I disagree, the strength of your locks reflect your assessment of risk. If sufficiently valuable in the real world, locks are replaced with security guards and automatic rifles. Most people don't have anything that valuable, and find it more cost effective to place limits on their credit cards, check up on protection from their credit card companies and take up insurance policies.
If there were no banks and no insurance policies, would you, with your life savings under your mattress, still say that your locks are to keep honest people honest?
Besides, this SSH and SSL attack is very well documented, known and understood for a long time to be a limitation of the system. If your life savings are on the line, use callback, challenge response, or don't use remote logins at all.
You can brag about anything you want, but if you brag about your grades in front of me, it won't have a positive effect.
As for what one can consider a genuine accomplishment, you're quite right, there isn't much. I have to run, so I can't get into it right now. The crux of it is doing something because it is what you consider to be compliant with your own form of morals, not what you are naturally led to do.
Turning down major corporate contracts over ethical concerns (any ethical concerns) is an example of something to be proud of.
Approval, not attention. If you're talking about the typically cruel behaviour found in highschools, that's a screwed up environment to begin with. If you're part of it, you're entitled to be a bit screwed up. It doesn't mean that you're not seeking approval, and it doesn't mean that you're not making up for other insecurities. I know it is an oversimplification, but it is what I think when somebody starts bragging about that sort of thing in front of me.
Bragging about that stuff indicates to me that either the person is desparately seeking peer approval, or
they are trying to make up for some other insecurities.
...Normally I
don't do it, but sometimes it's fun to do when people are not nice to you. It sure is better than kicking their
ass and getting arrested for it.
You walked right into that one.
Besides, you are talking about "discipline and motivation" like it's a bad thing
and it's not.
I agree with you completely that discipline and motivation are very positive qualities. Infact the very first thing I said in my post was "Discipline in studies is very important." I am not well disciplined, nor do I find motivation easily.
I'm not sure where the word "external" came from or what it means in this context, but if you take a narrow enough definition of "environment" then yes, you can make it sound as though I'm saying something irrational.
I would consider having a wealthy family (immediate or otherwise) part of one's environment. Wouldn't you?
Cutting out genetics and environment leaves very little ground for what can be considered an accomplishment. It is both sides of the nature/nurture argument, which is why I qualify the statement with the word "purely."
So if you go to the best schools and have the best tutors because of your rich uncle, that is not an accomplishment. If your uncle lands you a cozy job, that's not an accomplishment. But if you succeed in that job and are happy with life, then your uncle has definately accomplished something.
Of course I'm assuming that the rich uncle's objective was to make your life happy. If his morals are sufficiently out of touch with society, then he could have failed horribly to make you absolutely mizerable.
Discipline in studies is very important. I made it through school figuring things out as they appeared, rather than studying. Eventually subject matter appeared which required a progressive development of skill. Without doing the homework the answers were no longer immediately evident nor could they be worked out in the time alloted for exams. I fumbled, had difficulty studying, piled up debt and dropped out.
I find I'm doing much better now that I'm studying part time while working full time. Although much of the subject matter I'm studying now is in the arts and humanities, I'm still scoring great marks. I find I can take the time to fully appreciate the material. I'm contemplating starting up a calculus study group at work.. a rather sickly geeky concept, but it keeps everybody motivated.
When I was a kid, I desparately saved cash for electronics equipment, chemistry books and computer hardware. Jobs were scarce, so many of my interests took a back seat. I could only focus on computers, fine models and metalwork. A friend of mine was given an old oscilloscope, collections of books from Motorola and tonnes of chip samples. Of course, he won many science fairs and is working in electronics. Myself, I'm working with computers.
People who take bragging rights on their grades worry me. It is entirely a product of your environment and your genetics. Your enviroment and upbringing provide discipline and motivation. Genetics is the only explanation I have for people who try really hard, can be brilliant in some areas, but still fail to grasp particular concepts. When you brag about your grades, you may as well be bragging about your hair colour or your socio-economic bracket. Bragging about that stuff indicates to me that either the person is desparately seeking peer approval, or they are trying to make up for some other insecurities.
