Actually, an OS can be an OS without loading user programs. Take an embedded OS. All it really needs to do is respond to IO (interact with hardware) and can have nothing at all to do with the user (a user can even be absent entirely from the equation.
I would add to this- there are girls out there who want someone geeky like us. I'm a case in point- when I first met my fiance, I agreed (though very reluctantly) to go with her and her two female friends to a goth dance club. At the time I had no idea how to dance. But I decided to hell with shyness and to hell with being alone. I went, determined to have a good time. Like I mentioned, one of the girls is now my fiance, but she also told me that her two friends also had their eyes on me. Yes, I'm bragging, but letting loose of your inhibitions and just having fun being yourself is a HUGE draw to a lot of girls. It's worked for me every time. Keep in mind that girls are far less VISUAL than guys. This means that many times just because you don't look like Ricky "I'm so fake I'm plastic" Martin doesn't mean you aren't interesting. Women are much more interested in finding the person beneath the exterior.
Just hack into the Texas system and erase your tickets and while you are in there give yourself diplomatic immunity so future tickets roll off your back like water off a duck.
Actually, you are right. The absolute theoretical point of Capitalism is to kill your competitor. In fact, the absolute highest point a company can achieve in the true spirit of capitalism is a monopoly. But the catch 22 situation is that once you have a monopoly, competition is no more, and capitalism dies. Capitalism sometimes grows up and kills it's father, a financial Oedipal Complex if you will.
Now the question is- do you allow a monopoly to grow and swallow competition? Obviously not... I won't go into economics, you all know the benefits of capitalism and competition.
The problem that I have (and most slashdotters) isn't the fact that they are a monopoly, per se. It's how they got there and what they are doing with it. They got there by stealing, bullying, lying, and betraying. Everyone know that. And while that might be capitalism, it's extreme capitalism. I like to think of it this way- if you put the mentality of the Microsoft business model and the argument that it's all just capitalism on top of, say, football, you'd have a team that carried knives and guns on to the field, stabbed their opponents while they were down, loaded the ball with explosives, etc. You might say that the goal of competition in this sense is to win at any cost- that's what you are there for. But there have to be rules- no one really wants to play a game for their life. If there are no rules it becomes pure bedlam. If a team played like that, they would not have much of a fan base for very long.
And what is Microsoft doing with the monopoly? When was the last time that you really were impressed with a new version of some software from them? I mean, from a serious look, not at frills like Active Desktop or the damn paper clip thing in word. Basically every new version of Microsoft product I have seen has been bigger, requires more processing power to use, and has been less usable and slower than ever. Take Office for example... half of the stuff that I could do in word '95 I have no earthly idea how to manage in Word '97.
As for Mr. Gates and his donations- whether or not he does it for the right or wrong reasons shouldn't matter- if someone in need gets some needs met as a result, more power to him. But I do have to ask- if you screw an entire industry for the sake of an extra dollar, do you really deserve to be treated like a "philanthropist" if you give some of it away? And how much and for how long do you donate before you aren't giving it away for the sake of making yourself look good. Like I said, it shouldn't matter, but to me, it does. I have watched him for years and this is just another maneuver.
I really hope that they do well. I am not of the camp that thinks that they are selling out. On the contrary, I think that they should finally be rewarded for the years of holding onto Linux even when it was just a hacker's dream. If it wasn't for Red Hat and the rest, Linux would have never cause Redmond any headaches at all.
Of course, which is more likely... that the 6 year old figured out how to hotwire the toy or the guy at the store didn't *really* unhook the battery and was hoping to avoid the inevitable lawsuit?
Right- You pay for cable and therefore you don't get commercials. You don't pay for network TV and you suffer through commercials. But you don't pay for cable so that they can put commercials in too.
But it's worse than that- you need a BIOS to run your computer. You don't need a TV. It's like a captive audience.
Of course, according to this, the applications (and windows 95) crash when the PC stops working correctly. Which is more likely, your PC "stops working correctly" or the operating system stops working correctly?
