This is all well and good, but a much more effective distributed computing project would be one that would help the National Weather Service (where most meterological outlets still get their info) predict the weather for the next few days. They use a series of computers for simulation and then make an educated guess based on the runs of those models. Imagine, however, if instead of four or five test runs, they've got thousands to choose from.....
Isn't Rogan also one of those Republican party hacks who was very active in the House's prosecution of Clinton's impeachment?
That's one way of putting it, but from everything I've seen/read/heard about Rogan, he's a reasonable fellow. If I remember correctly, he was involved in the impeachment process because of his qualifications as a lawyer. It cost him his seat in Congress, if it makes you feel any better. One of those principle/duty versus practicality things. Doesn't bode well for those who think he's paid for.
Before you get on your high horse, you would do well to remember that it was your pal Slick Willie who signed the DMCA into law.
And Senator Foghorn Leghorn (Fritzie Hollings, the junior senator from South Carolina) is a Democrat, too. That said, there are many Republicans who support this bill. Would the president sign it if it got to his desk? Probably, unfortunately. Bill's biggest opponent in Congress? Patrick Leahy, a Democrat.
I think a big problem we've got here is that this isn't the kind of bill that's got the run-of-the mill congressman (like my undistinguished one) interested -- they'll vote whichever way the party leadership tells them to. Letters might help, but I think this is something that somebody important is going to have to pickup on, and sway quite a few votes. I'd focus on the senators whose states have the most to lose by open source development being hurt....
John Edwards and Jesse Helms, North Carolina
John Warner and George Allen, Virginia
Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, New York
and so on....
And I'm not a member of either party...I belong to one of those third, so-called unimportant ones. If you're interested....click here.
It has become a quite good app; the same could be said of many open-source products. I was thinking about this the other day....I'm in my fifth year of college, and I graduate next month. When I started, I couldn't do my work on Linux without either spending loads of $$ for ported commercial products, or constantly grinding my teeth. Two and a half years ago, I went pretty much linux all the time, using StarOffice as my suite. Still, I was stuck with Netscape 4.x as my browser. But now, I'm able to do all my work in a pure open-source environment (I'm not a CS major...I'm one of those social science types). It's a big change. Mozilla is a very good product. Congrats, and thanks folks.
--typing this on Galeon, one of the many Mozilla kids.
"Nice to see a lawyer doing something community-oriented for a change (even if they are just trying to make a profit from it)."
I've seen some good comments on this thread, and normally I'd burn mod points modding some of them up, but I had to check in.
From my reading of the story, they're not doing this for community service, or to make a profit. You don't profit from a civil claim against someone; you receive compensation for damages incurred. From the way that things are explained, that's exactly what the California statute allows...a maximum of $25k/day recovery against a spammer.
Does the community at large benefit from this suit? Yes, of course it does. If MoFo gets a recovery, others will be prompted to seek recovery against spammers, since precident has been established.
Are they making a profit? No, I don't think so. They're expending capital to pursue the complaint (costs $$ just to file a complaint in most places, and since this isn't a simple case, there'll be quite a few man hours invested into research and discovery), and there's no guarantee that they'll recover anything at all. And that's already on top of the losses they contend they have incurred due to spam.
I bought a copy of OS/2 Warp 3.0 in 1994, shortly after it came out. I liked it quite a bit, then.
It did take me awhile to get it running.
- Sound Card/CD gremlins. I had an Ensoniq sound card, which was pretty damn nice at the time. It supported a standard Panasonic 2x CDROM. All of this stuff came in a package by the now-defunct company Reveal (anyone remember those guys?). The card didn't really do anything via hardware; you'd have to boot DOS, initialize the card, then do a quick three-finger salute to get OS/2 to recognize the drive (had to do this with Linux, too). I finally gave up and bought a SB16.
- HPFS. It was very, very cool at the time. No, it wasn't considerably faster than FAT (as so trumpted by IBM...and I did benchmarks on this to test). Of course, if you didn't buy the expensive version with a second copy of Windoze, you had to have a FAT partition somewhere. And that none of the existing Windoze applications could use long filenames....