I don't know what life is about, but it is certainly not about how good your grades are or how much money you make. Of course for whatever reason a low income can make life quite intollerable.
IMHO, the worst thing that could happen to this kid is that he'll drop out of school because between focusing on microbiology and obsessing over robotics, he'll flop out of everything else -- socially awkward with only a high-school education. On the other hand, with private tutors, he probably already has the attention of professors and the like who can mentor him out of those problems.
I also think your analogy is a bit incomplete. It's like having an x-ray machine whose default output is proprietary,
and is only readable by another x-ray machine from the same manufacture (ok, ok, I'm torturing the analogy
quite a bit, I admit it), but this x-ray machine also has alternative methods of producing output with most/many/all
of the same features, or even a sort of fail-safe mode with the information expressed in a standard, basic format.
I'm just pondering what an ASCII X-ray would look like:-)
When Plex86 catches up with VMWare, VMWare will have had a three year period in which they were the only player in the market. If they couldn't find anything patentable or unique in that period, is it the fault of somebody rewriting their application from scratch for taking their marketshare?
Besides, Plex86 has no traditional support (ducking flames) and is not currently at the same level of operability as VMWare.
Will developers polish, document and stand behind their products to gain marketshare and customer satisfaction? Not for free.
Personally I think VMWare is overpriced. In most cases, it would be cheaper and provide more flexability to buy another machine than it would be to buy full licenses, RAM and the VMWare software to go along with it. Its only real niche is as a development, educational or testing tool.
The cover of the June or July 1997 Byte magazine is for NT5. I have a copy of it around here somewhere...
I installed Slackware on my system in 1995, Microsoft surely knew about the OS by then... and honestly the most damage Linux could do to MS is level the VAR playing field. If the market determined that Linux were superior to NT and Win9x/ME, Microsoft would jump all over it.
With their existing customer base, if they were to start selling Linux servers and the like, they would probably be the strongest Linux VAR out there.
Don't underestimate the shrewdness of that company... they're in it for the money. If Open source became more profitable than closed source, they would become a huge contributor... there would probably be some great photo ops of Torvalds, Cox and Gates shaking hands as they make announcements that hardware developers everywhere would be targeting the platform.
Gnutella passes queries amongst all peers, providing anonymity in the queries and avoiding the need for any centralized indices of files. The problem is that now logging onto Gnutella swamps most clients with zillions of queries which your computer will have to forward to its peers.
IRC decentralizes the indices. That's about all. I always figured this would be the perfect replacement for ICQ, but file sharing works too. When I first logged onto Napster, this is exactly what I thought it was... a pretty shell for some magic IRC channel.
Neither system provides anonymous transfer of information. If I request a file from you on IRC, I can pick out your IP through the DCC connection.
If you were using IRC instead of ICQ you could maintain contact lists on servers... you create a password-protected channel and invite your friends into it. When they log on, they automatically log on to the appropriate channels. By querying people's info you could send them DCC chats, files, and other requests. Very simple, very standard, very open.. no more IDs and contact lists either. The only trick is verifying the identity of your friends, but Email works fine for that.
It runs fine on my 486... I installed freenet and Java without going root. I was rather surprised. It was like the good old days... I think I had to specify some path before I ran it. It blew my mind that it ran at all.
If you teach people Gnome applications on Windows, you can then slip the OS out from under them without complaint.
Personally, I think the requirement to have an X server is terribly flawed... but then I hate this "desktop war" too. I bet they'll eventually be able to do it without relying on Exceed. Ethereal is a Gnome app and it works o.k. on Win32 without one. (http://www.ethereal.com/)
If you're using an X server why not just run X over the network?
Hmmm... download it for personal use, then take a diff. Post the diffs to bugtraq.
What is surprising is that Microsoft is consistant with the timestamp in their updates. If something was edited last week, it will say so at the bottom... even if the article was first posted three years ago.
Scrap the "real mode/standard mode" variants of each of those OSes, that's like putting down linux as being non-standard because developers would have to target ELKs.
Windows CE is not being targeted as a game platform (and please don't show the two exceptions)
Bob is not an OS.
