I was going over the Williamsburg bridge this morning...at that time, I saw that the first tower was on fire. I saw the clock at the Essex/Delancey station, it was about 3 of 9.
When I got to work in DUMBO, I saw that the other tower was on fire.
As a networked OS anyway. There are a lot of offices and homes using SAMBA as the filesharing protocol because it's nearly transparent to the winlusers...I'll never buy OR use an MS os that doesn't have working SAMBA interoperabilty--but then I'll never give MS my credit card # either, so I'm already out of the loop.
Bad call--bad call. My prediction is that.NET is going to be the end of MS--it will fail when people realize they're paying more--a lot more--for less. People will just keep using win2k, win98 and 95 and ME and local versions of Office rather than paying through the nose for.NET and MS products with broken filesharing
Of course, I could be wrong, but I know what my family and clients will be doing.
So, so much...it opens a new window for every thing you want to do and then at the end, there's no instant access to the song file...you have to put it in the basket. WTF?
Now, if the site rocked and charged micropayments, it might be sweet, but there's just something so perverse about paying for something that is worse than the free alternative.
I guess it's nice to see the system working for somebody...too bad it's not us.
In return, the DEA gives Amtrak a cut of seized assets.
Hmmm...it's a good thing that Amtrak and the DEA are so interested in protecting the rights of citizens. I mean, it sure would be terrible if a government agency as important as the DEA was acting just like a private corporation, making lucrative deals. I'm just glad that they're out there to watch out for us, completely disinterestedly.
And I quote:
I had this debate with Bob Young once where he stated it was great that so many desktop options exist for the Linux user. I don't see it. Lots of choices of desktops in the academic community might be good for stimulating many different approaches but having too many choices in a commercial platform environment in the end, confuses developers and users.
(end quote)
This, if you ask me, is the gap that can't be bridged. MS is a company supporting a product, and thus, they want to have a unified environment, so neither users nor developers get confused.
But this would be the death of linux. Linux is beautiful because there's so much stuff going on...so many different environments and projects. KDE/GNOME doesn't even begin to tell the story, if you ask me. The real stuff is KDE/Blackbox integration, or GNOME with Enlightenment...multiple environments at the same time. I run GNOME and KDE apps simultaneously, and I'm hardly alone in doing so. Ultimately, MS is confused by linux...they can deal with it as a server OS, but when it comes to desktop...they know that there are features in linux already that they can't compete with. Windows will never be as reconfigurable as any unix, and linux is the most flexible of them all.
So good. If you ask me, keep windows easy to use, and keep linux big, confusing, and flexible. Sure, I won't fight you if linux gets easier to use somehow, but you can't deny that UNIX, though cryptic, is perfectly usable. So MS doesn't think that the average Joe can learn enough UNIX to copy his files out of a paper bag...so what. Let the sheep stay with MS...us wolves will take care of ourselves...even with too many choices.
In addition to that, knives that open with one hand are banned there, like all of Spyderco's offerings, as well as many others. What kind of knife do they expect you to use to skin that buck or bear you shoot in the wilderness? Seriously. You probably can't even get tactical street weapons there, so what are you supposed to shoot ducks with?
I have to agree on the quality of the article. It simply isn't up to snuff...in addition to the questionable validity of its assumptions, its analysis is quite childish.
Let's face the fact that MS/windows copying the good aspects of Linux or anything else has to be seen as a good thing. One of the best things about Linux is the competition it creates. Because Linux exists, MS simply can't shovel out crap like win98--I don't know if you've noticed, but the price for the WinME upgrade fell by half, to about the same level as win95. Hopefully, this trend will continue. And most importantly, MS products have to be better and more stable.
I know a lot of people would like MS to simply roll over and die. Not going to happen. It's in everyone's best interest that MS learn from Linux. At least that way, we'll get fewer headaches from helping lusers at work when their winbox crashes. And let's not even talk about when you're forced to use Windows like I am right now...
C'mon people. We can do better than this. It's time for Linux advocacy to grow up.
