Looks like someone is assuming that the CIOs of the future are idiots. Only an idiot latches onto one single tool and eschews all others. I'm a 100% hardcore Linux guy, but I don't avoid Windows or Macintosh. Why? Because I can use them all completely and thoroughly to do whatever it is I need. How is it that I can navigate multiple OS platforms so easily? Because I have a clear understanding of what it is that the system is doing behind the scenes instead of just memorizing how an application works. Gimp? Photoshop? Same thing in my mind. CMD is just sh's retarded cousin. "My Computer"? Finder? Nautilus? Konqueror? All identical concepts in my mind. There is NO difference if you're not a moron. Now wake the fuck up, get to learning and quit posting worthless shit on the net you asswipe.
...water is a viscous fluid and could work as a lubricant. Gee. Ya think? I wonder if that's why most living things on Earth are made of... wait for it... WATER! Duh!!! Now let me get back to my project to create snapshot backups of the quantum structure of the universe for disaster recovery before the boss... er... wife gets back. Geez, someone told me Slashdot was the place for geeks. You guys are bush league. - Magrathean Planet Builder
You've obviously not used Beryl. I'm a hardcore Linux guy. Every distro from LFS (Linux from Scratch) to Gentoo, RedHat Enterprise to Fedora Core, and a few peeks at the largely boring and dull but very well put together *Ubuntu. You name it, I've done it. I find a high degree of utility from Beryl and it's Scale (like Mac's Expose) feature. There is no better way to move between windows than visually with scaled thumbnails that are live. I can watch all of my open and active windows live which means more productivity.
Sure there's the wow factor as well and it does wear off quickly once you integrate usage of Beryl into your everyday life. When you go back to Metacity or Kwm or even Windows or Mac, you suddenly realize how much is missing. And believe me, I've even used the GNU screen utility to manage multiple CLI sessions. While it's nice, Beryl allows you to be far more productive. You can keep Rat Poison (the window manager for people with mental problems). THAT gets in the way of any possible increase in productivity as it makes managing a large number of windows a nightmare.
I think any legal proceedings trump private life regardless of whether you agree with the instigators of said proceedings. That's just the way it works. The only exception I can see is jury duty, where they allow you to miss out if you're in college. Usually.
Interesting that... As I'm using it on the desktop on every machine I own (all 15 of them). I use it as a desktop at work. AND I use it in the server room too. The only people who say Linux isn't ready for the desktop, are people who themselves aren't ready for the desktop.;P
So where exactly do YOU fall on the issue? I suspect you side with the folks (not just judges) who aren't patient or intelligent enough to take an issue seriously and listen to a complete presentation. I could be wrong, but that's the way you came off with that post. Care to clarify?
Ohhhh... SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET A LIFE! Otherwise I'm gonna have to lay the smackdown on yo azz. Beyotch! -- (Hint to the clueless: There's a Beavis and Butthead reference in there. In other words... laugh. It's funny.)
...that the right to make a profit is higher than my rights to freedom and privacy? Sorry folks, but business has absolutely no right to my money. I earned it, I have the right to choose how I spend it with absolutely no influence from the seller. This is why advertising fails with someone like me. I ignore all advertising. If I need or want something I have the following criteria:
1. If it's something I need frequently, I find a brand that I like (defined as: does what I need, or has properties that I find to be important) and stick with it 2. If it's something I only purchase every so often, like a car or a digital camera, I do heavy research into the deepest technical aspects of the product to make sure it meets my needs and is reasonable in price for what it offers vs. my income and what I can afford to spend. Then I buy the product that fits my requirements. In this case it's not likely that I will stick with the same brand as these properties may change over time 3. For anything I purchase, I try to make sure that I'm buying from a company or supplier who is less supportive of evil practices. Since we live in a capitalist society and the profit motive is worshiped as the highest practice, I know that it's impossible to expect any business to be less than 90% evil (defined as: willing to cause harm to customers, employees or other by-standers in the name of profit) so I try to find those companies that are the least evil. Hint: Walmart fails (and no... the high number of jobs they provide do not make them less evil since they treat their employees like shit and take advantage of their employee's ignorance to boot. Another hint: Walmart is a bad place to work)
So, anyone who thinks that they have a right to my money is sadly mistaken. To all businesses of the world: you only get my money if you do the right things. I am your master. Not the other way around. The same applies to any other potential customer with a brain. The rest of the sheeple can fuck the hell off.
