With VISTA coming out, Symantec is going to obviously be pushing
its own products for that platform.
I agree, so far - All companies will want in on Vista, even though
just about anyone who has seen or used Vista already will stick with XP
until at least the server version comes out...
However, expect them to do a 360 in six months again citing VISTA the
most secure product ever, bar none.
Why?
Symantec makes software that improves your PC's safety against
attacks. If they can point to a million and one critical flaws in Vista,
it makes their product (or one like it) all the more necessary.
People will not, in general, flee to Linux just because Vista sucks (which it
does, and hard). They might stick with XP (for which Symantec also makes
the same set of products).
People also won't switch to a different AV suite for Vista. People use what
they have always used, which largely means Norton/Symantec.
LiIon explosions can still happen, but usually the culprit is shoddy made knock-off batteries
The "culprit" involves nothing more and nothing less than an autocatalyzing
eletrolyte decomposition product. "Name brand" has nothing at all to do with that.
Now, some higher-quality batteries may use what amounts to a catalyst posion
(the choice of anode material, for example, plays a HUGE role in decomposition rate).
But don't assume the original manufacturer uses anything even remotely resembling high
quality parts - On the contrary, they choose the cheapest reasonably-safe batteries
available at the time of product release, to give the greatest profit for the lowest
price-point. Post-release 3rd party batteries just don't come under the original warrantee,
so we hear more about them sucking than the OEM ones. But if you don't buy something
like "Emergizer" or "Durasell" brand knockoff crap as replacements, you'll most likely
get a higher quality battery than the original.
Laptop fuel cartrages mean new DRM and propriatary designs as well
as messy (and dangerous) 3rd party refil kits.
A lot of people keep saying this, but it just doesn't hold true!
First of all, methanol doesn't pose nearly the health risk most people
believe. As someone with a solid non-practitioner background in both chemistry
and pharmacology, I would play with methanol over toner or ink any
day... Additionally, the breakdown products the the electrolyte in Li-ion
batteries makes methanol exposure look like a cool drink of mountain water by
comparison (for an idea, the most common counts as a chemical WMD in a different
context).
Second, methanol doesn't pose nearly the fire/explosion risk most
people believe. The Li-ion batteries we use now pose a FAR greater risk
of explosion, and as for fire, if you take the same precautions you would
when refueling your car (with yet another far more flamable/explosive liquid),
you have nothing to worry about.
Third, refilling... Aside from the previously-mentioned toxicity of ink
and toner, methanol evaporates cleanly. So if you spill a few
drops, you can just let them evaporate rather than permanantly staining
yourself, your table, your laptop, your carpet, your dog, and seemingly
anything else even in sight of the ink refill kit.
The biggest complaint about the idea of using fuel cells over a rechargeable
battery in laptops comes from the UPS-factor. Even an all-but-dead laptop
battery will let it stay up (assuming you have it on AC) through a short power
outage, or to move to another outlet, or to quickly reinsert the plug your
cat pulled out, etc. Running on a fuel cell, all those advantages disappear
unless you use the fuel cell as your primary power source, which could
get expensive over time (despite methanol's low cost, AC power costs a hell of
a lot less).
800x600 seems a little under what I'd like (I know you don't
need more to show most text, but since getting a WUXGA laptop
at work, I've gotten quite comfortable with how much nicer many fonts
look at 300dpi). But even at only that, I will seriously look into
getting one of those... Thank you!
Now if I can just find one I can take one for a test-drive...
The portability of the paper book is a lot better than my laptop.
I would like to see a decent eBook reader for exactly the opposite
reason... My itty bitty Palm can hold hundreds (thousands?) of novels
and/or textbooks. A dead-tree version can hold - One.
Now, when I go to bed and want to read for a little while, I'll
go into my library and grab a physical book. The "expense" of
choosing poorly means I need to get out of bed and visit one
room down the hall. When I have to wait in a doctors office or
on a bus or even just while away from home for a few days, picking
a new book usually doesn't even exist as a possibility.
So since I clearly prefer bits to paper, why do I still have
a spare bedroom dedicated to serving as a home library?
The readers.
My notebook has simply amazing resolution, but only lasts
three to five hours without AC. My Palm lasts over a full
day without recharging it, but hurts to look at for more
than a few minutes at a time. Dedicated eBook readers look
good and some even get adequate battery life, but make it
difficult or even impossible to load non-DRM content.
So what would get me to switch completely?
Something with the form-factor of a small clipboard, preferably
flexible, with a high-resolution (though not necessarily color)
display (ePaper seems perfect here).
It must either last at least 18 hours on one charge, or take
(and last at least 4 hours on) standard rechargeable AA batteries
(though without making it too thick - Perhaps the "spine" could
hold a column of them?).
It must lets me access (at a minimum) plaintext, postscript, HTML
(including MHT or MAF or some comparable all-in-one-file HTML container,
including full gif/jpg/png/bmp support), and PDF wouldn't suck. It
must also not complain about merely storing any other type
of file, though I don't expect it to do anything with them.
It must accept a non-proprietary low-cost DRMless media type such
as standard CF or SD. It should also have a reasonable quantity
of nonvolatile on-board storage that I can copy content to and
from (without restriction) the CF/SD/whatever card, so I can keep
my favorites in it at all times.
It must have a load-and-render time lower than what it takes to turn
a physical page of a book, so perhaps 3 seconds worst-case.
It should, preferably, have some flexibility to act as a
sort of general purpose PDA - Nothing fancy, just a personal
organizer. It doesn't need a touchscreen or full keyboard, the
old-fashioned console game "Please enter your name" style interface
would suffice - I don't want another PDA, but I also don't
want to need to turn on a separate device just to jot down a
note like "meet bob at 9:30" or "Susie Q: 911-5555".
It should support at least one "open" programming interface,
to allow the geeks of the world (myself included) to write
cool eye-candy-clicky-widgets (c'mon, you know you
need Tetris, Snakes, and Mine Sweeper to run on every electronic
device you own!) for it. I accept that running such
add-ons may drastically reduce the battery life, as long as
I have that choice.
For all that, I would pay up to around $500 (for a totally
perfect implemenation... Halve that for the basics
of what I want).
If it were as simple as you think, this protection would
have been tossed aside long ago, like so many others.
Although completely removing the need for Starforce would count
as the optimal "crack", don't overlook the fact that, at some
point, the Starforce driver itself needs to load and check itself.
Don't attack the breast-plate, attack the armpits.