No. D.A.R.E. does not work to deter drug use, nor will it, because people like drugs. People like alcohol, people like drugs of all kinds, and people in general are not going to stop doing them. Oh, interest will wax and wane, but don't worry--the kids will be binge drinking, smoking dope, getting coked up, speeding, snorting, injecting, what have you, to get fucked up, because like it or not, drugs are a fundamental part of human culture. It's been part of human culture from Bacchus and Shiva to Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, and beyond. Sure, the government can spend lots of cash, they can educate me...in fact, I appreciate all the drug education I get. Although most educators are trying to give a biased view, they do give out a lot of really helpful information. I'm glad for the DARE session I had in school--it gave me a lot of info I'm glad I got before I became the disreputable drug abuser that I am now...in fact, I have to say that drug education really got me interested to find out more, to get deeper. I don't know if you agree, but I think that means it was quite effective.
When asked about privacy concerns with the treaty, Csonka said: "These concerns may be legitimate, but they could be raised in relation to any international treaty. Harmonization of laws is necessary to avoid a legal jungle on the Net."
Right. Keep up the good work, guys, and thank you. Hey, what are those funny red dots, are there snipers around
Just what I wanted. So when does my linux laptop become a hacking tool? When I have a portscanner? Or is it already one.
No governmental organization should be making this kind of law. Nor should these 'cybercrimes' be prosecuted in any way. What's the worst thing that you can imagine? Your credit card being 'stolen?' Your identity being 'taken?'
There are definitely some very bad things that can be done to and with computers...and they are being done, by governmental organizations. They are trying to put up borders and checkpoints where none are needed, and extracting taxes for the service. Thank you, USA, for arresting me! Now let me pay my taxes so you can enforce your laws.
But it's a good thing they're doing this...if they didn't, people might get the idea that we don't need physical borders and checkpoints either. Then we'd be screwed...and what would happen to the 'criminals' who've broken other 'laws' like drug possession...they might be set free! Uh oh.
Well, it's a good thing that I still have free speech and can say this stuff...hey, where are you taking me...guys...
I noticed this myself and just couldn't resist posting.
A university is a collection of two things: people and books. If students lose access to either of these things, a university education is useless, or at least very, very overpriced.
There is something new in this equation, however. Free, fast access to the internet via ethernet. In my experience at Columbia(I am now a senior) this has perhaps been the most enlightening. It was always on and available, unlike the libraries, and definitely unlike professors. Starting when I did, in 1997, I've seen quite a large change in the importance of the internet. Freshman year, the most productive thing we used the net for was quake. Now ordering from Kozmo.com is completely ubiquitous, as is most i-commerce. But there are far more important things as well. Unrestricted net access allows amazing opportunities for computer learning; I've learned a whole lot about networking and unix from the unrestricted ethernet. I also use academic resources like Tufts University's Perseus project.
What I'm trying to say, if you haven't guessed, is that unrestricted net access is just as important as unrestricted library access, and access to world-class professors. I would be very, very disturbed if Columbia or another world-class university began selectively blocking internet access. There is only one reason why a student should go to any of these universities, and that is unrestricted access to information.
If these universities fall to the base concerns of the recording industry, I have little hope for this country or the world in general. I'm starting to long for the unregulated, community-driven internet of my first years in college, and I'm afraid that I'm not going to lose that feeling for quite some time.
I agree--NT4 w/sp6a is stable. I have very few problems despite overclocking by nearly 200mhz. I've only had one unexplained BSOD in my entire experience with it.
I have, however, had a number of video-related and sound-related lockups. Probably no more than I've had with linux and Xfree4, but a few.
I have no problems at all with NT's stability--I do have some problems with the windows design philosophy. NT is supposedly a server OS-such an OS should not require reboots for driver changes. I hear win2k deals with that issue to some extent. Also, the "Command Shell" in NT is a little bit weak compared to bash. There's no way around that.
Win2k looks really exciting in some ways. I'm waiting for good drivers for my SBLive! to become available. I'll be sad to see NT go, though. It's the only MS OS which I currently consider stable enough for production. Win2k might be cool, but in my book, it's still beta.
I don't know about you...
on
Is UNIX An OS?
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· Score: 1
I don't know about you, but I don't run anything called 'Unix' on my computer and call it an 'OS.' So I guess it makes some sense...I think of Unix as a standard, really, which gets implemented--and thus Linux is a Unix implementation, as is BSD, although BSD has 'original Unix code.' We all know there are a lot of Unices, but there aren't a lot of full-featured OS's that brand themselves 'Unix.'