I think the dissonance in your viewpoint vs. one like mine is that you mistakenly believe that your right to make a profit should have more power and validity than my right to be free. On the surface, those people who want to make money writing software have nothing wrong with them. For the most part many of them are well intentioned. But, when they believe that their right to make money with software should negate my right to create a competitive and completely free (both in terms of speech and gratis [that means free of charge for the mouth breathers in the audience]) alternative to their product, that's when people like me fight back.
All this saber rattling on the part of Microsoft, their supporters and companies like them trying to threaten users and developers about possible legal risks (likely based on the flawed concept of software patents) is born of the idea that their profit is more valuable to society than my freedom. In general, I call horseshit on Gates, Ballmer, et al and anyone who supports that view. You have absolutely no right to make a profit when it interferes with my freedom to create an original implementation of a basic concept. As long as people at MS and companies like MS continue to try and hold to this unsupportable viewpoint, people like me will come around with as many methods as possible of thwarting them. The GPL is built on the concept of freedom and so it stands. I agree with it and unless you can give me one good reason why I shouldn't that doesn't relate to your own profit, I won't change my mind. Profit is the least important aspect of our society even though it's been elevated as the most important. The most important aspect of our society is freedom as long as that freedom benefits each individual fairly and functions without the concept of personal gain in terms of material wealth. Any clearer now?
Nice. But I wouldn't be surprised at all. I expect if we dig deep enough on Mars we'll find all sorts of interesting artifacts of ancient civilizations and alien remains. But I think most rational scientists would be very surprised because they don't expect that sort of thing until they do all this useless preamble stuff first. I say just go with the gut and dig in! I, for one, welcome our gigantic eight-legged skull people skeletons.
...that we haven't yet planned on sending any kind of excavation equipment to do archaeological digs on Mars. I suspect that if we do, we'll be very surprised to find evidence of previous intelligent life and whole civilizations that existed quadrillions of years ago. At the least we could do an entire deep sonar survey of the planet to find potential digging sites. I should run NASA. I always come up with the good ideas.
Yeah... great thinking there Einstein. "Oh!!! My car stereo doesn't work with iPods! It's time to go out and buy a whole new car so I can use my iPod the way it was meant to be used!" Sorry, but I prefer to hold onto machines for their actual lifetime instead of the upgrade cycle the MS forces on us due to their crap coding. I have a server machine at home that I bought back in 1998 and it's running all of the latest *nix FOSS software I need on it. We're talking Office suite, browser, PIM, etc... This box wouldn't run Vista at all (dual P II 450 with 768 megs of RAM). Hell I can even pull off Beryl on it with the NVidia card. Let me see you run Aero Glass on a P II system dickhead. I paid less than $2000 for a system that has lasted nearly 10 years. That's less than $200 a year. If I'd gone the Microsoft route, I would have been through at least three boxes of the same caliber at a cost of $6000 in that same period of time. Windows is not cheap you asshole. If I buy a cheapo $700 box with Vista on it now, will I still be using it in two years to run the most recent software? No. Because it would be too slow to run the latest stuff. When you buy the cheap boxes with Windows, you wind up with a piece of crap in a very short period of time. $700 every two years for a decade is still $3500 which isn't even in the same realm as my Linux boxes in terms of being cost effective. Some of us aren't made of money. To me a PC should be viable for no less than seven years while still beating able to run the latest software barring any totally new hardware features (like Intel and AMD hardware assisted virtualization). So take your Vista turd and fuck yourself. Asshole. [TT]hanks.