What are we MythTV users going to do for digital TV, though?
Pay 20% more for the tuner card to import it from Canada or the UK
or Taiwan or Vanuatu, who will all (in decreasing order of "give a
shit what the US says to do") laugh heartily at we stupid Americans
that let our Corporate Masters(tm) sell us inferior products simply
by labelling them "new and improved".
I keep hearing scary things about encrypted signals, broadcast
flags, and other Orweillian bullshit.
Currently, US law doesn't force the broadcast flag on
anyone (and no hardware manufacturer will support a "feature"
that makes their product less desireable unless forced to).
Don't rest easy on that thought, though, because that particular
war hasn't ended quite yet (nor will it ever, most likely).
The RIAA just started pushing congress for the same thing for
digital audio, and don't think the MPAA won't support and try
to extend that proposal...
But as I said, those of us who love freedom, particularly the
freedom to use our posessions as we see fit, will always have
the option of simply breaking the law and importing hardware
that ignores such nonsense.
A MythTV box will cost more than a TiVo, based on their
new three-year plan.
Horsepucky!
IF and only if you include the price of a full
PC, the costs come out comparable (for $469, you can
build a damn fine low-end PC). Tuner cards cost well
under $100, and you don't need a monitor (since you
would presumeably use this with an existing TV, and if
not, you'd need to consider that in the price of a
TiVo as well).
Until now, Myth and the like have served a niche audience
of people who would tend to have a decent PC in their
livingroom anyway, and for an extra $50 could also use
it as a PVR. This move has shifted the balance even for
people wanting a dedicated DVR in their TV room - You
could even go so far as to buy a cheap-ass Dell and
throw in a capture card for less than the 3-year plan.
they will be dropping their lifetime subscription option
Will they just stop offering it and honor existing owners,
or do they plan to force everyone to downgrade to a monthly
subscription model? And does this include their free "basic"
service?
If the latter, and it includes their free basic service,
they can expect one hell of a class-action from folks like
me who bought an OEM TiVo box (as opposed to rolling their
own Myth box) only because of the free lifetime basic
service.
Heh... From the article, "According to Rogers, with TiVo's higher
monthly fees and one year lock in they have increased the lifetime
value of a TiVo customer by over $100."
Do they really want to say things like that in
public? It might sound optimistic and fluffy, but
just means "we will milk an extra hundred bucks from
suckers who use TiVo every 2-3 years". Not the best
PR material...
I go so far as to say that it's a better idea to learn assembler first so that you
know what's REALLY going on inside that computer.
I'll second that notion! Computer Science, as a generalization, has three types
of people:
People who only learned a high-level language, then learned algorithmics, and
now produce "elegant" code that would take 2^27 times the current age of
the universe to finish its task on any physically-possible hardware;
People who took CS and expected to come away knowing how to program - This
group eventually either changes fields or, for the more mathematically inclined,
takes to teaching CS classes and getting pissed at smart-aleck students who
point out that their suggested pseudo-code blob would take 2&27 times the current
age of the universe to finish its task on any physically-possible hardware;
And finally, people who use (not just "know") assembler (not necessarily
their first programming language - I think people really need to suffer a bit to
appreciate the classic joke about "but modern optimizing compilers can do far
better than a human"... Heh... Y'know, I've even heard some people say that and
not realize they told a funny?).
My first CS class taught me Java, which I'd say is a better idea than VB
As much as I personally loathe Java, I'd have to agree with you here. At least
with Java, when they get to the real world and discover that C (in whatever
incarnation it reaches by then, currently C#) still rules as the lingua
Franca of the software development world, they'll have a rough understanding
of the syntax. Keep 'em away from any of what the whippersnappers call "unsafe"
code nowadays (aka pointers - ooooh, spoooooky indirection! And the next morning,
they found nothing but a hook dangling from the keyboard!), but at least
they'll have the ability to read and make simple modifications to the rest of the
existing codebase.
Using pc hardware only works for a small business.. the bandwidth isnt there.
True, using gigabit (or higher) on a PCI (or older) bus... One gigabit PCI NIC
just barely has bandwidth to go full-throttle.
PCI Express changes that, though... With a modern machine, you can have a set of three
PCIx4 10Gb NICs, giving you enough bandwidth to fully handle the standard LAN/WAN/DMZ
threesome at a speed even most mid-sized companies don't use yet.
Of course, a lot of this discussion depends on what you consider a "router"...
A segment gateway type router you can replace with just about anything that
runs Linux and has a pair of RJ45 ports. The standard trio I mention, you
can do (unsaturated) gigabit on most PCs and 10 gig with some care in hardware
selection. But routing between a few dozen 20+ gig optical segments, no, that will
safely remain the domain of dedicated Cisco (etc) hardware for years to
come.
As for this particular open-source router project... Although the linked
article lacks much detail, I'd say Cisco won't lose any sleep. Now, the folks
over at SonicWall...
I view all that time playing games and watching TV as largely a waste.
Spoken like someone who makes "adult" something I never want to
"grow up" and turn into - And I say this as a 30YO.
And don't assume that I am a pyshco parent who doesn't let his kids
have any fun. ...
we'll butt heads and maybe end up with a console. But its use will be
heavily restricted.
Uh-huh. Spoken like a true psycho parent who will do anything to
deny it.
Do you even remember why you played games as a kid?
We get to slave away 40+ hours a week for the majority of our lives.
Let the buggers have fun while they can.
BTW, what the hell does... mean?
Just asking means it refers to you. You may have
escaped as a child, but have since apparently bought into
the lie full-on.
It means people who consider childhood wasted on children - Why,
just think of all the productive activities they could engage
in, like memorizing dates and multiplication tables, social
networking, part-time jobs, and backstabbing their way up the
young Republicans club ladder!
No. Kids just want to play and have fun. And I say, "let 'em".
what political decisions are religiously motivated
Anti-pornography. Anti-Islam (recall Bush unwisely using the
term "crusade" in some of his earlier post-9/11 speeches?).
Anti-evolution (remember a certain president suggesting that
schools should have the right to discuss "alternative" (aka
"complete fairy-tale") theories of the origins of life?).
Pro-10-commandments, pro-federal-funding-of-religious-charities.
I could go on, but I suspect you can see the pattern here...
Except for possibly the issue of Abortion/Stem cells
I really don't care about abortion... I support the "right" to
choose, but probably wouldn't want my to SO have one, personally.
