I'm sort of nostalgic for a time when one of the funniest things I ever saw was a small set of punch-cards containing compile parameters for a trainee programmer's FORTRAN source code.
She had an idea that she could be really organised by storing them in a ring-binder. Needless to say, those nice round punch-holes made them a bit hard for the machine to read. I'll never forget the look on her face when I just held the cards up to her and raised an eyebrow...;-)
If they were anything like the old Burroughs machine I mentioned in an earlier post, just the power bill would be a big "ouch". That beast, plus the load from the air-conditioning it needed used to make the streetlights dim. If ever the air-con broke down, we had about 40 minutes to wind up our (batch) processing jobs before the temperature in the room got to 50 deg. C and we had to shut the machine down.
Anyway, regardless of exactly who did what, as an elderly geek, I can recommend Mt Stromlo as a great place to visit, for anyone who is into observatories (or mountain biking for that matter), even after all the fire damage. Lots of burnt-out wreckage of old observatories to prowl around, and some newly-built. Canberra isn't my favourite place in the universe, but this was a short trip from the city that was definitely worthwhile.
The only time my wife objects is when she stubs her toe on the old 029 card punch holding my study door open.
I used to use it with a Burroughs B3700 like this back in the '70s. Them were the days, when men were men, and small furry things with teeth were small furry...
Sites which depend on it are usually pretty awful, and it's usually used totally frivolously (like stupid and pointless click through splash pages)...
Maybe we need a CRH (Campaign for Real HTML).
If the author has anything of interest to say, there's nothing to stop him (or her) doing so in plain text. Otherwise, s/he might just as well piss off and stop wasting everybody's bandwidth.
Yes, I realise there are cases (I'm talking financial transactions here) where something a bit more complex is required, but for the most part Flash in particular is grossly overused to little purpose.
Heh. It took me a while to realise what he was trying to say there. I thought it might be something like a kid trying to talk with its toes in its mouth...
What I'd really like to see is Apple port its Macintosh OS X over to the IBM PC hardware - give us an alternative that actually has a chance of overthrowing the Microsoft WinOS monopoly.
Yes, that might be nice, but I believe Apple have said on a number of occasions that they are not going to go down that path.
And who can blame them for not wanting to support dodgy hardware made by any Tom, Dick or Harry?
The install disks that come with a machine are tied to that type of machine: it would have worked with another MacBook of the same vintage. The retail OS versions don't have any tie and can be installed on as many different Macs as you want...
...Which is pretty much what I said, and I believe this is a form of copy-protection.
In this case, it was no biggie, since I have a legit copy, I was simply hoping to avoid having to wait a for a large update to come down the line.
I was referring to the fact that there are free options for her requirements. Given this circumstance, my recommendation was based on what would require least input for installation and maintenance, and for these purposes, a Mac would have fitted the bill perfectly, given that she was buying new hardware in any case.
Although I use a Mac laptop, my own preference (for what it's worth) would be to suggest something Linux-based, but I don't have time to set it up or maintain it for her.
While his comment about Steve Jobs being an ass is uncalled for...
I personally don't care one way or the other, but if the quote in the URL to which duckInferno referred is genuine, then Jobs was indeed being an asshole.
...and OS X is not copy-protected. You can copy it a zillion times and install it with no problems, activation, etc. to any supported Apple computer in existence an unlimited number of times.
I don't believe this is true any more. My wife took delivery of a brand-new MacBook about 10 days ago, which was set up with OS X 10.5.5 pre-installed.
As I was inheriting her old 13" MacBook, I thought to use the Leopard install disk that came with her machine to upgrade from Tiger on the older box. But it came up with a message to the effect that "You cannot install this software on this computer".
Instead, I had to use a copy of 10.5.1 that I had picked up for my old G4 and download some 700MB of updates.
The same seems to apply to the separate "applications" disc that comes with the new machines, which I loaded just to see what was on it. So it would appear they are now using some form of copy-protection...
I actually find that with macs. The desktop hurts me and I tend to want to do things in a terminal. Gnome is a happy place for me.
Same here - though I do still run OS X on my MacBook, mainly (among other reasons) because I use a lot of other people's wireless networks, and I find connectivity a lot easier with Macs than my Linux setup. But having said that, I do a lot more work in terminal windows than the typical Mac user.
But no one will care, because, despite all of the horror stories of their friends' favorite storage sites going under and losing all their data, people will think, "It won't happen to me!".
I've pretty much given up concerning myself with these people.