Real games were not developed for Windows before Windows 95. Prior to that, they were all DOS games. Windows NT 3.x did not have games developed for it.
Win95 b is OSR2
You forgot OSR2.5 (win95c)
Let's run combinations on the Linux compile-time optinons for the kernel alone and see what developers have to target. Then think about video support, the init system, audio, and then think about things which are pretty experimental these days... Like 3d audio and video, truetype fonts(!)
A very good majority of the games which ran on Win95 -- any version -- will still run on any of those platforms you mention... like Windows NT, Win98, WinME, etc.
Then think about something so horribly simple as Netscape which has had to figure out what widget set to use... and Real Player, which before reaching v1.0 had the sound architecture pulled out from underneath them.
The latter is more akin to a badly designed Win95 game, but it just means Linux is at Least as bad as MS OSes for pulling undocumented APIs out from under developers, and breaking code.
Tack on poor hardware support, and there is no reason to run these games on Linux. OTOH, Quake server would be insane not to run on Linux.
Assymetric magnetic field. It sounds kind of kooky... they're making it for a brief period of time, but if such a thing were to be created for an extended period of time, a force could be generated just by being in the presence of any magnetic field, or any object which responds to magnetic fields.
They'll probably find out that either it is a wobble and not a shudder, or it will turn out to be in a random direction.. just like all the other quantum weirdness... Sort of like propelling yourself off Browninan motion... only magnetically. It looks neat under a microscope, but it would never work.
But I'm just guessing based on a reporter's interpretation of a brief interview with a scientist.
I worked in second level tech support for roughly two and a half years. I saw all the problems which the helpdesk for one reason or another could not resolve. Yes, this was internal technical support, but there were still people who did not know how to use a mouse... just far less of them.
I don't for a second envy what the helpdesk had to do. I didn't even care if they just gave up on a difficult user and said "I've passed the ticket along, somebody will give you a call in roughly an hour." And by difficult user I mean those "call me doctor" fellows. It is much easier to deal with people like that in person anyways.
I would even defend the reputation of the helpdesk because of the difficulty of their jobs.
But what would drive me absolutely insane are the few people who get in there who are simply incompetant. End users who go in with no problem (litterally, the network is down, DHCP is down, something like that) and after hours of "troubleshooting" come out with a toasted protocol stack.
I think the main culprit of this kind of thing is the application of metrics to individuals. If you're told that you have to meet 80% resolution, and you're encouraged to make it as high as you can, then you wind up with five customers who spent four hours... DHCP came back and their protocol stack was rebuilt at about the same time... and had thier 'problem' resolved. And your failure to resolve drops.
What's really fun is calling first level support and to have them lead you through a script, while you're telling them that the DHCP server is down and the Network team is working on it.
I guess my point is, just like there are stupid users, there are stupid techs... and in the case of those misinformed of corporate structure... stupid managers.
Interesting... but then they would only have to say that they've tapped the keyboard, present the decrypted data, confiscate the system for evidence, and then, maybe, install the keyboard monitor.
It is still worse than non-antialiased TrueType courier fonts under Windows. Look at the s'es, and the progressively worse white-on-black status bar.
This and courier is one of the better fonts under X. Try Times New Roman in an X-application.
Most of what people appear to be saying is that if you increase the screen resolution enough, and recompile the programs, suffer a performance hit then antialias, you can shrink the screen fonts and they'll be reasonable.
When you're using a 100+dpi screen with antialiasing, you approach the quality of a 150dpi printer. Isn't printing what the fonts were designed for?
By the time X gets antialiasing and reasonable fonts, we'll all be using 200dpi flatpanels, and it won't matter anymore.
IMHO, there is a limit on the kinds of stuff which kids should watch. Ultraviolent TV shows are fine... The more splattering blood and absurd special effects the better.
When little Billy hits his friend in the schoolyard, and all that happens is his friend gets angry, starts crying or he just gets in trouble... they're likely to be reminded the difference between television and reality.
Wrestling, poor sportsmanship and idolizing criminial behavior (a very small minority of hardcore music) strike me as far more dangerous. Inflicting pain, poor anger management, intimidation and getting in trouble are all strongly encouraged... often being the sole focus of the entertainment.
