Yeah, for those of us that are computer-literate (aka: nerds:-), it's easy to just tell everyone to boycott Microsoft. But for everyone else from your Grandma to big companies to schools, they don't have much of a choice. Consider the all the desktop users out there who still haven't figured out how to get rid of the stupid little paper clip in Office2000. So when Microsoft says that XP is the biggest and best thing ever, and all new computers that people get at BestBuy or Circuit City are going to have it, they won't do much about it, will they?
So, these clearly aren't people that are going to be running linux anytime soon. And as futile as it may be to try to pass anti-Microsoft legislation, the least that it will do is help to inform potential buyers about what they're getting into (the term "security risk" may not effect people, but the phrase "privacy threat" sure does:-). At the most, it could help to actually change the direction XP takes, and avoid the creation of a giant worm that will claim thousands of users.
The current heightened security stance in this country strikes me as being nothing more than a paranoid counter-reaction. Keep in mind that if "terrorists" want to destroy institutions in this country, bypassing this temporary state of paranoia will be easily accomplished. Likewise, the implementation of new "security" policies only contributes to a fearful and frightening atmosphere. If you convince people (through forced searches, and so forth) that there are terrorists all around them and they are no longer safe at work, then this will feed into the fears of the general public. If we want to stop terrorism, it's not going to be accomplished by searching the cars, homes, and lives of our own citizens.
SO? Nothing is being learned; if a kid is intellectually excited by something online and they pursue it for 45 minutes in class (yes, still ignoring the teacher) instead of fantasizing about the girl two desks over...whats the big deal?
...the big deal is that fantasizing abou the girl two desks over isn't nearly as exciting as pr0n.:P
I completely agree with the analysis here. I attend a engineering college where all freshman are required to buy laptops. Thus, there are barely any public labs on campus, because it is assumed that all students will simply bring their laptops with them (not such an appealing proposition for the seniors, who have to lug their four-year-old laptops around and can barely run the software for the classes). The public labs we do have are pitifully slow WindowsNT workstations, which are only used by foreign-exchange students. Additionally, all the classrooms are wired to the Internet, so that each classroom can be transformed into a computer lab for math classes, programming classes, and so forth.
And what is the end result of this? Well, let me simply note that IRC, ICQ, SSH, and Email are significantly more interesting than a really dull physics or chemistry lecture...and my freshman grades reflect this. There was a kid in my Differential Equations class last year that used to play CounterStrike nearly every day during class. If a class wasn't constantly using laptops as part of the lecture, it became nothing more than an incredible distraction.
At my college, the best way to recognize the freshmen is to look for the students who carry their laptops around to each of their classes. Upperclassmen, who have learned their lesson well, bring their tried-but-true notebooks and pens. And of course, the real irony is that last year, I had to buy a 3,000$ computer (as if college isn't expensive enough already:), which I don't use in class, and I don't use at home, either because it is nowhere near as powerful as my desktops.
There definitely are times when a laptop policy such as this is very nice, but I think that overall, it is a very dangerous influence to force upon an educational environment.
I would suspect that it may have a little something to do with their mention of incorporating Windows emulation in future releases...and Microsoft *does* have a track record of pushing companies around like this, IIRC...
During the Vietnam War era, protesters burned draft cards...and I think that if this ridiculuous measure ever becomes implemented in this country, I know exactly what will happen to my card.:)
To sweeten the pot, maybe our enlightened leader will have a draft, too, so then I can save on matches and burn both cards at once.
Am I being wildly optimistic in thinking that the online petitions, EFF lobbying, etc. made a difference, and might make a difference in the future? Or was there some other factor at work here?
Well, yes and no.:) It is very likely that the open source community was able to influence this decision, but in all likelhood, it seems to me that the flames of legislative paranoia seem to be dying out. This potential law reminded me of anti-flag burning legislation that seems to come up every few years or so. Thanks to fervent nationalism, laws like this always get passed in a hurry, but then shot down later on when it is realized how completely unconstitutional and unjust they would be.
I'm happy to see that people are seeming to come back to their senses, and not trying to prey on the fears of the unwitting public.
I'm not trying to troll here, but I wonder if this new controller is going to support alternative keyboard layouts like the dvorak. For that matter, what about international layouts? Clearly, the whole idea of the keyboard seems to imply that they plan to release games with a tedious amount of typing (yuck), and that would really suck on a qwerty, IMHO.
As much as I hate to admit it, the one MS product that is pretty good at what it's supposed to do is Word (and to a lesser extent, the other office modules). I think it pretty much goes without saying that Office applications are also the primary thing holding Linux back in the so-called "desktop wars". I can't tell you how many times I hear people around me say, "well, I *would* use Linux, but I need Word docs, PowerPoint, blah blah blah...".
I have tried using StarOffice on and off again pretty much since it was released to the general public. And each time, it sucks a little bit less. I'm going to give OpenOffice a shot tonight, and if I see a little "start menu" and a fake Windows-ish desktop, it's gonna be curtains.:) Hopefully, it will suck *less* than the latest StarOffice, and then it'll be one substantial victory for Linux users everwhere.
