Dude, I'm in the US, and I use a Celeron 300 in an AT case that I cobbled together with spare parts. I was pulled kicking and screaming from my beloved old 3-button Mouse Systems serial mouse to a PS2 mouse. Old hardware RULES, especially on Linux. And as pretty as the Apples are, I have to use MS at work, and I can tell you that I'm in no hurry to trade one lock-in vendor for another, no matter how much Unix is underneath. I'll take my junky old retreads and Linux, thanks. So make room on that Elephant, I'm climbing on....
Re:So far, it's the same old stuff
on
Superbowl XXXVII
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
"...and lots of violence"
If you're referring to the game itself as being violent, it often is. If you were trying to sound cool by quoting John Lennon in order to condemn American Football, I'd pick another person if I were you. Lennon quite enjoyed our game, going so far as joining Howard Cossell in the booth for Monday Night Football one time. He was impressed with the whole spectacle of it all, and didn't seem to mind the rough aspect of the game.
Love is no longer WITH Caldera/SCO, and hasn't been for months now. SCO's abrupt change of strategies (including emphasizing Unix rather than Linux)is the direct result of their new president. And as lame as we might think this move is, I don't think (yet) that they really intend to try to collect direct payments. I think they'll use this as leverage in future negotiations with other software companies. If it stands up in court, you can't deny that it's a nice carrot AND stick to have when dealing with partners.....and competitors. That said, if they really DO try to collect revenue, then yes, there should be some kind of market retaliation against the company. And parts of Linux would simply have to be re-written (using different concepts) to replace the infringing IP.
As I read through the threads in this story, I kept noticing that the Apple users stood out from the rest, and that the vast majority seemed to just nod and go "MmmHmmm, good job Steve....whatever you say Steve.....you're right Steve....".
Maybe there's something to this Apple "cult" thing.
That's a good question, actually. Unless I'm mistaken, the reasoning is that the Geneva Convention only counts for soldiers in a national army, or militia in the service of a nation. The taliban was a terrorist army in service to Osama Bin Laden and radical Islam, basically. Whether that will hold water or not, I don't know.
'I see nothing that says "...all right-wing rednecks..." '
Nothing in there about bleeding heart liberals, either:P
Seriously though, the Constitution DOES apply to all people, citizen or no, if they're within our national boundaries. This is one of the reason the Taliban troops are being kept in Guantanamo bay. Plus, there are various exemptions for wartime situations.
I'm a cruel, heartless, warmongering bastard. I'd just have Al Quieda troopers shot. Sending them to Guantanamo is Disneyland. If you love your crackers, don't ask me to compare punishments with the Taliban and Company.
I have to dispute the thread about the causes for AOL's impending demise. The assumption seems to be that AOL is dying because it's users are getting more net-savy, and moving to "real" ISPs. I don't think so. AOL's doom can be explained in one word.
Broadband.
AOL is a dial-up beast. From beginning to end, it was designed as a one-stop-shopping place to get internet access, web surfing, email, and chat services. The user didn't have to configure much of anything. Just run the setup, and you're on. Everything in one, neat, tidy, and USEFULL package. To so many people, it WAS the internet.
While some users wised up and moved on, most AOLers were quite happy to stay put. Then broadband came along. And those same users discoverd that for just a few dollars more than their AOL bill, they could get blazingly fast internet access. Access from a familiar and trusted source (their phone company or cable tv provider). Yes, other means of access were availabe in the dial-up sphere, but users were happy with what they had.
Cable and Phone companies beat AOL to the broadband game, and the jig was up. Even to the AOL faithful, it was apparent that they were no longer the primary means of access to the web. And a giant mental perception in this country came crumbling down. The internet now means Charter, or Verizon, or Bellsouth, or Knology. It doesn't mean AOL in the age of broadband. The perception has now changed. That perception was AOL's most powerful marketing tool. Broadband, since it's on all the time, is pretty much as easy to use as AOL. You don't have to turn it on. Just click an icon for what you need, and bam!, you're there. It's better than the old days for most users, actually.
Yes, those users were told they could still get AOL for an EXTRA ten bucks or so, but by then, why bother? That mental block has been destroyed. AOL is no longer synonymous with access. It was the gateway in. No longer.
