I mean, basically all they did was brass off some of the geek community and make themselves look, well, dumb. No one really cares about their documentation...do they?
I think Microsoft shot themselves in the foot. Again.
Besides making themselves look dumb to the geek community (and, at least to some degree, to the entire tech community as well), Microsoft has obviously acted in a predatory and anticompetitive manner toward one of the more successful implementations of a competitive middleware product -- without solid legal grounds (the GPL was specifically excluded even though it did not meet MS's own definition of an "IPR-impairing" license) or solid patent support (as Jeremy Allison points out, the patents in question don't even apply to Samba's network interface)! If this isn't shooting Microsoft's antitrust case in the foot, I don't know what would.
Alcohol consumption has its place, but please don't do it anywhere near sensitive equipment!
If I understand the parent poster correctly, the case of beer is for after the upgrades are finished... or at least after the boxes are back together. Hardware issues aside, the effects of alcohol impairment couldn't be much worse than the effects of a bunch of stupid users...
Yup. I used to work at an HP reseller and authorized service center, and we finally had to stop supporting Pavilions. We never did sell them... we weren't going to subject our customers to that kind of crud.
What most people don't know is, not only is the Pavilion line probably HP's biggest mistake ever (it's totally ruined HP's reputation in the eyes of lots of people), but they've put a really annoying company in charge of handling warranty processing. Yes, that's right, HP Authorized Service Centers have to submit warranty requests to an outsourced third party company that pays too little, moves too slowly, and generally treats small shops like dirt.
The bottom line: if you want HP quality, buy a Vectra or Brio. A good Vectra can be a bit more expensive than a commodity PC, but there really is a huge difference in reliability. I can count on one hand the number of Vectra hardware failures I remember seeing, whereas Pavilions would blow hard drives, motherboards, and power supplies like clockwork.
</stupid cheap computer rant> Okay, sorry about that. But seriously folks, if you don't want to worry about h/w failures, buy a Vectra or even a Kayak. They really are well-put-together machines.
If the GPL was such an Intellectual Property Destroyer then how is Microsoft able to bundle it in with SFU 3.0 and charge for the result?
But far more important is how much Microsoft is the hypocrite on GPL License.
Good point -- I wonder if this would give the SAMBA team any legal ammunition if in fact they do get sued. By demonstrating that Microsoft itself evidently does not consider the GPL to be "IPR-imparing", could they get a judge to rule the CIFS Technical Reference license null and void?
If you're being paid to work, you ought to at least try to put on a semblance of working. If you legitimately have nothing to do, go ahead and play your game in the open.
If you're trying to put off finishing the boring project that you've been staring at until your eyes glaze over, don't fire up a game. Do something intellectually stimulating.
According to Webster's, centripetal (from centr- + Latin petere to go to, seek) means "proceeding or acting in a direction toward a center or axis". By this definition, in the ball-on-a-string example, the string provides the centripetal force.
Webster's also says that centrifugal (from centr- + Latin fugere to flee) means "proceeding or acting in a direction away from a center or axis"
This is what I remember from Physics 101. However, I may be wrong, seeing as you are the one claiming to be the "physics geek". In any case, however, your definition is contrary to standard, correct English usage.
I'll say it right off: You have a very good and valid point. A professional is a professional; expertise doesn't magically disappear when you clock out.
My point, though, had less to do with expertise and more to do with motivation. Self-motivated people tend to do better work than those that must be pushed to do something.
When I'm at work, the very fact that I'm at work can give me writer's block. But if I surf on over to slashdot, for instance, I can often (but not always) get the creative juices flowing again by posting here. The fact that there's no pressure on me to comment allows me to (sometimes) write more compellingly here than I would if I were working on some project for work. Why? Because here I only argue issues I care about, when I care about talking about them -- I'm more motivated to put the effort into doing it right.
That motivation factor is a function of the work environment, which is directly related to the difference between a professional and an amateur.
Your post sounds like ridicule, but I'd like to point out that our points are complementary. You're right, but that doesn't mean I can't be at least partly right as well.
Some things just aren't a good job for volunteers.
You've got a point. I wouldn't like an amateur for a brain surgeon or proctologist either.
Perhaps I should clarify my metaphor more clearly: programming is far more like art than brain surgery. By analogy with my other reply to this thread, programming is like playing guitar: it takes great skill and intense concentration to be done well, but it's possible to teach yourself how to play guitar (I know, I did). It's also possible to teach your self to code (I know, I did).
