I'm with you though. They are selling low-end laptops that are totally ruined by Vista but work perfectly fine with XP, or better yet, Ubuntu. I'm surprised Microsoft would allow this to happen because it makes a decent machine unusably slow, which makes Microsoft look bad (of course, they are bad, but you'd think they wouldn't want you to know).
Anyhow, no Vista for me. It's bad enough I've paid the MS tax twice by virtue of wanting a new laptop for me and for my wife, but to pay to make her machine much slower than the much less powerful machine it replaced (that ran XP) is absurd. My higher-end HP worked tolerably fast with Vista, but I thought computers were supposed to get faster, not slower, and this was slower than what I was used to on the less powerful machine it replaced. Besides, but I've been using Linux and only keep the Vista partition around for games, and I'm gonna upgrade it XP as soon as I get around to it.
Keep it out of a discussion based on reason instead of superstition however.
The topic was the debate around evolution, which makes the comment relevant. You don't need to go out of your way to be condescending, but if you are feeling insecure or something, then maybe you can't help it.
Back to subject at hand, people don't seem to be willing to accept that all the evidence we have for evolution is, ultimately, circumstantial. Now I'm a firm believer in Occam's Razor, and evolution through genetic mutation and natural selection (which is easily observable) certainly seems the best explanation (as opposed to say the FSM materializing and replacing all the dinosaurs with lemurs or something), but until someone actually sees evidence of one species literally and directly leading to another, we still can't say it's a settled "fact".
Granted I haven't RTFA, but my immediate reaction was, more complex systems are easier to alter. More highly evolved creatures (if you'll pardon the expression) are more complex (e.g., people vs. bacteria). Warmer things are more complex by virtue of entropy. Larger things are more complex by virtue of being, um, larger.
The problem I have with "creationists" is that there's no science there. If you believe it, fine, but to do so, you have to throw out almost everything we know about everything, and if you think God gave us a brain only to misled us about the truth, well, then that's your problem to sort out, but don't think too hard or you'll end up in Hell, I suppose.
The problem I have with "evolutionists" is that despite all the evidence we have that life has evolved, we've never actually seen it happen, and our understanding of how it happens (gradually vs. abruptly) is changing every year. It's hardly a settled question, and we will probably overturn a lot of long-held beliefs in the next decades.
But mostly I have a problem with the alleged conflict of the two. I personally believe God created evolution, so where do I fit on that spectrum?
I have these and when listening to MP3's through them there is more headroom, better separation and the lyrics make more sense. Now if I could only find a router that uses tubes.
Because Microsoft has spent the last 25 years telling them that. Now, there's nothing wrong with this, and it's a good piece of marketing, except for the fact that Microsoft decided that every app, every piece of functionality that Windows offered, was a hook into the OS that could be easily exploited. Remember when Office was, essentially, the Microsoft Virus Development Kit? Up until about Windows 2000, almost every single thing Microsoft did compromised security for the sake of functionality, and we've been living with the fallout of it ever since. And of course since Bill Gates was so wise as to not even acknowledge the Internet until it was sitting on his concave chest and dangle-spitting in his face, the acknowledgement of the need for security languished for years longer than it should have.
Everyone should be entitled to computers, IMO. Unfortunately, there is no operating environment which anyone can safely and securely out-of-the-box use while remaining completely ignorant of security. There will be some day, probably soon. OSX is probably the closest. Vista is probably pretty close by virtue of its heavy-handed, boat-anchor approach to security, but who wants to use an OS that renders your hardware to a tenth of the performance it should deliver? Using a low-end Gateway laptop (which would run XP just fine) that came shipped with Vista was literally the worst computer experience, in terms of performance, that I've had since my floppy-based Amiga 500 almost 20 years ago. Who is worse at fault here? Gateway for rendering a fine piece of hardware almost useless? Or Microsoft for letting them? Good thing Ubuntu runs on it just fine, and it feels as speedy as a much beefier machine for simple day-to-day stuff (e.g., NOT raytracing or gaming).
Fair enough, but Microsoft is trying to get street cred through a disingenuous use of the term "open source". I think that's what most people here would have a problem with. I've never coded using.NET and probably never will, so it's irrelevant to me, however, I do have a problem with Microsoft's cynical use of open source terminology in order to attempt to mitigate their image and soulless, greedy bastards.
For the record, this being a capitalist society, "greedy bastards" is fine by me, it's the "soulless" part I don't like.
Good for them. I totally understand about not wanting to reward pirates, but MS has a responsibility to disarm the millions of ticking time-bombs they've loosed on the 'net and it sounds like they are.