Whoa there boy... you need to learn a little bit about today's virtualization methods. For one, Xen is quite important in this regard since it is entirely possible to paravirtualize Windows. In fact it's so possible that MS modified the Windows kernel to work on Xen, they were so interested in what Xen was doing. Then, following that they cooperated with Xensource to provide a way of reaping the benefits of paravirtualization without need to rewrite the kernel. When you install the commercial version of Xen you get a special MS approved driver pack that sits in your Windows VM Domain to work with Xen and the Pacifica and Vanderpool technologies of AMD and Intel respectively. The performance is again approaching bare metal. Something that VMWare could only do on their higher end products but which is now possible with new servers and Xensource. Stick to what you know... you apparently don't know jack about virtualization. It's very different today from where it was a year or two ago.
And as someone else pointed out, quit trying to muddy the waters by bringing licensing into it. The fact is that When Longhorn comes out, it's supposed to contain a hypervisor in it to do just what Xen has been doing for the past few years. Basically a thin layer on the CPU metal that the OSes ride on. No more "host" OSes to slow things down. But, if you're like me, why wait until MS has a solution out when you could have already been using one for as long as the CPUs with VT/HVM have been available? Of course, if you're like me, you're only running one instance of Windows XP Pro so you can access content that isn't enlightened enough to be multiplatform friendly. The majority of the VMs I run at home and at work are... drumroll please: Linux. Why you may ask? Because it "just works" for me. Windows doesn't.
Not to mention the fact that paravirtualization as well as hardware assisted virtualization like Xen offers (and later Longhorn) really cut the performance issues WAY the hell down. With a system like Xen you get very close to bare metal speeds since there is no such thing as a "host OS" to get in the way.
Who put a bug in your ass? Re-read my post and realize that my comment about Windows dorks is about people who don't have a damn idea in their head about the OS and still profess to being experts. Real Windows experts also will have the knowledge to call when the problem is really hardware. If it's a software problem on either platform, a knowledgeable user will know the difference and will be able to resolve, work around or just accept it. Anyone else on either platform is a complete dork and should be using a Mac.
You're wrong on multiple counts. There IS such a thing as a person who know what they are doing with Windows. I'm one of them. But, that kind of person is very rare. The majority of self proclaimed Windows "experts" are in fact dorks with absolutely no idea what they are talking about. The problem with the Windows platform in my opinion is that it lacks a stupidity filter. It allows nearly anyone to use a computer, which is not necessarily bad, until that person who masters Word suddenly thinks they know everything about Windows. And THOSE are the people to whom I refer to as Windows dorks. Just to be fair, there are Linux dorks too and many of them are being turned on to Ubuntu. Just because they can get around the Gnome desktop as presented by Ubuntu at a user level of competence doesn't mean they know Linux or Unix. So this can be equal opportunity. Just wait until Linux is really mainstreamed by some large vendor who signs a deal with Ubuntu. Then there will be PLENTY of Linux dorks to go around. Right now most of the existing Linux dorks complain about X window system and how it should be replaced with something that lives in the kernel...
Yep. That's what I do. I get an extra HD and back up the original factory installation. That way if some dickhead from coporate wants to see a Windows box, he'll see one. Wanna know why this works for Linux users? Because the ONLY time we call support is when the hardware is actually broken. Unlike the Windows dorks who think their systems are broken when it's really a software issue.
I knew this would happen eventually. I've been with Speakeasy since 2001 for my DSL service and I've only been as satisfied with one other ISP in the past. The problem with the previous ISP is that they got bought out by another larger ISP who basically screwed all of the old customers. For example, with mail, they "merged" the two domains. They took all of the accounts from my ISP (including my own e-mail account of five years) and basically dumped any duplicates. I used to be eno@isp1.example and they dumped my account so that eno@isp2.example could continue to use that address. They said that user had the address long before I did. This is only true if they eliminate the original domain that my account existed in. So after that, I bought my own domain and started hosting my own mail. Never again will that happen.