- REXX. I enjoyed messing around with it quite a bit. I'd like to see a nice version of it for Linux.
Once I got things working with OS/2, I used it for several months, until MS decided it liked me and started giving me free software (I beta-tested MSN.....so shoot me). I also started running Linux about this time, ran short on disk space, and OS/2 went away.
A couple of years later, with more RAM and more disk space, I re-installed OS/2 on my old machine. On a P-66 with 24MB, it absolutely flew....totally blew Win95 away. Netscape 2.something ran fine, as did the 16-bit Win apps I was still running.
I ran short on cash one day and decided to auction my copy off. I think I sold it for fifteen bucks. Now, that old P-66 is sitting in the corner. I wish I had a copy to install on it. Instead, I think it'll probably become a diskless workstation running Linux.
Advertising.....Anyone remember the "IBM OS/2 Warp Fiesta Bowl?"
Maybe Jobs is onto something......
on
iMac LCD Impostors
·
· Score: 2, Funny
With his emphasis on HID. I've seen the iMac in person, and I instantly wanted one. The Gateway, on the other hand, is ugly.
iMac: Fits nicely into the corner of your contemporary flat.
Profile: Fits nicely into the corner of your cell in the cube farm.
"Especially with a Lawyer dumb enough to take the case on a contingency basis."
No, since they're only dealing in torts, contingency is a good way to go about it. If they win, the attorney gets a nice cut.
"Susman Godfrey L.L.P. is a law firm that limits its practice to litigation, on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants.
Gee, that seems awfully limiting...."
Just means that they concentrate on litigation cases. In other words, they'd have nothing to with something like a criminal complaint. There are lots of firms that are limited to one area of practice.
As for the merits of the case.....
IANAL (yet), but the best that could come out of this would be Be, Inc. gets a nice chunk of money from Microsoft to help pay off creditors, etc. etc. And, of course, Microsoft gets another slap on the hand.
I also think this may have been prompted by Netscape's lawsuit in the wake of the antitrust ruling. Netscape is complaining about the monopoly on browsers, Be is complaining about the monopoly on OS's.
Oh right, like MicroStuff themselves are not going to continue to spend billions of dollars telling everyone that they are being persecuted for inovating, (sic)that they have exonerated (sic)themselves beyond a shodow (sic)of a doubt and that they will continue to bring you the world's finest software without interuption. (sic)The spin never stops.
But these are depositions. Whatever is said outside the courtroom doesn't really have any bearing on what the contents of the depos are. Any attorney with half a brain will not allow the PR line to be the entirety of the testimony. In fact, I seriously doubt that any of Microsoft's public mouthpieces will even get a subpeona.
Pray tell, why are you here defending the evil empire's preference for the dark?
I'm not. I can read the depositions, and they won't be full of spin. As I said in the previous post, those become part of the court record, available for anyone to examine.
Reason only works with truth, and the truth only comes from informed but disinterested third parties.
And herein lies the fallacy of your argument. You, as a person, simply because you exist, have the ability to reason. You are capable of taking information from many different sources and divining the truth from those sources. Sure, the story you get from MSNBC will be slanted towards MS. The kewl story posted here will be slanted towards Microsoft's detractors. Read the two, and decide for yourself where the truth lies. You can do that, can't you?
If only they would put 1/100th of that money and effort into implimenting (sic)widely accepted standards and security measures, they would not need to break the law.
Somehow I think it'd take more than that to make Windows secure. But I'm from the camp that says it's eternally fsck'd due to the attempts to keep it backwards-compatible. Their securest system, NT, has morphed into XP, which has already developed serious security holes. If they were smart, they'd start with a BSD core OS, and build up from there.
Press won't be allowed to witness the depositions. BFD, really, as those often don't take place in court. The proceedings in court, however, cannot be private.
And the depositions become public record once they're submitted as part of the case. So, there won't be any reporter's spin on what he saw/heard during the depositions....you'll just have to read them yourself.
"Commercial broadcasting in this country gets access to the radio/TV airwaves at a fraction of their true market value. You get at least as much of a subsidy as public broadcasting."