You deserve to be modded up, but don't hold your breath. You're preaching inclusiveness for non-geeks on the interent, and that doesn't go over well here. I think AOL should be despised in some ways, but not for the reasons most people think. I have no problem that they got millions of people with no clue about computing on the internet in a quick, easy, productive fashion. They deserve points for that.
What provokes my ire is that they also helped herald the age of spam, popup ads, and rampant commercialism without ethics. Spammers are well-known to use AOL addresses...they're easy to steal. AOL pioneered the practice of constantly marketing things to you via annoying popup ads while you're working/surfing. Ever seen an AOL session? It's a constant barrage of "Try this!" and "special deal for you!" ads. And the very large market of "dumb" users attracted spammers and porn mavens, like a pack of wolves zeroing in on a herd of cattle.
AOL served a purpose, but I won't mourn it's passing.
But having to say "gnu/mpeg" all the time would be annoying as hell....
It's only a matter of time...
on
Droning On
·
· Score: 2
..when the vast majority of military aircraft are drones. It won't happen in my lifetime, but it's inevitable. There are some things like G forces that you just can't adapt humans to. And the plus of not having a pilot in danger will seal the deal too.
What is C relative to?
on
E ~ mc^2
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Dude......C is relative to B. It's C++ and Java that's relative to C. Cobol is a different species altogether.....
Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one....
on
Review: Solaris
·
· Score: 2
The Bond franchise has in no way "jumped the shark" (a phrase that itself is allready played....to death). I just saw Die Another Day this afternoon, and while I'm not the biggest Bond fan in the world, I do like the movies as well as the books. And rather than Bond becoming too cartoonish, producers have strived over the past half-dozen films to make him a little more believable, more like the character that Ian Fleming created.
Timothy Dalton's Bond went a long way toward doing this, and Pierce Brosnan's Bond is contiuing that trend. If you've ever read the novels, Bond was not a superman, and was captured and injured quite often. There's a passage (in Casino Royale, I think) where a captured Bond is being tortured by having his genitals punched repeatedly. Quite like what really happens to prisoners in captivity, if you've ever read accounts of POWs.
(Spoiler Below) In DAD, Bond is captured by the North Koreans and brutally tortured for 14 months. He is released via a prisoner exchange only when US/British governemts decide there's an overriding need to do so. Again, quite like the real world. I LIKED that. It reminded me a lot of what Ian Fleming would've written. (End Spoiler)
I think the franchise has only gotten better with these last half-dozen films. The character has become more what Fleming intended it to be, rather than the Roger Moore era coctail hound, fighting "jaws" in space. As for invisible cars, at least they provided a plausible explanation for the technology. And what used to be considered fanciful in the old Bond movies (miniture lasers, super-small cameras, etc) have come to pass today.
I very much agree that sending in the FBI (that in itself shocks....local P.D. couldn't have handled this?), weapons drawn, was abuse of authority. There should be some ramifications for the people that authorized this resopnse.
HOWEVER.....I don't want this to be just another situation where someone knowingly breaks the law, steals (it's bandwidth, but it DOES cost money), and then Slashdot readers start screaming "Free them! Fight the Power! Stand up to the man!". These guys knew what they were doing. Their ISP should not only drop them, but they should face legal sanction of SOME kind. Not prison, obviously, but a hefty fine and some community service time at least.
The way they were busted was indeed extreme. Don't go to the other end of the scale and insist there should be no punishement at all. By calling it a "virtual crime", you seem to mock the idea that it was a crime at all. It was, and proper punishement is still deserved. Only the scale of the reaction and the level of punishement should be called into question here.
I make sure our backups are done nightly, one tape for each night, with tapes stored in a "fireproof" safe. I take additional measures as well, such as regularly copying important files to other computers in a different area of the facility, and once a month, making a special tape backup and keeping it offsite.
What I'd REALLY like is cheap online storage. I've checked into it, but our group just can't afford what offsite storage people are asking. It'd be so much easier to just be able to copy our data over a secure connection to another site every night. If the building goes up in flames, hey, last night's data is waiting for you offsite, no problem.
This is like saying that "I hate Chevys, they're just clones of Fords". Unless you come up with the Very First version of something, ALL competing products are going to be like yours ("clones", if you will). If Sony comes up with a new gadget that's popular, Toshiba and RCA will probably make something as similar as possible and sell it. That's how a market works. It's rediculous (and just damn whiny) to blame a company for recognizing the success of another company's product, and then making something similar to get a piece of that market.
