Way before the G3... try to Mac IIci/cx form factor... you took out one screw, and practically every component would then slide out, pop up, or otherwise become accessible. It always reminded me of the bugs bunny cartoon where Bugs undoes one bolt on the back of a tank and the whole thing falls apart...
According to the website, it comes with a VNC client. THAT would be a cool use of bandwidth... A commodore 64 with VNC capability would be a really cool, really retro, really cheap way to have a virtual console... Amaze your friends by showing them solaris, windows XP AND linux all running from a C-64!
If it had an ssh client, that would literally be everything I needed to telecommute.
When I wrote that, I laughed at it, and left it there because I thought it was a funny statement. I guess if I had attached a smiley to it you might have understood.
While I'm all for standards, yes, it is a fact that the goals of the Open Source movement are not the same as the average end user. IF they WERE the same, then I doubt the open source movement ever would have started in the first place.
Why is this a bad thing? Can't we have different goals? While I'd like a little more acceptance, I'm fine with the fact that I will probably always be in a minority of operating system users. I'm also in a minority by having an above-average intelligence.
This is not a zero-sum game... I don't care if Windows or Linux has the larger market share... I just care if I can get my job sone with a minimal amount of hassle.
I'm late to the party with this reply, but I'm posting it anyway for posterity. Someday I'll find this message and link back to it.
Windows IS insecure by design. The Virii and worms that are happening now are pissing people off. In the future, Microsoft will bring the 'security' scheme from the XBox to Windows... code will have to be signed by Microsoft in order to run on Windows. the press will love it, and you will see tons of articles saying things like "Microsoft gets Security Right" and "Microsoft Announces the End of Virii".
And in the end, you and I won't be allowed to fire up a compiler and write a trivial little 'Hello World' program without buying a runtime license from Microsoft, which will be embeded in every program you write.
Innovation will be stifled... I doubt Microsoft will be very license-friendly to Sun, or Apache, or Cygwin, etc.
Microsoft's own lax security is a plan to pave the way to their heavy handed takeover of your computer.
I'm surprised noboday has pointed out the possibility of a conspiracy theory here. On the surface, the timing appears as if Microsoft is taking advantage of an opportunity to look like they have a better license, making them look like the wiser choice again linux to large organizations...
But what if the timing went something more like this:
--- 6 months ago, in a large penthouse office someplace in Seattle...
Gates: "Hey... I have a great idea on how to combat linux!"
Lackey: "That's a great idea sir!"
Gates: "Wait... I haven't said anything yet..."
Lackey: "Oh. Sorry..."
Gates: "We can hit them with their openness... we find some company with a strong unix background, and we make them an offer they can't refuse..."
Lackey: "go on..."
Gates: "We tell them to throw up a nonsenical lawsuit, casting all kinds of doubt on the intellectual property in linux... They won't even have to prove that, and they won't ever actually say what it is... we can lend them our expertise in manipulating the legal system. They can sue someone, oh, like... IBM... I don't like them much anyway."
Lackey: "But how does that help us?"
Gates: "Well, we will come out and acknowledge that they may have some merit by 'buying' a license for the intellectual property."
Lackey: "uh huh..."
Gates: "And then we can blow smoke up a bunch of reporter's asses, and get them to build up this 'lawsuit' as a big threat to linux."
Lackey: "Great Idea, Sir!"
Gates: "Wait... I'm not done."
Lackey: "Sorry..."
Dates: "And then, just when every company is beginning to worry if the IP lawsuit will affect them, we change our license to make it look like we are the only safe choice! The press will eat that up!"
Lackey: "Great Idea, sir!"
Gates: "Now... which 'unix' company can we bribe with this plan? Sun? No... they still hate us over that whole 'Java' thing... Apple? No... they aren't new enough to unix yet, and we are going to screw them with the whole IE annoucement soon anyway..."
Lackey: "What about IBM, Sir?"
