The Microsoft argument, made in the article, is tired and probably has some basis in truth. And while there is an additional cost for the end user to deal with a Microsoft Tax, since all vendors force you to pay it, it becomes part of the built-in price of the computer; and as long as that price is still both lower than people are willing to pay and high enough that the vendors can make a profit on it, the makeup of the pricing for the components will continue to be irrelevant.
Linux is free. If you want it, you can get it.
Linux attracts the technical. Odds are no matter what distro(s) are offered, some rabid fanbois of other distros will be unhappy.
Linux attracts the technical, who tend to have specific ideas of how their systems should be partitioned and set up. (I know the first thing I do with any box I get, Sun or Linux or Windows or whatever, is to do the OS install the way I want it done.) Tie this together with #2 and #3, and there is a very low likelyhood that any initial Linux install would survive shipping; therefore there is no perceived added value to the customer in preconfiguring and preinstalling the OS, and therefore no business case for spending additional resources making it happen.
I now stand back and await a detailed explanation as to why I am completely wrong.
Virus protection is inherently a reactive process: until you understand the threat, you can't protect against it. (Proof: if Windows virii were understood in general correctly, you'd buy one virus scanner that would protect against any future virus. The fact that updates are constantly required illustrates the reactive nature of the business.)
So "Virus Scanners" for cell phones today will only protect against those ~150 threats that exist today. By definition, you can not protect against all future threats today (because if you could, your OS provider would have already done so).
Once threats become more widespread, the concept of a "Virus Scanner" will become more plausible.
I disagree -- the technology is not leading to an inability to communicate. Technology is making it possible to circulate written items far more widely and easily than before. This merely exposes a reality long hidden: the vast majority of people have never been able to communicate in the written form.
Maybe he was really an 80-year old man and was talking about WWII.
Now that's just stupid, without the Germans there wouldn't have been a WW2. (At least not the way it went down.) So you can hardly claim the Germans were not for WW2.
Given our inability (through unwillingness of lack of funds) to train drivers, I believe that the technologies we've put on the typical passenger car are pretty amazing.
You know, the training is there if you want it. Way back when I did my driver training, I took a course at Young Drivers of Canada. This driver's ed program cost no less than four times what the high-school provided course did, but it gave me:
more total time in the car
all time in the car was one-on-one with an instructor; no one in the back seat
ninety minutes of practicing "emergency maneuvers" (I was really lucky -- one of my sessions was on gravel)
I took this course because my parents and I agreed that driving wasn't just some doodle, it was a serious undertaking that required serious training.
And you have to keep in practice with your current car(s). Every so often on quiet streets I practice my threshold braking (who needs ABS?), or go into empty parking lots and practice avoidance turns.
If you seriously think the training is important, I'm sure it is available. You just have to find it -- and pay for it.
(Of course, the vast majority of drivers think that this kind of training and practice is a very good idea, but only for everyone else out there.)
A similar foolishness runs through the media with the term "allegedly". Yes, they don't want to make a false accusation. But when you have a headline such as "Cops Arrest Man for Allegedly Smoking Crack", it's stupid. Allegedly smoking crack is not a crime and would not be a cause for arrest; smoking crack would be.
Actually this is a result of the media totally mangling the concept of a "suspect", leading to such witty news reports as blah blah blah robbery the suspects got away with an undisclosed amount of cash*. This is false: the perpetrators got away with an undisclosed amount of cash (the perpetrators perpetrated the crime, so to speak). Once the police catch someone, they are innocent until proven guilty in the court of public opinion^W^Wlaw, but the police suspect this person is the perpetrator.
So this is a long way around of explaining that they arrested a man who they suspect of smoking crack; they allege that the man they arrested smoked crack.
Grammer has never been the long suit of headline writers (or even copy writers).
(* = what does it say about me that I wrote cash as cache the first try each of three times it appears in this comment?)
It's not better, but it's New New NEW! Different Different DIFFERENT! Yeah!
You know, without new things coming around occasionally, you'd still be toggling your OS into your computer with the front panel.
Now I agree that a widespread, production use OS is the wrong place to be experimenting with things. (That correct place is in experimental window managers, which are optional on unix systems. Really good ideas will get adopted; bad ones will sink silently.) But you have to have change eventually.
The US Constitution guarentees that you will not suffer the consequences of censorship nor retaliation for what you say - that is freedom of speech.
You are incorrect, sir. The US Consititution directs that the government shall make no law restricting freedom of speech. It is silent on the ability of private organizations to regulate speech within their boundaries.
Please define "underpricing" for me. With the oil companies making record profits it seems there is plenty of room for the price to go down. That strikes me as "overpricing".
