed like he wouldn't lie about something like this. He was kind of drunk, too.
BASIC is still Microsoft's language for application automation
And herein lies the strength. I wouldn't be surprised if every Microsoft software actually contains an embedded copy of their original BASIC interpreter from 1980 or whenever, and the program itself is actually written in BASIC. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if they have a company policy against using any method of flow control except GOTOs. It is design decisions like these that make Windows the most efficient, cost effective, secure, and bug free software in the world.
Oh yeah, and Linux iz th4 suxx0rz bec4us3 it do3sn'7 !nc1ude BASIC in th4 k3rn31!!!111111111111
This is almost as bad as people saying, "That's not unlike this," or whatever, when all you have to say is, "That's like this." Or worse, when people say, "I could care less," when what they actually mean, if they want to say that they don't care at all, is, "I could NOT care less." People are just so stupid. It all stems from the educational system, which completely and utterly sucks. Respect used to be with the teacher. What the teacher said, went. Teachers had the authority to discipline children. But not anymore. Teachers have to be afraid to say the wrong word, or look at some student the wrong way, or use the wrong tone of voice, or they'll get fired and end up on the national news for being "prejudiced" against some child. What a bunch of bullshit! It reminds me of airport security. They WON'T search someone who looks middle eastern because they might get offended, but they WILL search some nun or some child who comes through because they want to appear FAIR. In other words, they SAY they don't want to discriminate, but this behavior IS DISCRIMINATION!!!!! Discrimination works both ways! You can discriminate in order to benefit someone, or in order to unbenefit someone. But no, they won't see it this way, just as nobody sees the absurdity of schools sucking, and when the children fail the tests, because the school did a shitty job of teaching them, the state gets rid of the tests, instead of making the schools teach better.
Do you agree with some of what I've said in this post? If you're a U.S. citizen, write in Ralph Nader on the November 2004 ballot. Voting outside the "traditional" Democrat/Republican parties is the only way to fix this country.
TurboLinux iz th4 suxx0rz cuz itz ! a 100% free d1stro!!!!!111
Seriously, though. If you want an operating system that's free, use a free OS. Many of the applications for desktop use, however, won't be available in a 100% free form for a while. This is similar to the way that OS software wasn't always free, and now there are many free OSes. I think that in 10 years or so, many businesses will realize that creating proprietary software, even desktop applications, is such a high risk endeavor, that it will benefit businesses to participate in a global community of free software, while making money by achieving other goals.
Think about it. Bugs and testing account for a huge portion of development. Software is becoming increasingly complex and buggy, and the problem isn't getting any smaller. Time to market windows and acceptable software prices are getting smaller and smaller, while customer demands are getting bigger and bigger. Why would any business want to deal with these risks when it could, instead, consider software a fixed cost by applying several developers full time to an existing free software project. The business would know that X amount of dollars are being spent, and because many other businesses have it in their best interest to have the same software, and they are putting their developers on it as well, everybody will benefit much faster. No upgrade or support costs would be incurred because the software cost would essentially become fixed, and the developers in house could provide the support for that application. Best of all, the resulting software would be more efficient, stable, and flexible than any proprietary alternative could be.
I strongly believe that all of this will happen in the software applications market, not just for desktop use, but for businesses, governments, and other uses as well. Just as this idea might have sounded preposterous ten years ago (or even five years ago) with regards to operating systems, it has happened with Linux and the BSDs, and I think that in ten years, we'll enjoy the fact that businesses are waking up to this idea.
So give it a little time. I think that when the entire business world depends on certain operating systems and software to operate, it will fight DMCA-like laws so strongly that the MPAA, RIAA, and their likes will lose this unfair advantage.
In the meantime, it's good that TurboLinux will support some of this proprietary crap, because the faster people start using (mostly) free software and realizing the benefits of it, the faster there won't be many proprietary formats and software programs out there.