I don't think that post was claiming that man "couldn't make dirt", but rather tried to impress upon the reader of the sheer magnitude involving all of creation. The point was that man is quick to arrogance, thinking he has all of the answers until a situation arises that humbles him again. I would think that even an Atheist could appreciate that. It was a funny and insightful post. If anyone came close to turning it into a religious rant (or anti,in your case), it was you.
Actually, he spent a great deal of time at the Toronto Shakespeare Company. He was Christopher Plummer's understudy in fact. All joking aside, Shatner was considered a hot property at that time. His first big break was when Plummer was sick one night, and he had to do the Hamlet role. Audiences said he was magnificent. Serious roles like The Brothers Karamazov followed. He was nabbed for Star Trek because of his classical theater rep, and if you've ever watched the old episodes, some of his performances were damn good. He's went the Leslie Nielson route now, and doing a lot of comedy, but drama was originally his forte.
When my contract was up, I simply got rid of mine. Alltel was absolutely horrible, but Cellular One was no better, nor was Suncom. I now just use one pager, supplied by my employer. And you know what? The world didn't end when I got rid of it, surprise surprise. You find out that you DON'T have to be connected 24 hours a day. And the people constantly calling you discover this as well. I got my life back when I dumped that damned phone. I've now set rules on how I can be contacted. In an emergency, page me, but it damn well better be a real emergency. Other than that, send email, and I'll get back to you when I can. It feels so much better that way. When I had the phone, it seemed that I was on call to everone I knew constantly. Now it seems more like I'm in charge of my own time again. Dump your cell phones. You'll be surprised how much better you feel.
If you're relying on lame online dating services like Yahoo, money is the least of your problems. That sounds mean, but if you really want to meet someone, try getting out of your house. If you're going to tell me that there are "no women in my area", I'll only have to assume that you live in Alaska, because in almost all places, women outnumber men. If you continue to say this, you have two options:
People are used to it. And let's be honest here; for 99 percent of what people do with it, it suits their needs just fine. And although it isn't Mac-like in ease of use, in many ways, it's pretty close. It's got by far the largest selection of software available, from games to office suites. And thinks to IE's dominance (and most webmasters designing with it in mind), it works pretty well with the internet in most cases.
It has one standard install/unistall method. And though the various system features on Windows isn't aren't very powerful in the sense that 'nix people think of power, they're effective and easy to use. "Built In" apps, like Outlook Express, are fairly good products (we're talking look, "feel", and ease of use here, not security).
While Windows 95 was somewhat volitile, and ME was horrible, 98 is the standard, and it's fairly stable if not used as a server of some kind, at least by 9X standards. And Windows 2000/XP is a huge improvement in power and stability.
And the most important reason? It's OEM installed on virtually every intel-compatible PC. You can get Linux from some manufacturers, but it's tough. Or you could go deluxe and buy an Apple, but you pay a good deal more, and have less software to choose from, especially games. There's a kind of catch-22 going on. People are now used to Windows, so seeing that as demand, OEM's install windows.
MS does a good enough job of making likable software that common users are willing to overlook the security faux paus. As long as Windows is sold to OEMs cheaply, as long as lots of games are written for it, and as long as it gets easier to use, it'll be popular.
Which brings me to a point about Linux on the desktop. It's my feeling that people wont leave Windows for Linux if it's made to look more like Windows. They'll try Linux if it's different from Windows, and interesting. Not neccessarily difficult, but definitly different. You can make Linux (or at least the GUI) easier to use without neccessarily making it more Windows-like. THERE's where you'll find your converts.
Yup, wasted. The doubters aren't going to belive no matter what we do. A report isn't going to change things. They'll always find another angle. Did the Warren Report stifle conspiracy theories about the first Kennedy assasination? No, all of it's conclusions were merely brushed aside. This report won't sway any doubting minds. If it suits them, I say let them live in their fantasy world (and I count a relative that lives there. He doesn't belive we went to the moon either). We can't convince them with reason or evidence.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, I'm in the US, and I use a Celeron 300 in an AT case that I cobbled together with spare parts. I was pulled kicking and screaming from my beloved old 3-button Mouse Systems serial mouse to a PS2 mouse. Old hardware RULES, especially on Linux. And as pretty as the Apples are, I have to use MS at work, and I can tell you that I'm in no hurry to trade one lock-in vendor for another, no matter how much Unix is underneath. I'll take my junky old retreads and Linux, thanks. So make room on that Elephant, I'm climbing on....