But stem cells... Things we currently literally incinerate as
biohazardous medical waste, we can't use in research that may
cure some of the nastiest diseases that still plague humankind?
That I have a problem with, and can't imagine anyone but
the worst of hypocrites opposing abortion while also opposing
stem cell research.
both parties fund their special interest groups--face it, they're corrupt
Not even the faintest disagreement on that point. I currently
complain mostly about the GOP because they have a blank check to do what
they want. But in the next election, I truly fear the democrats
will win a sweeping reversal of the situation, leaving we mere plebes
no better off. "Meet the new boss; Same as the old boss".
The "right wing extremists" did not ask for any personally
identifiable information - they wanted aggregate data.
Google already publishes aggregate data - Go to
Google Zeitgeist and you can check out hundreds of
different ways of looking at popular Google queries.
And as for nothing "personally identifiable" - Ever ego-surfed?
Ever used Google to look up a relative or not-to-close friend's
phone number or address or what-have-you? Just giving the DoJ
raw search terms will provide personal info, regardless
of their swearing up and down on a stack of bibles to the
contrary.
The DoJ's quest amounts to nothing more than shooting goldfish
in a barrel and claiming it a victory over vicious man-eating
sharks. Of COURSE you can find porn through Google.
But COPA didn't die because of that - It died because adults have
a right to search for porn. As for whether or not kids
can get there as well... Personally, I couldn't care less; But
for those who do care, we have this great new technology
called "parental supervision".
back to the U.S. to prevent the Chinese government
from accessing them
Yeah, great idea - Because, y'know, the "land of the free"
would never try to force Google to turn over its
search records. And certainly never for something
as frivolous as trying to further the religious agenda of
right-wing crackpots... Oh, I mean "democracy". Slip of
the tongue there, please ignore it.
So will we hear tomorrow that they've moved all search records
involving porn to Japan, to protect them from the US government?
I assumed you meant biodiesel, I don't think you can make
ethanol that way (correct me if I'm wrong).
Perhaps I phrased that poorly...
No, you don't get ethanol from waste oils. You get biodiesel
from them. And you don't get biodiesel from grasses and wood
chips - You get ethanol (or methanol). Each has its own
niche, and I don't mean to suggest we try to make them 100%
interchangeable with one another, just with what normally
occupies their niche (ie, gasoline and dinodiesel).
And both of those you can use, safely with no retrofitting,
at least up to 10% (Believe it or not, if you always buy
from the lowest-priced station in your area, you almost certainly
already buy "Gasohol", or E10). And as I mentioned, all
diesel engines can burn up to B100 with no problems or modifications.
Most people would rather run gasoline than ethanol,
I can't really argue with matters of perception, but I also can't
accept them as having any relevance, either. Most people would
also rather eat cow than horse, and incinerate unwanted cats and
dogs rather than use them for food; but all of those work just as
well for providing humans with protein, and when starving to death,
matters of aesthetics rapidly vanish.
because it's better for the engine
Absolutely false. What we call "Gasoline" amounts to a VERY
"dirty" mix of assorted hydrocarbons. Engine design has evolved
to handle a fairly wide range of actual makeups of gasoline - Which
now includes (in the case of FFVs) potentially up to 85% Ethanol.
The fact that cars historically ran on "pure" gasoline has no
relevance here - Cars also used leaded gasoline
for most of automotive history.
And most of the cars in the U.S. can't run diesel.
Don't forget the trucking industry, agriculture, construction...
The US uses approximately half as much diesel as gasoline! I
have to sadly shake my head and laugh every time I hear people
arguing about the strictness of CAFE laws, when they don't apply
to the source of literally a third of all vehicular pollution.
If it costs more than gasoline, the idea is dead until
gasoline's price rises above ethanol.
On that point I will agree with you fully, though I would
point out that "cost" includes more than "at the pump".
For example, as of June 1st 2006, the EPA requires 80% of diesel
sold in the US to have 15ppm (or less) sulfur, down from 50ppm
(at a significantly increased cost of production, but not my
point). Biodiesel has no sulfur (well, trace amounts
of course, but less than 1ppm) already, with no special processing
required. And, don't forget that biodiesel and ethanol work
as carbon-neutral fuels.
Additionally, biodiesel has almost reached the breakeven
point with dinodiesel, and ethanol costs considerably less
already (though I agree that we can't state that comfortably
without considering corn subsidies).
There is an overhead cost to supporting multiple types of fuel.
True, I agree completely, and wouldn't suggest we make every
use able to use every source.
It's not cost effective to retrofit a lot of cars just to be able
to make use of some waste oil from restaurants
Who said anything about retrofitting? Almost all modern gasoline
engines can run E50 without a problem or modification. Many can
run E85. All diesel engines can run B100 (or any blend
ratio). Home heatings systems tend to have a problem with pure
biodiesel (burns a different color, so the safety sensor detects
a failure to ignite and cuts off the fuel inappropriately), but
that would take a rather cheap fix (just a differently calibrated
sensor). And they can handle B20 just fine.
Those therefore take no overhead compared to running
on traditional gasoline or diesel. Just mix whatever we
can into the national supply. Perhaps that comes out to E26 on
average, or B17. Still saves that much "real" oil.
I have my doubts that you could get energy in any kind of
cost effective way from grass clippings.
In a meaningful way from small-scale (ie, your own yard) production?
Probably not. From a municipal yard waste collection program? You
betcha! Just because we consider it "garbage" doesn't mean it doesn't
have a decent amount of energy in it. If nothing else, it burns (though
with 5% or more ash, making it impractical for home use such as in a
pellet stove).
As for E-85, kill corn subsidies and propose it again.
Ethanol can come from just about any plant material, not just corn or
other "sweet" plants.
For example, switch grass, which will grow a lot of places "real" crops
can't take hold (therefore not wasting arable land). Waste straw and
woodchips. Even grass clippings. Granted you might get methanol easier
than ethanol from some of them, but from the point of view of an engine,
it burns just as well.
As for vegetable oil or biodiesel as a fuel - Yeah, if you switched our
ENTIRE energy economy over to that, we'd need to clear-cut the rain forests
to grow enough soybeans. But that counts as a bit of a red herring - No
one (well, no one both sane and knowledgeable) proposes switching
everything to biodiesel. But we do have several industries that
produce suitable oils as a waste product. Why not use that?
If it contributes to lowering our need for non-renewable petroleum by 1%,
we still come out 1% ahead.
