let a curious friend try this out. I've been doing a bit of evangelising lately in a small way (non-geeks tend to roll their eyes if we push too hard).
I've already proved that my wife (a militant non-geek) can set up RedHat quite adequately. She reckons my Slackware setup is more reliable, but I don't really expect a newbie with no interest in computers to go down that path.
Mandrake is usually a breeze to get running, so anybody should be able to do it.
Hmmm. Doesn't Microsoft own something like 50% of Apple stock? Correct me if I'm wrong - it was some time ago that I read about that buy-up, and I haven't heard anything about them dumping that stock.
If you're that desparate to meet up with chicks, I would recommend enrolling in some sort of biological sciences degree. "Pulling" them is another matter, though. I didn't say dumb chicks:-)
The grandparent poster's gripe about the size of OpenOffice is just being plain damn silly. It is perfectly possible to download a 70 Mb file on a 56K connection. I have done it countless times, though thankfully I don't have to now. All it takes is a little organisation.
Considering the value he gets from that download (by comparison with MSOffice, for which he has to pay $BIGNUM), I would say that's a pretty good return on the investment of time (during which, of course, he can always go to bed).
I don't know how you you do that on your P3. On this 1 GHz Athlon, OpenOffice 1.1 takes just over 22 seconds (no preloads). Seems a lot of that time the disk drive is working quite hard, though, so that might be part of the problem. On my 2.3 GHz P4 OpenOffice, loads in just under 5 seconds. That is easily comparable to MS Orifice on the Dell P4s under XP at my university.
If there are any legal (or nearly so) grounds for MS to attack Mono, they have had plenty of time to do so. The fact that they have not formulated a coherent attack implies to me that their well-staffed legal teams have been unable to come up with the goods.
Until Microsoft can come up with a case, this discussion is all just hot air.
You have a government that can be debased? You're lucky. In my understanding of the word "debase" as to reduce in value or to adulterate, I can't think of a single government where that's possible...
The original post claims the FSF aren't painted in a very good light, and I guess he's right. It seems to me that this report does not fall into the category of unbiased reporting.
outbound spam from Australia. Which I have been getting a lot of lately.
If you're certain about that, complain to the spammer's ISP. Most ISPs here (.au) have an AUP which market forces dictate pretty much has to be enforced. The ISP market is relatively small here, and word gets around quite quickly. I have known several accounts to have been pulled for this.
Though it's just as likely there's some luser out there with a broadband account and an open relay...
and will not count towards broadband download caps.
That's the only way they can sell it, given Telstra's ridiculously low bandwidth limits. A number of Australian providers are reselling exactly the same service (on the same lines) at cheaper rates, with vastly higher download limits.
Think about it. One of the major benefits accrued from use of the internet is the ability to take music distribution out of the hands of large corporations.
With cost of production and distribution relatively minimal as they now are, there is little justification for parasitical companies being able to take a free ride on artists' talent.
I find it hard to believe that Telstra's involvement is going to improve anything. It is far more likely to promote the lowest common denominator.
Or how about opening a Word document and making sure it looks identical to the one that was saved elsewhere?
I can't say I've noticed that Word documents look the same on different installations. It seems to be an undocumented feature that all documents thus created will appear utterly different on each machine on which they are viewed.
It's very tiresome, and one of the things that I use as justification for sending articles as PDF files but with a.txt alternative.
is simply that they'll send more spam to non-US addresses. A year ago, my spam statistics used to indicate ~95% of spam originated from the US, with the remainder from.jp,.kr and.ru.
Now the spam I get originating from the US is 99.8% of the total.
Placing the onerous[sic] of standards compliance squarely on the shoulders of developers is pointless.
Why? It's hardly rocket science, after all. If something is worth saying at all, then it makes sense to say it in a form that the world can understand. If I walk into an office and say "oogidyboogidy warga warga" I wouldn't be too surprised if nobody understood. Why is it OK for developers to do so?
Visual Studio developers are not criticized for producing non-ANSI C++ compliant code.
This is true, but if said developers (as they usually do) only release binaries, then who cares? This is not a valid analogy. Presumably (one hopes) they won't release a program that has failed to compile. If the project needs a wide base of developers, then a standard is needed.
Is that Kasparov is a sucker for punishment:-). It takes some guts to not slink away with one's tail between one's legs after a pounding like Deep Blue's.
Or maybe you don't know what the world "proprietary" actually means?