"...and lots of violence"
If you're referring to the game itself as being violent, it often is. If you were trying to sound cool by quoting John Lennon in order to condemn American Football, I'd pick another person if I were you. Lennon quite enjoyed our game, going so far as joining Howard Cossell in the booth for Monday Night Football one time. He was impressed with the whole spectacle of it all, and didn't seem to mind the rough aspect of the game.
Love is no longer WITH Caldera/SCO, and hasn't been for months now. SCO's abrupt change of strategies (including emphasizing Unix rather than Linux)is the direct result of their new president.
And as lame as we might think this move is, I don't think (yet) that they really intend to try to collect direct payments. I think they'll use this as leverage in future negotiations with other software companies. If it stands up in court, you can't deny that it's a nice carrot AND stick to have when dealing with partners.....and competitors.
That said, if they really DO try to collect revenue, then yes, there should be some kind of market retaliation against the company. And parts of Linux would simply have to be re-written (using different concepts) to replace the infringing IP.
As I read through the threads in this story, I kept noticing that the Apple users stood out from the rest, and that the vast majority seemed to just nod and go "MmmHmmm, good job Steve....whatever you say Steve.....you're right Steve....".
Maybe there's something to this Apple "cult" thing.
That's a good question, actually. Unless I'm mistaken, the reasoning is that the Geneva Convention only counts for soldiers in a national army, or militia in the service of a nation. The taliban was a terrorist army in service to Osama Bin Laden and radical Islam, basically. Whether that will hold water or not, I don't know.
He works exclusively on the United Linux venture now. He was pretty much sacked from Caldera/SCO. This was just a graceful way to do it.
'I see nothing that says "...all right-wing rednecks..." '
:P
Nothing in there about bleeding heart liberals, either
Seriously though, the Constitution DOES apply to all people, citizen or no, if they're within our national boundaries. This is one of the reason the Taliban troops are being kept in Guantanamo bay. Plus, there are various exemptions for wartime situations.
I'm a cruel, heartless, warmongering bastard. I'd just have Al Quieda troopers shot. Sending them to Guantanamo is Disneyland. If you love your crackers, don't ask me to compare punishments with the Taliban and Company.
I have to dispute the thread about the causes for AOL's impending demise. The assumption seems to be that AOL is dying because it's users are getting more net-savy, and moving to "real" ISPs. I don't think so. AOL's doom can be explained in one word.
Broadband.
AOL is a dial-up beast. From beginning to end, it was designed as a one-stop-shopping place to get internet access, web surfing, email, and chat services. The user didn't have to configure much of anything. Just run the setup, and you're on. Everything in one, neat, tidy, and USEFULL package. To so many people, it WAS the internet.
While some users wised up and moved on, most AOLers were quite happy to stay put. Then broadband came along. And those same users discoverd that for just a few dollars more than their AOL bill, they could get blazingly fast internet access. Access from a familiar and trusted source (their phone company or cable tv provider). Yes, other means of access were availabe in the dial-up sphere, but users were happy with what they had.
Cable and Phone companies beat AOL to the broadband game, and the jig was up. Even to the AOL faithful, it was apparent that they were no longer the primary means of access to the web. And a giant mental perception in this country came crumbling down. The internet now means Charter, or Verizon, or Bellsouth, or Knology. It doesn't mean AOL in the age of broadband. The perception has now changed. That perception was AOL's most powerful marketing tool. Broadband, since it's on all the time, is pretty much as easy to use as AOL. You don't have to turn it on. Just click an icon for what you need, and bam!, you're there. It's better than the old days for most users, actually.
Yes, those users were told they could still get AOL for an EXTRA ten bucks or so, but by then, why bother? That mental block has been destroyed. AOL is no longer synonymous with access. It was the gateway in. No longer.