By extension: one of the better guitarists I've ever heard is a friend of mine who plays in an amateur band (called Mid-Life Crisis). He's better than a number of guitarists in professional bands. That's not to say that there aren't professionals that are better than him: read my comment about Steve Vai. But it shows that you don't have to be a professional to play like a professional.
Sure. (This isn't offtopic. It's an on-topic reply to a tangental reply to an on-topic post.)
Steve Vai is arguably the best guitarist on the face of the planet.
Wil Wheaton has arguably the coolest "celebrity" website on the face of the planet.
On his site, Wil regularly bares his soul, explaining his craft, sharing his views, and generally showing the world what a cool (or lame, depending on your viewpoint) person he is. From what snippets I've read about Steve Vai, he seems a cool person with lots of interesting ideas, but his website doesn't give fans nearly as much of an opportunity to get inside his head as Wil's does. Steve's music tells a great deal about him, but only in an abstract, emotional sense. I can't listen to "For the Love of God" or "Blue Powder" or "Melissa's Garden" and understand what goes on in Steve's everyday life.
My sig simply reflects that I think it would be cool if Steve bared his soul on his website as much as Wil does on his.
BTW: If you haven't heard of Steve, check him out. My personal favorite of his albums is "The 7th Song", which is a collection of his guitar ballads from across his career. Vai's guitar style combines the chops of Satriani and Gambale, the texture of Jeff Beck, and the lyricism of Eric Johnson. Sort of.
(If you haven't heard of Wil Wheaton, you are not truly a geek and you certainly haven't been around slashdot very long.)
Also BTW: According to Wil's IMDB bio he also plays guitar. Hmmm... although he writes about music all the time, Wil never talks about playing guitar much... maybe that's changed... ?
And the farmers will go home at night and work on the source code.
And this is a bad thing because.... ?
I'm convinced that amateurs are usually better at most things than professionals, for the simple reason that they care more.
As an example: I write professionally. This is a Friday afternoon -- my productivity level is dropping toward zero. But I am taking the time to make (semi-)intelligent comments on slashdot. Why? Because at slashdot, I'm an amateur. I'm in this because I feel like it, not because I'm being paid to do it.
OT: perhaps that's why Taco et al are so unproductive at their jobs? Because it is just "a job" for them? Hmmm... interesting concept.
Even if a comment's accuracy is suspect, I still think an interesting or amazing comment warrants an Interesting mod. If correctness seems likely, I'll mod it Informative and let someone else mod it down later if they find it's wrong.
That said, I agree (in the light of comments like this one) that it's almost certainly false. I posted at +2 to draw attention to it for the exact purpose of having someone authoratative confirm or deny it. If I had had mod points I would have modded it Interesting for the same reason.
As a side note: I find it funny that an AC is ridiculing me for believing what I read in an AC post. Hmm... what's wrong with this picture?
I went through sixth grade in the traditional school system, and then tried several educational alternatives after that, including homeschooling, independent study, and self-directed correspondence schooling. I find I learn far more quickly and much more thoroughly on my own than in a classroom environment.
To give you an idea: in my seventh grade year, my teacher/counselor who determined my assignments didn't believe I was a year ahead in math, so he made me repeat seventh-grade pre-algebra. I completed that, plus all the other seventh grade requirements, plus all of the eighth grade requirements, and at the end of the year I crammed enough of high school Algebra 1 to challenge the course and pass. But when I think back to that year (I was 12 at the time), I remember spending most of my time just hanging out with friends.
Don't get me wrong -- classrooms can be great. But I have only taken one programming class so far, in my freshman year in high school. (I was actually an independent study student, so I did the majority of my schoolwork on my own, but since I was technically a student of the H.S. I could take regular classes if I wanted.) When I walked in the door, I knew more than practically every other student in the class (and nearly as much as the instructor, about some things). The only thing I really learned in that class was some basic knowledge of Pascal (which I have never used since). Everything else I know about programming (and computers in general) I learned by fiddling around.
Sorry if that sounds excessively boastful. I'm only trying to say that most people learn better when they're learning about things that interest them, and/or when they're learning in a way that fits their intellectual aptitude and background. Obviously, self-directed learners tend to have one or both of these, and so they tend to learn more and learn it better.
True story: a hacker friend I had in high school (if you're reading this, BaudBarf, please email me) is a very intelligent guy who could pick technical stuff up in his sleep, but he consistently flunked all his classes. It wasn't that he couldn't learn, it was that he didn't want to learn in the school environment.
The only reason I got good grades in school was that I'm good at working the system: I remember stuff well, I comprehend almost everything I read, and I'm good at taking tests. I'm sure my success in school had nothing to do with the school environment I was subjected to.