I know, maybe they could rig up some way for pirated copies of Windows to remain secure (such as it is) but be huge, bloated and slow, without offering improved functionality over legitimately-licensed copies of XP. Oh, wait, I just described Vista.
I'm no big fan of Microsoft*, but I do like XP by the way, since you are a "proud" Windows user and developer, I thought I would mention that for almost 20 years I was a user and developer for Windows, but my work these days is all on Linux and I run Linux on all my machines. There are actually two machines I would like to run XP on, but one would blue-screen all the time so and the other machine currently has Windows 2000 and blue screens when attempting to install XP, so the first machine stays strictly Ubuntu and the latter Windows 2000). As it is I have two Vista licenses I will never use and 4 XP licenses that are sitting idle, although I think I'm going to upgrade the Windows 2000 VM on my box (for games, you know) to XP.
*Actually it was a love-hate relationship, but when I bought a laptop with Vista, it became hate-hate.
Given that copies of Windows that are locked out of updates are very likely to be parts of botnets, it is a good thing. Microsoft has a responsibility to mitigate some of the mess they've made over the years.
All of these are sucking electrons from the grid, and leading to additional power generation demand. Tonnes more CO2 spewing into the atmosphere. Yay!
Better than leaking heavy metals in a landfill, if you ask me.
Besides if those knee-jerk, tunnel-visioned religious zealots, I'm sorry, environmentalists, would get behind nuclear power, there wouldn't be a frickin' carbon dioxide problem from more computers. But of course, that would mean not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, which violates their core principles.
Your vision of religion is laughably narrow and infantile. You take the most extreme version of religious and generalize it to everyone. I suggest that you have no idea what you are talking about, and are basing your generalization on a small amount of data, or more likely hearsay, regurgitating the most stereotyped and knee-jerk prejudices that come from similar people who would paint a majority of all people in the world with a brush that only applies to a very few.
The fact is that most scientific, artistic and philosophical progress in the past 2 millenia was done by religious people, often sponsored by religious organizations, and done with the blessings, and often at the request of religious leaders. Try reading a history book some time. You might learn something.
The last time I was forced to use Lotus Notes was 2003, and I was amazed that it _still_ looked like what I imagine software written in the Cold War Soviet Union must have been like. In 2003, it still wasn't caught up to conventions that were standard in the 1980's.
I don't have a problem with it being made up. I have a problem with it being stupid.
The word "virii" implies the singular is "virius" and is only used by clueless people who are dazzled by the double i's. If you are going extrapolate grammar and spelling constructs based on other languages, which is a time-honored hacker tradition, then at least be consistent about it.
Given that, by extrapolation from the word "radius", it then makes sense to talk about two Toyota "Prii", but two "viri", with one 'i' at the end.
You are either making up a good story are just full of crap.
1) HP Vista laptops ship with recovery DVDs, there is no reason to create one.
Mine didn't. While your other points might be valid, I haven't a laptop that came with recovery discs in years. And what's worst, with Vista they are programmed to only let you burn them once, and we all know how reliable burning your own discs can be. That right there is reason enough, in my book, to reformat the drive and put on Linux. There's a reason I burn at least 2 copies of anything I want to make sure I can keep, and Vista is insisting that I'm not allowed be sure I can back up its installation media.
The sad thing is I can just dupe the discs once I've backed them up, but of course, if there was a problem burning it in the first place, I'd just be duping bad discs. And how, exactly is any of this going to make one whit of a difference with piracy anyway?
Just one more example of being treated with nothing but contempt by Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers that bundle Microsoft.
I guess I should have been more specific: I think the Adams comparison holds, but only for "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic". With "Equal Rites", I think he made a quantum jump in quality (and his stuff was pretty good to begin with) to become the top-notch story-teller we all know him as.
Slashdot Mirror
Or maybe just 5.
I'd like to set up a sting to expose shitty journalists.
Now, that is the best idea I've heard in a very long time.
It'd be a lot harder to find a good journalist.
in the second 2/3 of the twentieth century
;-)
Um, would that be now?
I'm with you though. They are selling low-end laptops that are totally ruined by Vista but work perfectly fine with XP, or better yet, Ubuntu. I'm surprised Microsoft would allow this to happen because it makes a decent machine unusably slow, which makes Microsoft look bad (of course, they are bad, but you'd think they wouldn't want you to know).