Throughout my entire network, I use Windows on only ONE computer, and only for ONE program: UltraEdit. This text editor has some unique features that make it excellent for programming as well as writing other stuff. That would be my first installed program. The second is WinVNC, the third is PuTTY, both of which I use to access my "real" computers.
I hate Windows, so I'm still waiting for a port of UltraEdit to Linux.
Oh yeah, and my fourth program is Quake II, which I like to play at night sometimes. I don't know how to set up games on my real computers.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh well. It's good to have multiple versions of things around.
People figure out these sorts of things every day. For example, in a manufacturing business, how do you know whether to produce 200,000 units or 8,000,000 units of some product? What if you produce 200,000 and there is some enormous demand, you can't meet it, and then your competition gets all of your customers because it reacts faster? Or, what if you produce 8,000,000 units and end up with 7,800,000 in inventory, with no place to put them, and a big loss after paying to manufacture the units?
The answer is to use historical information to forecast the future. How many people attend LUG installfests in various cities? These things have not been done for the first time. Using that demographic information and a map, you can forecast the likely attendance in future installfests. Higher-than-expected attendance can be overcome by having a CD duplicator at the installfest that can make, say, 10 CDs simultaneously. It might be slow, but at least you can continue to provide CDs should the supply begin to run low (ask people to bring blank CDs just in case). If attendance is lower than expected, the surplus CDs can be taken (or shipped) to the next installfest, or they can be sold for cheap (to cover expenses plus a little profit to fund future installfests) on a Linux website. In fact, I would make a distribution specially designed for installfests, containing information about various distributions (those distros might fund a portion of the events to convert users of brand "XP" OSes) to help people make the switch. I would offer to sell packages of 1, 10, or 100 of these CDs from a website, for people to perform their own installfests. Or, if the CDs become a bit outdated, mail them AOL style. There are unlimited possibilities.
Also, in a very businesslike manner, you could compare the one-time cost of buying a mass-copying unit to the recurring cost of pressing CDs. Whichever is cheaper could be the way to go.
Mark my words, someone is going to be in deep shit for this.
I think it would be really awesome if some idiots pay thousands upon thousands of dollars for some cool email addresses, and when Gmail goes live for real, everything is reset and someone else gets that address for free. That would just be so awesome. I'd really like if it did happen just to see all the lawsuits that would arise from it. Well, did I mention I'm a lawyer?
Ever watch Monster Garage? One time they took one of those Volkswagon bugs and made it into a car that could float in a swamp. There was a big propeller inside and all kinds of other crazy stuff. I think it would be bitchin to build something like that in a cooler car.
The only problem I can think of is verifying that what's on the CD isn't malicious code. Hmmmmm... That's a tough one. Maybe a better idea would be for Linux users around the world to each donate some money to a nonprofit organization created for the purpose of Linux Installfests. That nonprofit would then have thousands of copies of Linux CDs pressed each day, at a cost of almost nothing per CD. I can see how it would be in the best interest of all Linux distro makers, and all companies that use Linux as part of their strategy (e.g., IBM) to donate a few cents from each CD they sell to this organization. This organization would then routinely ship crates of CDs to LUGs around the world, for the purpose of installing on folks' computers, and giving them the CD as their welcome gift to the Linux community. If a nonprofit can't be started, then why not donate some of those CD duplication units that can make 10 CDs at once, or at least the funds to buy those things...
By making this community grow as much as possible, we will all be doing a great thing. It is likely that companies will produce hardware drivers, application software, and other products for Linux. It is likely that by experimenting with Linux, a lot of people will become a lot smarter about computers, and the ratios of 1337 users to the idiot users (that Microsoft helped create with its talking paperclips) will be more favorable.
Finally, some other folks mentioned network boots. Yes, I think this is a good idea. But still give folks a CD so they can reinstall if they hose their system.