On the other hand, Unix still does have the guts to be an 'OS,' in the same way that DOS 2.1 does. If that's all that's on your machine, then it will get you there. Most Unices have complete tools for text editing and printing even without the GUI, for example. If all I had was a Unix on my machine(like my zipslacked laptop for example)I could still get the job done, the way I did on DOS 2.1. It's not that the minimum requirements of an OS have changed. It's that a lot of other things have become 'necessary' to end-users. Most windroids and Mac abusers wouldn't even think of using a GUI-Less computer--that doesn't mean my X-less install of FreeBSD is any less an 'OS.' It's still packed with killer apps, that give at least as much functionality as winblows or Mac. Built-in Unix multitasking, IRC, screen...VI. But it's something that people want...and I want it too, sometimes, like on my workstation.
The definition of 'OS' is flexible these days, is what I'm getting at. I prefer to look at it as the user's method of operation, instead of the computer's. My 'OS' includes NT, and it also includes a cli-only unix machine that I use remotely. It seemed to me the best way to get what I wanted--windows as my 'window manager,' with a great Unix constantly available. If I did hardware installs, even if they included a bunch of computers, I might as well be calling it an 'OS.' So, basically, what I'm trying to say is 'whatever.' The whole article is just elucidating how Mac OS X looks at Unix...which is very accurate in their case. And let's face it--Unix alone won't be getting Mac abusers where they need to go.
Actually, that was my first thought when the Russians initially refused outside help. But it is very strange. Why would the Russians want to keep this a secret when it was apparently public knowledge? And what use is military might in this post-Cold War era? It seems that the Russians might see more profit from selling the weapons than using them.
Unless, of course, these weapons are incredibly powerful. With the boost in speed must come a comparable boost in range. The Russian test sub must have been taking many precautions. The torpedo must have acquired them as a target and almost instantaneously hit them, in this scenario, since they have a remote detonation control(as my memory of Red October serves). They may have given up on a weapon with which they had lost contact, and by the time it came back on their equipment, it was too late, because of the weapon's blinding speed. Now think about this: extreme speeds and extreme range, such that even when a ship is aware of the danger, it is unable to protect itself once targeted.
Whatever the case, it seems clear that this weapon is the new naval superweapon. Add nuclear warheads to them, and you have a weapon which is impervious even to the newest US 'Star Wars'-style air defense schemes.
A new arms race? Perhaps. Don't forget the economic repercussions of such a race--the winner in the arms race is always the more economically viable country. And how economically viable would the States be if nuclear warheads mounted on supersonic torpedoes were to hit every major US port. New York City and Boston unlivable because of fallout from the water table? What if they could be carefully programmed to travel up waterways, and avoid all but their programmed target? It seems that this would be possible in this advanced age.
Maybe the Cold War isn't over...and maybe it's about to get hot. There are a lot of nukes in the world, and a lot of people who would rather see the Americans without their vast economic resources, even if they don't gain by the loss.
Of course, I just really like making up conspiracy theories. Don't forget that.
Academe wanting to get in on the cash cow that much of their stuff becomes? And Patents? OH NO!!!!
Let's face the fact that Universities are some of the slightest offenders in this book. Sure, they may be making money, but without that, how would they provide all the stuff that I've come to expect from them? Columbia provides my bandwidth, and a lot of other services. Sure, I pay for it, but I have few complaints. This is no new thing: the big Ivy League Universities have been in it for money for quite some time. And to point out Columbia is ridiculous--I'd like to look into all the money that Yale and Harvard and MIT are making for their patents.
But the real issue isn't money; I've yet to be convinced that commerce is evil. The real issue is when corporate activities limit personal and intellectual freedoms. And no University is dumb enough to let this happen. The product that they peddle is the fruit of their intellectual achievement, and they can't afford to let that go sour. Columbia does some dumb things, and Fathom might indeed be one of them, but it's hardly a bastion of corporate evil--it's actually a rather ambitious project. It's very much a.com, it has a casual environment, and right now, it's fairly scattered both intellectually and technically. But Columbia and its partners are willing to invest a lot of money into Fathom, to turn it into something that's worthwhile. As I understand it, the only thing that they will charge for is actual class credit--the rest of the materials will be online free. Now, I don't know about you, but free information for the average web consumer doesn't seem like the height of 'corporatism' and 'cashing in.' Maybe there's some 'evil' element that I'm missing, but I'm pretty sure that this is a non-issue. If you want issues, look north and east of Columbia into Harlem. Look at the amount of real estate that Columbia owns, and at their willingness to drive out locally-owned businesses. Fathom is completely, utterly harmless--unlike many of Columbia's patents and practices. Remember the Manhattan project? And in 1968, one of the issues that promoted rioting was the fact that Columbia was a leader in military research--which it still is.
