>.. aside from the whole dual booting fad, why would someone go pay good money for a mac, only to install RadHat?
For my part, it's because Apple produces excellent hardware, but their operating system isn't configurable enough. Most obvious example of this: focus behavior. Second most obvious example: vi/etc/passwd. OS X is better than Windows, in my opinion, and it's nice to have a Unix back end and a terminal window that's actually functional, but NetInfo and Aqua aren't innovative, they're restrictive.
American beer is traditionally brewed with 6-row barley instead of the 2-row that is used in Britian. 6-row barley has much higher protein content, which makes it very good at converting other grains into sugars that the yeast turn into alcohol and CO2. Protein also contributes to haziness and stability problems. So the traditional American brewer would use adjuncts (non-barley grains) to help lower the protein content of the beer, allowing it to last longer and be clearer. Corn is more typical as an adjunct, especially traditionally, but there's nothing wrong with brewing beer with other grains. In fact, if you're brewing with American 6-row barley, you're probably better off with some adjuncts.
That being said, I can't remember the last time I had a Budweiser. Why bother when I can brew something better on my own, and there are craft breweries all over the world making better beer than Budweiser.
Don't forget about security issues. If you intend to mail these files as attachments, ZIP and RAR may be blocked by mail servers because both can be executable under Windows. tar.bz2 may be more difficult for a Windows user to figure out, but at least it's not going to infect their computer without a lot of work on their part.
My other comment is to do some experiments with *your* data -- which format actually yields the best compression rate, and how much more time do you spend doing the compression / uncompression. Is the extra time you spend worth the 5% you get? Is using a less popular format (like tar.bz2) worth the time you'll spend leading a Windows user through the uncompression process over and over again?
For the data hosted by our institution, we offer tar.gz and zip formats. Since most of the people using the data (climatologists) are running a Unix variant, most people are grabbing the tar.gz files. Just goes to show that the best format really depends on your situation and your expected users.
I'm all for pushing Linux for all potential users, but non-profits can get Microshaft software at a **substantial** discount. They should still try to determine if the reduced cost is worth it, but the price you or I (don't) pay for Windoze and office applications from Micro$oft isn't what they're paying.
Where's the proof? All I see is a statement about what they want to do -- currently total vaporware. Meanwhile open source has been the source for many of the ideas in Billy boys speech (statistical filtering, for one).
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> .. aside from the whole dual booting fad, why would someone go pay good money for a mac, only to install RadHat?
/etc/passwd. OS X is better than Windows, in my opinion, and it's nice to have a Unix back end and a terminal window that's actually functional, but NetInfo and Aqua aren't innovative, they're restrictive.
For my part, it's because Apple produces excellent hardware, but their operating system isn't configurable enough. Most obvious example of this: focus behavior. Second most obvious example: vi
American beer is traditionally brewed with 6-row barley instead of the 2-row that is used in Britian. 6-row barley has much higher protein content, which makes it very good at converting other grains into sugars that the yeast turn into alcohol and CO2. Protein also contributes to haziness and stability problems. So the traditional American brewer would use adjuncts (non-barley grains) to help lower the protein content of the beer, allowing it to last longer and be clearer. Corn is more typical as an adjunct, especially traditionally, but there's nothing wrong with brewing beer with other grains. In fact, if you're brewing with American 6-row barley, you're probably better off with some adjuncts.
That being said, I can't remember the last time I had a Budweiser. Why bother when I can brew something better on my own, and there are craft breweries all over the world making better beer than Budweiser.
Chris Swingley
Brewer
Don't forget about security issues. If you intend to mail these files as attachments, ZIP and RAR may be blocked by mail servers because both can be executable under Windows. tar.bz2 may be more difficult for a Windows user to figure out, but at least it's not going to infect their computer without a lot of work on their part.
My other comment is to do some experiments with *your* data -- which format actually yields the best compression rate, and how much more time do you spend doing the compression / uncompression. Is the extra time you spend worth the 5% you get? Is using a less popular format (like tar.bz2) worth the time you'll spend leading a Windows user through the uncompression process over and over again?
For the data hosted by our institution, we offer tar.gz and zip formats. Since most of the people using the data (climatologists) are running a Unix variant, most people are grabbing the tar.gz files. Just goes to show that the best format really depends on your situation and your expected users.
Open source, multi-platform, intelligent, funny. Plus it's got *awesome* graphics, at least on my console.
I'm all for pushing Linux for all potential users, but non-profits can get Microshaft software at a **substantial** discount. They should still try to determine if the reduced cost is worth it, but the price you or I (don't) pay for Windoze and office applications from Micro$oft isn't what they're paying.
45-billion dollar black hole
...a billion here, a billion there....
I read an article in my local newspaper recently that pegged this at $49 billion.
Where's the proof? All I see is a statement about what they want to do -- currently total vaporware. Meanwhile open source has been the source for many of the ideas in Billy boys speech (statistical filtering, for one).
Did you notice the GUI interface is X windows?