Yes, it is less attractive. I mean, people buy 'all inclusive' bundles in the form of game consoles.
The problem is that the additional components (like media player) cost more development time, and thus increase the price of the OS.
So if you're just running on a 286 that can't play divxs anyway, why should you subsidise those that want to watch videos?
The other problem is of course, that their market position makes things really difficult for competitors to get a viable product off the ground. How many people use netscape these days?
It wasn't so very long ago that it was the browser of choice.
Now I accept that some of that may be due to Netscape being less good, but the majority of the pressure is going to be from those who just click the 'internet' button and oh look, there's IE.
(And incidentally, does anyone remember a similar ruling requiring the removal of IE from microsoft OSs? Their solution was to alter the OS structure to make it 'integral'.)
If you're keen to increase performance on your linux system, then in kernel revisions 2.2 and higher there's an optional performance boost. Basically, what it does is re-optimise the memory for application usage, which provides about a 5-10% performance boost.
It's quiet easy to enable, all you need to do is add "exec true" to your system profile (/etc/profile). It can be enabled at a user level by adding this line to a '.bashrc' or similar, but obviously, that will only enhance programs spawned after the shell, not system applications.
Sadly, I have seen this. A year or so ago, when the latest new email worm came out, we quickly fixed the mail filtering to stop it, but a few copies got through. So we sent out an urgent email to all our staff with a "Do not open the attachement on an email with the subject *blah* because it is a virus".
Half an hour later, we get an apologetic developer wanting us to rebuild his machine, because he ran the virus.
When asked if he saw the warning message, his response was "yes, but I wanted to see what it did". Well, at least he was honest.
Windows has a more 'point and drool' interface than Linux does. It always has. That's the place where linux has always lacked.
I'll still be sticking with unix, not because of the interface, but because on unix, I can do remote, concurrent configuration changes to 300 workstations without having to spend a very large amount of money on a software package to do this.
I can install a new bug fix on all of my servers with just a little scripting.
When recently renumbering IP addresses, guess how much work the unix systems took as compared to the windows systems?
I'll use unix because it's fundamentally _just more stable_ and built with multiple users in mind.
I'll use unix, because whilst./configure && make && make install is longer to type than clicking on setup, I can take a look at the source code, and generally with very few tweaks make a program run on Solaris SPARC, IBM AIX machines, Silicon graphics MIPS processors and a whole host of, what is to my mind, performance architectures.
Intel architecture machines, (Windows primarily, but Linux to an extent) just does not cut it for server operations. If you've ever had to trouble shoot, for example an ultrasparc, as to why it won't boot, you can hook into the diagnostics system on the motherboard and it will _tell_ you what's wrong.
Windows has some nice elements (linux can learn from it). To my mind though, it's fine for the desktop, but please keep it off anything doing serious work.
Sorry, from what I've seen the people who advocate, trial and recommend new tech are usually at management level looking for cushy numbers.
The kind of person who goes and buys a WLAN, deploys it without locking it down, and goes 'oh I was trying it out' when the resident security weeny tries to kill them.
All with higher up technophile management approval of course. They don't bother to consider the implications of new tech, they just go 'ugh, shiny new laptop. Must be better. Must have'.
Erm, no. Did you, on the first day you tried to use a computer go 'oh, I know how this works' and start bashing away in machine code to make it do stuff?
I'd hope not;p
The whole point of dummed down is so you _can_ start to understand it. You start at a fairly high level (this is a processor. It does stuff) and work your way down to the detail. If I were to just throw a schematic of Hammer at someone, very few would have any idea what it was, let alone have a detailed understanding of it.
SIMD ~= Array processing. Take this bazillion element array and add 1 to each.
MIMD ~= current multiprocessing. x processors running x separate bits of code.
MISD is fairly near useless, since it's basically one great big implicit race condition. It's included in the list for completelness only.
(These two processors in parallel, add 1 to this element and multiply it by 2. So do you get 2 (x+1) or do you get (2x + 1))
Hyperion was nicely put together.
The Shrike an odd sort of a character, but it does become clearer what that's all about when you get as far as Endymion.