The real issues that you should be worried about are the ones that you can't see. Columbia is part of the insane behemoth that is the U.S. Military Industrial Complex. The military and the government is what JonKatz should worry about--not the corporate. There are a lot of corporations that overstep their bounds, but Fathom is not one of them. And in general, the corporate sector looks pretty cute and cuddly next to the Manhattan project...remember what happened around 55 years ago? Hiroshima, Nagasaki? 210,000 dead. For some reason, I'm unconcerned with Columbia making a little money off of the internet. No one will die of this, or die slowly of cancer in the following years.
I'm just amazed that this article could miss the mark so completely--but I guess JonKatz is so concerned with the green in their pockets that he missed the blood on their hands.
Dumber question: why would you get WinME if you want to run DOS apps? I haven't heard anything compelling about ME what would make me want to install it...in fact, I feel the same way about 98. Win95 is STILL the best 'consumer' OS from MS if you ask me...and don't mind rebooting. All the cool features of 98 + ME are just bs on top of the same old bs.
I'm sure that Hotmail will work fine under Win2k...after MS spends many thousands of dollars and hours setting up the new system with MS software! And I hope they enjoy updating(and rebooting)all those machines when much-needed bugfixes come out. YAY for needless expense created by MS! Now let's all upgrade to Win2k for the same functionality we can get elsewhere for free!
"Nobody can argue that the sharing of music online necessarily deprives the music industry (or artists) of any incentive to create music."
Why would it deprive the music industry of incentive? Because even more people are hearing music than before? Our gov't. tends to believe that without money, there's no reason to do anything. But as a musician it's obvious that having an audience is just as big a draw. Music isn't about money, unless you're the recording industry. Musicians obviously don't care about money as much as they do music: they've been making music for very little money(with the help of the industry)for a while now. I don't know...it's a decent piece, but JonKatz's rants only get you so far. Let's keep music free; let's make more good, free music. Ultimately, the industry and its lawsuits are secondary to just making music and art...so screw it. Let's just rock out.
Ok...let's just for a second say that Mozilla is 'dead.' Now, for one thing, what does this mean? Since it's open source, does that mean that you should hunt down the source, wherever it is, and delete it? Does it mean that active development should be stopped, and changes should no longer be re-submitted? No, obviously not. Mozilla is open source; it's code is out there. There's no way to 'kill' it, you can't 'pull the plug.' When no one is developing for it, then maybe it's 'dead,' but I somehow doubt that the flagship open web browser will be left to rot. The author of this article doesn't know what he's talking about. What does the community get by 'killing' mozilla? More developers for Konqueror? I doubt it. A stable version of Opera? No. C'mon...if you don't dig Mozilla, then don't use it, ignore its active development and its builds, improving by leaps and bounds. Without Mozilla, what is there to wait for? IE 6? Maybe Mozilla isn't pretty, but it's starting to do a lot of things better than Netscape, especially Netscape for Linux. Sure, Mozilla has issues, but let's face it: the author of this article browses using IE for windows, and he doesn't care if the entire web is written using proprietary IE stuff, breaking compatibility with every other browser out there. I really have to wonder about anyone who calls for Mozilla to die. Who profits from Mozilla's death? MS does, that's for sure. Does the community? I don't think so. I think that Suck is great, though: especially for under-informed windows lusers who are eager to laugh at anything, especially at stuff they obviously don't understand. This article is worthy only of our wrath.
Change is scary. But it sounds like this change will be pretty transparent to programmers; perl will continue to get faster and better, still stay easy to use, and Larry Wall is still a little crazy. Well, it sounds like everything is right in the world.
The idea of waiting for ATI driver support just makes me feel a little sick...I didn't like it when NVIDIA had bad drivers and I don't think that I'm ever going to buy a card without ready, shipping linux drivers. Now, 2d and 3d seem like they will be supported. But as for its TV tuner and video-in portions? I really don't see them being supported at all. Do you? Sorry, I guess I just have no faith in ATI. Good luck to all involved, but, well, blech. Call me back when there's real driver support, ok?
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I was going over the Williamsburg bridge this morning...at that time, I saw that the first tower was on fire. I saw the clock at the Essex/Delancey station, it was about 3 of 9.