The former Power-rangers, WWF, WCW and other stuff are all examples of this stuff. Power Rangers? yes, have you seen how they treat that fat kid and that weird skinny guy? All the while using martial arts to solve their problems..
Ethics are so passe. IE has the technical requirements of either running a Windows OS, or selling one's soul to the devil to have it ported. If Microsoft didn't use its marketshare to destroy competing companies and promote bug riddled insecure technology, then I would have no qualms about contributing to their share.
Netscape on the other hand runs on just about everything.
Explaining this stuff is like trying to explain standards to somebody who has never done web development. Better the lowest common denominator of broken and mismatched standards than closed proprietary ones from a company known to abuse power.
Fullscreen browsing would be nice too... I can't express my disappointment that despite all the bloat, such a simple feature isn't there.
BTW, if you do a side-by-side comparison of the screen real-estate of NS4 with text-only menus to the graphical icons of NS6, 4.7 still takes up more space (including the shortcut bar).
Although the stupid double-thickness bar running along the bottom with no information in it (and no method to turn it off) brings NS 6 back into the lead of space wastage. You can turn off that stupid bar in 4.7 with CTRL-ALT-S.
I can't believe I'm defending Netscape 4. I hated it when it came out. It was a bloated peice of buggy crap. The only saving grace was that IE4 wsa so horrifically unstable and would shred the OS.
Now IE is quite stable, and comparitively lightweight. I still can't bring myself to use it, but it is certianly technically superior in almost every way.
It also has to be able to handle situations where people's days vary, in a variable way... For example... I'm in North America, somebody looks at my calendar and wants to book a conference with me in Europe. I should be able to indicate that I will be working from 9-5 in a different time zone for that particular week. It should not tell them they cannot book because I am not working those hours.
Another useful feature might be to see meetings from the perspectives of all the people involved. International teleconferencing needs this sort of thing... to be able to see that you're booking at 4:00pm in Germany while it's noon in New York.
(I think... I'll have to check my calendar on that one)
Let's get serious now however. We have learned that Pentium 4 has got a rather exciting and interesting brand new design that comes with a whole lot of potential. However, the benchmark results might seem a bit sobering to the majority of you. Whatever Pentium 4 is right now, it is certainly not the greatest and best performing processor in the world. It's not a bad performer as well though.
I don't know about the sucking up to AMD thing though, they're pro-competition. Intel has a lousy track record.
In the day of the Celeron 300a, Tom's Hardware was all over the fact that it was the best bang for the buck. If they're pro-AMD it is because AMD is in the lead right now.
If I hear another "Stability" argument I think I'll scream. I've had many problems with the stability of Xfree86, and I've had it lock the system quite hard.
But even if it doesn't lock my system, my work is still lost.
Even if I got X working solidly, Netscape is more stable under Windows than under Linux. And IE is more stable under Windows than Netscape.
Ditto for Wordperfect under Linux, all Wine applications etcetrea. And I've tried Staroffice, I was not impressed... the import filters are as limited as import filters have ever been. You basically have to re-write any complex documents. Useless for document interchange, and the UI is definately lacking.
My NT system at work is running a 67 day uptime, and this is not uncommon. The last reboot was due to an upgrade of the JRE. OTOH, my Linux box last rebooted about 80 days ago... there was a power outage.
Linux has its strengths, but I just don't see them on the desktop. In addition to "stability" not being a desktop argument, think about 3d support, printing, cut-and-paste, keyboard based usage (yes, I could conceivably do everything without X, but that's comparing apples and oranges.)
There's little I can do in Gnome which I couldn't do in fvwm, and there's a lot I can't do in Gnome which I could do with Windows on 4MB of Ram and a 386 since 1993.
As a server, linux makes the impossible possible and every-day tasks easy. As a desktop, Linux makes the possible impossible and everyday tasks difficult.
I was thinking... gopher would be great for accessability and wireless.
Then I started thinking some more. Why not just use the standards used to represent inforamtion to wireless browsers to send information to the handicapped and to those of us who would prefer (so very much) to see content rather than flash.