You deserve to be modded up, but don't hold your breath. You're preaching inclusiveness for non-geeks on the interent, and that doesn't go over well here. I think AOL should be despised in some ways, but not for the reasons most people think. I have no problem that they got millions of people with no clue about computing on the internet in a quick, easy, productive fashion. They deserve points for that.
What provokes my ire is that they also helped herald the age of spam, popup ads, and rampant commercialism without ethics. Spammers are well-known to use AOL addresses...they're easy to steal. AOL pioneered the practice of constantly marketing things to you via annoying popup ads while you're working/surfing. Ever seen an AOL session? It's a constant barrage of "Try this!" and "special deal for you!" ads. And the very large market of "dumb" users attracted spammers and porn mavens, like a pack of wolves zeroing in on a herd of cattle.
AOL served a purpose, but I won't mourn it's passing.
But having to say "gnu/mpeg" all the time would be annoying as hell....
..when the vast majority of military aircraft are drones. It won't happen in my lifetime, but it's inevitable. There are some things like G forces that you just can't adapt humans to. And the plus of not having a pilot in danger will seal the deal too.
Dude......C is relative to B. It's C++ and Java that's relative to C. Cobol is a different species altogether.....
The Bond franchise has in no way "jumped the shark" (a phrase that itself is allready played....to death). I just saw Die Another Day this afternoon, and while I'm not the biggest Bond fan in the world, I do like the movies as well as the books. And rather than Bond becoming too cartoonish, producers have strived over the past half-dozen films to make him a little more believable, more like the character that Ian Fleming created.
Timothy Dalton's Bond went a long way toward doing this, and Pierce Brosnan's Bond is contiuing that trend. If you've ever read the novels, Bond was not a superman, and was captured and injured quite often. There's a passage (in Casino Royale, I think) where a captured Bond is being tortured by having his genitals punched repeatedly. Quite like what really happens to prisoners in captivity, if you've ever read accounts of POWs.
(Spoiler Below)
In DAD, Bond is captured by the North Koreans and brutally tortured for 14 months. He is released via a prisoner exchange only when US/British governemts decide there's an overriding need to do so. Again, quite like the real world. I LIKED that. It reminded me a lot of what Ian Fleming would've written. (End Spoiler)
I think the franchise has only gotten better with these last half-dozen films. The character has become more what Fleming intended it to be, rather than the Roger Moore era coctail hound, fighting "jaws" in space. As for invisible cars, at least they provided a plausible explanation for the technology. And what used to be considered fanciful in the old Bond movies (miniture lasers, super-small cameras, etc) have come to pass today.
I very much agree that sending in the FBI (that in itself shocks....local P.D. couldn't have handled this?), weapons drawn, was abuse of authority. There should be some ramifications for the people that authorized this resopnse.
HOWEVER.....I don't want this to be just another situation where someone knowingly breaks the law, steals (it's bandwidth, but it DOES cost money), and then Slashdot readers start screaming "Free them! Fight the Power! Stand up to the man!". These guys knew what they were doing. Their ISP should not only drop them, but they should face legal sanction of SOME kind. Not prison, obviously, but a hefty fine and some community service time at least.
The way they were busted was indeed extreme. Don't go to the other end of the scale and insist there should be no punishement at all. By calling it a "virtual crime", you seem to mock the idea that it was a crime at all. It was, and proper punishement is still deserved. Only the scale of the reaction and the level of punishement should be called into question here.
I make sure our backups are done nightly, one tape for each night, with tapes stored in a "fireproof" safe. I take additional measures as well, such as regularly copying important files to other computers in a different area of the facility, and once a month, making a special tape backup and keeping it offsite.
What I'd REALLY like is cheap online storage. I've checked into it, but our group just can't afford what offsite storage people are asking. It'd be so much easier to just be able to copy our data over a secure connection to another site every night. If the building goes up in flames, hey, last night's data is waiting for you offsite, no problem.
Oh well. It's GOOD to want things...
This is like saying that "I hate Chevys, they're just clones of Fords". Unless you come up with the Very First version of something, ALL competing products are going to be like yours ("clones", if you will). If Sony comes up with a new gadget that's popular, Toshiba and RCA will probably make something as similar as possible and sell it. That's how a market works. It's rediculous (and just damn whiny) to blame a company for recognizing the success of another company's product, and then making something similar to get a piece of that market.