"Our mutual friend with the serious speed obsession".
I liked the whole premise that the Minds were near godlike, and well capable of playing their own manipulative game.
Damn, got to go read that book again.
I like the Culture books quite a lot. Tried the wasp factory, that was just really wierd.
Was recommended that 'if you like banks, then you'll like Ken MacCleod'. I was quite impressed.
Biggest mistake that lucas made was to actually try writing the scripts of EP I and II.
Should have just stuck to ripping them off.
And I'm irritated that he's completely ignored the attempts of the HUGE numbers of writers to help complete his starwars universe.
There was an awful lot of material regarding the design/construction of the death star, and the early life of Boba Fett.
No, he wasn't a clone in the book, he was a normal sort of guy, living in a lawful environment. Then he started to actively chase down the law, which was why he was such a feared bounty hunter. He would be selective about what jobs he would take, only trying to chase down 'criminals'. Course, the mandalorian armour didn't hurt much either.
A clone of his dad, who happens to be a quite solid bounty hunter? WTF? They could have done a lot with the solid backstory that someone else provided, but nooo, they had to throw in cute and fluffy, and wierd alien creatures. (Flying insects? NOT SCARY. Stormtroopers were scary.)
OK end of rant:)
Both Eddings and Goodkind did really well for the first few books IMHO. Belgariad, and wizards first rule + Stone of tears I rather liked.
Later books of course, started to smell of recycled vomit. I still rather enjoyed reading some of them, but they really did start to lose out on originality. (There are arguments about the Elenium, but if you look closely, there are still the same character traits. The smart arse thief type, the stupid but noble knight, The wise and powerful advisor etc. etc.).
Goodkind I rather think fell into the same trap. I liked the books, but they got a little too samey after about book 3. A minor literary tragedy.
First bit was something of an epic sci fi (WTF was all that with the monkeys though?), I liked 2010 better, because the characters had a little more depth. 2061 was getting surreal and 3001 was just... crap frankly. Deeply unimpressed, it's soured me quite a bit on Clarke.
And has anyone else noticed that there are quite a few 'co-wrote' clarke books about now. Like Richter 10, which Clarke never even came near to writing. It was a concept he put down on paper once, for a 1 page story thingy. But of course, that doesn't stop his name being blazoned across the top.
Ken McLeod IMHO is _superb_. The Engines of Light stuff, I've not liked _quite_ so much, but the previous books (the star fraction, the cassini division, stone canals etc.). I've enjoyed immensely. He creates a very beliveable world, and throws in quite a bit of political theory.
Found a sort of trick. It seems that I have two addresses within my domain on the same spam list. (One of which doesn't actually exist apart from being vanitydomain@Vanitydomain. )
So it's easy to just match up email body md5sums, and clear out those which match...
Course, if anyone sent me a message to both addresses then it'd trash them, but since one isn't supposed to exist...
Lib Dem's policy of 'if we get in, we legalise cannabis' is inspired. Just think of how much of the voters who usually wouldn't bother, will because of that one policy. Course, that's assuming they're not too stoned.
Speed limits are stupid anyway. Throw them all out and just use 'dangerous driving'. That way, 130 down a clear motorway at 5am is not (necessarily) an offense, but sticking to the 30 when there are kids running across the road cos school has just finished is.
And here they have some fun articles about speed traps. My personal favourite is the one about the barrister (lawyer) who took the speed gun, pointed it at the courtroom wall, and got a reading of 8 miles per hour....
What's even more annoying, is that I never listened to really loud music. Never been that fussed. I can only think that on one of the occasions at the student's union I damaged my hearing.
I have about an 8Khz ringing in my right ear. Very irritating when I think about it (one does tend to tune it out). ARGH It's started again!
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Yes, it is less attractive. I mean, people buy 'all inclusive' bundles in the form of game consoles.
The problem is that the additional components (like media player) cost more development time, and thus increase the price of the OS.
So if you're just running on a 286 that can't play divxs anyway, why should you subsidise those that want to watch videos?