Anyhow, no Vista for me. It's bad enough I've paid the MS tax twice by virtue of wanting a new laptop for me and for my wife, but to pay to make her machine much slower than the much less powerful machine it replaced (that ran XP) is absurd. My higher-end HP worked tolerably fast with Vista, but I thought computers were supposed to get faster, not slower, and this was slower than what I was used to on the less powerful machine it replaced. Besides, but I've been using Linux and only keep the Vista partition around for games, and I'm gonna upgrade it XP as soon as I get around to it.
All wheels are octagonal, you just don't have good enough vision to notice.
I'm sorry. Will Al Sharpton accept my apology by mail or do I need to visit him in person?
Keep it out of a discussion based on reason instead of superstition however.
The topic was the debate around evolution, which makes the comment relevant. You don't need to go out of your way to be condescending, but if you are feeling insecure or something, then maybe you can't help it.
Back to subject at hand, people don't seem to be willing to accept that all the evidence we have for evolution is, ultimately, circumstantial. Now I'm a firm believer in Occam's Razor, and evolution through genetic mutation and natural selection (which is easily observable) certainly seems the best explanation (as opposed to say the FSM materializing and replacing all the dinosaurs with lemurs or something), but until someone actually sees evidence of one species literally and directly leading to another, we still can't say it's a settled "fact".
OK, explain to me where and when evolution from one species to a different species has been witnessed and recorded.
If I'm wrong, I'm mistaken, not lying.
Oh, and ease up on the caffeine or something. You seem way too uptight.
Granted I haven't RTFA, but my immediate reaction was, more complex systems are easier to alter. More highly evolved creatures (if you'll pardon the expression) are more complex (e.g., people vs. bacteria). Warmer things are more complex by virtue of entropy. Larger things are more complex by virtue of being, um, larger.
The problem I have with "creationists" is that there's no science there. If you believe it, fine, but to do so, you have to throw out almost everything we know about everything, and if you think God gave us a brain only to misled us about the truth, well, then that's your problem to sort out, but don't think too hard or you'll end up in Hell, I suppose.
The problem I have with "evolutionists" is that despite all the evidence we have that life has evolved, we've never actually seen it happen, and our understanding of how it happens (gradually vs. abruptly) is changing every year. It's hardly a settled question, and we will probably overturn a lot of long-held beliefs in the next decades.
But mostly I have a problem with the alleged conflict of the two. I personally believe God created evolution, so where do I fit on that spectrum?
I have these and when listening to MP3's through them there is more headroom, better separation and the lyrics make more sense. Now if I could only find a router that uses tubes.
but everyone feels they are entitled to them
Because Microsoft has spent the last 25 years telling them that. Now, there's nothing wrong with this, and it's a good piece of marketing, except for the fact that Microsoft decided that every app, every piece of functionality that Windows offered, was a hook into the OS that could be easily exploited. Remember when Office was, essentially, the Microsoft Virus Development Kit? Up until about Windows 2000, almost every single thing Microsoft did compromised security for the sake of functionality, and we've been living with the fallout of it ever since. And of course since Bill Gates was so wise as to not even acknowledge the Internet until it was sitting on his concave chest and dangle-spitting in his face, the acknowledgement of the need for security languished for years longer than it should have.
Everyone should be entitled to computers, IMO. Unfortunately, there is no operating environment which anyone can safely and securely out-of-the-box use while remaining completely ignorant of security. There will be some day, probably soon. OSX is probably the closest. Vista is probably pretty close by virtue of its heavy-handed, boat-anchor approach to security, but who wants to use an OS that renders your hardware to a tenth of the performance it should deliver? Using a low-end Gateway laptop (which would run XP just fine) that came shipped with Vista was literally the worst computer experience, in terms of performance, that I've had since my floppy-based Amiga 500 almost 20 years ago. Who is worse at fault here? Gateway for rendering a fine piece of hardware almost useless? Or Microsoft for letting them? Good thing Ubuntu runs on it just fine, and it feels as speedy as a much beefier machine for simple day-to-day stuff (e.g., NOT raytracing or gaming).
Fair enough, but Microsoft is trying to get street cred through a disingenuous use of the term "open source". I think that's what most people here would have a problem with. I've never coded using .NET and probably never will, so it's irrelevant to me, however, I do have a problem with Microsoft's cynical use of open source terminology in order to attempt to mitigate their image and soulless, greedy bastards.
For the record, this being a capitalist society, "greedy bastards" is fine by me, it's the "soulless" part I don't like.
I know you're kidding, but come to think of it, Microsoft doesn't allow the transfer of OEM licenses, do they?
Man, what a racket. I wish I could get a $50 or so for every computer sold for doing absolutely nothing.