A keyboard-controlled web with a standard UI and no gawdy graphics.
Maybe somebody could create a gopher gateway... if you can't parse HTML cleanly for this purpose, there is no way that disabled populations have full access to the Internet.
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree, the strength of your locks reflect your assessment of risk. If sufficiently valuable in the real world, locks are replaced with security guards and automatic rifles. Most people don't have anything that valuable, and find it more cost effective to place limits on their credit cards, check up on protection from their credit card companies and take up insurance policies.
If there were no banks and no insurance policies, would you, with your life savings under your mattress, still say that your locks are to keep honest people honest?
Besides, this SSH and SSL attack is very well documented, known and understood for a long time to be a limitation of the system. If your life savings are on the line, use callback, challenge response, or don't use remote logins at all.
You can brag about anything you want, but if you brag about your grades in front of me, it won't have a positive effect.
As for what one can consider a genuine accomplishment, you're quite right, there isn't much. I have to run, so I can't get into it right now. The crux of it is doing something because it is what you consider to be compliant with your own form of morals, not what you are naturally led to do.
Turning down major corporate contracts over ethical concerns (any ethical concerns) is an example of something to be proud of.
Approval, not attention. If you're talking about the typically cruel behaviour found in highschools, that's a screwed up environment to begin with. If you're part of it, you're entitled to be a bit screwed up. It doesn't mean that you're not seeking approval, and it doesn't mean that you're not making up for other insecurities. I know it is an oversimplification, but it is what I think when somebody starts bragging about that sort of thing in front of me.
You walked right into that one.
I agree with you completely that discipline and motivation are very positive qualities. Infact the very first thing I said in my post was "Discipline in studies is very important." I am not well disciplined, nor do I find motivation easily.
I'm not sure where the word "external" came from or what it means in this context, but if you take a narrow enough definition of "environment" then yes, you can make it sound as though I'm saying something irrational.
I would consider having a wealthy family (immediate or otherwise) part of one's environment. Wouldn't you?
Cutting out genetics and environment leaves very little ground for what can be considered an accomplishment. It is both sides of the nature/nurture argument, which is why I qualify the statement with the word "purely."
So if you go to the best schools and have the best tutors because of your rich uncle, that is not an accomplishment. If your uncle lands you a cozy job, that's not an accomplishment. But if you succeed in that job and are happy with life, then your uncle has definately accomplished something.
Of course I'm assuming that the rich uncle's objective was to make your life happy. If his morals are sufficiently out of touch with society, then he could have failed horribly to make you absolutely mizerable.
Discipline in studies is very important. I made it through school figuring things out as they appeared, rather than studying. Eventually subject matter appeared which required a progressive development of skill. Without doing the homework the answers were no longer immediately evident nor could they be worked out in the time alloted for exams. I fumbled, had difficulty studying, piled up debt and dropped out.
I find I'm doing much better now that I'm studying part time while working full time. Although much of the subject matter I'm studying now is in the arts and humanities, I'm still scoring great marks. I find I can take the time to fully appreciate the material. I'm contemplating starting up a calculus study group at work.. a rather sickly geeky concept, but it keeps everybody motivated.
When I was a kid, I desparately saved cash for electronics equipment, chemistry books and computer hardware. Jobs were scarce, so many of my interests took a back seat. I could only focus on computers, fine models and metalwork. A friend of mine was given an old oscilloscope, collections of books from Motorola and tonnes of chip samples. Of course, he won many science fairs and is working in electronics. Myself, I'm working with computers.
People who take bragging rights on their grades worry me. It is entirely a product of your environment and your genetics. Your enviroment and upbringing provide discipline and motivation. Genetics is the only explanation I have for people who try really hard, can be brilliant in some areas, but still fail to grasp particular concepts. When you brag about your grades, you may as well be bragging about your hair colour or your socio-economic bracket. Bragging about that stuff indicates to me that either the person is desparately seeking peer approval, or they are trying to make up for some other insecurities.
I don't know what life is about, but it is certainly not about how good your grades are or how much money you make. Of course for whatever reason a low income can make life quite intollerable.