Gates: "You dolt... they are the TARGET of the plan! Besides, they have too much cash to be susceptable to my bribe... I know! SCO! Yes, SCO! They are down and out! they need my money! And they just might have the background in unix to pull this off!"
Lackey: "But sir, haven't they been SUPPORTING linux?"
Gates: "Ah, my dear lackey... you underestimate the power of the almighty dollar. Get me the CEO of SCO on the phone...."
The popular slang for $1000 is either a 'grand' or a 'large'. As in, "I bought that car for 2 grand", or "the guy is selling that car for 2 large". Californian's are just strange.
Those loyalty cards are now in just about every grocery store across the U.S... I wonder if the shopping records have ever been subpoened for a lawsuit...
"Sir, can you tell me why you were buying condoms when your wife was on birth control?"
I am a Java developer, and I have used the LGPL on work (and also used work that HAS been LGPLed).
My intent in using the LGPL is pretty simple: If you want to use my library, go ahead. If you make CHANGES to my library, those have to be released back into the wild, so the library can be improved by everyone's improvements. I'm not a 'Free Software' zealot - I'm an open-source pragmatist.
If the LGPL does not meet this intent with Java, then we should find or write a license that has this intent. Perhaps one of the ones at Creative Commons would work...
Re:Why a Large Bank Junked Java
on
Preview of Java 1.5
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I'm tired of hearing that 'java isn't used in real-world applications", then some stupid example touted as proof. Java is used in plenty of real-world scenarios. The U.S. State Department uses java, and so do a large number of countries around the world to aid in the export control of nuclear, chemical, biological, and other hazardous materials.
I showed this to my wife (yes, I'm one of lucky slashdotters that gets laid occasionally!), and she noticed that in plural, they would be called 'iLoos'... which sounds an awful lot like "I Lose".
Microsoft's R&D AND marketing should be demoted for this one...
For all those interesting in using this database with java, it might be helpful to know that the TriActive JDO implementation (tjdo.sourceforge.net) provides an open source JDO implementation that uses firebird.
Regarding tghe matter thing balancing itself out, this is exactly what happens in the Terminator movies (at least in the books). If you see the way the effect works, a 'sphere' of space around the teleporter actually disappears (I think in the movie, this showed as a circular cut into a chain link fence).
Did anyone watch the show '7 Days'? Used to be on UPN, about 5 years ago.
In the pilot episode, they explained that the joystick-thing he used to keep the sphere with 6 'prongs' off of it aligned onto 6 points was actually a mechanism the pilot used to steer the craft through space-time so that he would end up at the same point relative to the Earth when he left.
Whatever writer came up with that was a serious sci-fi fan. The explanation in the show was cool, and the graphic visualization really did make you think of 4 dimensions mapped down to 3 (the same way that a shadow is 3 dimensions mapped down to 2).
SG-1 has gone downhill in the past few years. SciFi has been rerunning all the episodes at a frantic rate so I've gotten the chance to compare new against old. (if it weren't for TiVo, I wouldn't be able to keep up).
StarGate has all but dropped the mythology and the integration of sci fi and ancient civilization stuff... In past years, they were able to weave an incredible tale based on facts of Egyptian Mythology. Recently, they have pretty much forgotten this stuff. The cliffhanger this year has the opportunity to bring that back though.
Slashdot readers like this show for one simple reason...
He is the only human, so he's the only person the audience can identify with (at least, the male 13-21 age group), and he gets laid by a hot chick.
Wrap that up in sci-fi, action, what have you, and its a no-brainer for this audience.
Subtract that, and you have a soap opera. "If John Criton the father of her baby? Yes! No! Yes! No! Even if it IS him, it MIGHT actually be his clone's kid!"
I watch the show because my wife watches it, but I have never been able to take the muppets seriously.
Oh! I should also recommend "After the Gold Rush", for arguments on the opposite end of this spectrum. This is also a fantastic book that helped me form my own conclusions.