The failure of the government to see the correct path has nothing to do with guns.
The next time you feel like your precious gun is protecting you from your government, try this little test. Get as many of your friends that have weapons together and march on city hall, take it over, and make your own country. I think you'll find that you won't last long against the government. You'd need to have as big a budget as the Pentagon to compete, and I don't think anyone but Gates has it.
The right to bear arms is a hold over from Militia America, back in the early days of the country, when an army was just as much a bunch of men with guns as anything else. The Americans even succeeded because their militia tactics were new to the british. But the days of the need or the effectiveness of militia are long over. Now all that guns provide is an easy way to kill someone on the street or to hold up a liquor store. How many more kids are killed each year than militia men? Think about it.
I followed the link to "Reasons to upgrade" to windows 98. Here's my favorite bit:
What's the bext way to upgrade? Buy a new computer with a new OS already installed!!
"How to move to Windows NT Workstation 4.0 from Windows 95: The best way to move to Windows NT Workstation is to get it preinstalled on a Windows 2000 READY PC, which also provides the easiest possible upgrade path to Windows 2000 Professional. Find out about these high-performance computers..."
I have had it for about 2 months and I have loved every minute of it. I had a few minor problems with installation and I had excellent customer service fixing them.
What bothers me about this is that either MS or AOL getting anywhere near MediaOne is bound to screw things up. For one thing, cable modem companies right now enjoy virtual monopolies for that particular service. Like Microsoft needs another monopoly. I would hate to have to use MSCable to have the service I have enjoyed up to now. Or AOL, for that matter. Both of these companies, by the way, are known for attempting to force their way upon users. Here's what I see happening:
User: "Hello customer service? I can't seem to get my browser to work over my MSOne connection."
MSOne: "You need to be running IE 6.0 in order to connect to the internet."
User: "Has that been ported to Linux yet?"
MSOne: "We don't support Unixes or Macs with MSOne. Only PC's with Windows2000."
Ok. So I'm paranoid. The point is MediaOne is good. The connection is fast. The service is wonderful. MS and AOL will f*** it up. And I don't want either of them to get any more control than they already have.
... are we raising anyways? What kind of people will these kids, who think that ridiculing people who are different turn out to be? How can we even expect a tolerant society tomorrow if the kids of today are not taught to be tolerant today?
If we don't teach kids to act with decency to others then they won't act decently to others as adults.
Hell Yes- "Saved by the Bell" however, was one of the worst shows on record for it's treatment of people who are different. They played up on stereotypes more than I have seen since the 50's!
Even if in a fair fight on a multi-processor machine NT kicks linux's rear to cleveland and back. The fact remains that Linux has gone from an unknown to a contender in... a year? A year and a half tops?
The fact also remains that NT is backed by Microsoft and Linux is backed by the rest of us. We're reading articles that are *comparing* NT to Linux and stating that it is a fairly close race in many common instances and even victorious for Linux in the most common of those races. Viva Linux!
Again a problem of lack of education. People just don't understand that they are sitting on LOCAL NETWORKS. I finally convinced people that I worked with that rather than sending the dancing baby to 15 people at work all at once, it's entirely possible to SHARE the damn thing on the network and let people download it.
Unfortunately giving people technology without telling them how to use it is like giving people lightsabers and not telling them not to chop veggies with it.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, an OS can be an OS without loading user programs. Take an embedded OS. All it really needs to do is respond to IO (interact with hardware) and can have nothing at all to do with the user (a user can even be absent entirely from the equation.
Joke or not- a lot of truths are spoken in jest. He said a lot that would have made a big difference in my life 5 years ago.
