Open office is not linux? What does open office have anything to do with it? There are at least a dozen OTHER spreadsheets available for linux too you know!
Yes. Physicians are humans too. I'm sorry if you don't like my sense of humor - my sig exists to show the world I am anything but politically correct. However no REAL puppies are ever harmed. I like puppies... (They are especially good with mustard?)
And scientists have shown no link between autism and the vaccine besides the fact that autism happens to human children and vaccines are given to human children.
No, it's correct. Since Windows is so bloated, all task on windows (including the calculator) are hugely CPU intensive. Whereas if you want to run "intensive" tasks like encoding video or real number crunching, linux is your best bet.
No, we doctors are calling them STI's now because infection is more accurate a word than "disease". Not everyone who is infected manifests the symptoms (the disease), but they are still infected.
So does the justice system. So does government authority. And so does the patience of its people. Since when were libel laws written long ago applied to a conversation between friends in a public place, or semi-public place (like say a bar)? Unless you're conspiring to commit a crime, you can say whatever the hell you want to your friends.
Only because some lawyer wants to consider "THE INTERNET" and anything on it as "print" do they want to misinterpret these laws and go after the trolls. However posts on a forum are more akin to a private conversation in a public place. If people are being rude or saying things about you in public you have NO RECOURSE (unless you feel like starting a fight). Now if a CNN anchor comes on TV and says those things, you may have recourse if they're not true.
Judges and lawyers who twist laws in order to accommodate whiney clients set dangerous precedents, which later give more ammunition to whiners to push their nanny state agendas. The government is running almost 60 TRILLION dollars in deficit now, when you include social security. I hope the totalitarian regime that takes over after the dollar finally collapses teaches these whiners how fun it is to live under absolute government power.
There's no law against being an ass hole, and there never should be. Period. As Rowan Atkinson once said - the right to offend is far more important than the right to be offended. Anyone who takes what they read online so seriously that they become offended don't deserve to have a modem. Anyone who tries to start legal action based on said offense deserves to be shot. Who cares what a bunch of trolls said on some site or other. Turn the machine off and walk away.
It's not the same if some idiot on a website makes a derogatory comment (true or not), or if a newspaper or magazine (where people expect a degree of research and professionalism) says it. Libel suits should not be allowed against any random idiot because it undermines free speech. The justice system is broken as it is and would never be able to cope with every transgression spoken against someone else. So unless we want to bring back duelling, this should be laughed at and we should move on.
No, that's how copyright law is twisted, taken out of context, and used as a club to bully people with. My goodness, if I put a colored filter over a book and read it in a different light, I am now producing a derivative work. If I take a book and rip a page out, this is now a derivative work. If I write something in the margin, I have produced a derivative work. And heaven forbid I lend my book to a friend, learn from it and try to use my skills or (shudder) donate a book to a public library - those are violations of the "new" spin on copyright law that could land me in jail!
Enjoy your death by legislation. Me I will continue to live in a sane country.
You loaded up on the stock of a company whose products you don't even like, and watched it lose half its value without liquidating your position, and you're blaming Bill Gates for your problems???
You know, I hate arguments like these because they are fundamentally flawed. What I am about to say is politically incorrect (but mathematically true) and if this offends you - piss off because it's the truth.
Many things in nature conform to the "normal", "bell" or "Gaussian" distribution curve, and that includes human intelligence. Makes sense that a few people will be extremely bereft of intelligence, a few people will be super-gifted, and most of us will be somewhere around the middle. That's statistics.
However when you look at scientists, most of us have graduate or postgraduate degrees. Most of us were always nerds, studied hard, passed the exams, etc. Most of us can be considered above average intelligence - for a given definition of intelligence (the ability to pass tests, work out problems, etc).
What does this mean? It means that if we're on the right side of the gauss curve, the majority of people are dumber than us because the 50% population mark is right on the "average" intelligence line (that's how bell curves work) and we are above average. Some are so extremely distanced from us (those on the "other" side of the curve, below the 50% mark) that we fail to understand that it is impossible that they will ever grasp even the simplest concepts. Not unlikely - impossible.