And since when could access to the airwaves, or frequencies, for that matter be bought or sold? I'm absolutely certain that each station would buy its piece of the air if it was allowed to do so. Instead, commercial broadcasters are forced to grovel with the government every few years to ensure access. I don't think private ownership of frequencies will ever happen, however, because then the government wouldn't be able to influence what happens on the airwaves. Mild censorship, if you will.
"Another techniques used by radio broadcasters is to speed up music by 3-4%. This over time gives a lot more room for more commercials or even more songs (since many stations promote X number of songs per hour."
There are other reasons for speeding up songs. Say you're running an oh-so-hip top 40 station, and Coldplay (Radiohead wannabes they are) manages to break into the top 40 with one of thier whiny slow disasters......and you're trying to keep the station sounding "up." You speed the song up a bit so that you don't put the audience to sleep when you have to play that piece o' crap. It used to be alot easier to do with a turntable; it can be done with a professional CD player, and it's beyond easy with a computer.
"One poster mentioned that this could be used on commercials, thus giving space for more commercials, but this technique would not be allowed. The contracts (at least those that I have seen) stipulate that such measures cannot be taken during their commercials,"
Depends on your interpretation, I suppose, but what a station sells is a block of time, usually:30 or:60. Locally-produced spots are routinely compressed/expanded to fit into those confines (done it many times, myself), and it wouldn't suprise me if the same thing was done to national spots. ProTools has a nifty utility that does this amazingly well. I've gotten spoiled doing it lately (only takes 4-5 sec on a G4, where it took like 5 minutes on an old PPC).
PBS does receive tax dollars, although you have to follow the money a bit to find out where it comes from. According to this page, PBS receives "grants" from The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Dept. of Education. Anyone with half a brain ought to understand that "grants" from DOE are direct taxpayer money. Now, where does CPB receieve its money? Congress.
And we all know where *they* get their money. Out of my paycheck twice a month. So, yes, I'm forced to support my competition.
And to top it off, PBS runs commercials, too. According to the report I already linked, they received $176 mil. in "Program Underwriting." That's the Archer Daniels Midland spot you see going into each segment of Newshour with Jim Lehrer.
Yes, and it's more common than you'd think. They range from things as simple as contract disputes (Gov't and private contractor), to things as far-reaching as the Tobacco Lawsuits.
Ahh, but they need only do it and hear their users complain for a little while. Once there are 30-some million AOL users who have switched to Gecko, website developers will write pages that will display correctly in it. It'd be foolish for them to do otherwise.
Actually, the Postal Service is wholly owned by the Government, but run as a private corporation. The Federal Government is the only shareholder, and thus elects the board, etc. etc. Government corporations are not at all uncommon....many cities and school divisions (colleges, too) operate exactly the same way.
FWIW, I submitted this story and it was rejected....
But, that's not my point. What incintive does MS have to add new features now? They've eliminated all the commercial competition for desktop OS's, so even with users clammoring for more features, users are stuck with Microsoft.
What about Linux?
Okay, yes, sure. And Linux (and BSD) are more secure than Windows, but in many respects aren't as feature-rich yet (flame away, but I'm a confirmed Linux user). So, Microsoft's stands fast on features while it brings its security up to speed, and hopes that alternatives don't surpass Windows, feature-wise.
And how many users do they lose in the meantime?
The truth of your conclusions is based upon the truth of your underlying assumptions. Here, yours, AC, are wrong. I'd venture to say that most desktop systems are used for things *other* than games. Personally, I use mine probably 75% of the time on other activities (internet, business apps, music, pr0n, etc. etc).
For those activities, stability is important. There's nothing more annoying than Netscape locking up Win98 when I'm doing something as simple as sending an IM. Linux *never* does that.
As far as whether or not this series is a good idea, I don't know. For me, choosing to use the preemptable patch was simple; I play MP3's while compiling code. A better idea might be to distribute the patches with the latest kernel versions as part of the tarball, and let people decide whether or not they want to use them. If there's concern that a particular patch will lessen stability, put it in the documentation.