Please review supply and demand and get back to us about how unreasonable those record profits are.
Demanding that something be sold below market set pricing sounds an awful lot like... commmmunnnnissssmmmmm.
It is not unprecidented for the state to try to suppress some speech, especially in times of strife, and when that speech brings attention to some potentially uncomfortable opinions that have the ring of truth.
America suffered a similar spate when some commentators observed that US foreign policy might have had something to do in motivating extremists to fly hijacked planes into buildings.
Oooh... the slashdot quandry. Either the ISPs can tell you what you can send and receive over the network (which means they can tell you not to use P2P); or they can't tell you what you can send and receive over the network (in which case they can't do anything about the botnets).
Personally (and as a network sysadmin for a building network... not an ISP, but close) I'm all for restrictions on what happens on the network. In my building, if I don't notice what you are doing, I'm not going to stop you; however if I notice something causing problems for the rest of the building (zombies, spam, P2P, whatever) I'm shutting your ass down. And yes, I have shut down P2P users.
So in general, a private school can regulate its students speech as much as it wants, because it is not a government actor.
I think what you are trying to say is that nothing at the federal level prevents a school from regulating student speech. However, since the rule of law has generally been things must be explicitly prohibited; anything not expressly prohibited is permitted, the school needs to show by what authority they can regulate student speech in forums beyond traditional school influence.
Re:Linux: It Just Isn't Where Windows Is.
on
Pepping Up Windows
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· Score: 1
I thought it might be something like that... and I *still* think Linux can handle it:-). What DirectCD uses is the "UDF" format, which allows incremental "packet" writing. There is now UDF support for Linux.
Well, the Windows "UDF" driver won't read them, and I've spent a ton of time on investigating the UDF driver for Linux before I figured that out.
Re:Linux: It Just Isn't Where Windows Is.
on
Pepping Up Windows
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· Score: 1
I just need it right now.
So just use Windows then, instead of complaining about Linux. Duh.
Yeah, silly me for replying to a question as to why I liked Windows. Duh.
Linux: It Just Isn't Where Windows Is.
on
Pepping Up Windows
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Hey, I used Linux on this laptop for six months. I used Linux on this laptop's predicessor for three years. I use Linux at home on a server. I get Linux.
The problem is that I spent a long time on hibernation, and while I could sometimes get it to stop properly, it almost never restarted properly.
For sleep mode, Linux would usually work; but again, not always. I have far fewer problems with Windows than I did with Linux.
For the network: I know that Linux will do DHCP. That's how mine was configured. My complaint was that if I managed to make the laptop go to sleep on network A, and it woke up on network B, I would have to manually do the ifdown/ifup dance. Windows seems to assume that if it has gone to sleep it needs to renegotiate the network config when it is woken up, which is a safe assumption much of time, and a harmless one the vast majority of the time.
I'll admit that I don't mess around with changing my display resolution much; except that when I am docked at the office, it seems silly to be stuck in a 1400x1280 60Hz display if I have a 1600x1400 85Hz capable monitor sitting right in front of me. And that, plus the real, full-sized keyboard, is the only necessary justification for docking; anything else is just gravy.
Regarding the CDRs: the unfixated disks require something called DirectCD (part of the Roxio suite of products) in order to read; nothing else has been able to read them on any platform I've tried. I was stunned too.
And I've tried WINE. I even paid for CrossOver. And there are still some things that don't work under it (the Cisco switch management applet thing is the current gate).
The point of all this is that yes, I could do much (perhaps all) of my list on Linux; however, I'm not an 18-year-old living in my mom's basement anymore. I have a life, a wife, and a child; I no longer have hours and hours on end to fiddle with this and tweak that or whatever. If I can get things done without the fiddling and fussing it works much better for me, and for my employer.
But keep hacking on this stuff. Once it all "just works", I'm sure I'll come back to it because I really hate Windows. I just need it right now.
Slashdot Mirror
- The Microsoft argument, made in the article, is tired and probably has some basis in truth. And while there is an additional cost for the end user to deal with a Microsoft Tax, since all vendors force you to pay it, it becomes part of the built-in price of the computer; and as long as that price is still both lower than people are willing to pay and high enough that the vendors can make a profit on it, the makeup of the pricing for the components will continue to be irrelevant.
- Linux is free. If you want it, you can get it.
- Linux attracts the technical. Odds are no matter what distro(s) are offered, some rabid fanbois of other distros will be unhappy.
- Linux attracts the technical, who tend to have specific ideas of how their systems should be partitioned and set up. (I know the first thing I do with any box I get, Sun or Linux or Windows or whatever, is to do the OS install the way I want it done.) Tie this together with #2 and #3, and there is a very low likelyhood that any initial Linux install would survive shipping; therefore there is no perceived added value to the customer in preconfiguring and preinstalling the OS, and therefore no business case for spending additional resources making it happen.