Now some people like the author think that by changing the words around they can help the less gifted half understand a key concept that for any scientist is really extremely basic, extremely obvious, and unquestionably accurate. This is not true. Darwin and Wallace deserve the credit for the work that they did. We scientists are supposed to be humble, but we delight in exalting the rare few in our field that rise above the rest and point something out that helps us greatly in our daily chore of understanding the universe. Frankly I don't CARE what creationists think. None of them are noteworthy scientists, none of them will ever get published in the magazines I read, and no one but other "less gifted" individuals will listen to the garbage they spit out.
I think that although it's very human to try to reach out and help those less fortunate, in this case it's a complete waste of time - as much a waste of time as it is for a Jehova's Witness to come knocking at my door to talk to me, a passionate atheist, about God. This time and energy (and paper, in the case of NY Times articles) would be far better used for something else than trying to enlighten the ignorant who are happy in their ignorance. The great thing about intelligence is that it's a hunger that needs to be fed. You don't have to FORCE someone to learn. If they are smart, they will want to learn all on their own. THOSE are the people we have to help - not the ones who refuse to listen.
Leave the damned language as it is - nothing is gained by changing the words used. Anyone who needs to understand CAN understand, as is. We've been doing ok for the past few generations. By changing the language all you do is take credit away from deserving scientists. No one is made smarter, and no "creationists" will drop their lunatic fantasies by taking the word "Darwin" out of evolution.
I thought it was obvious, but I guess I'm not a very good communicator. I'm unhappy that new sockets are coming out all the time, and new chips are coming out all the time, but the performance increases are marginal. So instead of every succeeding product line being incredibly faster or in some other way advantageous, now the manufacturers are building horizontally, bringing out dozens of varieties of chip competing with themselves and their competitor, but with no single chip being much better than another.
How many varieties of toilet paper are there in a supermarket? There's the really good one, and the really bad one, and all the in-betweens that are very similar. But the reason for all those varieties is marketing. The technology is the same or similar.
Now we're seeing the same in chips and sockets. There are dozens of chips types and socket types, and not many stand out as superior to the previous ones. I've read that finally the i7 gives a moderate performance boost, but if you want it then be prepared to shell out for DDR3 memory. And I guarantee you that the moment you buy an i7 machine, Intel will change the socket AND there will be a new video card socket, so if you want to upgrade after that, look forward to junking part of your hardware.
Of course no one is forcing me to buy this stuff, and the market obviously supports it. However I am sure there must be a more efficient way to move ahead with technology. But since computer chip makers run an oligopoly, we will never know. The free market is dead thanks to the Mega-corps.
The US government appointing delegates with huge powers to regulate and oversee entire swaths of industry with very little personal accountability (heaven forbid!), and the irony in calling them tsars.
Well when the "Land of the Free" finally stops being free, you won't be able to argue that you didn't see it coming.
and in three years, the new socket would be faster and come with updated IO choices.
That's arguable. We're quickly approaching performance limits, diminishing returns are starting to show up, and processors are only getting marginally faster. Now the trick is to play with the cache, and add cores to show a performance increase. I'm wondering in 3 years if we'll be able to justify upgrading at all. If that's the case, I expect new sockets galore and radical design changes just to artificially fuel demand in a saturated market, with the occasional rare leap in technology. Just like all the "new and improved" products you see at the supermarket, that really boast "new and improved packaging" to get your attention and hopefully your dollar.
When I think of the tens of thousands of dollars I have spent on computers in my life-time because I'm a computer nerd and as a hobby I want to stay up to date - it really is impossible to justify this expense if I look at it in terms of increased productivity. It just isn't there. And I argue that soon (if not already) profit, not engineering, will be the main factor deciding if a board is updated and older sockets made obsolete. However economists will argue that there is a hidden economic cost to be paid by society as a whole, in terms of waste and inefficiency, when this happens. So Intel or AMD or whoever gets richer, and we're left to fill in the holes or deal with the garbage/wasted time.
Being fair to the customer, his money does not just turn up in his bank account ready to be spent. He has to give a lot of time and consideration to shelling out money for yet another computer upgrade.
Of course manufacturers love switching sockets, be it from ISA EISA to PCI to AGP back to PCI-Express etc etc etc. Don't get me started on memory, that has undergone countless socket evolutions. And CPU's. I remember back in the late 80's some company was advertising a motherboard that promised a "standard" CPU socket no matter what. Hah what a joke.