That book is currently out of print, but the author has a website with the contents of the upcoming second edition.
While I liked it, and found it a nice framework in which to hang many thoughts on, I would recommend 'the Pragmatic Programmer' by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas over this book. McBreen actually quotes that book so often in this one that I often wondered, "so, what was the point of this book then?"
Does anyone here watch Angel? If you watch Angel and don't know Lorna Grene, you've missed a great inside joke...
The green 'demon-like' character who can see people's future when they sing... the first few seasons, we didn't know his name, just referred to as 'the Host'. Then, we find out his first name was 'Lorne'. When asked why he didn't go by it, he said, "Hello... I'm green... Lorne Green? LORNE GREENE?"
Its *not* a bug if they designed the software to do this... I'm not saying the old adage "its not a bug, its a FEATURES!", but if it was clearly spelled out in their requirements for TurboTax, as a system constraint, that implementation of a copy protection scheme wuld be allowed to do things that make smart people cringe and moan in disrespect, then that was something they purposefully decided.
Now, if it is news to the project development team that they are abusing the boot sector, then that would be a bug.
My guess is your 'bug report' will be closed as 'Operating as Expected, not a bug', or something similar.
Who is this guy anyway? See the photo in the upper right hand corner of the page, with the cherubic face? Doesn't he look like a white Gary Coleman?
Oh who am I kidding... noone will go and read the article anyway, and I'm probably the only one reading slashdot old enough to remember "Diff'rent Strokes"
Sgreed that Microsoft will use this as some kind of 'chit' in a future legal defense. The OSS camp has to be prepared to use Microsofts PREVIOUS arguments against them, such as, "Cost of the software is just one aspect of total cost of ownership".
Slashdot Mirror
Way before the G3... try to Mac IIci/cx form factor... you took out one screw, and practically every component would then slide out, pop up, or otherwise become accessible. It always reminded me of the bugs bunny cartoon where Bugs undoes one bolt on the back of a tank and the whole thing falls apart...
According to the website, it comes with a VNC client. THAT would be a cool use of bandwidth... A commodore 64 with VNC capability would be a really cool, really retro, really cheap way to have a virtual console... Amaze your friends by showing them solaris, windows XP AND linux all running from a C-64!
If it had an ssh client, that would literally be everything I needed to telecommute.
When I wrote that, I laughed at it, and left it there because I thought it was a funny statement. I guess if I had attached a smiley to it you might have understood.
While I'm all for standards, yes, it is a fact that the goals of the Open Source movement are not the same as the average end user. IF they WERE the same, then I doubt the open source movement ever would have started in the first place.
Why is this a bad thing? Can't we have different goals? While I'd like a little more acceptance, I'm fine with the fact that I will probably always be in a minority of operating system users. I'm also in a minority by having an above-average intelligence.
This is not a zero-sum game... I don't care if Windows or Linux has the larger market share... I just care if I can get my job sone with a minimal amount of hassle.
I'm late to the party with this reply, but I'm posting it anyway for posterity. Someday I'll find this message and link back to it.
Windows IS insecure by design. The Virii and worms that are happening now are pissing people off. In the future, Microsoft will bring the 'security' scheme from the XBox to Windows... code will have to be signed by Microsoft in order to run on Windows. the press will love it, and you will see tons of articles saying things like "Microsoft gets Security Right" and "Microsoft Announces the End of Virii".
And in the end, you and I won't be allowed to fire up a compiler and write a trivial little 'Hello World' program without buying a runtime license from Microsoft, which will be embeded in every program you write.
Innovation will be stifled... I doubt Microsoft will be very license-friendly to Sun, or Apache, or Cygwin, etc.
Microsoft's own lax security is a plan to pave the way to their heavy handed takeover of your computer.
mark my words.