Same goes for solar, wind, even nuclear. For some reason, people seem
fixated on a single-source solution to all our energy needs. Dumb, dumb,
dumb! Wind and solar complement each other nicely (one works better at
night, the other only during the day. Nuclear works great for the electric
grid, but not so great for biochem or as a vehicular fuel. And hydrogen - Poor
black-sheep of the energy family - Works GREAT as a battery. Not an
energy source, but an ultra-low-tech battery. Electrolyse water with off-peak
electric surplusses, use it in a fuel cell (or even just burn it in a pinch!)
to get most of your energy back when you need it later.
You don't need to care about the problem, but at least don't
attack parts of the solution.
It sucks. Big-time. And I say that as someone who has finally
Learned To Stop Worrying And Love XP. (with themes and 90% of
the default services turned off, of course).
Take XP, make the Fischer-Price interface even more annoying,
throw in SQL server as a REQUIRED service (we all know how much
running that boosts performance!), and make explorer windows
take up as much screen real-estate while conveying as little useful
information as possible.
Oh yeah. Can't wait for Vista to hit the mainstream. It
might well finally push the masses into trying Linux on the desktop.
And of course, let's not forget the jolly fun candy-like DRM
we'll get shoved down our throats.
Over a year ago, I predicted Vista would give us yet another
insignificant change over previous versions, still having the
same basic look and feel as Windows 95. And I have to thank
Microsoft for once again proving me right.
The line between hardcore developers and the average
Joe will start to get very fuzzy.'"
No, it most certainly will not get fuzzy.
Billy G has tried for years to get the average
office worker capable of making their own macros, then
blobs of VB script, now inline.NET snippets - Much
to the dismay of those of us who need to make everything
magically better when an "average Joe" actually tries
using some of these features and blows away the entire
2005 regional accounts receivable ledger.
Like it or not, the average Joe can't do DIVISION.
He can't add up a line of numbers without a calculator.
Fractions hurt his poor widdle head. While we
debate about whether or not to allow version numbers
to go 1.8 1.9 1.10, the Average Joe doesn't even grasp
why that poses a problem in the first place.
The average Joe likes the Imperial system of measurements.
I rest my case.
So no, the line between coders and users will NOT blur
anythime soon, or ever. Coders understand what
those code snippets do. Users can barely manage the
hotkeys to activate those code sequences.
Now... If you ask, "Will making it easier to write code
snippets in common apps draw out a few more people
with undiscovered coding skills - Yes. And Albert Einstein
worked as a patent clerk. Don't make too much out of the
connection.
They will just specify that any ISP provide DNS service that
complies with their wishes, or they are out of business.
You also don't need to use your own ISP's DNS server. Although it
will tend to respond the quickest, you can use just about any
DNS server in the world instead.
For that matter, most people should have at least their
secondary DNS set to something outside their own ISP. For some
reason, ISPs just love setting both the primary and secondary
announced via DHCP to different addresses on the same machine.
That saves them some time, I suppose, but when one goes down,
both do (obviously).
Also, portions of the book were plagarized from Leigh's and Baigent's work.
One slight problem - Plaguerism does not equal copyright infringement.
It commits an academic offense. Not legal, ethical.
As a writer of fiction, Brown has no obligation to give two shakes of a rat's ass
about plaguerism. Now, he might want the world to take his writing a bit more
seriously than "mere" fiction, in which case he has only hurt himself (if
you can include "written a best seller that spawned a sure-blockbuster" in the
definition of "hurt"). But as for legal remedy? As much as I enjoyed HB:HG,
I'd have to agree with another poster that Baigent and Leight most likely just
want to cash in here.
I have no patience for this untalented loser.
I thought it a fairly cute book. Get over yourself, 'kay? You don't
have to read it or like it, just as you don't have to read or like "The
Cat In the Hat", either. But you'd look like an idiot criticising the
grammar therein.
Maybe Dan needs to be careful here. If he says it is fiction, he can
be sued for copyright infringement. If he says it is fact, he can be sued for libel
Not a problem, I'd say...
Brown wrote a work of fiction. He based it heavily on a
work of conjectured-fact, by Baigent and Leigh. And of course,
both completely rip on one of the biggest fictions-bordering-on-scams
in human history, the Roman Catholic Church, thus their little problem
with either.
As an aside, having read HB:HG before the Davinci Code came
out, I'd recommend anyone planning to rip into it as fiction, read
it first. Not only does it read well, but it passes Occam's Razor,
in that it makes heaps more sense than what christianity
(not just the Catholics) has pushed on the world for 1700 years.
While not totally overthrowing the foundations of Christianity, it
makes the Cathar "heresy" seem far more plausible than the outright
blasphemous line of BS adopted at Nicea...
But an engineer's JOB is frequently to solve a
problem of limited and arbitrary scope.
...Usually with rather spartan financial and temporal limitations
as well. Don't leave those out...
Yet, despite all of the above (or perhaps more accurately,
because of them), finding a way to "cheat" usually means
the difference between success and failure. And in the real
world, your boss won't care if the container lands on
its side - Only that his coffee doesn't spill.
If you can't do that, you're not a good engineer.
Yes, a good engineed needs to know how to take the slow and
methodical traditional approach to a problem. But the difference
between a good engineer and a great engineer lies in how well
they "cheat". Simple example, silicon lasers... Everyone knows
you can't make a laser out of an opaque material, but who says
a laser needs to emit in the human-visible spectrum? You might
nit-pick about the meaning of the word "light", but an IR laser
works just fine in 99% of the applications for which you might
consider a laser in the 400-750nm range.
Then I checked the nickname, and surprise, it was the same guy siding
with microsoft on the issue with the EU.
Whoah, you mean... I actually adopted the same stance on two
very similar issues in two different topics? How DARE I
show logical consistency on Slashdot?
Sorry, lost my head there, I won't do it again. Just give me another
shot - I promise, next two posts on the GPL and the RIAA, I'll support
emasculating evildoers who only comply with the spirit but not the
letter of the GPL, and then in the next breath say we have a right
to steal music and the RIAA can suck it.
Yes, Virginia, I believe the governments of the world have gone too
far against Microsoft (even if the US government didn't have the balls
to carry through on its threats - And no, those ideas don't
contradict one another). Whether or not MS has truly reformed
yet, they've adopted a MUCH more friendly attitude (Why not? IBM has
started playing the good guys, with a much longer history of evil than
MS has even existed). And as for abusing their "monopoly" - Have you
any idea of the size of the fish involved here? Microsoft may dominate
the software world, but the world will keep moving without their products.