Of course there is the fact that new sockets are supposed to bring better things. However I'm sure that sockets could be designed to be backwards compatible much more often than they really are - only the drive to maximize profit by getting you to junk all the other stuff that is made obsolete by your new motherboard seems to trump everything.
I remember reading about what a huge impact the concept of interchangeable parts had on the industrial revolution. And at the beginning there for a while, it also applied to computers. But now the greedy "Intellectual Property" gods (hah, I credit them too much, they're mere lawyers) have pissed all over our wallets, demanding a new socket for every upgrade - obviously covered with reams of patents and copyrights. Guess who is paying for all of this?
I remember way back when BASIC used line numbers, we used to be told to write code in increments of 10, in case you wanted to add more code between your lines in the future. I am positive you can engineer a socket that leaves plenty of room for the future. But why would you want to do that, if you can drain your customer's bank accounts? Well, look at where capitalism, corporate ownership of government and pure greed has gotten us today. Yeah, the economy is in great shape. Keep it up./rant
Even in poor countries, if you're spending $300 on a PC, $10-$15 to have a legal, rootkit free OS, even one that isn't fully featured, makes it hard to justify Piracy.
I'm sorry, where do you get your numbers?
I happen to live in the third world. You can buy upgrades to legitimate Windows XP from a pirated version if you fail the WGA for US$169 (which is $20 MORE than the US version at $149). THEN you have to pay at least %15 duty on top of that at customs. You could buy it retail here from Office Depot (yes, we have them here) or someone for a 40% mark up (tack on $50 or so to the US retail price, plus shipping!).
But why bother? When you buy a computer usually you will know someone - or the guy who you bought your computer from will know someone, who will either install Windows/Office/Whatever for free, or for $5 or so. Then you'll be told to turn off automatic updates, or it will be installed with a crack to fool WGA.
I don't see how Microsoft is selling their product for $5 more than the "pirated" version, and if so please tell me where I can get their $5-$10 OS. Oh, and not everyone has broadband here, but those that do usually download and burn copies of things for those who don't. I also don't see how people will fork out hundreds of dollars for crippleware when they can get the full version for next to nothing.
That is, the countries that pirate Microsoft software in the first place. Wow, Microsoft, you sure are giving them an incentive to buy your software now!
I can't believe the "strategic" decisions coming from this company. This is fantastic news for non-Microsoft users. Please, continue to shoot yourselves in the foot by all means. Don't worry about the black stuff, that's NOT gangrene...
The $2700 "gaming" CPU, coming soon from Nvidia. Combine that with your $800 twin video cards, and we're almost back to $5000 per computer again. The worst thing is, people actually buy these overpriced graphics cards giving them incentive to keep doing it. Well, have fun during the recession. I think MSI is going to make a lot of money.
..is because a lot of products aren't supported on Linux. Sure one could run them in WINE or install a VBox with Windows, but for the average non-nerdy computer user that may be too much.
That is the case today, and only for the higher end games and poorly written software. However considering how far linux (and especially Ubuntu) has come in terms of hardware support in the past few years, it's only a matter of time before decent software support is available. Locking people out of the newer Direct X upgrades, like Microsoft did with Vista/DX 10 - can only play into our hands. Every day wine and cedega get better.
The games are US only too - your IP is tested as well to confirm your location.
Yes because who knows what would happen if these games ended up in Syria, Iran, or in the hands of the Taliban!
You know, speaking as someone who lives outside the US, these IP checks are a pain - especially when they are poorly implemented. For example, because of my Latin American IP number, I can only buy the "Spanish" version of some software, despite the fact that having been born in Canada and just living here I would still prefer the English version.
Meh, I guess I should set up a linux box at my US address and just do my surfing through that.
Slashdot Mirror
Open office is not linux? What does open office have anything to do with it? There are at least a dozen OTHER spreadsheets available for linux too you know!
Your a doctor and THAT is your sig?
Yes. Physicians are humans too. I'm sorry if you don't like my sense of humor - my sig exists to show the world I am anything but politically correct. However no REAL puppies are ever harmed. I like puppies... (They are especially good with mustard?)
that's for scientist to worry about.
Wait - you didn't finish:
And scientists have shown no link between autism and the vaccine besides the fact that autism happens to human children and vaccines are given to human children.