When I got to work in DUMBO, I saw that the other tower was on fire.
This is insanity.
As a networked OS anyway. There are a lot of offices and homes using SAMBA as the filesharing protocol because it's nearly transparent to the winlusers...I'll never buy OR use an MS os that doesn't have working SAMBA interoperabilty--but then I'll never give MS my credit card # either, so I'm already out of the loop.
.NET is going to be the end of MS--it will fail when people realize they're paying more--a lot more--for less. People will just keep using win2k, win98 and 95 and ME and local versions of Office rather than paying through the nose for .NET and MS products with broken filesharing
Bad call--bad call. My prediction is that
Of course, I could be wrong, but I know what my family and clients will be doing.
I've bought a few boxed distro's but not for awhile.
.iso's--it's far better, if you ask me, since you can get the instant gratification(if you have enough bandwidth.)
I've been downloading
I did buy Suse a couple of times--so $80 in the last couple of years vs. $0 for windows.
So linux by a nose for me, I guess...
So, so much...it opens a new window for every thing you want to do and then at the end, there's no instant access to the song file...you have to put it in the basket. WTF?
Now, if the site rocked and charged micropayments, it might be sweet, but there's just something so perverse about paying for something that is worse than the free alternative.
I guess it's nice to see the system working for somebody...too bad it's not us.
In return, the DEA gives Amtrak a cut of seized assets.
Hmmm...it's a good thing that Amtrak and the DEA are so interested in protecting the rights of citizens. I mean, it sure would be terrible if a government agency as important as the DEA was acting just like a private corporation, making lucrative deals. I'm just glad that they're out there to watch out for us, completely disinterestedly.
And I quote:
I had this debate with Bob Young once where he stated it was great that so many desktop options exist for the Linux user. I don't see it. Lots of choices of desktops in the academic community might be good for stimulating many different approaches but having too many choices in a commercial platform environment in the end, confuses developers and users.
(end quote)
This, if you ask me, is the gap that can't be bridged. MS is a company supporting a product, and thus, they want to have a unified environment, so neither users nor developers get confused.
But this would be the death of linux. Linux is beautiful because there's so much stuff going on...so many different environments and projects. KDE/GNOME doesn't even begin to tell the story, if you ask me. The real stuff is KDE/Blackbox integration, or GNOME with Enlightenment...multiple environments at the same time. I run GNOME and KDE apps simultaneously, and I'm hardly alone in doing so. Ultimately, MS is confused by linux...they can deal with it as a server OS, but when it comes to desktop...they know that there are features in linux already that they can't compete with. Windows will never be as reconfigurable as any unix, and linux is the most flexible of them all.
So good. If you ask me, keep windows easy to use, and keep linux big, confusing, and flexible. Sure, I won't fight you if linux gets easier to use somehow, but you can't deny that UNIX, though cryptic, is perfectly usable. So MS doesn't think that the average Joe can learn enough UNIX to copy his files out of a paper bag...so what. Let the sheep stay with MS...us wolves will take care of ourselves...even with too many choices.
In addition to that, knives that open with one hand are banned there, like all of Spyderco's offerings, as well as many others. What kind of knife do they expect you to use to skin that buck or bear you shoot in the wilderness? Seriously. You probably can't even get tactical street weapons there, so what are you supposed to shoot ducks with?
I have to agree on the quality of the article. It simply isn't up to snuff...in addition to the questionable validity of its assumptions, its analysis is quite childish.
Let's face the fact that MS/windows copying the good aspects of Linux or anything else has to be seen as a good thing. One of the best things about Linux is the competition it creates. Because Linux exists, MS simply can't shovel out crap like win98--I don't know if you've noticed, but the price for the WinME upgrade fell by half, to about the same level as win95. Hopefully, this trend will continue. And most importantly, MS products have to be better and more stable.
I know a lot of people would like MS to simply roll over and die. Not going to happen. It's in everyone's best interest that MS learn from Linux. At least that way, we'll get fewer headaches from helping lusers at work when their winbox crashes. And let's not even talk about when you're forced to use Windows like I am right now...
C'mon people. We can do better than this. It's time for Linux advocacy to grow up.