Now my only problem is that 90% of the things I know I have no credentials for... and testing out of college classes and passing certification tests is tedious and annoying. Oh well...
Isn't there a community in CA that has the dubious distinction of being the only one in the U.S. that ran high-speed Internet via fiber to every single home - all paid for by taxes?
For the record, I never said that I had some illusion that the money I get refunded is somehow a gift. What I thought was funny (though not terribly unexpected) was that for three years in a row I've had to pay more, proportionally, than the state had thought I would have to.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not complaining about taxes, I was just making a joke. I consider the entire socio-religio-commercial-political-system of this world to be an (un-)necessary evil which I fully expect to be done away with, the sooner the better.
The most interesting thing in the article (IMHO) was this quote:
Right now, we may not realize the importance of this fact because the web is not such a big part of our existence. But imagine the day when a search engine will rule the whole textual content of the web, in which the memory of mankind will be stored.Think of the power in their hands.
What would happen if Google became a search engine monopoly, able to influence what content was seen and what was missed?
What if Microsoft bought Google? Or, a scarier thought: What if Google became the next Evil Empire?
According to Steve Gibson, the script k1dd13 "Wicked" and his friends used IRC to launch DDOS attacks.
You can't deny that the open, underground nature of IRC makes it ideal for both hacking and illegal activity. (Notice how I specifically did not equate those activities:-)
How is this offtopic? I would consider it an attempt to be funny (a play on "Use the Source, Luke!" in the headline) -- although admittedly not a very good one.
For the information of anyone who cares, Mark may have been one of Luke's sources, but Luke traveled quite a bit (he traveled with Paul all through the Mediteranean region, probably including Troas, Phillipi, and parts of Judea, and attended to Paul while he was imprisoned both in Caesarea, and Rome) and apparently reconstructed the events around Jesus' life by consulting written records and interviewing eyewitnesses.
Mark (also called John Mark) himself was evidentally a diciple, but he probably got most of the details of what went on between Jesus and the 12 Apostles by interviewing Peter.
Mark is also probably the same unnamed person mentioned in Mark 14:51, 52.
all that needs to be done is support an API that is now almost 7 years old.
Yeah, that's all. Unfortunately, Windows95 was one of the most klugdy, messed-up, weird, undocumented OSs of all time.
(Exceeded only by successive versions of Windows, such as Win98 and WinME.)
You can bet that Microsoft hasn't been helping the WINE coders any, by supplying decent documentation for instance. Reverse engineering something as complex as Windows is no mean feat. And programs like Office and IE 4+ essentially patch the OS when they're installed, by inserting DLLs and other code deep into the system. Running WinHelloWorld.exe is one thing; running IExplore.exe is something entirely different.
Think back: how many times did Microsoft have to push back the release date of Windows 95? And they're Microsoft, for goodness sake, the guys with a gazillion programmers chained to desks in the subterranian levels of Big Bill's Zoo of Death(tm). I think WINE is making decent progress as it is.
Of course, I wouldn't complain if they got the job done sooner rather than later...
(VM Ware anyone!).
Nope. VMWare only implements the BIOS and a framework to proxy between Windows and the PCI, IDE, etc. busses. VMWare doesn't emulate Windows, it runs Windows. No mean feat, either, but it's a totally different approach.
Outlook Express didn't work for me or for Hetz, and Norb didn't even want to mess with it. "Maybe on a system I didn't need, but NOT on a mission critical environment," he says.
<grin>
Now if only they can just get Office to integrate with Evolution and Mozilla (or, better yet, Galeon)...
The question is, is the build 641C in the article the same as the "next public build" in the message? Maybe there's another digit which I'm missing, but it seems that 641C has been the latest build of OO for some time now.
When are they going to move to the new versioning scheme? It would make a lot more sense to be taling about, say, OpenOffice 1.0.0 versus OpenOffice 1.0.1.
Slashdot Mirror
Besides making themselves look dumb to the geek community (and, at least to some degree, to the entire tech community as well), Microsoft has obviously acted in a predatory and anticompetitive manner toward one of the more successful implementations of a competitive middleware product -- without solid legal grounds (the GPL was specifically excluded even though it did not meet MS's own definition of an "IPR-impairing" license) or solid patent support (as Jeremy Allison points out, the patents in question don't even apply to Samba's network interface)! If this isn't shooting Microsoft's antitrust case in the foot, I don't know what would.
What most people don't know is, not only is the Pavilion line probably HP's biggest mistake ever (it's totally ruined HP's reputation in the eyes of lots of people), but they've put a really annoying company in charge of handling warranty processing. Yes, that's right, HP Authorized Service Centers have to submit warranty requests to an outsourced third party company that pays too little, moves too slowly, and generally treats small shops like dirt.