I would add to this- there are girls out there who want someone geeky like us. I'm a case in point- when I first met my fiance, I agreed (though very reluctantly) to go with her and her two female friends to a goth dance club. At the time I had no idea how to dance. But I decided to hell with shyness and to hell with being alone. I went, determined to have a good time. Like I mentioned, one of the girls is now my fiance, but she also told me that her two friends also had their eyes on me. Yes, I'm bragging, but letting loose of your inhibitions and just having fun being yourself is a HUGE draw to a lot of girls. It's worked for me every time. Keep in mind that girls are far less VISUAL than guys. This means that many times just because you don't look like Ricky "I'm so fake I'm plastic" Martin doesn't mean you aren't interesting. Women are much more interested in finding the person beneath the exterior.
I want to see the pictures!
There was once NO reason for me to move back to Tucson.... Damn, when I was there there was NOTHING decent for local internet providers.
Just hack into the Texas system and erase your tickets and while you are in there give yourself diplomatic immunity so future tickets roll off your back like water off a duck.
Actually, you are right. The absolute theoretical point of Capitalism is to kill your competitor. In fact, the absolute highest point a company can achieve in the true spirit of capitalism is a monopoly. But the catch 22 situation is that once you have a monopoly, competition is no more, and capitalism dies. Capitalism sometimes grows up and kills it's father, a financial Oedipal Complex if you will.
Now the question is- do you allow a monopoly to grow and swallow competition? Obviously not... I won't go into economics, you all know the benefits of capitalism and competition.
The problem that I have (and most slashdotters) isn't the fact that they are a monopoly, per se. It's how they got there and what they are doing with it. They got there by stealing, bullying, lying, and betraying. Everyone know that. And while that might be capitalism, it's extreme capitalism. I like to think of it this way- if you put the mentality of the Microsoft business model and the argument that it's all just capitalism on top of, say, football, you'd have a team that carried knives and guns on to the field, stabbed their opponents while they were down, loaded the ball with explosives, etc. You might say that the goal of competition in this sense is to win at any cost- that's what you are there for. But there have to be rules- no one really wants to play a game for their life. If there are no rules it becomes pure bedlam. If a team played like that, they would not have much of a fan base for very long.
And what is Microsoft doing with the monopoly? When was the last time that you really were impressed with a new version of some software from them? I mean, from a serious look, not at frills like Active Desktop or the damn paper clip thing in word. Basically every new version of Microsoft product I have seen has been bigger, requires more processing power to use, and has been less usable and slower than ever. Take Office for example... half of the stuff that I could do in word '95 I have no earthly idea how to manage in Word '97.
As for Mr. Gates and his donations- whether or not he does it for the right or wrong reasons shouldn't matter- if someone in need gets some needs met as a result, more power to him. But I do have to ask- if you screw an entire industry for the sake of an extra dollar, do you really deserve to be treated like a "philanthropist" if you give some of it away? And how much and for how long do you donate before you aren't giving it away for the sake of making yourself look good. Like I said, it shouldn't matter, but to me, it does. I have watched him for years and this is just another maneuver.
I really hope that they do well. I am not of the camp that thinks that they are selling out. On the contrary, I think that they should finally be rewarded for the years of holding onto Linux even when it was just a hacker's dream. If it wasn't for Red Hat and the rest, Linux would have never cause Redmond any headaches at all.
Good Luck, RHAT.
Of course, which is more likely... that the 6 year old figured out how to hotwire the toy or the guy at the store didn't *really* unhook the battery and was hoping to avoid the inevitable lawsuit?
;)
ok I AM cynical.
Right- You pay for cable and therefore you don't get commercials. You don't pay for network TV and you suffer through commercials. But you don't pay for cable so that they can put commercials in too.
But it's worse than that- you need a BIOS to run your computer. You don't need a TV. It's like a captive audience.
Of course, according to this, the applications (and windows 95) crash when the PC stops working correctly. Which is more likely, your PC "stops working correctly" or the operating system stops working correctly?
The failure of the government to see the correct path has nothing to do with guns.
The next time you feel like your precious gun is protecting you from your government, try this little test. Get as many of your friends that have weapons together and march on city hall, take it over, and make your own country. I think you'll find that you won't last long against the government. You'd need to have as big a budget as the Pentagon to compete, and I don't think anyone but Gates has it.