IMHO, the worst thing that could happen to this kid is that he'll drop out of school because between focusing on microbiology and obsessing over robotics, he'll flop out of everything else -- socially awkward with only a high-school education. On the other hand, with private tutors, he probably already has the attention of professors and the like who can mentor him out of those problems.
I'm just pondering what an ASCII X-ray would look like :-)
When Plex86 catches up with VMWare, VMWare will have had a three year period in which they were the only player in the market. If they couldn't find anything patentable or unique in that period, is it the fault of somebody rewriting their application from scratch for taking their marketshare?
Besides, Plex86 has no traditional support (ducking flames) and is not currently at the same level of operability as VMWare.
Will developers polish, document and stand behind their products to gain marketshare and customer satisfaction? Not for free.
Personally I think VMWare is overpriced. In most cases, it would be cheaper and provide more flexability to buy another machine than it would be to buy full licenses, RAM and the VMWare software to go along with it. Its only real niche is as a development, educational or testing tool.
The cover of the June or July 1997 Byte magazine is for NT5. I have a copy of it around here somewhere...
I installed Slackware on my system in 1995, Microsoft surely knew about the OS by then... and honestly the most damage Linux could do to MS is level the VAR playing field. If the market determined that Linux were superior to NT and Win9x/ME, Microsoft would jump all over it.
With their existing customer base, if they were to start selling Linux servers and the like, they would probably be the strongest Linux VAR out there.
Don't underestimate the shrewdness of that company... they're in it for the money. If Open source became more profitable than closed source, they would become a huge contributor... there would probably be some great photo ops of Torvalds, Cox and Gates shaking hands as they make announcements that hardware developers everywhere would be targeting the platform.
For the moment, they have competitive products.
Just feeding the trolls...
Gnutella passes queries amongst all peers, providing anonymity in the queries and avoiding the need for any centralized indices of files. The problem is that now logging onto Gnutella swamps most clients with zillions of queries which your computer will have to forward to its peers.
IRC decentralizes the indices. That's about all. I always figured this would be the perfect replacement for ICQ, but file sharing works too. When I first logged onto Napster, this is exactly what I thought it was... a pretty shell for some magic IRC channel.
Neither system provides anonymous transfer of information. If I request a file from you on IRC, I can pick out your IP through the DCC connection.
If you were using IRC instead of ICQ you could maintain contact lists on servers... you create a password-protected channel and invite your friends into it. When they log on, they automatically log on to the appropriate channels. By querying people's info you could send them DCC chats, files, and other requests. Very simple, very standard, very open.. no more IDs and contact lists either. The only trick is verifying the identity of your friends, but Email works fine for that.
All IRC lacks is a tallbar UI.
It runs fine on my 486... I installed freenet and Java without going root. I was rather surprised. It was like the good old days... I think I had to specify some path before I ran it. It blew my mind that it ran at all.
Something like:
export PATH=$PATH:/home/user/jre1.2.2/bin/:/home/user/jre 1.2.2/lib/
The downside was that I could finish my coffee before my 486 could deal with all that encryption code written in Java.
I do have a K6-2, but it looks like Freenet doesn't do NAT yet, so either I figure out the ports, or I run it on my "firewall."
If you teach people Gnome applications on Windows, you can then slip the OS out from under them without complaint.
Personally, I think the requirement to have an X server is terribly flawed... but then I hate this "desktop war" too. I bet they'll eventually be able to do it without relying on Exceed. Ethereal is a Gnome app and it works o.k. on Win32 without one. (http://www.ethereal.com/)
If you're using an X server why not just run X over the network?
Hmmm... download it for personal use, then take a diff. Post the diffs to bugtraq.
What is surprising is that Microsoft is consistant with the timestamp in their updates. If something was edited last week, it will say so at the bottom... even if the article was first posted three years ago.
Scrap the "real mode/standard mode" variants of each of those OSes, that's like putting down linux as being non-standard because developers would have to target ELKs.
Windows CE is not being targeted as a game platform (and please don't show the two exceptions)
Bob is not an OS.
Real games were not developed for Windows before Windows 95. Prior to that, they were all DOS games. Windows NT 3.x did not have games developed for it.