After the first two patents you are awarded, the multiplier will begin to double with each new patent you apply for. This will help to prevent companies for applying for stupid schitt patents, because it will increase their multiplier. They will only do it on stuff that's really worth it. Oh, but to be fair, as time passes between patent applications, the multiplier will begin to decrease slowly, so if you are legitimately developing stuff that is HARD to develop, then it makes sense that you'll have a few years between patent applications.
Furthermore, the length in time of a patent would depend on many factors, such as the ones described in the first paragraph (e.g., a huge multinational's patents might last 1/3 as long as a garage enthusiast who stumbles across some great invention), the industry involved (e.g., software patents would last, say, two years at MOST), the difficulty and expense incurred in making the invention (which would have to be kept track of and audited, or else this number would be assumed to be ZERO), etc. Also, the amount you intend to charge for selling the invention individually, and for licensing the patent would be taken into account. That is, if it will legitimately take you ten years to break even on the costs of developing your invention, that will likely increase the time length of your patent (but no patent will ever last more than 20 years). However, if you say the unit cost will be two cents and the licensing will cost ten bucks, just to get a long patent life, and then you start selling the units at $5000 and the licenses and $10000000000000000000000000, then the patent office would actually monitor that and reduce the term of your patent accordingly. Say, you could deviate up to 15% (plus an adjustment for inflation or deflation, to make things fair) in price increases, and up to any amount in decreases, without suffering a shortened patent
The above should help aspiring inventors working in their garages or basements. But all of that simply means that huge multinational corporations will create a holding company to create a single patent and then license that patent for 0.00000000000000000001 cents per millenium. To avoid that, the law would state a few things: First, that the computations above would also apply to the licensees of a patent, and that licensee, in addition to paying license fees, will have to pay a licensing tax. In other words, say Microsoft invents something, opens a tiny company for the sole purpose of holding the patent, to make the patent application cheap, and then licenses it to itself for really cheap, and to others at exhorbitant prices, and then cites trade secrets when refusing to tell anyone what the price it pays is. What I'm saying here would mean that Microsoft would pay the peanuts to its holding company, but it would pay hundreds of thousands in patent licensing taxes to the government. However, that will not hold true for any nonprofit endeavors. So if some joe shmoe GPL developer or academic licenses the same patent, he wouldn't pay jack schitt in taxes, because if the license is for nonprofit reasons, there will be notaxes on patent licenses.
Finally, where will all these horrendous fees and patent taxes go? They will fund a better patent office, where many more patent examiners will be able to take a lot more time and resources to examine and really research these patents.
Oh, and there was one other thing that I forgot: A working model MUST be built and WORKING according to the patent. No more patenting ideas. You must be able to demonstrate that it works according to plan before you can patent it.
I just looked at that "this one" of yours, and I think it's a pretty bitchin'-lookin' retro-stylin' PC case. True, I wouldn't have one of those in my own house, but if you've got a 1940's-1950's style house, with all kinds of old appliances (they don't make 'em like they used to), then this case would fit right in.
are ugly and frankly are the computer equivalent of that.
But I replied to you because I wanted to say how right you are about this one... Cuz guess what? rice_burners_suck!!
Conclusion? Case mods done with good taste are cool. Stupid looking case mods look really dumb.
I think it would be really awesome if the Gimp someday became as good as Photoshop and then surpassed it. But what's probably more likely is Adobe making a Linux native version of Photoshop, and that's not very likely either.
In order for projects like the Gimp to do the less likely of the above two (that is, exceeding Photoshop in usability and quality), it would basically need to be re-engineered to do everything Photoshop can do and more, with much more flexibility. This will only happen if a lot of people and companies start contributing money to the project, so that top talent can be hired full time to carry this out. The same way that billions are being applied to Linux.
Think about it. All it takes is ONE host on Internet2 providing a connection to ONE host on Internet1. And it *will* happen. Just wait and see. Maybe it will happen for illegitimate reasons, but I think it will happen for very legitimate reasons. Someone will need access for some reason or another, and there you have it.