No, follow the money. "Mister Congressman," the NPR guy would beg, "We need more money so that we can implement streaming audio."
"Okay, I'll support more funding for you if you consider using this codec that is marketed by a company in my district......"
"Sure thing, sir. Anything you want."
NPR would be the first to use Microsoft, just like the rest of the Government.
Viable open-source players and streaming mechanisms need to be pitched to the commercial broadcasters (I am one, BTW) as an economically-viable way for them to increase their audience. NPR doesn't care about its audience; it doesn't have to. NPR will exist so long as the politicians decide to keep it in existance, even if *nobody* listens. NPR doesn't care about making money; it doesn't have to. NPR, therefore, never does anything groundbreaking.
I've read several of the comments here, and there seems to be somewhat of a consensus that universities have policies which would be otherwise unconscionable.
So why do universities abuse students the way that they do?
Because nobody challenges them. Public universities, especially, are bound by the constraints of being government actors. They write these draconian policies mostly to discourage activities they don't want occurring. It scares the students into complying.
But what if you're caught in noncomplience? What if the rule is something a state actor can't do? (such as the illegal searches and seizures described in this thread)
The fastest way to get a university to change a policy is to retain an attorney. Universities hate lawsuits because it brings those unconscionable policies into the public eye. Normally they'll back off when you tell them that you've merely retained an attorney. I've personally seen several instances of this in my own tiny, conservative, southern university.
Recommended Reading: The Shadow University by Kors and Silverman. I think I paid like fifteen bucks for it on Amazon. It'll give you a better understanding of the near-criminal enterprise that is modern academia.
Slashdot Mirror
This is all well and good, but a much more effective distributed computing project would be one that would help the National Weather Service (where most meterological outlets still get their info) predict the weather for the next few days. They use a series of computers for simulation and then make an educated guess based on the runs of those models. Imagine, however, if instead of four or five test runs, they've got thousands to choose from.....
Just a thought.
Isn't Rogan also one of those Republican party hacks who was very active in the House's prosecution of Clinton's impeachment?
That's one way of putting it, but from everything I've seen/read/heard about Rogan, he's a reasonable fellow. If I remember correctly, he was involved in the impeachment process because of his qualifications as a lawyer. It cost him his seat in Congress, if it makes you feel any better. One of those principle/duty versus practicality things. Doesn't bode well for those who think he's paid for.
Before you get on your high horse, you would do well to remember that it was your pal Slick Willie who signed the DMCA into law.
And Senator Foghorn Leghorn (Fritzie Hollings, the junior senator from South Carolina) is a Democrat, too. That said, there are many Republicans who support this bill. Would the president sign it if it got to his desk? Probably, unfortunately. Bill's biggest opponent in Congress? Patrick Leahy, a Democrat.
I think a big problem we've got here is that this isn't the kind of bill that's got the run-of-the mill congressman (like my undistinguished one) interested -- they'll vote whichever way the party leadership tells them to. Letters might help, but I think this is something that somebody important is going to have to pickup on, and sway quite a few votes. I'd focus on the senators whose states have the most to lose by open source development being hurt....
John Edwards and Jesse Helms, North Carolina
John Warner and George Allen, Virginia
Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, New York
and so on....
And I'm not a member of either party...I belong to one of those third, so-called unimportant ones. If you're interested....click here.
It has become a quite good app; the same could be said of many open-source products. I was thinking about this the other day....I'm in my fifth year of college, and I graduate next month. When I started, I couldn't do my work on Linux without either spending loads of $$ for ported commercial products, or constantly grinding my teeth. Two and a half years ago, I went pretty much linux all the time, using StarOffice as my suite. Still, I was stuck with Netscape 4.x as my browser. But now, I'm able to do all my work in a pure open-source environment (I'm not a CS major...I'm one of those social science types). It's a big change. Mozilla is a very good product. Congrats, and thanks folks.
--typing this on Galeon, one of the many Mozilla kids.
"Nice to see a lawyer doing something community-oriented for a change (even if they are just trying to make a profit from it)."
I've seen some good comments on this thread, and normally I'd burn mod points modding some of them up, but I had to check in.