No. D.A.R.E. does not work to deter drug use, nor will it, because people like drugs. People like alcohol, people like drugs of all kinds, and people in general are not going to stop doing them. Oh, interest will wax and wane, but don't worry--the kids will be binge drinking, smoking dope, getting coked up, speeding, snorting, injecting, what have you, to get fucked up, because like it or not, drugs are a fundamental part of human culture. It's been part of human culture from Bacchus and Shiva to Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, and beyond. Sure, the government can spend lots of cash, they can educate me...in fact, I appreciate all the drug education I get. Although most educators are trying to give a biased view, they do give out a lot of really helpful information. I'm glad for the DARE session I had in school--it gave me a lot of info I'm glad I got before I became the disreputable drug abuser that I am now...in fact, I have to say that drug education really got me interested to find out more, to get deeper. I don't know if you agree, but I think that means it was quite effective.
Yes you do. You just aren't there when they're doing it.
The last paragraph:
When asked about privacy concerns with the treaty, Csonka said: "These concerns may be legitimate, but they could be raised in relation to any international treaty. Harmonization of laws is necessary to avoid a legal jungle on the Net."
Right. Keep up the good work, guys, and thank you. Hey, what are those funny red dots, are there snipers around
Just what I wanted. So when does my linux laptop become a hacking tool? When I have a portscanner? Or is it already one.
No governmental organization should be making this kind of law. Nor should these 'cybercrimes' be prosecuted in any way. What's the worst thing that you can imagine? Your credit card being 'stolen?' Your identity being 'taken?'
There are definitely some very bad things that can be done to and with computers...and they are being done, by governmental organizations. They are trying to put up borders and checkpoints where none are needed, and extracting taxes for the service. Thank you, USA, for arresting me! Now let me pay my taxes so you can enforce your laws.
But it's a good thing they're doing this...if they didn't, people might get the idea that we don't need physical borders and checkpoints either. Then we'd be screwed...and what would happen to the 'criminals' who've broken other 'laws' like drug possession...they might be set free! Uh oh.
Well, it's a good thing that I still have free speech and can say this stuff...hey, where are you taking me...guys...
I noticed this myself and just couldn't resist posting.
A university is a collection of two things: people and books. If students lose access to either of these things, a university education is useless, or at least very, very overpriced.
There is something new in this equation, however. Free, fast access to the internet via ethernet. In my experience at Columbia(I am now a senior) this has perhaps been the most enlightening. It was always on and available, unlike the libraries, and definitely unlike professors. Starting when I did, in 1997, I've seen quite a large change in the importance of the internet. Freshman year, the most productive thing we used the net for was quake. Now ordering from Kozmo.com is completely ubiquitous, as is most i-commerce. But there are far more important things as well. Unrestricted net access allows amazing opportunities for computer learning; I've learned a whole lot about networking and unix from the unrestricted ethernet. I also use academic resources like Tufts University's Perseus project.
What I'm trying to say, if you haven't guessed, is that unrestricted net access is just as important as unrestricted library access, and access to world-class professors. I would be very, very disturbed if Columbia or another world-class university began selectively blocking internet access. There is only one reason why a student should go to any of these universities, and that is unrestricted access to information.
If these universities fall to the base concerns of the recording industry, I have little hope for this country or the world in general. I'm starting to long for the unregulated, community-driven internet of my first years in college, and I'm afraid that I'm not going to lose that feeling for quite some time.
Er...your job must really suck.
Wow...I'd kind of like to see that movie or metamovie, though.
I agree--NT4 w/sp6a is stable. I have very few problems despite overclocking by nearly 200mhz. I've only had one unexplained BSOD in my entire experience with it.
I have, however, had a number of video-related and sound-related lockups. Probably no more than I've had with linux and Xfree4, but a few.
I have no problems at all with NT's stability--I do have some problems with the windows design philosophy. NT is supposedly a server OS-such an OS should not require reboots for driver changes. I hear win2k deals with that issue to some extent. Also, the "Command Shell" in NT is a little bit weak compared to bash. There's no way around that.
Win2k looks really exciting in some ways. I'm waiting for good drivers for my SBLive! to become available. I'll be sad to see NT go, though. It's the only MS OS which I currently consider stable enough for production. Win2k might be cool, but in my book, it's still beta.
I don't know about you, but I don't run anything called 'Unix' on my computer and call it an 'OS.' So I guess it makes some sense...I think of Unix as a standard, really, which gets implemented--and thus Linux is a Unix implementation, as is BSD, although BSD has 'original Unix code.' We all know there are a lot of Unices, but there aren't a lot of full-featured OS's that brand themselves 'Unix.'