But now, I'm not sure what to think. Best Buy is absolutely notorious for screwing their customers and messing up everything they do as a business as long as it's in their favor. I have a feeling that my legacy account with Speakeasy (containing a static IP) will probably be one of the first things to be dumped once they start making changes. Speakeasy doesn't currently offer quite the same thing that I have now for the same low price that they once did, but since I'm legacy it works out in my favor. Of course from Best Buy's corporate policies I will probably be seen as a "bad customer" and get fired. Here's to Best Buy: Fuck you assholes.
Actually... I'm a Beryl user and Beryl does this just as Mac OS X does. But just yesterday I was talking to the Windows admin here and he has Vista with Aero Glass on his workstation. He was highly impressed by Beryl when I showed it to him a while back, butI was curious about the live update of the scaled windows in Vista. So I asked him to pop open a CMD window and ping something, then display all the scaled windows. It worked. The ping was still visible. So... it appears that Vista CAN do it, (we didn't test with video or anything though) and maybe it's not as efficient as Mac OS X or Beryl, but it CAN do it.
Digital media is OK, it's the storage that sucks. That's your basic point. But I have to disagree with you on the ubiquity of CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives. Trust me... of all those devices that exist today, you'll only find less than 1% in a serviceable state in another 75 years. What we really need is a self-replicating storage system that builds copies of itself. I propose that for proper storage of digital information, we should really be looking at systems that can store the data in a sequential chemical form (to represent the bits). These systems should be very compact and only contain a limited set of data + the ability to copy that data to neighboring units. (Death by a thousand paper cuts sort of thing) These small systems would be contained within larger systems whose sole responsibility would be acquiring the necessary physical resources (complex matter that could be broken down into the base chemicals needed by the smaller storage systems).
The larger systems could also provide mirroring by interfacing with each other as directed by chemical interactions in order to preserve original data as well as integrate new data that may be useful in assuring that future units are even more resilient to any sorts of flaws or possible malfunction caused by inappropriate chemical input. The key to all of this is going to be to make sure that the larger units are impelled to continue the duplication and exchange of data ad infinitum. To do that, there should be some sort of mutual benefit that the engaged units acquire from the mirroring. Multiple levels of mutual benefit would likely be more successful than just one level. So I propose that at a base level, the units should be programmed with routines that make them feel more or less successful whenever a mirroring connection is attempted. I know that sounds strange, but it should be a pretty simple subroutine and will at least get the units to attempt mirroring.
The next level would also be an expansion of the data mirroring to the actual manufacture of a tertiary (or even more) unit that contains selected data from both origination units. As part of the mutual benefit relationship between units, the origination units should be programmed to protect the manufactured unit in order to safeguard its data as it would be the freshest copy (chemically speaking) and therefore more viable. So the relationship between origination units and next generation manufactured units would be that of security and stability from the origination units as applied to the next generation.
Another aspect to all of this that would add even more value would be to provide the larger units with various sensors that would store ANY and ALL possible forms of energy radiation and chemical exposure to the environment. This would assure that the units would not only contain the originally stored data, but would be constantly gathering the data in a parallel fashion in every corner of the world where the units are deployed.
As you can see, this would ensure after several generations, that all the original data is in tact and could simply be retrieved by reading all units chemical stores simultaneously and reassembling the original data as well as newly stored information. Imagine that... a sensor array that spans the planet with historical functions as well. And all self-sustaining and chemically based.