Win95 b is OSR2
You forgot OSR2.5 (win95c)
Let's run combinations on the Linux compile-time optinons for the kernel alone and see what developers have to target. Then think about video support, the init system, audio, and then think about things which are pretty experimental these days... Like 3d audio and video, truetype fonts(!)
A very good majority of the games which ran on Win95 -- any version -- will still run on any of those platforms you mention... like Windows NT, Win98, WinME, etc.
Then think about something so horribly simple as Netscape which has had to figure out what widget set to use... and Real Player, which before reaching v1.0 had the sound architecture pulled out from underneath them.
The latter is more akin to a badly designed Win95 game, but it just means Linux is at Least as bad as MS OSes for pulling undocumented APIs out from under developers, and breaking code.
Tack on poor hardware support, and there is no reason to run these games on Linux. OTOH, Quake server would be insane not to run on Linux.
Assymetric magnetic field. It sounds kind of kooky... they're making it for a brief period of time, but if such a thing were to be created for an extended period of time, a force could be generated just by being in the presence of any magnetic field, or any object which responds to magnetic fields.
They'll probably find out that either it is a wobble and not a shudder, or it will turn out to be in a random direction.. just like all the other quantum weirdness... Sort of like propelling yourself off Browninan motion... only magnetically. It looks neat under a microscope, but it would never work.
But I'm just guessing based on a reporter's interpretation of a brief interview with a scientist.
I worked in second level tech support for roughly two and a half years. I saw all the problems which the helpdesk for one reason or another could not resolve. Yes, this was internal technical support, but there were still people who did not know how to use a mouse... just far less of them.
I don't for a second envy what the helpdesk had to do. I didn't even care if they just gave up on a difficult user and said "I've passed the ticket along, somebody will give you a call in roughly an hour." And by difficult user I mean those "call me doctor" fellows. It is much easier to deal with people like that in person anyways.
I would even defend the reputation of the helpdesk because of the difficulty of their jobs.
But what would drive me absolutely insane are the few people who get in there who are simply incompetant. End users who go in with no problem (litterally, the network is down, DHCP is down, something like that) and after hours of "troubleshooting" come out with a toasted protocol stack.
I think the main culprit of this kind of thing is the application of metrics to individuals. If you're told that you have to meet 80% resolution, and you're encouraged to make it as high as you can, then you wind up with five customers who spent four hours... DHCP came back and their protocol stack was rebuilt at about the same time... and had thier 'problem' resolved. And your failure to resolve drops.
What's really fun is calling first level support and to have them lead you through a script, while you're telling them that the DHCP server is down and the Network team is working on it.
I guess my point is, just like there are stupid users, there are stupid techs... and in the case of those misinformed of corporate structure... stupid managers.
Yes, I've told management about this already.
Interesting... but then they would only have to say that they've tapped the keyboard, present the decrypted data, confiscate the system for evidence, and then, maybe, install the keyboard monitor.
It is still worse than non-antialiased TrueType courier fonts under Windows. Look at the s'es, and the progressively worse white-on-black status bar.
This and courier is one of the better fonts under X. Try Times New Roman in an X-application.
Most of what people appear to be saying is that if you increase the screen resolution enough, and recompile the programs, suffer a performance hit then antialias, you can shrink the screen fonts and they'll be reasonable.
When you're using a 100+dpi screen with antialiasing, you approach the quality of a 150dpi printer. Isn't printing what the fonts were designed for?
By the time X gets antialiasing and reasonable fonts, we'll all be using 200dpi flatpanels, and it won't matter anymore.
IMHO, there is a limit on the kinds of stuff which kids should watch. Ultraviolent TV shows are fine... The more splattering blood and absurd special effects the better.
When little Billy hits his friend in the schoolyard, and all that happens is his friend gets angry, starts crying or he just gets in trouble... they're likely to be reminded the difference between television and reality.
Wrestling, poor sportsmanship and idolizing criminial behavior (a very small minority of hardcore music) strike me as far more dangerous. Inflicting pain, poor anger management, intimidation and getting in trouble are all strongly encouraged... often being the sole focus of the entertainment.