Good for them. I totally understand about not wanting to reward pirates, but MS has a responsibility to disarm the millions of ticking time-bombs they've loosed on the 'net and it sounds like they are.
I know, maybe they could rig up some way for pirated copies of Windows to remain secure (such as it is) but be huge, bloated and slow, without offering improved functionality over legitimately-licensed copies of XP. Oh, wait, I just described Vista.
I'm no big fan of Microsoft*, but I do like XP by the way, since you are a "proud" Windows user and developer, I thought I would mention that for almost 20 years I was a user and developer for Windows, but my work these days is all on Linux and I run Linux on all my machines. There are actually two machines I would like to run XP on, but one would blue-screen all the time so and the other machine currently has Windows 2000 and blue screens when attempting to install XP, so the first machine stays strictly Ubuntu and the latter Windows 2000). As it is I have two Vista licenses I will never use and 4 XP licenses that are sitting idle, although I think I'm going to upgrade the Windows 2000 VM on my box (for games, you know) to XP.
*Actually it was a love-hate relationship, but when I bought a laptop with Vista, it became hate-hate.
Your persistence in your ignorance and bigotry doesn't make you right, it only makes you appear foolish.
Believe what you want. The rest of the world will move on without your ad hominem nonsense.
Given that copies of Windows that are locked out of updates are very likely to be parts of botnets, it is a good thing. Microsoft has a responsibility to mitigate some of the mess they've made over the years.
All of these are sucking electrons from the grid, and leading to additional power generation demand. Tonnes more CO2 spewing into the atmosphere. Yay!
Better than leaking heavy metals in a landfill, if you ask me.
Besides if those knee-jerk, tunnel-visioned religious zealots, I'm sorry, environmentalists, would get behind nuclear power, there wouldn't be a frickin' carbon dioxide problem from more computers. But of course, that would mean not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, which violates their core principles.
"In his interview, Burgett points out that the people working for him are also recovering drug addicts or recovering mental illness patients"
Or as we call them on Slashdot, 'Linux System Administrators'.
I don't think so... he said they were recovering.
Your vision of religion is laughably narrow and infantile. You take the most extreme version of religious and generalize it to everyone. I suggest that you have no idea what you are talking about, and are basing your generalization on a small amount of data, or more likely hearsay, regurgitating the most stereotyped and knee-jerk prejudices that come from similar people who would paint a majority of all people in the world with a brush that only applies to a very few.
The fact is that most scientific, artistic and philosophical progress in the past 2 millenia was done by religious people, often sponsored by religious organizations, and done with the blessings, and often at the request of religious leaders. Try reading a history book some time. You might learn something.
The last time I was forced to use Lotus Notes was 2003, and I was amazed that it _still_ looked like what I imagine software written in the Cold War Soviet Union must have been like. In 2003, it still wasn't caught up to conventions that were standard in the 1980's.
I don't have a problem with it being made up. I have a problem with it being stupid.
The word "virii" implies the singular is "virius" and is only used by clueless people who are dazzled by the double i's. If you are going extrapolate grammar and spelling constructs based on other languages, which is a time-honored hacker tradition, then at least be consistent about it.
Given that, by extrapolation from the word "radius", it then makes sense to talk about two Toyota "Prii", but two "viri", with one 'i' at the end.
Apparently no one got the joke. I did, though.
If I didn't knew that it's an Office Suite, I'd think it's a Operating Service pack in the likes of XP SP2...
But it's Office, it's more tightly integrated into the OS than a mere service pack.
XP can throttle your CPU, but Vista downright chokes it.
You are either making up a good story are just full of crap.
1) HP Vista laptops ship with recovery DVDs, there is no reason to create one.
Mine didn't. While your other points might be valid, I haven't a laptop that came with recovery discs in years. And what's worst, with Vista they are programmed to only let you burn them once, and we all know how reliable burning your own discs can be. That right there is reason enough, in my book, to reformat the drive and put on Linux. There's a reason I burn at least 2 copies of anything I want to make sure I can keep, and Vista is insisting that I'm not allowed be sure I can back up its installation media.
The sad thing is I can just dupe the discs once I've backed them up, but of course, if there was a problem burning it in the first place, I'd just be duping bad discs. And how, exactly is any of this going to make one whit of a difference with piracy anyway?
Just one more example of being treated with nothing but contempt by Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers that bundle Microsoft.
I guess I should have been more specific: I think the Adams comparison holds, but only for "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic". With "Equal Rites", I think he made a quantum jump in quality (and his stuff was pretty good to begin with) to become the top-notch story-teller we all know him as.