The problem I see with Linux on the desktop is that it's nonstandard. By that I mean that a programmer can't assume that any one installation resembles any other. From libraries to window managers to Xfree86 vs X.org or whatever it is now, there are no constants. I understand the benefits of such a scenario; it's great for people who love to pop the hood and do it themselves. But it's a nightmare for the average person who just wants to USE a system rather than build it themselves.
Users don't want to (and shouldn't have to, in my opinion,) worry about things like dependancies, finding a binary package for their particular distribution and/or kernel, or compiling and configuring a program upon installation. The power of configurability is great, but it doesn't have to be an either/or conflict with usability. How many times have you found a program you were interested in, and you./configure, only to find 5 or 6 things you need to install just to get it to finish without error? And once you get an error you have to figure out if you're actually missing the requirement, or it's just an environment variable, or the wrong verson of the libraries, or permissions, or any other number of potential conflicts. SUSE, for example, doesn't even install gcc by default. I don't think it should need to install a compiler just to be a viable desktop solution, but the fact is that unless someone's already made a binary package, a compiler isn't optional, it's mandatory. The very essence of Linux, its constantly evolving nature, is also its weakness when it comes to getting a foothold in the desktop market.
Also the networking, while powerful, is anything but simple. In XP for example, if I right click on a network interface and select "Share this connection," Windows automatically starts DHCP on my second NIC, assigns my other computer(s) an IP, and everything just works. In Linux, I have to set up masquerading, routing tables, rules, etc. It's these sort of things that send most people running.
Standards DO have drawbacks, but they're generally outweighed by the benefits. Too many choices can be bad. One need look no further than the current battle between HD-DVD and BluRay for a perfect example.
Honestly, I don't ever see this happening, but unless the Linux community can rally around ONE distribution as the "standard", I don't think Linux will ever be an option for the masses.
If 10,000,000 is "recent", then 2005 vs 2000 is still breaking news.
In other breaking news, the Egyptians recently finished work on a pyramid. While the exact purpose of this structure has not yet been disclosed, sources close to the site have mentioned that it's "freakin' huge."
I don't think the American Public Education System is responsible for British spelling. Although any die-hard English types who feel all warm and fuzzy about their S's used in Z-sounding words should look up the history of the S/Z debacle. (Hint: The French are to blame.)
It's not the Geneva convention, it's the Hague convention, and the relevant part is "In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden -... To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;" http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague04 .htm#art23. Maybe you're thinking of the Geneva Protocol to the Hague Convention which outlaws biological and chemical warfare? The Geneva convention mostly outlines basic minimum treatment of enemy POWs.
You're right, some products are purchased from allies, i.e., small arms from Israel (Uzi's) and Germany (MP-5s), however they don't constitute the bulk of purchases and in no way would they bring the military to a standstill should they cease to be available. AFAIK, these are purchases in accordance with treaties, or for compliance and interoperability with NATO rather than serving any specific role in US sovereign national security. That is to say, the products are complementary or ancillary to the military needs.
I'm not really familiar with the details of steel production. I'm aware that it has drastically declined over the past few decades, but I suspect that it's still more than sufficient to meet the demands of the military, with the stipulation that it would likely be at the cost of consumer/commercial products. Ships and tanks would be the largest uses of steel that spring to mind, neither of which would be in particularly high demand since we already dominate those fields with existing supplies. I imagine that if intelligence indicated that a foreign power were building a large, sophisticated navy, we'd scale up ours accordingly. It's not the sort of threat that materializes overnight. In the example of Germany in WWII, it was largely a case of the rest of the world ignoring what Germany was up to. On the whole, the US military is more than capable of meeting and exceeding what is necessary to wage a conventional war successfully.
I'm not sure what the specifics of the rules are regarding where the components and raw materials come from, but it's largely irrelevant. In any large scale war of attrition, domestic factories would be retooled to produce the requisite parts and materials, as in WWII. IIRC, a small percentage of interchangable foreign components (like a resistor, for example) are permitted. As far as the raw materials, I'd think it would be better to use imports and maintain a reserve anyway. There aren't many raw materials which aren't available in North America, but obviously control of raw materials is of strategic importance, and has been the cause of war itself on more than one occasion.
It's not just the patients who get screwed, paying $8 for an asprin - it's the entire industry.
Not quite.. the costs are passed on directly to the patients. Saying a hospital gets screwed by high equipment costs is like saying grocery stores get screwed when the cost of milk goes up. Hospitals actually have it much easier, because they can raise prices to a fairly arbitrary level to ensure profitability, and people will continue to pay. Competition between hospitals is not about who's cheaper, but who has the best facilities.