The former Power-rangers, WWF, WCW and other stuff are all examples of this stuff. Power Rangers? yes, have you seen how they treat that fat kid and that weird skinny guy? All the while using martial arts to solve their problems..
Ethics are so passe. IE has the technical requirements of either running a Windows OS, or selling one's soul to the devil to have it ported. If Microsoft didn't use its marketshare to destroy competing companies and promote bug riddled insecure technology, then I would have no qualms about contributing to their share.
Netscape on the other hand runs on just about everything.
Explaining this stuff is like trying to explain standards to somebody who has never done web development. Better the lowest common denominator of broken and mismatched standards than closed proprietary ones from a company known to abuse power.
Fullscreen browsing would be nice too... I can't express my disappointment that despite all the bloat, such a simple feature isn't there.
BTW, if you do a side-by-side comparison of the screen real-estate of NS4 with text-only menus to the graphical icons of NS6, 4.7 still takes up more space (including the shortcut bar).
Although the stupid double-thickness bar running along the bottom with no information in it (and no method to turn it off) brings NS 6 back into the lead of space wastage. You can turn off that stupid bar in 4.7 with CTRL-ALT-S.
I can't believe I'm defending Netscape 4. I hated it when it came out. It was a bloated peice of buggy crap. The only saving grace was that IE4 wsa so horrifically unstable and would shred the OS.
Now IE is quite stable, and comparitively lightweight. I still can't bring myself to use it, but it is certianly technically superior in almost every way.
Smooth integration of all time functions without dumb limitations...
It has to do all the screwed up implementations of DST and interoperate between them.
http://www.timeanddate.com/time/ds t20 00b.html
It also has to be able to handle situations where people's days vary, in a variable way... For example... I'm in North America, somebody looks at my calendar and wants to book a conference with me in Europe. I should be able to indicate that I will be working from 9-5 in a different time zone for that particular week. It should not tell them they cannot book because I am not working those hours.
Another useful feature might be to see meetings from the perspectives of all the people involved. International teleconferencing needs this sort of thing... to be able to see that you're booking at 4:00pm in Germany while it's noon in New York.
(I think... I'll have to check my calendar on that one)
Yup...
I don't know about the sucking up to AMD thing though, they're pro-competition. Intel has a lousy track record.
In the day of the Celeron 300a, Tom's Hardware was all over the fact that it was the best bang for the buck. If they're pro-AMD it is because AMD is in the lead right now.
If I hear another "Stability" argument I think I'll scream. I've had many problems with the stability of Xfree86, and I've had it lock the system quite hard.
But even if it doesn't lock my system, my work is still lost.
Even if I got X working solidly, Netscape is more stable under Windows than under Linux. And IE is more stable under Windows than Netscape.
Ditto for Wordperfect under Linux, all Wine applications etcetrea. And I've tried Staroffice, I was not impressed... the import filters are as limited as import filters have ever been. You basically have to re-write any complex documents. Useless for document interchange, and the UI is definately lacking.
My NT system at work is running a 67 day uptime, and this is not uncommon. The last reboot was due to an upgrade of the JRE. OTOH, my Linux box last rebooted about 80 days ago... there was a power outage.
Linux has its strengths, but I just don't see them on the desktop. In addition to "stability" not being a desktop argument, think about 3d support, printing, cut-and-paste, keyboard based usage (yes, I could conceivably do everything without X, but that's comparing apples and oranges.)
There's little I can do in Gnome which I couldn't do in fvwm, and there's a lot I can't do in Gnome which I could do with Windows on 4MB of Ram and a 386 since 1993.
As a server, linux makes the impossible possible and every-day tasks easy. As a desktop, Linux makes the possible impossible and everyday tasks difficult.
I was thinking... gopher would be great for accessability and wireless.
Then I started thinking some more. Why not just use the standards used to represent inforamtion to wireless browsers to send information to the handicapped and to those of us who would prefer (so very much) to see content rather than flash.
A keyboard-controlled web with a standard UI and no gawdy graphics.
Maybe somebody could create a gopher gateway... if you can't parse HTML cleanly for this purpose, there is no way that disabled populations have full access to the Internet.