If they will not take advice or learn from other people's mistakes, there's no point wasting any sympathy on them. For instance, the other day I got a query from one of my wife's cousins as to what selection of programs she needed to "buy" for a given set of office-related tasks. Given that she doesn't have the tech skills to run Linux (and in any case is one of those constitutionally indisposed to trust something she hasn't paid lots of money for), I suggested that in this case she would be best served by getting a Mac, which would have made it all pretty easy for herself. Her response was to look at me as if I were some sort of vermin.
I was polite enough not to say "well if you don't want advice, don't ask for it", but I won't be shy about saying "I told you so" the next time she loses her data to the virus of the day.
Hell, most non-techinical Windows users I come across think they're still protected by their long-expired trial copy of Norton or Symantec.
I suspect that's because the psychological impression of the permanence and durability of the physical CDROM or DVD imparts a sort of reassurance with no experience to back it up.
I've often wondered whether banning sales of these CDROMS might help get people to download and run up-to-date versions. Of course, better yet, they could just run OSs that don't need anti-virus programs...
It would be a very difficult stretch for MS to sell an anti-virus program for Windows. That would be like selling defective car tires, and then charging extra for the patches.
According to the submission, the software is supposed to be free.
That said, Microsoft would have to pay me to suffer the frustration of running their operating system...
I guess it doesn't really matter that much. [sarcasm] Does anyone actually use IE? OK, maybe a few Windows users do. [/sarcasm] And I guess things sort of work in Opera too. Big deal. If we disregard ideologies, in my experience, pretty much anything that works in one browser will more or less work in another, at least well enough to be understood. If it doesn't, it's probably not worth looking at at all.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd mod you "Troll" if I had points right now.
Then it's just as well that you don't have the points, since you evidently don't know what they're for.
Read the guidelines. Posts are not meant to be modded down just because you happen to disagree with them.
So McDonalds have decided to waste their money on a worthless, unenforceable patent. Big deal. At least it's their money, not mine.
Nothing to see here, move along...
Yeah, I'm nostalgic. *shrug*
;-)
I'm sort of nostalgic for a time when one of the funniest things I ever saw was a small set of punch-cards containing compile parameters for a trainee programmer's FORTRAN source code.
She had an idea that she could be really organised by storing them in a ring-binder. Needless to say, those nice round punch-holes made them a bit hard for the machine to read. I'll never forget the look on her face when I just held the cards up to her and raised an eyebrow...
If they were anything like the old Burroughs machine I mentioned in an earlier post, just the power bill would be a big "ouch". That beast, plus the load from the air-conditioning it needed used to make the streetlights dim. If ever the air-con broke down, we had about 40 minutes to wind up our (batch) processing jobs before the temperature in the room got to 50 deg. C and we had to shut the machine down.
Anyway, regardless of exactly who did what, as an elderly geek, I can recommend Mt Stromlo as a great place to visit, for anyone who is into observatories (or mountain biking for that matter), even after all the fire damage. Lots of burnt-out wreckage of old observatories to prowl around, and some newly-built. Canberra isn't my favourite place in the universe, but this was a short trip from the city that was definitely worthwhile.
The only time my wife objects is when she stubs her toe on the old 029 card punch holding my study door open.
I used to use it with a Burroughs B3700 like this back in the '70s. Them were the days, when men were men, and small furry things with teeth were small furry...
Ah yes, as I was saying, get off my lawn. [snore]
Sites which depend on it are usually pretty awful, and it's usually used totally frivolously (like stupid and pointless click through splash pages)...
Maybe we need a CRH (Campaign for Real HTML).
If the author has anything of interest to say, there's nothing to stop him (or her) doing so in plain text. Otherwise, s/he might just as well piss off and stop wasting everybody's bandwidth.
Yes, I realise there are cases (I'm talking financial transactions here) where something a bit more complex is required, but for the most part Flash in particular is grossly overused to little purpose.
Do you mean "et Voila" ?
Heh. It took me a while to realise what he was trying to say there. I thought it might be something like a kid trying to talk with its toes in its mouth...
Really, Slashdot, I'm disappointed. You go for the knee-jerk "fuck Microsoft"...
Speak for yourself. I have no interest in fucking Microsoft. I have more interesting places to put my willy.
What I'd really like to see is Apple port its Macintosh OS X over to the IBM PC hardware - give us an alternative that actually has a chance of overthrowing the Microsoft WinOS monopoly.
Yes, that might be nice, but I believe Apple have said on a number of occasions that they are not going to go down that path.
And who can blame them for not wanting to support dodgy hardware made by any Tom, Dick or Harry?