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like someone is assuming that the CIOs of the future are idiots. Only an idiot latches onto one single tool and eschews all others. I'm a 100% hardcore Linux guy, but I don't avoid Windows or Macintosh. Why? Because I can use them all completely and thoroughly to do whatever it is I need. How is it that I can navigate multiple OS platforms so easily? Because I have a clear understanding of what it is that the system is doing behind the scenes instead of just memorizing how an application works. Gimp? Photoshop? Same thing in my mind. CMD is just sh's retarded cousin. "My Computer"? Finder? Nautilus? Konqueror? All identical concepts in my mind. There is NO difference if you're not a moron. Now wake the fuck up, get to learning and quit posting worthless shit on the net you asswipe.
...water is a viscous fluid and could work as a lubricant. Gee. Ya think? I wonder if that's why most living things on Earth are made of... wait for it... WATER! Duh!!! Now let me get back to my project to create snapshot backups of the quantum structure of the universe for disaster recovery before the boss... er... wife gets back. Geez, someone told me Slashdot was the place for geeks. You guys are bush league. - Magrathean Planet Builder
You've obviously not used Beryl. I'm a hardcore Linux guy. Every distro from LFS (Linux from Scratch) to Gentoo, RedHat Enterprise to Fedora Core, and a few peeks at the largely boring and dull but very well put together *Ubuntu. You name it, I've done it. I find a high degree of utility from Beryl and it's Scale (like Mac's Expose) feature. There is no better way to move between windows than visually with scaled thumbnails that are live. I can watch all of my open and active windows live which means more productivity.
Sure there's the wow factor as well and it does wear off quickly once you integrate usage of Beryl into your everyday life. When you go back to Metacity or Kwm or even Windows or Mac, you suddenly realize how much is missing. And believe me, I've even used the GNU screen utility to manage multiple CLI sessions. While it's nice, Beryl allows you to be far more productive. You can keep Rat Poison (the window manager for people with mental problems). THAT gets in the way of any possible increase in productivity as it makes managing a large number of windows a nightmare.
I think any legal proceedings trump private life regardless of whether you agree with the instigators of said proceedings. That's just the way it works. The only exception I can see is jury duty, where they allow you to miss out if you're in college. Usually.
Interesting that... As I'm using it on the desktop on every machine I own (all 15 of them). I use it as a desktop at work. AND I use it in the server room too. The only people who say Linux isn't ready for the desktop, are people who themselves aren't ready for the desktop. ;P
So where exactly do YOU fall on the issue? I suspect you side with the folks (not just judges) who aren't patient or intelligent enough to take an issue seriously and listen to a complete presentation. I could be wrong, but that's the way you came off with that post. Care to clarify?
It's never been a better time to say...
It's a trap!!!
This comedy moment has been brought to you by Goatse-Os. The wholesome breakfast cereal with a satisfying chew.
Profit motive makes the world a better place in every way... Right... If you believe that I've got a swamp to sell you.
Ohhhh... SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET A LIFE! Otherwise I'm gonna have to lay the smackdown on yo azz. Beyotch! -- (Hint to the clueless: There's a Beavis and Butthead reference in there. In other words... laugh. It's funny.)
...that the right to make a profit is higher than my rights to freedom and privacy? Sorry folks, but business has absolutely no right to my money. I earned it, I have the right to choose how I spend it with absolutely no influence from the seller. This is why advertising fails with someone like me. I ignore all advertising. If I need or want something I have the following criteria:
1. If it's something I need frequently, I find a brand that I like (defined as: does what I need, or has properties that I find to be important) and stick with it
2. If it's something I only purchase every so often, like a car or a digital camera, I do heavy research into the deepest technical aspects of the product to make sure it meets my needs and is reasonable in price for what it offers vs. my income and what I can afford to spend. Then I buy the product that fits my requirements. In this case it's not likely that I will stick with the same brand as these properties may change over time
3. For anything I purchase, I try to make sure that I'm buying from a company or supplier who is less supportive of evil practices. Since we live in a capitalist society and the profit motive is worshiped as the highest practice, I know that it's impossible to expect any business to be less than 90% evil (defined as: willing to cause harm to customers, employees or other by-standers in the name of profit) so I try to find those companies that are the least evil. Hint: Walmart fails (and no... the high number of jobs they provide do not make them less evil since they treat their employees like shit and take advantage of their employee's ignorance to boot. Another hint: Walmart is a bad place to work)
So, anyone who thinks that they have a right to my money is sadly mistaken. To all businesses of the world: you only get my money if you do the right things. I am your master. Not the other way around. The same applies to any other potential customer with a brain. The rest of the sheeple can fuck the hell off.