Personally, I think that instead of building a bunch of separate networks, they should build more high-speed infrastructure for the Internet. Bigger pipes and more of them, more satellites, etc. Then, the speed will be there for just about anything, and communications within organizations can be protected with VPNs or other technologies.
Either that, or build many "parallel" Internets, each with specific purposes (science, government, business, 1337 h4x0rz, etc.) with highly controlled firewalled connections between them for allowing legitimate traffic to go between them.
These are exciting times.
You think that's advanced technology, eh? You should come to my place sometime and check out my ENIAC. You have to be the 1337est of the '1337 to operate this thing. No hard drive. No mouse. No graphics... hell, there ain't even a CLI for cryin' out loud! (Real Programmers don't need no stinkin' user interface.) To enter commands into this baby, you gotta connect hundreds upon hundreds of wires, kind of like they did in the old telephone switchboards, where a human operator connected your call.
And best of all, this computer does it all.
- Want to multiply two numbers in just 3 milliseconds? Done.
- Want security even the likes of OpenBSD can't beat? Done.
The designers of this system knew what they were doing. The inability to store a program means that this system CANNOT get a virus, ever, period. Of course, then Von Neumann had to come along and invent stored programs, and the next thing you know, Outlook automatically executes email attachments...Yes, as a matter of fact, you stated, "Now, notice the use of ironic here," when, I presume, you meant to say "irony" in place of "ironic." I assure you that the erroneous grammar, spelling, and punctuation were not employed in error, but rather because I just love to write as crappily as possible when passing judgment on others' writing.
I am well aware of the minor differences between things like "not unlike" and "like" or "I could care less" and "I couldn't care less" but I am complaining about their misuse (when it is obvious that the speaker or writer intends a different meaning).
I'm glad you saw the irony in all of that.
Uh, no, that would be the 10nd Edition.
Where the hell is Disney or the RIAA or Microsoft or the MPAA, stuffing billions of dollars into some congressman's pocket to make this practice illegal?!?!?!?!!!?!???!!! This kind of behavior will not be tolerated! Copyright holders should not have the right to copy copyrighted material any more than the general public should! After all, if a copyright holder copies his work for distribution or other purposes, that sets a bad example for the rest of the general public! I think there should be new international laws that make it illegal to create, possess, buy, sell, or otherwise traffic in any kind of information, whether fixed on any kind of medium (paper, hard drives, your brain, a memory chip, etc.) or not. It should be punishable by 100 years of extreme nonstop torture, without the benefit of death.
This is what I love about Slashdolt. They'll post a story a hundred thousand million billion trillion quadrillion ... googleplex long story on the front page about a product called J(Rweuf or JI@#K or RJ(@J#J or something, and talk about how wonderful it is, but NOWHERE is there any mention of what the thing doez. It reminds me of the mindless advertisements placed in business magazines: "By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions." Does that say anything? No. It's pure duckspeak. If they sell computers, they'll put a picture of an island in their ad and tell you to streamline enterprise results or something... What a crock of shit.
In other words...
And any idiot who says otherwise is, well, an idiot.S-C-O is a piece of shit,
A piece of shit,
A piece of shit.
S-C-O is a piece of shit,
La la la la la.
They had Darl's picture on one of those PHB magazines some months ago, and I have to tell you, I think he has a really ugly hairdo.
Do you hear that sound, Mr. McNealy? That is the sound of inevitability...
Might they have anything in the works that could save them? What could it be?
I heard from some secret sources deep inside Sun that they're developing a new product called Sun Java Desktop. Basically, it will run a completely proprietary operating system that Sun invented all by themselves, but I hear that it will somehow, through some other proprietary software, support the running of Linux programs. But it's definitely not Linux, I'm told. I trust this information, though, because I met the guy who told me this at the pub while drinking too much Guinness, and he seemed like he wouldn't lie about something like this. He was kind of drunk, too.
Actually, for me, the benchmark in video-game storytelling is Leisure Suit Larry, from Sierra On Line. That d00d is my hero.