On the other hand, Unix still does have the guts to be an 'OS,' in the same way that DOS 2.1 does. If that's all that's on your machine, then it will get you there. Most Unices have complete tools for text editing and printing even without the GUI, for example. If all I had was a Unix on my machine(like my zipslacked laptop for example)I could still get the job done, the way I did on DOS 2.1. It's not that the minimum requirements of an OS have changed. It's that a lot of other things have become 'necessary' to end-users. Most windroids and Mac abusers wouldn't even think of using a GUI-Less computer--that doesn't mean my X-less install of FreeBSD is any less an 'OS.' It's still packed with killer apps, that give at least as much functionality as winblows or Mac. Built-in Unix multitasking, IRC, screen...VI. But it's something that people want...and I want it too, sometimes, like on my workstation.
The definition of 'OS' is flexible these days, is what I'm getting at. I prefer to look at it as the user's method of operation, instead of the computer's. My 'OS' includes NT, and it also includes a cli-only unix machine that I use remotely. It seemed to me the best way to get what I wanted--windows as my 'window manager,' with a great Unix constantly available. If I did hardware installs, even if they included a bunch of computers, I might as well be calling it an 'OS.' So, basically, what I'm trying to say is 'whatever.' The whole article is just elucidating how Mac OS X looks at Unix...which is very accurate in their case. And let's face it--Unix alone won't be getting Mac abusers where they need to go.
Actually, that was my first thought when the Russians initially refused outside help. But it is very strange. Why would the Russians want to keep this a secret when it was apparently public knowledge? And what use is military might in this post-Cold War era? It seems that the Russians might see more profit from selling the weapons than using them.
Unless, of course, these weapons are incredibly powerful. With the boost in speed must come a comparable boost in range. The Russian test sub must have been taking many precautions. The torpedo must have acquired them as a target and almost instantaneously hit them, in this scenario, since they have a remote detonation control(as my memory of Red October serves). They may have given up on a weapon with which they had lost contact, and by the time it came back on their equipment, it was too late, because of the weapon's blinding speed. Now think about this: extreme speeds and extreme range, such that even when a ship is aware of the danger, it is unable to protect itself once targeted.
Whatever the case, it seems clear that this weapon is the new naval superweapon. Add nuclear warheads to them, and you have a weapon which is impervious even to the newest US 'Star Wars'-style air defense schemes.
A new arms race? Perhaps. Don't forget the economic repercussions of such a race--the winner in the arms race is always the more economically viable country. And how economically viable would the States be if nuclear warheads mounted on supersonic torpedoes were to hit every major US port. New York City and Boston unlivable because of fallout from the water table? What if they could be carefully programmed to travel up waterways, and avoid all but their programmed target? It seems that this would be possible in this advanced age.
Maybe the Cold War isn't over...and maybe it's about to get hot. There are a lot of nukes in the world, and a lot of people who would rather see the Americans without their vast economic resources, even if they don't gain by the loss.
Of course, I just really like making up conspiracy theories. Don't forget that.
Academe wanting to get in on the cash cow that much of their stuff becomes? And Patents? OH NO!!!! .com, it has a casual environment, and right now, it's fairly scattered both intellectually and technically. But Columbia and its partners are willing to invest a lot of money into Fathom, to turn it into something that's worthwhile. As I understand it, the only thing that they will charge for is actual class credit--the rest of the materials will be online free. Now, I don't know about you, but free information for the average web consumer doesn't seem like the height of 'corporatism' and 'cashing in.' Maybe there's some 'evil' element that I'm missing, but I'm pretty sure that this is a non-issue. If you want issues, look north and east of Columbia into Harlem. Look at the amount of real estate that Columbia owns, and at their willingness to drive out locally-owned businesses. Fathom is completely, utterly harmless--unlike many of Columbia's patents and practices. Remember the Manhattan project? And in 1968, one of the issues that promoted rioting was the fact that Columbia was a leader in military research--which it still is.
Let's face the fact that Universities are some of the slightest offenders in this book. Sure, they may be making money, but without that, how would they provide all the stuff that I've come to expect from them? Columbia provides my bandwidth, and a lot of other services. Sure, I pay for it, but I have few complaints. This is no new thing: the big Ivy League Universities have been in it for money for quite some time. And to point out Columbia is ridiculous--I'd like to look into all the money that Yale and Harvard and MIT are making for their patents.