The right to bear arms is a hold over from Militia America, back in the early days of the country, when an army was just as much a bunch of men with guns as anything else. The Americans even succeeded because their militia tactics were new to the british. But the days of the need or the effectiveness of militia are long over. Now all that guns provide is an easy way to kill someone on the street or to hold up a liquor store. How many more kids are killed each year than militia men? Think about it.
I followed the link to "Reasons to upgrade" to windows 98. Here's my favorite bit:
What's the bext way to upgrade? Buy a new computer with a new OS already installed!!
"How to move to Windows NT Workstation 4.0 from Windows 95: The best way to move to Windows NT Workstation is to get it preinstalled on a Windows 2000 READY PC, which also provides the easiest possible upgrade path to Windows 2000 Professional. Find out about these high-performance computers..."
This is stupid. Linux is more secure (and provably so) than MS anything. It seems to be more a matter of simple persecution than anything.
I have had it for about 2 months and I have loved every minute of it. I had a few minor problems with installation and I had excellent customer service fixing them.
What bothers me about this is that either MS or AOL getting anywhere near MediaOne is bound to screw things up. For one thing, cable modem companies right now enjoy virtual monopolies for that particular service. Like Microsoft needs another monopoly. I would hate to have to use MSCable to have the service I have enjoyed up to now. Or AOL, for that matter. Both of these companies, by the way, are known for attempting to force their way upon users. Here's what I see happening:
User: "Hello customer service? I can't seem to get my browser to work over my MSOne connection."
MSOne: "You need to be running IE 6.0 in order to connect to the internet."
User: "Has that been ported to Linux yet?"
MSOne: "We don't support Unixes or Macs with MSOne. Only PC's with Windows2000."
Ok. So I'm paranoid. The point is MediaOne is good. The connection is fast. The service is wonderful. MS and AOL will f*** it up. And I don't want either of them to get any more control than they already have.
... are we raising anyways? What kind of people will these kids, who think that ridiculing people who are different turn out to be? How can we even expect a tolerant society tomorrow if the kids of today are not taught to be tolerant today?
If we don't teach kids to act with decency to others then they won't act decently to others as adults.
Hell Yes- "Saved by the Bell" however, was one of the worst shows on record for it's treatment of people who are different. They played up on stereotypes more than I have seen since the 50's!
Of course, the other question is-
Even if in a fair fight on a multi-processor machine NT kicks linux's rear to cleveland and back. The fact remains that Linux has gone from an unknown to a contender in... a year? A year and a half tops?
The fact also remains that NT is backed by Microsoft and Linux is backed by the rest of us. We're reading articles that are *comparing* NT to Linux and stating that it is a fairly close race in many common instances and even victorious for Linux in the most common of those races. Viva Linux!
Charities my @$$. Since when do scalpers give the profits to charity?
Again a problem of lack of education. People just don't understand that they are sitting on LOCAL NETWORKS. I finally convinced people that I worked with that rather than sending the dancing baby to 15 people at work all at once, it's entirely possible to SHARE the damn thing on the network and let people download it.
Unfortunately giving people technology without telling them how to use it is like giving people lightsabers and not telling them not to chop veggies with it.
Okay. I had to toss in a random reference.
I think it said "157dB- above a level blah blah blah..."
I think you missed the dash, which implies the following meaning:
"157dB which is above a level blah blah..."
ok. So this was an anal thing to comment on. Shoot me. At least I didn't AC it. =>
Whoops.
Anyways, is there any coverage on-line for this? I want to listen in. How about a Real Audio feed?
I'll tell you what would be innovative- use something other than x86. Why do we insist on this dinosaur?
Yeah, I plan to grow rapidly when I retire. Either that or I am going to grow retired rapidly.
I hate to complain.... ok. I love to complain, but that's not the point.
I sent in a link to this company twice! Both times I saw hide nor hair of this being posted.