I think the dissonance in your viewpoint vs. one like mine is that you mistakenly believe that your right to make a profit should have more power and validity than my right to be free. On the surface, those people who want to make money writing software have nothing wrong with them. For the most part many of them are well intentioned. But, when they believe that their right to make money with software should negate my right to create a competitive and completely free (both in terms of speech and gratis [that means free of charge for the mouth breathers in the audience]) alternative to their product, that's when people like me fight back.
All this saber rattling on the part of Microsoft, their supporters and companies like them trying to threaten users and developers about possible legal risks (likely based on the flawed concept of software patents) is born of the idea that their profit is more valuable to society than my freedom. In general, I call horseshit on Gates, Ballmer, et al and anyone who supports that view. You have absolutely no right to make a profit when it interferes with my freedom to create an original implementation of a basic concept. As long as people at MS and companies like MS continue to try and hold to this unsupportable viewpoint, people like me will come around with as many methods as possible of thwarting them. The GPL is built on the concept of freedom and so it stands. I agree with it and unless you can give me one good reason why I shouldn't that doesn't relate to your own profit, I won't change my mind. Profit is the least important aspect of our society even though it's been elevated as the most important. The most important aspect of our society is freedom as long as that freedom benefits each individual fairly and functions without the concept of personal gain in terms of material wealth. Any clearer now?
Nice. But I wouldn't be surprised at all. I expect if we dig deep enough on Mars we'll find all sorts of interesting artifacts of ancient civilizations and alien remains. But I think most rational scientists would be very surprised because they don't expect that sort of thing until they do all this useless preamble stuff first. I say just go with the gut and dig in! I, for one, welcome our gigantic eight-legged skull people skeletons.
You missed the central poiint of what I was saying. But you're probably too stupid to understand it anyway.
...that we haven't yet planned on sending any kind of excavation equipment to do archaeological digs on Mars. I suspect that if we do, we'll be very surprised to find evidence of previous intelligent life and whole civilizations that existed quadrillions of years ago. At the least we could do an entire deep sonar survey of the planet to find potential digging sites. I should run NASA. I always come up with the good ideas.
Yeah... great thinking there Einstein. "Oh!!! My car stereo doesn't work with iPods! It's time to go out and buy a whole new car so I can use my iPod the way it was meant to be used!" Sorry, but I prefer to hold onto machines for their actual lifetime instead of the upgrade cycle the MS forces on us due to their crap coding. I have a server machine at home that I bought back in 1998 and it's running all of the latest *nix FOSS software I need on it. We're talking Office suite, browser, PIM, etc... This box wouldn't run Vista at all (dual P II 450 with 768 megs of RAM). Hell I can even pull off Beryl on it with the NVidia card. Let me see you run Aero Glass on a P II system dickhead. I paid less than $2000 for a system that has lasted nearly 10 years. That's less than $200 a year. If I'd gone the Microsoft route, I would have been through at least three boxes of the same caliber at a cost of $6000 in that same period of time. Windows is not cheap you asshole. If I buy a cheapo $700 box with Vista on it now, will I still be using it in two years to run the most recent software? No. Because it would be too slow to run the latest stuff. When you buy the cheap boxes with Windows, you wind up with a piece of crap in a very short period of time. $700 every two years for a decade is still $3500 which isn't even in the same realm as my Linux boxes in terms of being cost effective. Some of us aren't made of money. To me a PC should be viable for no less than seven years while still beating able to run the latest software barring any totally new hardware features (like Intel and AMD hardware assisted virtualization). So take your Vista turd and fuck yourself. Asshole. [TT]hanks.