The bottom line: if you want HP quality, buy a Vectra or Brio. A good Vectra can be a bit more expensive than a commodity PC, but there really is a huge difference in reliability. I can count on one hand the number of Vectra hardware failures I remember seeing, whereas Pavilions would blow hard drives, motherboards, and power supplies like clockwork.
</stupid cheap computer rant> Okay, sorry about that. But seriously folks, if you don't want to worry about h/w failures, buy a Vectra or even a Kayak. They really are well-put-together machines.
If you're trying to put off finishing the boring project that you've been staring at until your eyes glaze over, don't fire up a game. Do something intellectually stimulating.
Like reading slashdot. :-)
Webster's also says that centrifugal (from centr- + Latin fugere to flee) means "proceeding or acting in a direction away from a center or axis"
This is what I remember from Physics 101. However, I may be wrong, seeing as you are the one claiming to be the "physics geek". In any case, however, your definition is contrary to standard, correct English usage.
If you don't have the G3 live album from 1996, I highly recommend it.
My point, though, had less to do with expertise and more to do with motivation. Self-motivated people tend to do better work than those that must be pushed to do something.
When I'm at work, the very fact that I'm at work can give me writer's block. But if I surf on over to slashdot, for instance, I can often (but not always) get the creative juices flowing again by posting here. The fact that there's no pressure on me to comment allows me to (sometimes) write more compellingly here than I would if I were working on some project for work. Why? Because here I only argue issues I care about, when I care about talking about them -- I'm more motivated to put the effort into doing it right.
That motivation factor is a function of the work environment, which is directly related to the difference between a professional and an amateur.
Your post sounds like ridicule, but I'd like to point out that our points are complementary. You're right, but that doesn't mean I can't be at least partly right as well.
It happens to be about things like software projects, but I write English for a living, not C++.
About some professionals being very good: I never said they weren't. See my other reply to this thread.
Perhaps I should clarify my metaphor more clearly: programming is far more like art than brain surgery. By analogy with my other reply to this thread, programming is like playing guitar: it takes great skill and intense concentration to be done well, but it's possible to teach yourself how to play guitar (I know, I did). It's also possible to teach your self to code (I know, I did).
By extension: one of the better guitarists I've ever heard is a friend of mine who plays in an amateur band (called Mid-Life Crisis). He's better than a number of guitarists in professional bands. That's not to say that there aren't professionals that are better than him: read my comment about Steve Vai. But it shows that you don't have to be a professional to play like a professional.
Steve Vai is arguably the best guitarist on the face of the planet.
Wil Wheaton has arguably the coolest "celebrity" website on the face of the planet.
On his site, Wil regularly bares his soul, explaining his craft, sharing his views, and generally showing the world what a cool (or lame, depending on your viewpoint) person he is. From what snippets I've read about Steve Vai, he seems a cool person with lots of interesting ideas, but his website doesn't give fans nearly as much of an opportunity to get inside his head as Wil's does. Steve's music tells a great deal about him, but only in an abstract, emotional sense. I can't listen to "For the Love of God" or "Blue Powder" or "Melissa's Garden" and understand what goes on in Steve's everyday life.
My sig simply reflects that I think it would be cool if Steve bared his soul on his website as much as Wil does on his.
BTW: If you haven't heard of Steve, check him out. My personal favorite of his albums is "The 7th Song", which is a collection of his guitar ballads from across his career. Vai's guitar style combines the chops of Satriani and Gambale, the texture of Jeff Beck, and the lyricism of Eric Johnson. Sort of.
(If you haven't heard of Wil Wheaton, you are not truly a geek and you certainly haven't been around slashdot very long.)
Also BTW: According to Wil's IMDB bio he also plays guitar. Hmmm... although he writes about music all the time, Wil never talks about playing guitar much... maybe that's changed... ?
I'm convinced that amateurs are usually better at most things than professionals, for the simple reason that they care more.
As an example: I write professionally. This is a Friday afternoon -- my productivity level is dropping toward zero. But I am taking the time to make (semi-)intelligent comments on slashdot. Why? Because at slashdot, I'm an amateur. I'm in this because I feel like it, not because I'm being paid to do it.
OT: perhaps that's why Taco et al are so unproductive at their jobs? Because it is just "a job" for them? Hmmm... interesting concept.
That said, I agree (in the light of comments like this one) that it's almost certainly false. I posted at +2 to draw attention to it for the exact purpose of having someone authoratative confirm or deny it. If I had had mod points I would have modded it Interesting for the same reason.