Some of the employees may have accessed the information for legitimate purposes
Like what?
I doubt if Obama has any problem paying his phone bill.
No, that's the beauty of it. When winter comes, they'll all freeze to death!
No, more likely some redneck will come along and shoot it.
I wasn't old enough to vote for him.
;-)
Apparently you still aren't.
The install disks that come with a machine are tied to that type of machine: it would have worked with another MacBook of the same vintage. The retail OS versions don't have any tie and can be installed on as many different Macs as you want...
...Which is pretty much what I said, and I believe this is a form of copy-protection.
In this case, it was no biggie, since I have a legit copy, I was simply hoping to avoid having to wait a for a large update to come down the line.
I was referring to the fact that there are free options for her requirements. Given this circumstance, my recommendation was based on what would require least input for installation and maintenance, and for these purposes, a Mac would have fitted the bill perfectly, given that she was buying new hardware in any case.
Although I use a Mac laptop, my own preference (for what it's worth) would be to suggest something Linux-based, but I don't have time to set it up or maintain it for her.
While his comment about Steve Jobs being an ass is uncalled for...
I personally don't care one way or the other, but if the quote in the URL to which duckInferno referred is genuine, then Jobs was indeed being an asshole.
...and OS X is not copy-protected. You can copy it a zillion times and install it with no problems, activation, etc. to any supported Apple computer in existence an unlimited number of times.
I don't believe this is true any more. My wife took delivery of a brand-new MacBook about 10 days ago, which was set up with OS X 10.5.5 pre-installed.
As I was inheriting her old 13" MacBook, I thought to use the Leopard install disk that came with her machine to upgrade from Tiger on the older box. But it came up with a message to the effect that "You cannot install this software on this computer".
Instead, I had to use a copy of 10.5.1 that I had picked up for my old G4 and download some 700MB of updates.
The same seems to apply to the separate "applications" disc that comes with the new machines, which I loaded just to see what was on it. So it would appear they are now using some form of copy-protection...
I actually find that with macs. The desktop hurts me and I tend to want to do things in a terminal. Gnome is a happy place for me.
Same here - though I do still run OS X on my MacBook, mainly (among other reasons) because I use a lot of other people's wireless networks, and I find connectivity a lot easier with Macs than my Linux setup. But having said that, I do a lot more work in terminal windows than the typical Mac user.
But no one will care, because, despite all of the horror stories of their friends' favorite storage sites going under and losing all their data, people will think, "It won't happen to me!".
I've pretty much given up concerning myself with these people.
If they will not take advice or learn from other people's mistakes, there's no point wasting any sympathy on them. For instance, the other day I got a query from one of my wife's cousins as to what selection of programs she needed to "buy" for a given set of office-related tasks. Given that she doesn't have the tech skills to run Linux (and in any case is one of those constitutionally indisposed to trust something she hasn't paid lots of money for), I suggested that in this case she would be best served by getting a Mac, which would have made it all pretty easy for herself. Her response was to look at me as if I were some sort of vermin.
I was polite enough not to say "well if you don't want advice, don't ask for it", but I won't be shy about saying "I told you so" the next time she loses her data to the virus of the day.
Hell, most non-techinical Windows users I come across think they're still protected by their long-expired trial copy of Norton or Symantec.
I suspect that's because the psychological impression of the permanence and durability of the physical CDROM or DVD imparts a sort of reassurance with no experience to back it up.
I've often wondered whether banning sales of these CDROMS might help get people to download and run up-to-date versions. Of course, better yet, they could just run OSs that don't need anti-virus programs...
It would be a very difficult stretch for MS to sell an anti-virus program for Windows. That would be like selling defective car tires, and then charging extra for the patches.
According to the submission, the software is supposed to be free.
That said, Microsoft would have to pay me to suffer the frustration of running their operating system...
A giant solid light hologram... now _that_ would be impressive...
At least it goes to show that America doesn't have a total monopoly on tackiness...
Why?
I guess it doesn't really matter that much. [sarcasm] Does anyone actually use IE? OK, maybe a few Windows users do. [/sarcasm] And I guess things sort of work in Opera too. Big deal. If we disregard ideologies, in my experience, pretty much anything that works in one browser will more or less work in another, at least well enough to be understood. If it doesn't, it's probably not worth looking at at all.
I didn't even know there was a Windows version of Safari.
But for that matter, this would have passed me by in any case, since even on my MacBook I still prefer to use Firefox...
What if Barbarians were to get a hold of this information?
The Romans were barbarians.