Compare that to OPEC, which openly colludes to keep oil prices
and demand as high as possible; and without their product, our
planet cannot naturally produce enough food to feed even half of
the current human population.
Oh noes, I have to choose to manually install Firefox and not to run WMP
and Messenger. But I might not HAVE ANY FUCKING HEAT because oil costs
too much and that seems just fine?
Seriously, some Slashdotters need a sense of proportion.
Slashdot Mirror
With VISTA coming out, Symantec is going to obviously be pushing its own products for that platform.
I agree, so far - All companies will want in on Vista, even though just about anyone who has seen or used Vista already will stick with XP until at least the server version comes out...
However, expect them to do a 360 in six months again citing VISTA the most secure product ever, bar none.
Why?
Symantec makes software that improves your PC's safety against attacks. If they can point to a million and one critical flaws in Vista, it makes their product (or one like it) all the more necessary.
People will not, in general, flee to Linux just because Vista sucks (which it does, and hard). They might stick with XP (for which Symantec also makes the same set of products).
People also won't switch to a different AV suite for Vista. People use what they have always used, which largely means Norton/Symantec.
LiIon explosions can still happen, but usually the culprit is shoddy made knock-off batteries
The "culprit" involves nothing more and nothing less than an autocatalyzing eletrolyte decomposition product. "Name brand" has nothing at all to do with that.
Now, some higher-quality batteries may use what amounts to a catalyst posion (the choice of anode material, for example, plays a HUGE role in decomposition rate). But don't assume the original manufacturer uses anything even remotely resembling high quality parts - On the contrary, they choose the cheapest reasonably-safe batteries available at the time of product release, to give the greatest profit for the lowest price-point. Post-release 3rd party batteries just don't come under the original warrantee, so we hear more about them sucking than the OEM ones. But if you don't buy something like "Emergizer" or "Durasell" brand knockoff crap as replacements, you'll most likely get a higher quality battery than the original.
Laptop fuel cartrages mean new DRM and propriatary designs as well as messy (and dangerous) 3rd party refil kits.
A lot of people keep saying this, but it just doesn't hold true!
First of all, methanol doesn't pose nearly the health risk most people believe. As someone with a solid non-practitioner background in both chemistry and pharmacology, I would play with methanol over toner or ink any day... Additionally, the breakdown products the the electrolyte in Li-ion batteries makes methanol exposure look like a cool drink of mountain water by comparison (for an idea, the most common counts as a chemical WMD in a different context).
Second, methanol doesn't pose nearly the fire/explosion risk most people believe. The Li-ion batteries we use now pose a FAR greater risk of explosion, and as for fire, if you take the same precautions you would when refueling your car (with yet another far more flamable/explosive liquid), you have nothing to worry about.
Third, refilling... Aside from the previously-mentioned toxicity of ink and toner, methanol evaporates cleanly. So if you spill a few drops, you can just let them evaporate rather than permanantly staining yourself, your table, your laptop, your carpet, your dog, and seemingly anything else even in sight of the ink refill kit.
The biggest complaint about the idea of using fuel cells over a rechargeable battery in laptops comes from the UPS-factor. Even an all-but-dead laptop battery will let it stay up (assuming you have it on AC) through a short power outage, or to move to another outlet, or to quickly reinsert the plug your cat pulled out, etc. Running on a fuel cell, all those advantages disappear unless you use the fuel cell as your primary power source, which could get expensive over time (despite methanol's low cost, AC power costs a hell of a lot less).
Something like the Jinke Hanlin V2 perhaps?
Wow... Yeah, something very much like that!
800x600 seems a little under what I'd like (I know you don't need more to show most text, but since getting a WUXGA laptop at work, I've gotten quite comfortable with how much nicer many fonts look at 300dpi). But even at only that, I will seriously look into getting one of those... Thank you!
Now if I can just find one I can take one for a test-drive...
The portability of the paper book is a lot better than my laptop.
I would like to see a decent eBook reader for exactly the opposite reason... My itty bitty Palm can hold hundreds (thousands?) of novels and/or textbooks. A dead-tree version can hold - One.
Now, when I go to bed and want to read for a little while, I'll go into my library and grab a physical book. The "expense" of choosing poorly means I need to get out of bed and visit one room down the hall. When I have to wait in a doctors office or on a bus or even just while away from home for a few days, picking a new book usually doesn't even exist as a possibility.
So since I clearly prefer bits to paper, why do I still have a spare bedroom dedicated to serving as a home library?
The readers.
My notebook has simply amazing resolution, but only lasts three to five hours without AC. My Palm lasts over a full day without recharging it, but hurts to look at for more than a few minutes at a time. Dedicated eBook readers look good and some even get adequate battery life, but make it difficult or even impossible to load non-DRM content.
So what would get me to switch completely?
Something with the form-factor of a small clipboard, preferably flexible, with a high-resolution (though not necessarily color) display (ePaper seems perfect here).
It must either last at least 18 hours on one charge, or take (and last at least 4 hours on) standard rechargeable AA batteries (though without making it too thick - Perhaps the "spine" could hold a column of them?).
It must lets me access (at a minimum) plaintext, postscript, HTML (including MHT or MAF or some comparable all-in-one-file HTML container, including full gif/jpg/png/bmp support), and PDF wouldn't suck. It must also not complain about merely storing any other type of file, though I don't expect it to do anything with them.
It must accept a non-proprietary low-cost DRMless media type such as standard CF or SD. It should also have a reasonable quantity of nonvolatile on-board storage that I can copy content to and from (without restriction) the CF/SD/whatever card, so I can keep my favorites in it at all times.
It must have a load-and-render time lower than what it takes to turn a physical page of a book, so perhaps 3 seconds worst-case.
It should, preferably, have some flexibility to act as a sort of general purpose PDA - Nothing fancy, just a personal organizer. It doesn't need a touchscreen or full keyboard, the old-fashioned console game "Please enter your name" style interface would suffice - I don't want another PDA, but I also don't want to need to turn on a separate device just to jot down a note like "meet bob at 9:30" or "Susie Q: 911-5555".
It should support at least one "open" programming interface, to allow the geeks of the world (myself included) to write cool eye-candy-clicky-widgets (c'mon, you know you need Tetris, Snakes, and Mine Sweeper to run on every electronic device you own!) for it. I accept that running such add-ons may drastically reduce the battery life, as long as I have that choice.
For all that, I would pay up to around $500 (for a totally perfect implemenation... Halve that for the basics of what I want).