Check out http://www.hushmail.com...it's a webmail client that has really good encryption support. If you send email to another hushmail account, it's automatically encrypted... =)
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Yeah, for those of us that are computer-literate (aka: nerds :-), it's easy to just tell everyone to boycott Microsoft. But for everyone else from your Grandma to big companies to schools, they don't have much of a choice. Consider the all the desktop users out there who still haven't figured out how to get rid of the stupid little paper clip in Office2000. So when Microsoft says that XP is the biggest and best thing ever, and all new computers that people get at BestBuy or Circuit City are going to have it, they won't do much about it, will they?
So, these clearly aren't people that are going to be running linux anytime soon. And as futile as it may be to try to pass anti-Microsoft legislation, the least that it will do is help to inform potential buyers about what they're getting into (the term "security risk" may not effect people, but the phrase "privacy threat" sure does :-). At the most, it could help to actually change the direction XP takes, and avoid the creation of a giant worm that will claim thousands of users.
The current heightened security stance in this country strikes me as being nothing more than a paranoid counter-reaction. Keep in mind that if "terrorists" want to destroy institutions in this country, bypassing this temporary state of paranoia will be easily accomplished. Likewise, the implementation of new "security" policies only contributes to a fearful and frightening atmosphere. If you convince people (through forced searches, and so forth) that there are terrorists all around them and they are no longer safe at work, then this will feed into the fears of the general public. If we want to stop terrorism, it's not going to be accomplished by searching the cars, homes, and lives of our own citizens.
SO? Nothing is being learned; if a kid is intellectually excited by something online and they pursue it for 45 minutes in class (yes, still ignoring the teacher) instead of fantasizing about the girl two desks over...whats the big deal?
...the big deal is that fantasizing abou the girl two desks over isn't nearly as exciting as pr0n. :P
I completely agree with the analysis here. I attend a engineering college where all freshman are required to buy laptops. Thus, there are barely any public labs on campus, because it is assumed that all students will simply bring their laptops with them (not such an appealing proposition for the seniors, who have to lug their four-year-old laptops around and can barely run the software for the classes). The public labs we do have are pitifully slow WindowsNT workstations, which are only used by foreign-exchange students. Additionally, all the classrooms are wired to the Internet, so that each classroom can be transformed into a computer lab for math classes, programming classes, and so forth.
And what is the end result of this? Well, let me simply note that IRC, ICQ, SSH, and Email are significantly more interesting than a really dull physics or chemistry lecture...and my freshman grades reflect this. There was a kid in my Differential Equations class last year that used to play CounterStrike nearly every day during class. If a class wasn't constantly using laptops as part of the lecture, it became nothing more than an incredible distraction.
At my college, the best way to recognize the freshmen is to look for the students who carry their laptops around to each of their classes. Upperclassmen, who have learned their lesson well, bring their tried-but-true notebooks and pens. And of course, the real irony is that last year, I had to buy a 3,000$ computer (as if college isn't expensive enough already :), which I don't use in class, and I don't use at home, either because it is nowhere near as powerful as my desktops.
There definitely are times when a laptop policy such as this is very nice, but I think that overall, it is a very dangerous influence to force upon an educational environment.
I would suspect that it may have a little something to do with their mention of incorporating Windows emulation in future releases...and Microsoft *does* have a track record of pushing companies around like this, IIRC...
During the Vietnam War era, protesters burned draft cards...and I think that if this ridiculuous measure ever becomes implemented in this country, I know exactly what will happen to my card. :)
To sweeten the pot, maybe our enlightened leader will have a draft, too, so then I can save on matches and burn both cards at once.
Am I being wildly optimistic in thinking that the online petitions, EFF lobbying, etc. made a difference, and might make a difference in the future? Or was there some other factor at work here?
Well, yes and no. :) It is very likely that the open source community was able to influence this decision, but in all likelhood, it seems to me that the flames of legislative paranoia seem to be dying out. This potential law reminded me of anti-flag burning legislation that seems to come up every few years or so. Thanks to fervent nationalism, laws like this always get passed in a hurry, but then shot down later on when it is realized how completely unconstitutional and unjust they would be.
I'm happy to see that people are seeming to come back to their senses, and not trying to prey on the fears of the unwitting public.
I'm not trying to troll here, but I wonder if this new controller is going to support alternative keyboard layouts like the dvorak. For that matter, what about international layouts? Clearly, the whole idea of the keyboard seems to imply that they plan to release games with a tedious amount of typing (yuck), and that would really suck on a qwerty, IMHO.
As much as I hate to admit it, the one MS product that is pretty good at what it's supposed to do is Word (and to a lesser extent, the other office modules). I think it pretty much goes without saying that Office applications are also the primary thing holding Linux back in the so-called "desktop wars". I can't tell you how many times I hear people around me say, "well, I *would* use Linux, but I need Word docs, PowerPoint, blah blah blah...". :) Hopefully, it will suck *less* than the latest StarOffice, and then it'll be one substantial victory for Linux users everwhere.
I have tried using StarOffice on and off again pretty much since it was released to the general public. And each time, it sucks a little bit less. I'm going to give OpenOffice a shot tonight, and if I see a little "start menu" and a fake Windows-ish desktop, it's gonna be curtains.
Check out http://www.hushmail.com...it's a webmail client that has really good encryption support. If you send email to another hushmail account, it's automatically encrypted... =)