Short, sweet and to the point. Bravo my friend! There is great levity to be had in the brevity of wit.
Whoa there boy... you need to learn a little bit about today's virtualization methods. For one, Xen is quite important in this regard since it is entirely possible to paravirtualize Windows. In fact it's so possible that MS modified the Windows kernel to work on Xen, they were so interested in what Xen was doing. Then, following that they cooperated with Xensource to provide a way of reaping the benefits of paravirtualization without need to rewrite the kernel. When you install the commercial version of Xen you get a special MS approved driver pack that sits in your Windows VM Domain to work with Xen and the Pacifica and Vanderpool technologies of AMD and Intel respectively. The performance is again approaching bare metal. Something that VMWare could only do on their higher end products but which is now possible with new servers and Xensource. Stick to what you know... you apparently don't know jack about virtualization. It's very different today from where it was a year or two ago.
And as someone else pointed out, quit trying to muddy the waters by bringing licensing into it. The fact is that When Longhorn comes out, it's supposed to contain a hypervisor in it to do just what Xen has been doing for the past few years. Basically a thin layer on the CPU metal that the OSes ride on. No more "host" OSes to slow things down. But, if you're like me, why wait until MS has a solution out when you could have already been using one for as long as the CPUs with VT/HVM have been available? Of course, if you're like me, you're only running one instance of Windows XP Pro so you can access content that isn't enlightened enough to be multiplatform friendly. The majority of the VMs I run at home and at work are... drumroll please: Linux. Why you may ask? Because it "just works" for me. Windows doesn't.
Not to mention the fact that paravirtualization as well as hardware assisted virtualization like Xen offers (and later Longhorn) really cut the performance issues WAY the hell down. With a system like Xen you get very close to bare metal speeds since there is no such thing as a "host OS" to get in the way.
Who put a bug in your ass? Re-read my post and realize that my comment about Windows dorks is about people who don't have a damn idea in their head about the OS and still profess to being experts. Real Windows experts also will have the knowledge to call when the problem is really hardware. If it's a software problem on either platform, a knowledgeable user will know the difference and will be able to resolve, work around or just accept it. Anyone else on either platform is a complete dork and should be using a Mac.
You're wrong on multiple counts. There IS such a thing as a person who know what they are doing with Windows. I'm one of them. But, that kind of person is very rare. The majority of self proclaimed Windows "experts" are in fact dorks with absolutely no idea what they are talking about. The problem with the Windows platform in my opinion is that it lacks a stupidity filter. It allows nearly anyone to use a computer, which is not necessarily bad, until that person who masters Word suddenly thinks they know everything about Windows. And THOSE are the people to whom I refer to as Windows dorks. Just to be fair, there are Linux dorks too and many of them are being turned on to Ubuntu. Just because they can get around the Gnome desktop as presented by Ubuntu at a user level of competence doesn't mean they know Linux or Unix. So this can be equal opportunity. Just wait until Linux is really mainstreamed by some large vendor who signs a deal with Ubuntu. Then there will be PLENTY of Linux dorks to go around. Right now most of the existing Linux dorks complain about X window system and how it should be replaced with something that lives in the kernel...
For some reason the headline of this article reminds me of this video. Call me crazy, but I think there are strong similarities.
Yep. That's what I do. I get an extra HD and back up the original factory installation. That way if some dickhead from coporate wants to see a Windows box, he'll see one. Wanna know why this works for Linux users? Because the ONLY time we call support is when the hardware is actually broken. Unlike the Windows dorks who think their systems are broken when it's really a software issue.