No, it's correct. Since Windows is so bloated, all task on windows (including the calculator) are hugely CPU intensive. Whereas if you want to run "intensive" tasks like encoding video or real number crunching, linux is your best bet.
No, we doctors are calling them STI's now because infection is more accurate a word than "disease". Not everyone who is infected manifests the symptoms (the disease), but they are still infected.
coffee all over the keyboard - thanks! :)
So if a vengeful Slashdot editor decided to write plain lies about you, there'd be no problem, right?
No problem at all. I probably wouldn't come back here though. I certainly wouldn't cry like a girl and take it to court.
Free speech has limits.
So does the justice system. So does government authority. And so does the patience of its people. Since when were libel laws written long ago applied to a conversation between friends in a public place, or semi-public place (like say a bar)? Unless you're conspiring to commit a crime, you can say whatever the hell you want to your friends.
Only because some lawyer wants to consider "THE INTERNET" and anything on it as "print" do they want to misinterpret these laws and go after the trolls. However posts on a forum are more akin to a private conversation in a public place. If people are being rude or saying things about you in public you have NO RECOURSE (unless you feel like starting a fight). Now if a CNN anchor comes on TV and says those things, you may have recourse if they're not true.
Judges and lawyers who twist laws in order to accommodate whiney clients set dangerous precedents, which later give more ammunition to whiners to push their nanny state agendas. The government is running almost 60 TRILLION dollars in deficit now, when you include social security. I hope the totalitarian regime that takes over after the dollar finally collapses teaches these whiners how fun it is to live under absolute government power.
We should have to have all communications monitored at all times.
You already do? Oh wait I wasn't supposed to say- [gunshot]
There's no law against being an ass hole, and there never should be. Period. As Rowan Atkinson once said - the right to offend is far more important than the right to be offended. Anyone who takes what they read online so seriously that they become offended don't deserve to have a modem. Anyone who tries to start legal action based on said offense deserves to be shot. Who cares what a bunch of trolls said on some site or other. Turn the machine off and walk away.
It's not the same if some idiot on a website makes a derogatory comment (true or not), or if a newspaper or magazine (where people expect a degree of research and professionalism) says it. Libel suits should not be allowed against any random idiot because it undermines free speech. The justice system is broken as it is and would never be able to cope with every transgression spoken against someone else. So unless we want to bring back duelling, this should be laughed at and we should move on.
And that's how copyright law works.
No, that's how copyright law is twisted, taken out of context, and used as a club to bully people with. My goodness, if I put a colored filter over a book and read it in a different light, I am now producing a derivative work. If I take a book and rip a page out, this is now a derivative work. If I write something in the margin, I have produced a derivative work. And heaven forbid I lend my book to a friend, learn from it and try to use my skills or (shudder) donate a book to a public library - those are violations of the "new" spin on copyright law that could land me in jail!
Enjoy your death by legislation. Me I will continue to live in a sane country.
It's a freaking fire sale.
Famous last words.
Don't worry, I'll buy your land from you at half the price in 10 years, and you'll be glad I did.
You loaded up on the stock of a company whose products you don't even like, and watched it lose half its value without liquidating your position, and you're blaming Bill Gates for your problems???
Shhhh! Someone had to buy my short sales!
You know, I hate arguments like these because they are fundamentally flawed. What I am about to say is politically incorrect (but mathematically true) and if this offends you - piss off because it's the truth.
Many things in nature conform to the "normal", "bell" or "Gaussian" distribution curve, and that includes human intelligence. Makes sense that a few people will be extremely bereft of intelligence, a few people will be super-gifted, and most of us will be somewhere around the middle. That's statistics.
However when you look at scientists, most of us have graduate or postgraduate degrees. Most of us were always nerds, studied hard, passed the exams, etc. Most of us can be considered above average intelligence - for a given definition of intelligence (the ability to pass tests, work out problems, etc).
What does this mean? It means that if we're on the right side of the gauss curve, the majority of people are dumber than us because the 50% population mark is right on the "average" intelligence line (that's how bell curves work) and we are above average. Some are so extremely distanced from us (those on the "other" side of the curve, below the 50% mark) that we fail to understand that it is impossible that they will ever grasp even the simplest concepts. Not unlikely - impossible.