As a side note: I find it funny that an AC is ridiculing me for believing what I read in an AC post. Hmm... what's wrong with this picture?
I went through sixth grade in the traditional school system, and then tried several educational alternatives after that, including homeschooling, independent study, and self-directed correspondence schooling. I find I learn far more quickly and much more thoroughly on my own than in a classroom environment.
To give you an idea: in my seventh grade year, my teacher/counselor who determined my assignments didn't believe I was a year ahead in math, so he made me repeat seventh-grade pre-algebra. I completed that, plus all the other seventh grade requirements, plus all of the eighth grade requirements, and at the end of the year I crammed enough of high school Algebra 1 to challenge the course and pass. But when I think back to that year (I was 12 at the time), I remember spending most of my time just hanging out with friends.
Don't get me wrong -- classrooms can be great. But I have only taken one programming class so far, in my freshman year in high school. (I was actually an independent study student, so I did the majority of my schoolwork on my own, but since I was technically a student of the H.S. I could take regular classes if I wanted.) When I walked in the door, I knew more than practically every other student in the class (and nearly as much as the instructor, about some things). The only thing I really learned in that class was some basic knowledge of Pascal (which I have never used since). Everything else I know about programming (and computers in general) I learned by fiddling around.
Sorry if that sounds excessively boastful. I'm only trying to say that most people learn better when they're learning about things that interest them, and/or when they're learning in a way that fits their intellectual aptitude and background. Obviously, self-directed learners tend to have one or both of these, and so they tend to learn more and learn it better.
True story: a hacker friend I had in high school (if you're reading this, BaudBarf, please email me) is a very intelligent guy who could pick technical stuff up in his sleep, but he consistently flunked all his classes. It wasn't that he couldn't learn, it was that he didn't want to learn in the school environment.
The only reason I got good grades in school was that I'm good at working the system: I remember stuff well, I comprehend almost everything I read, and I'm good at taking tests. I'm sure my success in school had nothing to do with the school environment I was subjected to.
Now my only problem is that 90% of the things I know I have no credentials for... and testing out of college classes and passing certification tests is tedious and annoying. Oh well...
See my other comment above.
I think you might be thinking of Muscatine, Iowa.Don't get me wrong -- I'm not complaining about taxes, I was just making a joke. I consider the entire socio-religio-commercial-political-system of this world to be an (un-)necessary evil which I fully expect to be done away with, the sooner the better.
This is the third year in a row that I got a refund from my Federal taxes, but I had to pay out to the state. I guess now I know why.
What if Microsoft bought Google? Or, a scarier thought: What if Google became the next Evil Empire?
You can't deny that the open, underground nature of IRC makes it ideal for both hacking and illegal activity. (Notice how I specifically did not equate those activities :-)
If I had mod points I'd give you some.
For the information of anyone who cares, Mark may have been one of Luke's sources, but Luke traveled quite a bit (he traveled with Paul all through the Mediteranean region, probably including Troas, Phillipi, and parts of Judea, and attended to Paul while he was imprisoned both in Caesarea, and Rome) and apparently reconstructed the events around Jesus' life by consulting written records and interviewing eyewitnesses.
Mark (also called John Mark) himself was evidentally a diciple, but he probably got most of the details of what went on between Jesus and the 12 Apostles by interviewing Peter.
Mark is also probably the same unnamed person mentioned in Mark 14:51, 52.
You can bet that Microsoft hasn't been helping the WINE coders any, by supplying decent documentation for instance. Reverse engineering something as complex as Windows is no mean feat. And programs like Office and IE 4+ essentially patch the OS when they're installed, by inserting DLLs and other code deep into the system. Running WinHelloWorld.exe is one thing; running IExplore.exe is something entirely different.
Think back: how many times did Microsoft have to push back the release date of Windows 95? And they're Microsoft, for goodness sake, the guys with a gazillion programmers chained to desks in the subterranian levels of Big Bill's Zoo of Death(tm). I think WINE is making decent progress as it is.
Of course, I wouldn't complain if they got the job done sooner rather than later...
Nope. VMWare only implements the BIOS and a framework to proxy between Windows and the PCI, IDE, etc. busses. VMWare doesn't emulate Windows, it runs Windows. No mean feat, either, but it's a totally different approach.Now if only they can just get Office to integrate with Evolution and Mozilla (or, better yet, Galeon)...
When are they going to move to the new versioning scheme? It would make a lot more sense to be taling about, say, OpenOffice 1.0.0 versus OpenOffice 1.0.1.
Just my $0.02.