I now stand back and await a detailed explanation as to why I am completely wrong.So "Virus Scanners" for cell phones today will only protect against those ~150 threats that exist today. By definition, you can not protect against all future threats today (because if you could, your OS provider would have already done so).
Once threats become more widespread, the concept of a "Virus Scanner" will become more plausible.
I disagree -- the technology is not leading to an inability to communicate. Technology is making it possible to circulate written items far more widely and easily than before. This merely exposes a reality long hidden: the vast majority of people have never been able to communicate in the written form.
- more total time in the car
- all time in the car was one-on-one with an instructor; no one in the back seat
- ninety minutes of practicing "emergency maneuvers" (I was really lucky -- one of my sessions was on gravel)
I took this course because my parents and I agreed that driving wasn't just some doodle, it was a serious undertaking that required serious training.And you have to keep in practice with your current car(s). Every so often on quiet streets I practice my threshold braking (who needs ABS?), or go into empty parking lots and practice avoidance turns.
If you seriously think the training is important, I'm sure it is available. You just have to find it -- and pay for it.
(Of course, the vast majority of drivers think that this kind of training and practice is a very good idea, but only for everyone else out there.)
So this is a long way around of explaining that they arrested a man who they suspect of smoking crack; they allege that the man they arrested smoked crack.
Grammer has never been the long suit of headline writers (or even copy writers).
(* = what does it say about me that I wrote cash as cache the first try each of three times it appears in this comment?)
You, sir, have obviously never observed the first week of breast-feeding. It is hard on the mother and the child.
The nipple, sir, is a learned interface; one that must be taught (to both people involved in the... err... interaction).
Now I agree that a widespread, production use OS is the wrong place to be experimenting with things. (That correct place is in experimental window managers, which are optional on unix systems. Really good ideas will get adopted; bad ones will sink silently.) But you have to have change eventually.
The only constant is change.
- Price of wireless access point: $30
- Price of replacing laptop when my child pulls my wife's laptop off a table when she turns her back for half a second: $750
Nope, wireless is clearly more cost-effective than using wires everywhere.Here I am looking at male enhancement products... what's Taco's phone number again?
What was the pricetag to blow up the cement mixer? That was a seriously cool stunt -- I giggle uncontrollably everytime I see it.
Demanding that something be sold below market set pricing sounds an awful lot like... commmmunnnnissssmmmmm.
America suffered a similar spate when some commentators observed that US foreign policy might have had something to do in motivating extremists to fly hijacked planes into buildings.
(Oh yes, #include "o.b.burn-karma-burn.h")
Personally (and as a network sysadmin for a building network... not an ISP, but close) I'm all for restrictions on what happens on the network. In my building, if I don't notice what you are doing, I'm not going to stop you; however if I notice something causing problems for the rest of the building (zombies, spam, P2P, whatever) I'm shutting your ass down. And yes, I have shut down P2P users.
Yep, that's the one.
The problem is that I spent a long time on hibernation, and while I could sometimes get it to stop properly, it almost never restarted properly.
For sleep mode, Linux would usually work; but again, not always. I have far fewer problems with Windows than I did with Linux.
For the network: I know that Linux will do DHCP. That's how mine was configured. My complaint was that if I managed to make the laptop go to sleep on network A, and it woke up on network B, I would have to manually do the ifdown/ifup dance. Windows seems to assume that if it has gone to sleep it needs to renegotiate the network config when it is woken up, which is a safe assumption much of time, and a harmless one the vast majority of the time.
I'll admit that I don't mess around with changing my display resolution much; except that when I am docked at the office, it seems silly to be stuck in a 1400x1280 60Hz display if I have a 1600x1400 85Hz capable monitor sitting right in front of me. And that, plus the real, full-sized keyboard, is the only necessary justification for docking; anything else is just gravy.
Regarding the CDRs: the unfixated disks require something called DirectCD (part of the Roxio suite of products) in order to read; nothing else has been able to read them on any platform I've tried. I was stunned too.
And I've tried WINE. I even paid for CrossOver. And there are still some things that don't work under it (the Cisco switch management applet thing is the current gate).
The point of all this is that yes, I could do much (perhaps all) of my list on Linux; however, I'm not an 18-year-old living in my mom's basement anymore. I have a life, a wife, and a child; I no longer have hours and hours on end to fiddle with this and tweak that or whatever. If I can get things done without the fiddling and fussing it works much better for me, and for my employer.
But keep hacking on this stuff. Once it all "just works", I'm sure I'll come back to it because I really hate Windows. I just need it right now.