Now some people like the author think that by changing the words around they can help the less gifted half understand a key concept that for any scientist is really extremely basic, extremely obvious, and unquestionably accurate. This is not true. Darwin and Wallace deserve the credit for the work that they did. We scientists are supposed to be humble, but we delight in exalting the rare few in our field that rise above the rest and point something out that helps us greatly in our daily chore of understanding the universe. Frankly I don't CARE what creationists think. None of them are noteworthy scientists, none of them will ever get published in the magazines I read, and no one but other "less gifted" individuals will listen to the garbage they spit out.
I think that although it's very human to try to reach out and help those less fortunate, in this case it's a complete waste of time - as much a waste of time as it is for a Jehova's Witness to come knocking at my door to talk to me, a passionate atheist, about God. This time and energy (and paper, in the case of NY Times articles) would be far better used for something else than trying to enlighten the ignorant who are happy in their ignorance. The great thing about intelligence is that it's a hunger that needs to be fed. You don't have to FORCE someone to learn. If they are smart, they will want to learn all on their own. THOSE are the people we have to help - not the ones who refuse to listen.
Leave the damned language as it is - nothing is gained by changing the words used. Anyone who needs to understand CAN understand, as is. We've been doing ok for the past few generations. By changing the language all you do is take credit away from deserving scientists. No one is made smarter, and no "creationists" will drop their lunatic fantasies by taking the word "Darwin" out of evolution.
so I'm confused why you're unhappy.
I thought it was obvious, but I guess I'm not a very good communicator. I'm unhappy that new sockets are coming out all the time, and new chips are coming out all the time, but the performance increases are marginal. So instead of every succeeding product line being incredibly faster or in some other way advantageous, now the manufacturers are building horizontally, bringing out dozens of varieties of chip competing with themselves and their competitor, but with no single chip being much better than another.
How many varieties of toilet paper are there in a supermarket? There's the really good one, and the really bad one, and all the in-betweens that are very similar. But the reason for all those varieties is marketing. The technology is the same or similar.
Now we're seeing the same in chips and sockets. There are dozens of chips types and socket types, and not many stand out as superior to the previous ones. I've read that finally the i7 gives a moderate performance boost, but if you want it then be prepared to shell out for DDR3 memory. And I guarantee you that the moment you buy an i7 machine, Intel will change the socket AND there will be a new video card socket, so if you want to upgrade after that, look forward to junking part of your hardware.
Of course no one is forcing me to buy this stuff, and the market obviously supports it. However I am sure there must be a more efficient way to move ahead with technology. But since computer chip makers run an oligopoly, we will never know. The free market is dead thanks to the Mega-corps.
The US government appointing delegates with huge powers to regulate and oversee entire swaths of industry with very little personal accountability (heaven forbid!), and the irony in calling them tsars.
Well when the "Land of the Free" finally stops being free, you won't be able to argue that you didn't see it coming.
and in three years, the new socket would be faster and come with updated IO choices.
That's arguable. We're quickly approaching performance limits, diminishing returns are starting to show up, and processors are only getting marginally faster. Now the trick is to play with the cache, and add cores to show a performance increase. I'm wondering in 3 years if we'll be able to justify upgrading at all. If that's the case, I expect new sockets galore and radical design changes just to artificially fuel demand in a saturated market, with the occasional rare leap in technology. Just like all the "new and improved" products you see at the supermarket, that really boast "new and improved packaging" to get your attention and hopefully your dollar.
When I think of the tens of thousands of dollars I have spent on computers in my life-time because I'm a computer nerd and as a hobby I want to stay up to date - it really is impossible to justify this expense if I look at it in terms of increased productivity. It just isn't there. And I argue that soon (if not already) profit, not engineering, will be the main factor deciding if a board is updated and older sockets made obsolete. However economists will argue that there is a hidden economic cost to be paid by society as a whole, in terms of waste and inefficiency, when this happens. So Intel or AMD or whoever gets richer, and we're left to fill in the holes or deal with the garbage/wasted time.
Being fair to the customer, his money does not just turn up in his bank account ready to be spent. He has to give a lot of time and consideration to shelling out money for yet another computer upgrade.