I knew this would happen eventually. I've been with Speakeasy since 2001 for my DSL service and I've only been as satisfied with one other ISP in the past. The problem with the previous ISP is that they got bought out by another larger ISP who basically screwed all of the old customers. For example, with mail, they "merged" the two domains. They took all of the accounts from my ISP (including my own e-mail account of five years) and basically dumped any duplicates. I used to be eno@isp1.example and they dumped my account so that eno@isp2.example could continue to use that address. They said that user had the address long before I did. This is only true if they eliminate the original domain that my account existed in. So after that, I bought my own domain and started hosting my own mail. Never again will that happen.
But now, I'm not sure what to think. Best Buy is absolutely notorious for screwing their customers and messing up everything they do as a business as long as it's in their favor. I have a feeling that my legacy account with Speakeasy (containing a static IP) will probably be one of the first things to be dumped once they start making changes. Speakeasy doesn't currently offer quite the same thing that I have now for the same low price that they once did, but since I'm legacy it works out in my favor. Of course from Best Buy's corporate policies I will probably be seen as a "bad customer" and get fired. Here's to Best Buy: Fuck you assholes.
Actually... I'm a Beryl user and Beryl does this just as Mac OS X does. But just yesterday I was talking to the Windows admin here and he has Vista with Aero Glass on his workstation. He was highly impressed by Beryl when I showed it to him a while back, butI was curious about the live update of the scaled windows in Vista. So I asked him to pop open a CMD window and ping something, then display all the scaled windows. It worked. The ping was still visible. So... it appears that Vista CAN do it, (we didn't test with video or anything though) and maybe it's not as efficient as Mac OS X or Beryl, but it CAN do it.
Digital media is OK, it's the storage that sucks. That's your basic point. But I have to disagree with you on the ubiquity of CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives. Trust me... of all those devices that exist today, you'll only find less than 1% in a serviceable state in another 75 years. What we really need is a self-replicating storage system that builds copies of itself. I propose that for proper storage of digital information, we should really be looking at systems that can store the data in a sequential chemical form (to represent the bits). These systems should be very compact and only contain a limited set of data + the ability to copy that data to neighboring units. (Death by a thousand paper cuts sort of thing) These small systems would be contained within larger systems whose sole responsibility would be acquiring the necessary physical resources (complex matter that could be broken down into the base chemicals needed by the smaller storage systems).
The larger systems could also provide mirroring by interfacing with each other as directed by chemical interactions in order to preserve original data as well as integrate new data that may be useful in assuring that future units are even more resilient to any sorts of flaws or possible malfunction caused by inappropriate chemical input. The key to all of this is going to be to make sure that the larger units are impelled to continue the duplication and exchange of data ad infinitum. To do that, there should be some sort of mutual benefit that the engaged units acquire from the mirroring. Multiple levels of mutual benefit would likely be more successful than just one level. So I propose that at a base level, the units should be programmed with routines that make them feel more or less successful whenever a mirroring connection is attempted. I know that sounds strange, but it should be a pretty simple subroutine and will at least get the units to attempt mirroring.
The next level would also be an expansion of the data mirroring to the actual manufacture of a tertiary (or even more) unit that contains selected data from both origination units. As part of the mutual benefit relationship between units, the origination units should be programmed to protect the manufactured unit in order to safeguard its data as it would be the freshest copy (chemically speaking) and therefore more viable. So the relationship between origination units and next generation manufactured units would be that of security and stability from the origination units as applied to the next generation.
Another aspect to all of this that would add even more value would be to provide the larger units with various sensors that would store ANY and ALL possible forms of energy radiation and chemical exposure to the environment. This would assure that the units would not only contain the originally stored data, but would be constantly gathering the data in a parallel fashion in every corner of the world where the units are deployed.
As you can see, this would ensure after several generations, that all the original data is in tact and could simply be retrieved by reading all units chemical stores simultaneously and reassembling the original data as well as newly stored information. Imagine that... a sensor array that spans the planet with historical functions as well. And all self-sustaining and chemically based.