If it were as simple as you think, this protection would have been tossed aside long ago, like so many others.
Although completely removing the need for Starforce would count as the optimal "crack", don't overlook the fact that, at some point, the Starforce driver itself needs to load and check itself.
Don't attack the breast-plate, attack the armpits.
What are we MythTV users going to do for digital TV, though?
Pay 20% more for the tuner card to import it from Canada or the UK or Taiwan or Vanuatu, who will all (in decreasing order of "give a shit what the US says to do") laugh heartily at we stupid Americans that let our Corporate Masters(tm) sell us inferior products simply by labelling them "new and improved".
I keep hearing scary things about encrypted signals, broadcast flags, and other Orweillian bullshit.
Currently, US law doesn't force the broadcast flag on anyone (and no hardware manufacturer will support a "feature" that makes their product less desireable unless forced to).
Don't rest easy on that thought, though, because that particular war hasn't ended quite yet (nor will it ever, most likely). The RIAA just started pushing congress for the same thing for digital audio, and don't think the MPAA won't support and try to extend that proposal...
But as I said, those of us who love freedom, particularly the freedom to use our posessions as we see fit, will always have the option of simply breaking the law and importing hardware that ignores such nonsense.
A MythTV box will cost more than a TiVo, based on their new three-year plan.
Horsepucky!
IF and only if you include the price of a full PC, the costs come out comparable (for $469, you can build a damn fine low-end PC). Tuner cards cost well under $100, and you don't need a monitor (since you would presumeably use this with an existing TV, and if not, you'd need to consider that in the price of a TiVo as well).
Until now, Myth and the like have served a niche audience of people who would tend to have a decent PC in their livingroom anyway, and for an extra $50 could also use it as a PVR. This move has shifted the balance even for people wanting a dedicated DVR in their TV room - You could even go so far as to buy a cheap-ass Dell and throw in a capture card for less than the 3-year plan.
they will be dropping their lifetime subscription option
Will they just stop offering it and honor existing owners, or do they plan to force everyone to downgrade to a monthly subscription model? And does this include their free "basic" service?
If the latter, and it includes their free basic service, they can expect one hell of a class-action from folks like me who bought an OEM TiVo box (as opposed to rolling their own Myth box) only because of the free lifetime basic service.
Heh... From the article, "According to Rogers, with TiVo's higher monthly fees and one year lock in they have increased the lifetime value of a TiVo customer by over $100."
Do they really want to say things like that in public? It might sound optimistic and fluffy, but just means "we will milk an extra hundred bucks from suckers who use TiVo every 2-3 years". Not the best PR material...
I go so far as to say that it's a better idea to learn assembler first so that you know what's REALLY going on inside that computer.
I'll second that notion! Computer Science, as a generalization, has three types of people:
People who only learned a high-level language, then learned algorithmics, and now produce "elegant" code that would take 2^27 times the current age of the universe to finish its task on any physically-possible hardware;
People who took CS and expected to come away knowing how to program - This group eventually either changes fields or, for the more mathematically inclined, takes to teaching CS classes and getting pissed at smart-aleck students who point out that their suggested pseudo-code blob would take 2&27 times the current age of the universe to finish its task on any physically-possible hardware;
And finally, people who use (not just "know") assembler (not necessarily their first programming language - I think people really need to suffer a bit to appreciate the classic joke about "but modern optimizing compilers can do far better than a human"... Heh... Y'know, I've even heard some people say that and not realize they told a funny?).
My first CS class taught me Java, which I'd say is a better idea than VB
As much as I personally loathe Java, I'd have to agree with you here. At least with Java, when they get to the real world and discover that C (in whatever incarnation it reaches by then, currently C#) still rules as the lingua Franca of the software development world, they'll have a rough understanding of the syntax. Keep 'em away from any of what the whippersnappers call "unsafe" code nowadays (aka pointers - ooooh, spoooooky indirection! And the next morning, they found nothing but a hook dangling from the keyboard!), but at least they'll have the ability to read and make simple modifications to the rest of the existing codebase.
Using pc hardware only works for a small business.. the bandwidth isnt there.
True, using gigabit (or higher) on a PCI (or older) bus... One gigabit PCI NIC just barely has bandwidth to go full-throttle.
PCI Express changes that, though... With a modern machine, you can have a set of three PCIx4 10Gb NICs, giving you enough bandwidth to fully handle the standard LAN/WAN/DMZ threesome at a speed even most mid-sized companies don't use yet.
Of course, a lot of this discussion depends on what you consider a "router"... A segment gateway type router you can replace with just about anything that runs Linux and has a pair of RJ45 ports. The standard trio I mention, you can do (unsaturated) gigabit on most PCs and 10 gig with some care in hardware selection. But routing between a few dozen 20+ gig optical segments, no, that will safely remain the domain of dedicated Cisco (etc) hardware for years to come.
As for this particular open-source router project... Although the linked article lacks much detail, I'd say Cisco won't lose any sleep. Now, the folks over at SonicWall...
I view all that time playing games and watching TV as largely a waste.
...
we'll butt heads and maybe end up with a console. But its use will be
heavily restricted.
... mean?
Spoken like someone who makes "adult" something I never want to "grow up" and turn into - And I say this as a 30YO.
And don't assume that I am a pyshco parent who doesn't let his kids have any fun.
Uh-huh. Spoken like a true psycho parent who will do anything to deny it.
Do you even remember why you played games as a kid?
We get to slave away 40+ hours a week for the majority of our lives. Let the buggers have fun while they can.
BTW, what the hell does
Just asking means it refers to you. You may have escaped as a child, but have since apparently bought into the lie full-on.
It means people who consider childhood wasted on children - Why, just think of all the productive activities they could engage in, like memorizing dates and multiplication tables, social networking, part-time jobs, and backstabbing their way up the young Republicans club ladder!
No. Kids just want to play and have fun. And I say, "let 'em".
what political decisions are religiously motivated
Anti-pornography. Anti-Islam (recall Bush unwisely using the term "crusade" in some of his earlier post-9/11 speeches?). Anti-evolution (remember a certain president suggesting that schools should have the right to discuss "alternative" (aka "complete fairy-tale") theories of the origins of life?). Pro-10-commandments, pro-federal-funding-of-religious-charities. I could go on, but I suspect you can see the pattern here...