The other problem is of course, that their market position makes things really difficult for competitors to get a viable product off the ground. How many people use netscape these days?
It wasn't so very long ago that it was the browser of choice.
Now I accept that some of that may be due to Netscape being less good, but the majority of the pressure is going to be from those who just click the 'internet' button and oh look, there's IE.
(And incidentally, does anyone remember a similar ruling requiring the removal of IE from microsoft OSs? Their solution was to alter the OS structure to make it 'integral'.)
Now if they _had_ gone for 10% of revenue, that'd go a long way towards covering the International Aid budget...
If you're keen to increase performance on your linux system, then in kernel revisions 2.2 and higher there's an optional performance boost. Basically, what it does is re-optimise the memory for application usage, which provides about a 5-10% performance boost.
It's quiet easy to enable, all you need to do is add "exec true" to your system profile (/etc/profile). It can be enabled at a user level by adding this line to a '.bashrc' or similar, but obviously, that will only enhance programs spawned after the shell, not system applications.
Sadly, I have seen this. A year or so ago, when the latest new email worm came out, we quickly fixed the mail filtering to stop it, but a few copies got through. So we sent out an urgent email to all our staff with a "Do not open the attachement on an email with the subject *blah* because it is a virus".
Half an hour later, we get an apologetic developer wanting us to rebuild his machine, because he ran the virus.
When asked if he saw the warning message, his response was "yes, but I wanted to see what it did". Well, at least he was honest.
Quite clearly the answer is:
3. The Illuminati
Windows has a more 'point and drool' interface than Linux does. It always has. That's the place where linux has always lacked. ./configure && make && make install is longer to type than clicking on setup, I can take a look at the source code, and generally with very few tweaks make a program run on Solaris SPARC, IBM AIX machines, Silicon graphics MIPS processors and a whole host of, what is to my mind, performance architectures.
I'll still be sticking with unix, not because of the interface, but because on unix, I can do remote, concurrent configuration changes to 300 workstations without having to spend a very large amount of money on a software package to do this.
I can install a new bug fix on all of my servers with just a little scripting.
When recently renumbering IP addresses, guess how much work the unix systems took as compared to the windows systems?
I'll use unix because it's fundamentally _just more stable_ and built with multiple users in mind.
I'll use unix, because whilst
Intel architecture machines, (Windows primarily, but Linux to an extent) just does not cut it for server operations. If you've ever had to trouble shoot, for example an ultrasparc, as to why it won't boot, you can hook into the diagnostics system on the motherboard and it will _tell_ you what's wrong.
Windows has some nice elements (linux can learn from it). To my mind though, it's fine for the desktop, but please keep it off anything doing serious work.
Colour me happy, I got a TROLL point. And that wasn't even for a blatant troll either.
Woo hoo!
Sorry, from what I've seen the people who advocate, trial and recommend new tech are usually at management level looking for cushy numbers.
The kind of person who goes and buys a WLAN, deploys it without locking it down, and goes 'oh I was trying it out' when the resident security weeny tries to kill them. All with higher up technophile management approval of course. They don't bother to consider the implications of new tech, they just go 'ugh, shiny new laptop. Must be better. Must have'.
how about "x86 IS SUK. U suk. Gimme SPARC". Or something...
Erm, no. Did you, on the first day you tried to use a computer go 'oh, I know how this works' and start bashing away in machine code to make it do stuff? ;p
I'd hope not
The whole point of dummed down is so you _can_ start to understand it. You start at a fairly high level (this is a processor. It does stuff) and work your way down to the detail. If I were to just throw a schematic of Hammer at someone, very few would have any idea what it was, let alone have a detailed understanding of it.
SIMD ~= Array processing. Take this bazillion element array and add 1 to each. MIMD ~= current multiprocessing. x processors running x separate bits of code.
MISD is fairly near useless, since it's basically one great big implicit race condition. It's included in the list for completelness only.
(These two processors in parallel, add 1 to this element and multiply it by 2. So do you get 2 (x+1) or do you get (2x + 1))
Hyperion was nicely put together.
The Shrike an odd sort of a character, but it does become clearer what that's all about when you get as far as Endymion.