From my reading of the story, they're not doing this for community service, or to make a profit. You don't profit from a civil claim against someone; you receive compensation for damages incurred. From the way that things are explained, that's exactly what the California statute allows...a maximum of $25k/day recovery against a spammer.
Does the community at large benefit from this suit? Yes, of course it does. If MoFo gets a recovery, others will be prompted to seek recovery against spammers, since precident has been established.
Are they making a profit? No, I don't think so. They're expending capital to pursue the complaint (costs $$ just to file a complaint in most places, and since this isn't a simple case, there'll be quite a few man hours invested into research and discovery), and there's no guarantee that they'll recover anything at all. And that's already on top of the losses they contend they have incurred due to spam.
Modularize system (kernel, GUI, IE, Messenger, drivers) and allow to use/change each module separately
Relating back to the recent poll about which flavour of windoze you prefer...
GUI was integrated into the NT Kernel in version 4.0. It was the biggest mistake MS ever made with NT, IMHO.
I think separating the two would be quite difficult.
I bought a copy of OS/2 Warp 3.0 in 1994, shortly after it came out. I liked it quite a bit, then.
It did take me awhile to get it running.
- Sound Card/CD gremlins. I had an Ensoniq sound card, which was pretty damn nice at the time. It supported a standard Panasonic 2x CDROM. All of this stuff came in a package by the now-defunct company Reveal (anyone remember those guys?). The card didn't really do anything via hardware; you'd have to boot DOS, initialize the card, then do a quick three-finger salute to get OS/2 to recognize the drive (had to do this with Linux, too). I finally gave up and bought a SB16.
- HPFS. It was very, very cool at the time. No, it wasn't considerably faster than FAT (as so trumpted by IBM...and I did benchmarks on this to test). Of course, if you didn't buy the expensive version with a second copy of Windoze, you had to have a FAT partition somewhere. And that none of the existing Windoze applications could use long filenames....
- REXX. I enjoyed messing around with it quite a bit. I'd like to see a nice version of it for Linux.
Once I got things working with OS/2, I used it for several months, until MS decided it liked me and started giving me free software (I beta-tested MSN.....so shoot me). I also started running Linux about this time, ran short on disk space, and OS/2 went away.
A couple of years later, with more RAM and more disk space, I re-installed OS/2 on my old machine. On a P-66 with 24MB, it absolutely flew....totally blew Win95 away. Netscape 2.something ran fine, as did the 16-bit Win apps I was still running.
I ran short on cash one day and decided to auction my copy off. I think I sold it for fifteen bucks. Now, that old P-66 is sitting in the corner. I wish I had a copy to install on it. Instead, I think it'll probably become a diskless workstation running Linux.
Advertising.....Anyone remember the "IBM OS/2 Warp Fiesta Bowl?"
With his emphasis on HID. I've seen the iMac in person, and I instantly wanted one. The Gateway, on the other hand, is ugly.
iMac: Fits nicely into the corner of your contemporary flat.
Profile: Fits nicely into the corner of your cell in the cube farm.
....and already slahsdotted. Arrgh. Off to Google to look for a cached version.
"Especially with a Lawyer dumb enough to take the case on a contingency basis."
No, since they're only dealing in torts, contingency is a good way to go about it. If they win, the attorney gets a nice cut.
"Susman Godfrey L.L.P. is a law firm that limits its practice to litigation, on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants.
Gee, that seems awfully limiting...."
Just means that they concentrate on litigation cases. In other words, they'd have nothing to with something like a criminal complaint. There are lots of firms that are limited to one area of practice.
As for the merits of the case.....
IANAL (yet), but the best that could come out of this would be Be, Inc. gets a nice chunk of money from Microsoft to help pay off creditors, etc. etc. And, of course, Microsoft gets another slap on the hand.
I also think this may have been prompted by Netscape's lawsuit in the wake of the antitrust ruling. Netscape is complaining about the monopoly on browsers, Be is complaining about the monopoly on OS's.