Except for possibly the issue of Abortion/Stem cells
I really don't care about abortion... I support the "right" to choose, but probably wouldn't want my to SO have one, personally. But stem cells... Things we currently literally incinerate as biohazardous medical waste, we can't use in research that may cure some of the nastiest diseases that still plague humankind? That I have a problem with, and can't imagine anyone but the worst of hypocrites opposing abortion while also opposing stem cell research.
both parties fund their special interest groups--face it, they're corrupt
Not even the faintest disagreement on that point. I currently complain mostly about the GOP because they have a blank check to do what they want. But in the next election, I truly fear the democrats will win a sweeping reversal of the situation, leaving we mere plebes no better off. "Meet the new boss; Same as the old boss".
The "right wing extremists" did not ask for any personally identifiable information - they wanted aggregate data.
Google already publishes aggregate data - Go to Google Zeitgeist and you can check out hundreds of different ways of looking at popular Google queries.
And as for nothing "personally identifiable" - Ever ego-surfed? Ever used Google to look up a relative or not-to-close friend's phone number or address or what-have-you? Just giving the DoJ raw search terms will provide personal info, regardless of their swearing up and down on a stack of bibles to the contrary.
The DoJ's quest amounts to nothing more than shooting goldfish in a barrel and claiming it a victory over vicious man-eating sharks. Of COURSE you can find porn through Google. But COPA didn't die because of that - It died because adults have a right to search for porn. As for whether or not kids can get there as well... Personally, I couldn't care less; But for those who do care, we have this great new technology called "parental supervision".
back to the U.S. to prevent the Chinese government from accessing them
Yeah, great idea - Because, y'know, the "land of the free" would never try to force Google to turn over its search records. And certainly never for something as frivolous as trying to further the religious agenda of right-wing crackpots... Oh, I mean "democracy". Slip of the tongue there, please ignore it.
So will we hear tomorrow that they've moved all search records involving porn to Japan, to protect them from the US government?
I assumed you meant biodiesel, I don't think you can make ethanol that way (correct me if I'm wrong).
Perhaps I phrased that poorly...
No, you don't get ethanol from waste oils. You get biodiesel from them. And you don't get biodiesel from grasses and wood chips - You get ethanol (or methanol). Each has its own niche, and I don't mean to suggest we try to make them 100% interchangeable with one another, just with what normally occupies their niche (ie, gasoline and dinodiesel).
And both of those you can use, safely with no retrofitting, at least up to 10% (Believe it or not, if you always buy from the lowest-priced station in your area, you almost certainly already buy "Gasohol", or E10). And as I mentioned, all diesel engines can burn up to B100 with no problems or modifications.
Most people would rather run gasoline than ethanol,
I can't really argue with matters of perception, but I also can't accept them as having any relevance, either. Most people would also rather eat cow than horse, and incinerate unwanted cats and dogs rather than use them for food; but all of those work just as well for providing humans with protein, and when starving to death, matters of aesthetics rapidly vanish.
because it's better for the engine
Absolutely false. What we call "Gasoline" amounts to a VERY "dirty" mix of assorted hydrocarbons. Engine design has evolved to handle a fairly wide range of actual makeups of gasoline - Which now includes (in the case of FFVs) potentially up to 85% Ethanol. The fact that cars historically ran on "pure" gasoline has no relevance here - Cars also used leaded gasoline for most of automotive history.
And most of the cars in the U.S. can't run diesel.
Don't forget the trucking industry, agriculture, construction... The US uses approximately half as much diesel as gasoline! I have to sadly shake my head and laugh every time I hear people arguing about the strictness of CAFE laws, when they don't apply to the source of literally a third of all vehicular pollution.
If it costs more than gasoline, the idea is dead until gasoline's price rises above ethanol.
On that point I will agree with you fully, though I would point out that "cost" includes more than "at the pump".
For example, as of June 1st 2006, the EPA requires 80% of diesel sold in the US to have 15ppm (or less) sulfur, down from 50ppm (at a significantly increased cost of production, but not my point). Biodiesel has no sulfur (well, trace amounts of course, but less than 1ppm) already, with no special processing required. And, don't forget that biodiesel and ethanol work as carbon-neutral fuels.
Additionally, biodiesel has almost reached the breakeven point with dinodiesel, and ethanol costs considerably less already (though I agree that we can't state that comfortably without considering corn subsidies).
There is an overhead cost to supporting multiple types of fuel.
True, I agree completely, and wouldn't suggest we make every use able to use every source.
It's not cost effective to retrofit a lot of cars just to be able to make use of some waste oil from restaurants
Who said anything about retrofitting? Almost all modern gasoline engines can run E50 without a problem or modification. Many can run E85. All diesel engines can run B100 (or any blend ratio). Home heatings systems tend to have a problem with pure biodiesel (burns a different color, so the safety sensor detects a failure to ignite and cuts off the fuel inappropriately), but that would take a rather cheap fix (just a differently calibrated sensor). And they can handle B20 just fine.
Those therefore take no overhead compared to running on traditional gasoline or diesel. Just mix whatever we can into the national supply. Perhaps that comes out to E26 on average, or B17. Still saves that much "real" oil.
I have my doubts that you could get energy in any kind of cost effective way from grass clippings.
In a meaningful way from small-scale (ie, your own yard) production? Probably not. From a municipal yard waste collection program? You betcha! Just because we consider it "garbage" doesn't mean it doesn't have a decent amount of energy in it. If nothing else, it burns (though with 5% or more ash, making it impractical for home use such as in a pellet stove).
As for E-85, kill corn subsidies and propose it again.
Ethanol can come from just about any plant material, not just corn or other "sweet" plants.
For example, switch grass, which will grow a lot of places "real" crops can't take hold (therefore not wasting arable land). Waste straw and woodchips. Even grass clippings. Granted you might get methanol easier than ethanol from some of them, but from the point of view of an engine, it burns just as well.
As for vegetable oil or biodiesel as a fuel - Yeah, if you switched our ENTIRE energy economy over to that, we'd need to clear-cut the rain forests to grow enough soybeans. But that counts as a bit of a red herring - No one (well, no one both sane and knowledgeable) proposes switching everything to biodiesel. But we do have several industries that produce suitable oils as a waste product. Why not use that? If it contributes to lowering our need for non-renewable petroleum by 1%, we still come out 1% ahead.