"Our mutual friend with the serious speed obsession".
I liked the whole premise that the Minds were near godlike, and well capable of playing their own manipulative game.
Damn, got to go read that book again.
I like the Culture books quite a lot. Tried the wasp factory, that was just really wierd.
Was recommended that 'if you like banks, then you'll like Ken MacCleod'. I was quite impressed.
Biggest mistake that lucas made was to actually try writing the scripts of EP I and II. :)
Should have just stuck to ripping them off.
And I'm irritated that he's completely ignored the attempts of the HUGE numbers of writers to help complete his starwars universe.
There was an awful lot of material regarding the design/construction of the death star, and the early life of Boba Fett.
No, he wasn't a clone in the book, he was a normal sort of guy, living in a lawful environment. Then he started to actively chase down the law, which was why he was such a feared bounty hunter. He would be selective about what jobs he would take, only trying to chase down 'criminals'. Course, the mandalorian armour didn't hurt much either.
A clone of his dad, who happens to be a quite solid bounty hunter? WTF? They could have done a lot with the solid backstory that someone else provided, but nooo, they had to throw in cute and fluffy, and wierd alien creatures. (Flying insects? NOT SCARY. Stormtroopers were scary.)
OK end of rant
Both Eddings and Goodkind did really well for the first few books IMHO. Belgariad, and wizards first rule + Stone of tears I rather liked.
Later books of course, started to smell of recycled vomit. I still rather enjoyed reading some of them, but they really did start to lose out on originality. (There are arguments about the Elenium, but if you look closely, there are still the same character traits. The smart arse thief type, the stupid but noble knight, The wise and powerful advisor etc. etc.).
Goodkind I rather think fell into the same trap. I liked the books, but they got a little too samey after about book 3. A minor literary tragedy.
First bit was something of an epic sci fi (WTF was all that with the monkeys though?), I liked 2010 better, because the characters had a little more depth. 2061 was getting surreal and 3001 was just ... crap frankly. Deeply unimpressed, it's soured me quite a bit on Clarke.
And has anyone else noticed that there are quite a few 'co-wrote' clarke books about now. Like Richter 10, which Clarke never even came near to writing. It was a concept he put down on paper once, for a 1 page story thingy. But of course, that doesn't stop his name being blazoned across the top.
Ken McLeod IMHO is _superb_. The Engines of Light stuff, I've not liked _quite_ so much, but the previous books (the star fraction, the cassini division, stone canals etc.). I've enjoyed immensely. He creates a very beliveable world, and throws in quite a bit of political theory.
Found a sort of trick. It seems that I have two addresses within my domain on the same spam list. (One of which doesn't actually exist apart from being vanitydomain@Vanitydomain. ) So it's easy to just match up email body md5sums, and clear out those which match...
Course, if anyone sent me a message to both addresses then it'd trash them, but since one isn't supposed to exist...
Lib Dem's policy of 'if we get in, we legalise cannabis' is inspired. Just think of how much of the voters who usually wouldn't bother, will because of that one policy. Course, that's assuming they're not too stoned.
Give me the beer. Why would one want to talk to some monkey in a shop who want's to be there as much as you'd want to.
Speed limits are stupid anyway. Throw them all out and just use 'dangerous driving'. That way, 130 down a clear motorway at 5am is not (necessarily) an offense, but sticking to the 30 when there are kids running across the road cos school has just finished is.
And here they have some fun articles about speed traps. My personal favourite is the one about the barrister (lawyer) who took the speed gun, pointed it at the courtroom wall, and got a reading of 8 miles per hour....
Probably 40% yes, 10% no, and 50% don't give a toss.
After all, who cares? Pissed people cause problems, stoners just mong in the corner.
Editing out bad stuff? Noooo!
Angst is what makes you human.
What's even more annoying, is that I never listened to really loud music. Never been that fussed. I can only think that on one of the occasions at the student's union I damaged my hearing.
I have about an 8Khz ringing in my right ear. Very irritating when I think about it (one does tend to tune it out). ARGH It's started again!