I'm surprised noboday has pointed out the possibility of a conspiracy theory here. On the surface, the timing appears as if Microsoft is taking advantage of an opportunity to look like they have a better license, making them look like the wiser choice again linux to large organizations...
But what if the timing went something more like this:
---
6 months ago, in a large penthouse office someplace in Seattle...
Gates: "Hey... I have a great idea on how to combat linux!"
Lackey: "That's a great idea sir!"
Gates: "Wait... I haven't said anything yet..."
Lackey: "Oh. Sorry..."
Gates: "We can hit them with their openness... we find some company with a strong unix background, and we make them an offer they can't refuse..."
Lackey: "go on..."
Gates: "We tell them to throw up a nonsenical lawsuit, casting all kinds of doubt on the intellectual property in linux... They won't even have to prove that, and they won't ever actually say what it is... we can lend them our expertise in manipulating the legal system. They can sue someone, oh, like... IBM... I don't like them much anyway."
Lackey: "But how does that help us?"
Gates: "Well, we will come out and acknowledge that they may have some merit by 'buying' a license for the intellectual property."
Lackey: "uh huh..."
Gates: "And then we can blow smoke up a bunch of reporter's asses, and get them to build up this 'lawsuit' as a big threat to linux."
Lackey: "Great Idea, Sir!"
Gates: "Wait... I'm not done."
Lackey: "Sorry..."
Dates: "And then, just when every company is beginning to worry if the IP lawsuit will affect them, we change our license to make it look like we are the only safe choice! The press will eat that up!"
Lackey: "Great Idea, sir!"
Gates: "Now... which 'unix' company can we bribe with this plan? Sun? No... they still hate us over that whole 'Java' thing... Apple? No... they aren't new enough to unix yet, and we are going to screw them with the whole IE annoucement soon anyway..."
Lackey: "What about IBM, Sir?"
Gates: "You dolt... they are the TARGET of the plan! Besides, they have too much cash to be susceptable to my bribe... I know! SCO! Yes, SCO! They are down and out! they need my money! And they just might have the background in unix to pull this off!"
Lackey: "But sir, haven't they been SUPPORTING linux?"
Gates: "Ah, my dear lackey... you underestimate the power of the almighty dollar. Get me the CEO of SCO on the phone...."
Lackey: "Great Idea, sir!"
The popular slang for $1000 is either a 'grand' or a 'large'. As in, "I bought that car for 2 grand", or "the guy is selling that car for 2 large". Californian's are just strange.
Those loyalty cards are now in just about every grocery store across the U.S... I wonder if the shopping records have ever been subpoened for a lawsuit...
"Sir, can you tell me why you were buying condoms when your wife was on birth control?"
I am a Java developer, and I have used the LGPL on work (and also used work that HAS been LGPLed).
My intent in using the LGPL is pretty simple: If you want to use my library, go ahead. If you make CHANGES to my library, those have to be released back into the wild, so the library can be improved by everyone's improvements. I'm not a 'Free Software' zealot - I'm an open-source pragmatist.
If the LGPL does not meet this intent with Java, then we should find or write a license that has this intent. Perhaps one of the ones at Creative Commons would work...
I'm tired of hearing that 'java isn't used in real-world applications", then some stupid example touted as proof. Java is used in plenty of real-world scenarios. The U.S. State Department uses java, and so do a large number of countries around the world to aid in the export control of nuclear, chemical, biological, and other hazardous materials.
before you troll about 'serious 3d graphics', I think you should take a look at Java 3D and applications that use it such as WilmaScope>/a>
I showed this to my wife (yes, I'm one of lucky slashdotters that gets laid occasionally!), and she noticed that in plural, they would be called 'iLoos'... which sounds an awful lot like "I Lose".
Microsoft's R&D AND marketing should be demoted for this one...
-db
How about having the Onion patent the idea? they obviously have the prior art... I wonder how much Microsoft would pay for the patent?
I think KRC has a trademark on that term... they may come after you. The Colnel may start a denial-of-chicken attack against you and your family.