I don't think that post was claiming that man "couldn't make dirt", but rather tried to impress upon the reader of the sheer magnitude involving all of creation. The point was that man is quick to arrogance, thinking he has all of the answers until a situation arises that humbles him again. I would think that even an Atheist could appreciate that. It was a funny and insightful post. If anyone came close to turning it into a religious rant (or anti,in your case), it was you.
I stand corrected. It was indeed the Stratford Company he was a part of, NEAR Toronto. Thanks for the info....
Actually, he spent a great deal of time at the Toronto Shakespeare Company. He was Christopher Plummer's understudy in fact. All joking aside, Shatner was considered a hot property at that time. His first big break was when Plummer was sick one night, and he had to do the Hamlet role. Audiences said he was magnificent. Serious roles like The Brothers Karamazov followed. He was nabbed for Star Trek because of his classical theater rep, and if you've ever watched the old episodes, some of his performances were damn good. He's went the Leslie Nielson route now, and doing a lot of comedy, but drama was originally his forte.
When my contract was up, I simply got rid of mine. Alltel was absolutely horrible, but Cellular One was no better, nor was Suncom. I now just use one pager, supplied by my employer. And you know what? The world didn't end when I got rid of it, surprise surprise. You find out that you DON'T have to be connected 24 hours a day. And the people constantly calling you discover this as well. I got my life back when I dumped that damned phone. I've now set rules on how I can be contacted. In an emergency, page me, but it damn well better be a real emergency. Other than that, send email, and I'll get back to you when I can. It feels so much better that way. When I had the phone, it seemed that I was on call to everone I knew constantly. Now it seems more like I'm in charge of my own time again. Dump your cell phones. You'll be surprised how much better you feel.
If you're relying on lame online dating services like Yahoo, money is the least of your problems. That sounds mean, but if you really want to meet someone, try getting out of your house. If you're going to tell me that there are "no women in my area", I'll only have to assume that you live in Alaska, because in almost all places, women outnumber men. If you continue to say this, you have two options:
1- Get out and look harder
2- Move
People are used to it. And let's be honest here; for 99 percent of what people do with it, it suits their needs just fine. And although it isn't Mac-like in ease of use, in many ways, it's pretty close. It's got by far the largest selection of software available, from games to office suites. And thinks to IE's dominance (and most webmasters designing with it in mind), it works pretty well with the internet in most cases.
It has one standard install/unistall method. And though the various system features on Windows isn't aren't very powerful in the sense that 'nix people think of power, they're effective and easy to use. "Built In" apps, like Outlook Express, are fairly good products (we're talking look, "feel", and ease of use here, not security).
While Windows 95 was somewhat volitile, and ME was horrible, 98 is the standard, and it's fairly stable if not used as a server of some kind, at least by 9X standards. And Windows 2000/XP is a huge improvement in power and stability.
And the most important reason? It's OEM installed on virtually every intel-compatible PC. You can get Linux from some manufacturers, but it's tough. Or you could go deluxe and buy an Apple, but you pay a good deal more, and have less software to choose from, especially games. There's a kind of catch-22 going on. People are now used to Windows, so seeing that as demand, OEM's install windows.
MS does a good enough job of making likable software that common users are willing to overlook the security faux paus. As long as Windows is sold to OEMs cheaply, as long as lots of games are written for it, and as long as it gets easier to use, it'll be popular.
Which brings me to a point about Linux on the desktop. It's my feeling that people wont leave Windows for Linux if it's made to look more like Windows. They'll try Linux if it's different from Windows, and interesting. Not neccessarily difficult, but definitly different. You can make Linux (or at least the GUI) easier to use without neccessarily making it more Windows-like. THERE's where you'll find your converts.
Yup, wasted. The doubters aren't going to belive no matter what we do. A report isn't going to change things. They'll always find another angle. Did the Warren Report stifle conspiracy theories about the first Kennedy assasination? No, all of it's conclusions were merely brushed aside. This report won't sway any doubting minds. If it suits them, I say let them live in their fantasy world (and I count a relative that lives there. He doesn't belive we went to the moon either). We can't convince them with reason or evidence.
All right...who let Richard Stallman post? Damnit Rich, you'll never get better unless you TAKE the medication as ordered...