How long could our high tech army, navy and air force equipment stay operational if the Chinese refused to export any electronics?
Right, because we buy approximately.. (hold on, let me do the math here.. zero.. plus zero.. carry the zero.. hmm..) ZERO percent of our military hardware from foreign countries.
The military is required by law to buy domestic. Self-sufficiency is a paramount concern of the supply side of any military.
Guess what? You don't have to build a new system every 6 months. Also, buying the 2nd best parts will save you a ton of money. Sacrifice 10% performance and save 50%+ on costs. Games usually lag hardware by about 12 months anyway. The games that DO push the graphics envelope usually either have sucky gameplay (Doom3, I'm coughing in your general direction...), or run just fine on less than state-of-the-art hardware (HL2, for example). If you just want to play RPG/Strategy, your requirements are even lower.
I'm not sure about the BIOS, but you're correct regarding the controller. PCGuide says the 500Kbit limitation of existing floppy controllers was insufficient; the 2.88 floppies required a 1Mbit transfer rate. I'm not sure why the drives couldn't be slowed down for the sake of compatibility though. Seems easy enough to throw a jumper on there to toggle 500Kbit/1Mbit transfer rates, but I'm no EE.
This is all well and good for now, until crocodile-resistant strains of these diseases evolve through our overuse of crocodile serum... And then the crocodiles are going to be PISSED.
This is all well and good for now, until crocodile-resistant strains of these diseases evolve through our overuse of crocodile serum... And then the crocodiles are going to be PISSED.
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Users should not need to know anything about ./configure!
That's the point I was trying to make.
I'm not particularly concerned with DRM, as it will only be an inconvenience for the short time it takes for someone to find a way around it.
The problem I see with Linux on the desktop is that it's nonstandard. By that I mean that a programmer can't assume that any one installation resembles any other. From libraries to window managers to Xfree86 vs X.org or whatever it is now, there are no constants. I understand the benefits of such a scenario; it's great for people who love to pop the hood and do it themselves. But it's a nightmare for the average person who just wants to USE a system rather than build it themselves.
./configure, only to find 5 or 6 things you need to install just to get it to finish without error? And once you get an error you have to figure out if you're actually missing the requirement, or it's just an environment variable, or the wrong verson of the libraries, or permissions, or any other number of potential conflicts. SUSE, for example, doesn't even install gcc by default. I don't think it should need to install a compiler just to be a viable desktop solution, but the fact is that unless someone's already made a binary package, a compiler isn't optional, it's mandatory. The very essence of Linux, its constantly evolving nature, is also its weakness when it comes to getting a foothold in the desktop market.
Users don't want to (and shouldn't have to, in my opinion,) worry about things like dependancies, finding a binary package for their particular distribution and/or kernel, or compiling and configuring a program upon installation. The power of configurability is great, but it doesn't have to be an either/or conflict with usability. How many times have you found a program you were interested in, and you
Also the networking, while powerful, is anything but simple. In XP for example, if I right click on a network interface and select "Share this connection," Windows automatically starts DHCP on my second NIC, assigns my other computer(s) an IP, and everything just works. In Linux, I have to set up masquerading, routing tables, rules, etc. It's these sort of things that send most people running.
Standards DO have drawbacks, but they're generally outweighed by the benefits. Too many choices can be bad. One need look no further than the current battle between HD-DVD and BluRay for a perfect example.
Honestly, I don't ever see this happening, but unless the Linux community can rally around ONE distribution as the "standard", I don't think Linux will ever be an option for the masses.
If 10,000,000 is "recent", then 2005 vs 2000 is still breaking news.
In other breaking news, the Egyptians recently finished work on a pyramid. While the exact purpose of this structure has not yet been disclosed, sources close to the site have mentioned that it's "freakin' huge."
Well, I sure learned my lesson. Never challenge bright high school students. You don't know what might happen!
-- Mr. Nelson
I'll tell you what happens: They get stuffed into trashcans.
I hope you're happy Mister Nelson. You sadistic bastard.
It does seem to make sence..
I believe you meant "scents." Of the malodorous variety.
I don't think the American Public Education System is responsible for British spelling. Although any die-hard English types who feel all warm and fuzzy about their S's used in Z-sounding words should look up the history of the S/Z debacle. (Hint: The French are to blame.)
Microsoft paid $12,000,000 for the rights to use the Rolling Stones' song "Start Me Up" (containing the prophetic line 'You make a grown man cry').
1995 called.. they want their joke back.
It's not the Geneva convention, it's the Hague convention, and the relevant part is "In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden - ... To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;" http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague04 .htm#art23. Maybe you're thinking of the Geneva Protocol to the Hague Convention which outlaws biological and chemical warfare? The Geneva convention mostly outlines basic minimum treatment of enemy POWs.