And herein lies the strength. I wouldn't be surprised if every Microsoft software actually contains an embedded copy of their original BASIC interpreter from 1980 or whenever, and the program itself is actually written in BASIC. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if they have a company policy against using any method of flow control except GOTOs. It is design decisions like these that make Windows the most efficient, cost effective, secure, and bug free software in the world.
Oh yeah, and Linux iz th4 suxx0rz bec4us3 it do3sn'7 !nc1ude BASIC in th4 k3rn31!!!111111111111
Now ask yourselves... How did that get past /.'s shit filter?
In other words, REGARDING what you call it.
This is almost as bad as people saying, "That's not unlike this," or whatever, when all you have to say is, "That's like this." Or worse, when people say, "I could care less," when what they actually mean, if they want to say that they don't care at all, is, "I could NOT care less." People are just so stupid. It all stems from the educational system, which completely and utterly sucks. Respect used to be with the teacher. What the teacher said, went. Teachers had the authority to discipline children. But not anymore. Teachers have to be afraid to say the wrong word, or look at some student the wrong way, or use the wrong tone of voice, or they'll get fired and end up on the national news for being "prejudiced" against some child. What a bunch of bullshit! It reminds me of airport security. They WON'T search someone who looks middle eastern because they might get offended, but they WILL search some nun or some child who comes through because they want to appear FAIR. In other words, they SAY they don't want to discriminate, but this behavior IS DISCRIMINATION!!!!! Discrimination works both ways! You can discriminate in order to benefit someone, or in order to unbenefit someone. But no, they won't see it this way, just as nobody sees the absurdity of schools sucking, and when the children fail the tests, because the school did a shitty job of teaching them, the state gets rid of the tests, instead of making the schools teach better.
Do you agree with some of what I've said in this post? If you're a U.S. citizen, write in Ralph Nader on the November 2004 ballot. Voting outside the "traditional" Democrat/Republican parties is the only way to fix this country.
Seriously, though. If you want an operating system that's free, use a free OS. Many of the applications for desktop use, however, won't be available in a 100% free form for a while. This is similar to the way that OS software wasn't always free, and now there are many free OSes. I think that in 10 years or so, many businesses will realize that creating proprietary software, even desktop applications, is such a high risk endeavor, that it will benefit businesses to participate in a global community of free software, while making money by achieving other goals.
Think about it. Bugs and testing account for a huge portion of development. Software is becoming increasingly complex and buggy, and the problem isn't getting any smaller. Time to market windows and acceptable software prices are getting smaller and smaller, while customer demands are getting bigger and bigger. Why would any business want to deal with these risks when it could, instead, consider software a fixed cost by applying several developers full time to an existing free software project. The business would know that X amount of dollars are being spent, and because many other businesses have it in their best interest to have the same software, and they are putting their developers on it as well, everybody will benefit much faster. No upgrade or support costs would be incurred because the software cost would essentially become fixed, and the developers in house could provide the support for that application. Best of all, the resulting software would be more efficient, stable, and flexible than any proprietary alternative could be.
I strongly believe that all of this will happen in the software applications market, not just for desktop use, but for businesses, governments, and other uses as well. Just as this idea might have sounded preposterous ten years ago (or even five years ago) with regards to operating systems, it has happened with Linux and the BSDs, and I think that in ten years, we'll enjoy the fact that businesses are waking up to this idea.
So give it a little time. I think that when the entire business world depends on certain operating systems and software to operate, it will fight DMCA-like laws so strongly that the MPAA, RIAA, and their likes will lose this unfair advantage.
In the meantime, it's good that TurboLinux will support some of this proprietary crap, because the faster people start using (mostly) free software and realizing the benefits of it, the faster there won't be many proprietary formats and software programs out there.
I hate Windows, so I'm still waiting for a port of UltraEdit to Linux.
Oh yeah, and my fourth program is Quake II, which I like to play at night sometimes. I don't know how to set up games on my real computers.