But the real issue isn't money; I've yet to be convinced that commerce is evil. The real issue is when corporate activities limit personal and intellectual freedoms. And no University is dumb enough to let this happen. The product that they peddle is the fruit of their intellectual achievement, and they can't afford to let that go sour. Columbia does some dumb things, and Fathom might indeed be one of them, but it's hardly a bastion of corporate evil--it's actually a rather ambitious project. It's very much a
The real issues that you should be worried about are the ones that you can't see. Columbia is part of the insane behemoth that is the U.S. Military Industrial Complex. The military and the government is what JonKatz should worry about--not the corporate. There are a lot of corporations that overstep their bounds, but Fathom is not one of them. And in general, the corporate sector looks pretty cute and cuddly next to the Manhattan project...remember what happened around 55 years ago? Hiroshima, Nagasaki? 210,000 dead. For some reason, I'm unconcerned with Columbia making a little money off of the internet. No one will die of this, or die slowly of cancer in the following years.
I'm just amazed that this article could miss the mark so completely--but I guess JonKatz is so concerned with the green in their pockets that he missed the blood on their hands.
Dumber question: why would you get WinME if you want to run DOS apps? I haven't heard anything compelling about ME what would make me want to install it...in fact, I feel the same way about 98. Win95 is STILL the best 'consumer' OS from MS if you ask me...and don't mind rebooting. All the cool features of 98 + ME are just bs on top of the same old bs.
I'm sure that Hotmail will work fine under Win2k...after MS spends many thousands of dollars and hours setting up the new system with MS software! And I hope they enjoy updating(and rebooting)all those machines when much-needed bugfixes come out.
YAY for needless expense created by MS! Now let's all upgrade to Win2k for the same functionality we can get elsewhere for free!
Our gov't. tends to believe that without money, there's no reason to do anything. But as a musician it's obvious that having an audience is just as big a draw. Music isn't about money, unless you're the recording industry. Musicians obviously don't care about money as much as they do music: they've been making music for very little money(with the help of the industry)for a while now.
I don't know...it's a decent piece, but JonKatz's rants only get you so far. Let's keep music free; let's make more good, free music. Ultimately, the industry and its lawsuits are secondary to just making music and art...so screw it. Let's just rock out.
Ok...let's just for a second say that Mozilla is 'dead.'
Now, for one thing, what does this mean? Since it's open source, does that mean that you should hunt down the source, wherever it is, and delete it? Does it mean that active development should be stopped, and changes should no longer be re-submitted?
No, obviously not. Mozilla is open source; it's code is out there. There's no way to 'kill' it, you can't 'pull the plug.' When no one is developing for it, then maybe it's 'dead,' but I somehow doubt that the flagship open web browser will be left to rot.
The author of this article doesn't know what he's talking about. What does the community get by 'killing' mozilla? More developers for Konqueror? I doubt it. A stable version of Opera? No. C'mon...if you don't dig Mozilla, then don't use it, ignore its active development and its builds, improving by leaps and bounds. Without Mozilla, what is there to wait for? IE 6?
Maybe Mozilla isn't pretty, but it's starting to do a lot of things better than Netscape, especially Netscape for Linux. Sure, Mozilla has issues, but let's face it: the author of this article browses using IE for windows, and he doesn't care if the entire web is written using proprietary IE stuff, breaking compatibility with every other browser out there. I really have to wonder about anyone who calls for Mozilla to die. Who profits from Mozilla's death? MS does, that's for sure. Does the community? I don't think so. I think that Suck is great, though: especially for under-informed windows lusers who are eager to laugh at anything, especially at stuff they obviously don't understand.
This article is worthy only of our wrath.
Change is scary. But it sounds like this change will be pretty transparent to programmers; perl will continue to get faster and better, still stay easy to use, and Larry Wall is still a little crazy. Well, it sounds like everything is right in the world.
The idea of waiting for ATI driver support just makes me feel a little sick...I didn't like it when NVIDIA had bad drivers and I don't think that I'm ever going to buy a card without ready, shipping linux drivers. Now, 2d and 3d seem like they will be supported. But as for its TV tuner and video-in portions? I really don't see them being supported at all. Do you?
Sorry, I guess I just have no faith in ATI. Good luck to all involved, but, well, blech. Call me back when there's real driver support, ok?