Same goes for solar, wind, even nuclear. For some reason, people seem fixated on a single-source solution to all our energy needs. Dumb, dumb, dumb! Wind and solar complement each other nicely (one works better at night, the other only during the day. Nuclear works great for the electric grid, but not so great for biochem or as a vehicular fuel. And hydrogen - Poor black-sheep of the energy family - Works GREAT as a battery. Not an energy source, but an ultra-low-tech battery. Electrolyse water with off-peak electric surplusses, use it in a fuel cell (or even just burn it in a pinch!) to get most of your energy back when you need it later.
You don't need to care about the problem, but at least don't attack parts of the solution.
It sucks. Big-time. And I say that as someone who has finally Learned To Stop Worrying And Love XP. (with themes and 90% of the default services turned off, of course).
Take XP, make the Fischer-Price interface even more annoying, throw in SQL server as a REQUIRED service (we all know how much running that boosts performance!), and make explorer windows take up as much screen real-estate while conveying as little useful information as possible.
Oh yeah. Can't wait for Vista to hit the mainstream. It might well finally push the masses into trying Linux on the desktop.
And of course, let's not forget the jolly fun candy-like DRM we'll get shoved down our throats.
Over a year ago, I predicted Vista would give us yet another insignificant change over previous versions, still having the same basic look and feel as Windows 95. And I have to thank Microsoft for once again proving me right.
The line between hardcore developers and the average Joe will start to get very fuzzy.'"
.NET snippets - Much
to the dismay of those of us who need to make everything
magically better when an "average Joe" actually tries
using some of these features and blows away the entire
2005 regional accounts receivable ledger.
No, it most certainly will not get fuzzy.
Billy G has tried for years to get the average office worker capable of making their own macros, then blobs of VB script, now inline
Like it or not, the average Joe can't do DIVISION. He can't add up a line of numbers without a calculator. Fractions hurt his poor widdle head. While we debate about whether or not to allow version numbers to go 1.8 1.9 1.10, the Average Joe doesn't even grasp why that poses a problem in the first place.
The average Joe likes the Imperial system of measurements. I rest my case.
So no, the line between coders and users will NOT blur anythime soon, or ever. Coders understand what those code snippets do. Users can barely manage the hotkeys to activate those code sequences.
Now... If you ask, "Will making it easier to write code snippets in common apps draw out a few more people with undiscovered coding skills - Yes. And Albert Einstein worked as a patent clerk. Don't make too much out of the connection.
They will just specify that any ISP provide DNS service that complies with their wishes, or they are out of business.
You also don't need to use your own ISP's DNS server. Although it will tend to respond the quickest, you can use just about any DNS server in the world instead.
For that matter, most people should have at least their secondary DNS set to something outside their own ISP. For some reason, ISPs just love setting both the primary and secondary announced via DHCP to different addresses on the same machine. That saves them some time, I suppose, but when one goes down, both do (obviously).
Also, portions of the book were plagarized from Leigh's and Baigent's work.
One slight problem - Plaguerism does not equal copyright infringement. It commits an academic offense. Not legal, ethical.
As a writer of fiction, Brown has no obligation to give two shakes of a rat's ass about plaguerism. Now, he might want the world to take his writing a bit more seriously than "mere" fiction, in which case he has only hurt himself (if you can include "written a best seller that spawned a sure-blockbuster" in the definition of "hurt"). But as for legal remedy? As much as I enjoyed HB:HG, I'd have to agree with another poster that Baigent and Leight most likely just want to cash in here.
I have no patience for this untalented loser.
I thought it a fairly cute book. Get over yourself, 'kay? You don't have to read it or like it, just as you don't have to read or like "The Cat In the Hat", either. But you'd look like an idiot criticising the grammar therein.
Maybe Dan needs to be careful here. If he says it is fiction, he can be sued for copyright infringement. If he says it is fact, he can be sued for libel
Not a problem, I'd say...
Brown wrote a work of fiction. He based it heavily on a work of conjectured-fact, by Baigent and Leigh. And of course, both completely rip on one of the biggest fictions-bordering-on-scams in human history, the Roman Catholic Church, thus their little problem with either.
As an aside, having read HB:HG before the Davinci Code came out, I'd recommend anyone planning to rip into it as fiction, read it first. Not only does it read well, but it passes Occam's Razor, in that it makes heaps more sense than what christianity (not just the Catholics) has pushed on the world for 1700 years.
While not totally overthrowing the foundations of Christianity, it makes the Cathar "heresy" seem far more plausible than the outright blasphemous line of BS adopted at Nicea...
But an engineer's JOB is frequently to solve a problem of limited and arbitrary scope.
...Usually with rather spartan financial and temporal limitations
as well. Don't leave those out...
Yet, despite all of the above (or perhaps more accurately, because of them), finding a way to "cheat" usually means the difference between success and failure. And in the real world, your boss won't care if the container lands on its side - Only that his coffee doesn't spill.
If you can't do that, you're not a good engineer.
Yes, a good engineed needs to know how to take the slow and methodical traditional approach to a problem. But the difference between a good engineer and a great engineer lies in how well they "cheat". Simple example, silicon lasers... Everyone knows you can't make a laser out of an opaque material, but who says a laser needs to emit in the human-visible spectrum? You might nit-pick about the meaning of the word "light", but an IR laser works just fine in 99% of the applications for which you might consider a laser in the 400-750nm range.
Then I checked the nickname, and surprise, it was the same guy siding with microsoft on the issue with the EU.
Whoah, you mean... I actually adopted the same stance on two very similar issues in two different topics? How DARE I show logical consistency on Slashdot?
Sorry, lost my head there, I won't do it again. Just give me another shot - I promise, next two posts on the GPL and the RIAA, I'll support emasculating evildoers who only comply with the spirit but not the letter of the GPL, and then in the next breath say we have a right to steal music and the RIAA can suck it.
Yes, Virginia, I believe the governments of the world have gone too far against Microsoft (even if the US government didn't have the balls to carry through on its threats - And no, those ideas don't contradict one another). Whether or not MS has truly reformed yet, they've adopted a MUCH more friendly attitude (Why not? IBM has started playing the good guys, with a much longer history of evil than MS has even existed). And as for abusing their "monopoly" - Have you any idea of the size of the fish involved here? Microsoft may dominate the software world, but the world will keep moving without their products. Compare that to OPEC, which openly colludes to keep oil prices and demand as high as possible; and without their product, our planet cannot naturally produce enough food to feed even half of the current human population.
Oh noes, I have to choose to manually install Firefox and not to run WMP and Messenger. But I might not HAVE ANY FUCKING HEAT because oil costs too much and that seems just fine?
Seriously, some Slashdotters need a sense of proportion.