What California is to the US?
Here's some relevant US Code:
n t/225_1.htm
n t/225_8.htm#225.872
http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/dars/dfars/html/curre
Some items are purchased from qualifying foreign countries: http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/dars/dfars/html/curre
Anyone see China on the list of qualifying countries? Cause I sure didn't.
And none of these companies look foreign to me, let alone Chinese, but maybe that's just what the Chinese want us to think.
Of course it's a lot more fun to run around waving our hands in the air. Sorry I interrupted.
You're right, some products are purchased from allies, i.e., small arms from Israel (Uzi's) and Germany (MP-5s), however they don't constitute the bulk of purchases and in no way would they bring the military to a standstill should they cease to be available. AFAIK, these are purchases in accordance with treaties, or for compliance and interoperability with NATO rather than serving any specific role in US sovereign national security. That is to say, the products are complementary or ancillary to the military needs.
I'm not really familiar with the details of steel production. I'm aware that it has drastically declined over the past few decades, but I suspect that it's still more than sufficient to meet the demands of the military, with the stipulation that it would likely be at the cost of consumer/commercial products. Ships and tanks would be the largest uses of steel that spring to mind, neither of which would be in particularly high demand since we already dominate those fields with existing supplies. I imagine that if intelligence indicated that a foreign power were building a large, sophisticated navy, we'd scale up ours accordingly. It's not the sort of threat that materializes overnight. In the example of Germany in WWII, it was largely a case of the rest of the world ignoring what Germany was up to. On the whole, the US military is more than capable of meeting and exceeding what is necessary to wage a conventional war successfully.
I'm not sure what the specifics of the rules are regarding where the components and raw materials come from, but it's largely irrelevant. In any large scale war of attrition, domestic factories would be retooled to produce the requisite parts and materials, as in WWII. IIRC, a small percentage of interchangable foreign components (like a resistor, for example) are permitted. As far as the raw materials, I'd think it would be better to use imports and maintain a reserve anyway. There aren't many raw materials which aren't available in North America, but obviously control of raw materials is of strategic importance, and has been the cause of war itself on more than one occasion.
It's not just the patients who get screwed, paying $8 for an asprin - it's the entire industry.
Not quite.. the costs are passed on directly to the patients. Saying a hospital gets screwed by high equipment costs is like saying grocery stores get screwed when the cost of milk goes up. Hospitals actually have it much easier, because they can raise prices to a fairly arbitrary level to ensure profitability, and people will continue to pay. Competition between hospitals is not about who's cheaper, but who has the best facilities.
How long could our high tech army, navy and air force equipment stay operational if the Chinese refused to export any electronics?
Right, because we buy approximately.. (hold on, let me do the math here.. zero.. plus zero.. carry the zero.. hmm..) ZERO percent of our military hardware from foreign countries.
The military is required by law to buy domestic. Self-sufficiency is a paramount concern of the supply side of any military.
Guess what? You don't have to build a new system every 6 months. Also, buying the 2nd best parts will save you a ton of money. Sacrifice 10% performance and save 50%+ on costs. Games usually lag hardware by about 12 months anyway. The games that DO push the graphics envelope usually either have sucky gameplay (Doom3, I'm coughing in your general direction...), or run just fine on less than state-of-the-art hardware (HL2, for example). If you just want to play RPG/Strategy, your requirements are even lower.
Yep.. and guess who created the 2.88 floppy?
None other than Toshiba.
I'm not sure about the BIOS, but you're correct regarding the controller. PCGuide says the 500Kbit limitation of existing floppy controllers was insufficient; the 2.88 floppies required a 1Mbit transfer rate. I'm not sure why the drives couldn't be slowed down for the sake of compatibility though. Seems easy enough to throw a jumper on there to toggle 500Kbit/1Mbit transfer rates, but I'm no EE.
This is all well and good for now, until crocodile-resistant strains of these diseases evolve through our overuse of crocodile serum... And then the crocodiles are going to be PISSED.
That's great for cadets, but how much training do grunts get on evaluating orders?
(Hint: None. At least not when I was in. In fact, questioning orders is likely to result in reprisal.)
Never get involved in a land war in Asia!
I guess Bush never heard that one..
Sounds like you need a SLYNAS.
This is all well and good for now, until crocodile-resistant strains of these diseases evolve through our overuse of crocodile serum... And then the crocodiles are going to be PISSED.
Ironically someone decided to mod you up without helping your karma by modding you funny...
ethical vegetarians don't eat meat because of the horrible animal suffering that's involved.
You think vegetables don't suffer? You've obviously never heard lettuce scream.