Oh right, like MicroStuff themselves are not going to continue to spend billions of dollars telling everyone that they are being persecuted for inovating, (sic)that they have exonerated (sic)themselves beyond a shodow (sic)of a doubt and that they will continue to bring you the world's finest software without interuption. (sic)The spin never stops.
But these are depositions. Whatever is said outside the courtroom doesn't really have any bearing on what the contents of the depos are. Any attorney with half a brain will not allow the PR line to be the entirety of the testimony. In fact, I seriously doubt that any of Microsoft's public mouthpieces will even get a subpeona.
Pray tell, why are you here defending the evil empire's preference for the dark?
I'm not. I can read the depositions, and they won't be full of spin. As I said in the previous post, those become part of the court record, available for anyone to examine.
Reason only works with truth, and the truth only comes from informed but disinterested third parties.
And herein lies the fallacy of your argument. You, as a person, simply because you exist, have the ability to reason. You are capable of taking information from many different sources and divining the truth from those sources. Sure, the story you get from MSNBC will be slanted towards MS. The kewl story posted here will be slanted towards Microsoft's detractors. Read the two, and decide for yourself where the truth lies. You can do that, can't you?
If only they would put 1/100th of that money and effort into implimenting (sic)widely accepted standards and security measures, they would not need to break the law.
Somehow I think it'd take more than that to make Windows secure. But I'm from the camp that says it's eternally fsck'd due to the attempts to keep it backwards-compatible. Their securest system, NT, has morphed into XP, which has already developed serious security holes. If they were smart, they'd start with a BSD core OS, and build up from there.
But that has little chance of ever happening.
Press won't be allowed to witness the depositions. BFD, really, as those often don't take place in court. The proceedings in court, however, cannot be private.
And the depositions become public record once they're submitted as part of the case. So, there won't be any reporter's spin on what he saw/heard during the depositions....you'll just have to read them yourself.
...while they de-ice your plane for the fifth time. And just think, you could plan your layovers around it.
4 hours in Minneapolis.....high speed access....I can grab copies of....
Inevitably, it'll just mean a reduction in Playboy/Penthouse/Hustler sales for the airport newstands.
"Commercial broadcasting in this country gets access to the radio/TV airwaves at a fraction of their true market value. You get at least as much of a subsidy as public broadcasting."
And since when could access to the airwaves, or frequencies, for that matter be bought or sold? I'm absolutely certain that each station would buy its piece of the air if it was allowed to do so. Instead, commercial broadcasters are forced to grovel with the government every few years to ensure access. I don't think private ownership of frequencies will ever happen, however, because then the government wouldn't be able to influence what happens on the airwaves. Mild censorship, if you will.
"Another techniques used by radio broadcasters is to speed up music by 3-4%. This over time gives a lot more room for more commercials or even more songs (since many stations promote X number of songs per hour."
:30 or :60. Locally-produced spots are routinely compressed/expanded to fit into those confines (done it many times, myself), and it wouldn't suprise me if the same thing was done to national spots. ProTools has a nifty utility that does this amazingly well. I've gotten spoiled doing it lately (only takes 4-5 sec on a G4, where it took like 5 minutes on an old PPC).
There are other reasons for speeding up songs. Say you're running an oh-so-hip top 40 station, and Coldplay (Radiohead wannabes they are) manages to break into the top 40 with one of thier whiny slow disasters......and you're trying to keep the station sounding "up." You speed the song up a bit so that you don't put the audience to sleep when you have to play that piece o' crap. It used to be alot easier to do with a turntable; it can be done with a professional CD player, and it's beyond easy with a computer.
"One poster mentioned that this could be used on commercials, thus giving space for more commercials, but this technique would not be allowed. The contracts (at least those that I have seen) stipulate that such measures cannot be taken during their commercials,"
Depends on your interpretation, I suppose, but what a station sells is a block of time, usually
PBS does receive tax dollars, although you have to follow the money a bit to find out where it comes from. According to this page, PBS receives "grants" from The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Dept. of Education. Anyone with half a brain ought to understand that "grants" from DOE are direct taxpayer money. Now, where does CPB receieve its money? Congress.
And we all know where *they* get their money. Out of my paycheck twice a month. So, yes, I'm forced to support my competition.