Of course manufacturers love switching sockets, be it from ISA EISA to PCI to AGP back to PCI-Express etc etc etc. Don't get me started on memory, that has undergone countless socket evolutions. And CPU's. I remember back in the late 80's some company was advertising a motherboard that promised a "standard" CPU socket no matter what. Hah what a joke.
Of course there is the fact that new sockets are supposed to bring better things. However I'm sure that sockets could be designed to be backwards compatible much more often than they really are - only the drive to maximize profit by getting you to junk all the other stuff that is made obsolete by your new motherboard seems to trump everything.
I remember reading about what a huge impact the concept of interchangeable parts had on the industrial revolution. And at the beginning there for a while, it also applied to computers. But now the greedy "Intellectual Property" gods (hah, I credit them too much, they're mere lawyers) have pissed all over our wallets, demanding a new socket for every upgrade - obviously covered with reams of patents and copyrights. Guess who is paying for all of this?
I remember way back when BASIC used line numbers, we used to be told to write code in increments of 10, in case you wanted to add more code between your lines in the future. I am positive you can engineer a socket that leaves plenty of room for the future. But why would you want to do that, if you can drain your customer's bank accounts? Well, look at where capitalism, corporate ownership of government and pure greed has gotten us today. Yeah, the economy is in great shape. Keep it up. /rant
Even in poor countries, if you're spending $300 on a PC, $10-$15 to have a legal, rootkit free OS, even one that isn't fully featured, makes it hard to justify Piracy.
I'm sorry, where do you get your numbers?
I happen to live in the third world. You can buy upgrades to legitimate Windows XP from a pirated version if you fail the WGA for US$169 (which is $20 MORE than the US version at $149). THEN you have to pay at least %15 duty on top of that at customs. You could buy it retail here from Office Depot (yes, we have them here) or someone for a 40% mark up (tack on $50 or so to the US retail price, plus shipping!).
But why bother? When you buy a computer usually you will know someone - or the guy who you bought your computer from will know someone, who will either install Windows/Office/Whatever for free, or for $5 or so. Then you'll be told to turn off automatic updates, or it will be installed with a crack to fool WGA.
I don't see how Microsoft is selling their product for $5 more than the "pirated" version, and if so please tell me where I can get their $5-$10 OS. Oh, and not everyone has broadband here, but those that do usually download and burn copies of things for those who don't. I also don't see how people will fork out hundreds of dollars for crippleware when they can get the full version for next to nothing.
This is designed for ultra poor countries
That is, the countries that pirate Microsoft software in the first place. Wow, Microsoft, you sure are giving them an incentive to buy your software now!
I can't believe the "strategic" decisions coming from this company. This is fantastic news for non-Microsoft users. Please, continue to shoot yourselves in the foot by all means. Don't worry about the black stuff, that's NOT gangrene...
Except that Intel and AMD hold vital patents to the set of technologies that are part of the x86 architeture.
You realize patents only last 20 years, right? Some of those "vital" x86 components must have expired or be pretty close.
The $2700 "gaming" CPU, coming soon from Nvidia. Combine that with your $800 twin video cards, and we're almost back to $5000 per computer again. The worst thing is, people actually buy these overpriced graphics cards giving them incentive to keep doing it. Well, have fun during the recession. I think MSI is going to make a lot of money.
..is because a lot of products aren't supported on Linux. Sure one could run them in WINE or install a VBox with Windows, but for the average non-nerdy computer user that may be too much.
That is the case today, and only for the higher end games and poorly written software. However considering how far linux (and especially Ubuntu) has come in terms of hardware support in the past few years, it's only a matter of time before decent software support is available. Locking people out of the newer Direct X upgrades, like Microsoft did with Vista/DX 10 - can only play into our hands. Every day wine and cedega get better.
The games are US only too - your IP is tested as well to confirm your location.
Yes because who knows what would happen if these games ended up in Syria, Iran, or in the hands of the Taliban!
You know, speaking as someone who lives outside the US, these IP checks are a pain - especially when they are poorly implemented. For example, because of my Latin American IP number, I can only buy the "Spanish" version of some software, despite the fact that having been born in Canada and just living here I would still prefer the English version.
Meh, I guess I should set up a linux box at my US address and just do my surfing through that.
Well if you consider that embassies are technically the territory of the country they represent, then Iran HAS invaded a country in recent history...