For all those interesting in using this database with java, it might be helpful to know that the TriActive JDO implementation (tjdo.sourceforge.net) provides an open source JDO implementation that uses firebird.
Regarding tghe matter thing balancing itself out, this is exactly what happens in the Terminator movies (at least in the books). If you see the way the effect works, a 'sphere' of space around the teleporter actually disappears (I think in the movie, this showed as a circular cut into a chain link fence).
Did anyone watch the show '7 Days'? Used to be on UPN, about 5 years ago.
In the pilot episode, they explained that the joystick-thing he used to keep the sphere with 6 'prongs' off of it aligned onto 6 points was actually a mechanism the pilot used to steer the craft through space-time so that he would end up at the same point relative to the Earth when he left.
Whatever writer came up with that was a serious sci-fi fan. The explanation in the show was cool, and the graphic visualization really did make you think of 4 dimensions mapped down to 3 (the same way that a shadow is 3 dimensions mapped down to 2).
SG-1 has gone downhill in the past few years. SciFi has been rerunning all the episodes at a frantic rate so I've gotten the chance to compare new against old. (if it weren't for TiVo, I wouldn't be able to keep up).
StarGate has all but dropped the mythology and the integration of sci fi and ancient civilization stuff... In past years, they were able to weave an incredible tale based on facts of Egyptian Mythology. Recently, they have pretty much forgotten this stuff. The cliffhanger this year has the opportunity to bring that back though.
Slashdot readers like this show for one simple reason...
He is the only human, so he's the only person the audience can identify with (at least, the male 13-21 age group), and he gets laid by a hot chick.
Wrap that up in sci-fi, action, what have you, and its a no-brainer for this audience.
Subtract that, and you have a soap opera. "If John Criton the father of her baby? Yes! No! Yes! No! Even if it IS him, it MIGHT actually be his clone's kid!"
I watch the show because my wife watches it, but I have never been able to take the muppets seriously.
Oh! I should also recommend "After the Gold Rush", for arguments on the opposite end of this spectrum. This is also a fantastic book that helped me form my own conclusions.
That book is currently out of print, but the author has a website with the contents of the upcoming second edition.
http://www.stevemcconnell.com/gr2.htm
I have read this book.
While I liked it, and found it a nice framework in which to hang many thoughts on, I would recommend 'the Pragmatic Programmer' by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas over this book. McBreen actually quotes that book so often in this one that I often wondered, "so, what was the point of this book then?"
Does anyone here watch Angel? If you watch Angel and don't know Lorna Grene, you've missed a great inside joke...
The green 'demon-like' character who can see people's future when they sing... the first few seasons, we didn't know his name, just referred to as 'the Host'. Then, we find out his first name was 'Lorne'. When asked why he didn't go by it, he said, "Hello... I'm green... Lorne Green? LORNE GREENE?"
Such a great homage.
-db
Its *not* a bug if they designed the software to do this... I'm not saying the old adage "its not a bug, its a FEATURES!", but if it was clearly spelled out in their requirements for TurboTax, as a system constraint, that implementation of a copy protection scheme wuld be allowed to do things that make smart people cringe and moan in disrespect, then that was something they purposefully decided.
Now, if it is news to the project development team that they are abusing the boot sector, then that would be a bug.
My guess is your 'bug report' will be closed as 'Operating as Expected, not a bug', or something similar.
Who is this guy anyway? See the photo in the upper right hand corner of the page, with the cherubic face? Doesn't he look like a white Gary Coleman?
Oh who am I kidding... noone will go and read the article anyway, and I'm probably the only one reading slashdot old enough to remember "Diff'rent Strokes"
Sgreed that Microsoft will use this as some kind of 'chit' in a future legal defense. The OSS camp has to be prepared to use Microsofts PREVIOUS arguments against them, such as, "Cost of the software is just one aspect of total cost of ownership".