And to top it off, PBS runs commercials, too. According to the report I already linked, they received $176 mil. in "Program Underwriting." That's the Archer Daniels Midland spot you see going into each segment of Newshour with Jim Lehrer.
Flame away.....
Yes, and it's more common than you'd think. They range from things as simple as contract disputes (Gov't and private contractor), to things as far-reaching as the Tobacco Lawsuits.
Ahh, but they need only do it and hear their users complain for a little while. Once there are 30-some million AOL users who have switched to Gecko, website developers will write pages that will display correctly in it. It'd be foolish for them to do otherwise.
Actually, the Postal Service is wholly owned by the Government, but run as a private corporation. The Federal Government is the only shareholder, and thus elects the board, etc. etc. Government corporations are not at all uncommon....many cities and school divisions (colleges, too) operate exactly the same way.
FWIW, I submitted this story and it was rejected....
But, that's not my point. What incintive does MS have to add new features now? They've eliminated all the commercial competition for desktop OS's, so even with users clammoring for more features, users are stuck with Microsoft.
What about Linux?
Okay, yes, sure. And Linux (and BSD) are more secure than Windows, but in many respects aren't as feature-rich yet (flame away, but I'm a confirmed Linux user). So, Microsoft's stands fast on features while it brings its security up to speed, and hopes that alternatives don't surpass Windows, feature-wise.
And how many users do they lose in the meantime?
Not many.
Maybe people will pay more attention when there's reports of (glowing) green men emerging from craters in the desert.......
The truth of your conclusions is based upon the truth of your underlying assumptions. Here, yours, AC, are wrong. I'd venture to say that most desktop systems are used for things *other* than games. Personally, I use mine probably 75% of the time on other activities (internet, business apps, music, pr0n, etc. etc).
For those activities, stability is important. There's nothing more annoying than Netscape locking up Win98 when I'm doing something as simple as sending an IM. Linux *never* does that.
As far as whether or not this series is a good idea, I don't know. For me, choosing to use the preemptable patch was simple; I play MP3's while compiling code. A better idea might be to distribute the patches with the latest kernel versions as part of the tarball, and let people decide whether or not they want to use them. If there's concern that a particular patch will lessen stability, put it in the documentation.
Assuming you're running the *same* software....
Code bloat strikes again!
*yawn* Twelve hours on the air on the 24th....
/.
:-)
Nine more tonight into the 26th....
I get to tell everyone that it might snow. And read
Bliss.
Radio never sleeps.
No, follow the money. "Mister Congressman," the NPR guy would beg, "We need more money so that we can implement streaming audio."
"Okay, I'll support more funding for you if you consider using this codec that is marketed by a company in my district......"
"Sure thing, sir. Anything you want."
NPR would be the first to use Microsoft, just like the rest of the Government.
Viable open-source players and streaming mechanisms need to be pitched to the commercial broadcasters (I am one, BTW) as an economically-viable way for them to increase their audience. NPR doesn't care about its audience; it doesn't have to. NPR will exist so long as the politicians decide to keep it in existance, even if *nobody* listens. NPR doesn't care about making money; it doesn't have to. NPR, therefore, never does anything groundbreaking.
I've read several of the comments here, and there seems to be somewhat of a consensus that universities have policies which would be otherwise unconscionable. So why do universities abuse students the way that they do? Because nobody challenges them. Public universities, especially, are bound by the constraints of being government actors. They write these draconian policies mostly to discourage activities they don't want occurring. It scares the students into complying. But what if you're caught in noncomplience? What if the rule is something a state actor can't do? (such as the illegal searches and seizures described in this thread) The fastest way to get a university to change a policy is to retain an attorney. Universities hate lawsuits because it brings those unconscionable policies into the public eye. Normally they'll back off when you tell them that you've merely retained an attorney. I've personally seen several instances of this in my own tiny, conservative, southern university. Recommended Reading: The Shadow University by Kors and Silverman. I think I paid like fifteen bucks for it on Amazon. It'll give you a better understanding of the near-criminal enterprise that is modern academia.