I think I might have a better grasp on the meaning of the word than you. From the Macquarie Dictionary (I'm in Australia, but you'll find the OED agrees):
"proprietary... -adj.1. belonging to a proprietor or proprietors. 2. being a proprietor or proprietors; holding property: the proprietary class 3. pertaining to property or ownership: proprietary rights. 4. belonging or controlled as property. 5. manufactured and sold only by the owner of the patent, formula, brand name or trademark associated with the product..."
Slashdot Mirror
I've already proved that my wife (a militant non-geek) can set up RedHat quite adequately. She reckons my Slackware setup is more reliable, but I don't really expect a newbie with no interest in computers to go down that path.
Mandrake is usually a breeze to get running, so anybody should be able to do it.
Anybody know if OpenOffice.org supports Hebrew?
Hmmm. Doesn't Microsoft own something like 50% of Apple stock? Correct me if I'm wrong - it was some time ago that I read about that buy-up, and I haven't heard anything about them dumping that stock.
If you're that desparate to meet up with chicks, I would recommend enrolling in some sort of biological sciences degree. "Pulling" them is another matter, though. I didn't say dumb chicks :-)
Considering the value he gets from that download (by comparison with MSOffice, for which he has to pay $BIGNUM), I would say that's a pretty good return on the investment of time (during which, of course, he can always go to bed).
I don't know how you you do that on your P3. On this 1 GHz Athlon, OpenOffice 1.1 takes just over 22 seconds (no preloads). Seems a lot of that time the disk drive is working quite hard, though, so that might be part of the problem. On my 2.3 GHz P4 OpenOffice, loads in just under 5 seconds. That is easily comparable to MS Orifice on the Dell P4s under XP at my university.
Until Microsoft can come up with a case, this discussion is all just hot air.
You have a government that can be debased? You're lucky. In my understanding of the word "debase" as to reduce in value or to adulterate, I can't think of a single government where that's possible...
But who expects that under the Forbes masthead?
I haven't used the thing in years, but I still know how :-)
I hate to say this, but isn't that an oxymoron?
If you're certain about that, complain to the spammer's ISP. Most ISPs here (.au) have an AUP which market forces dictate pretty much has to be enforced. The ISP market is relatively small here, and word gets around quite quickly. I have known several accounts to have been pulled for this.
Though it's just as likely there's some luser out there with a broadband account and an open relay...
That's the only way they can sell it, given Telstra's ridiculously low bandwidth limits. A number of Australian providers are reselling exactly the same service (on the same lines) at cheaper rates, with vastly higher download limits.
There aren't too many recordings around that are much better than CD. Sure, there is Burr-Brown, but I wouldn't say that was common.
Correct me if I'm wrong and hopelessly out of date (please)...
With cost of production and distribution relatively minimal as they now are, there is little justification for parasitical companies being able to take a free ride on artists' talent.
I find it hard to believe that Telstra's involvement is going to improve anything. It is far more likely to promote the lowest common denominator.
I can't say I've noticed that Word documents look the same on different installations. It seems to be an undocumented feature that all documents thus created will appear utterly different on each machine on which they are viewed.
It's very tiresome, and one of the things that I use as justification for sending articles as PDF files but with a .txt alternative.
Now the spam I get originating from the US is 99.8% of the total.
:-)
[Max Headroom: "War"]
I was referring not to his defeat but to the stress of that kind of competition.
Why? It's hardly rocket science, after all. If something is worth saying at all, then it makes sense to say it in a form that the world can understand. If I walk into an office and say "oogidyboogidy warga warga" I wouldn't be too surprised if nobody understood. Why is it OK for developers to do so?
Visual Studio developers are not criticized for producing non-ANSI C++ compliant code.
This is true, but if said developers (as they usually do) only release binaries, then who cares? This is not a valid analogy. Presumably (one hopes) they won't release a program that has failed to compile. If the project needs a wide base of developers, then a standard is needed.
Huh. I wish.
So the Universe is round? So why didn't they say so in the first place? :-D
Is that Kasparov is a sucker for punishment :-). It takes some guts to not slink away with one's tail between one's legs after a pounding like Deep Blue's.
My, these macheads take themselves seriously... My original remark about OS X.III was not serious, but that obviously escaped a number of people.
In any case: after 10.9 the next version should be obvious:
OS XI.
I think I might have a better grasp on the meaning of the word than you. From the Macquarie Dictionary (I'm in Australia, but you'll find the OED agrees):
"proprietary... -adj.1. belonging to a proprietor or proprietors. 2. being a proprietor or proprietors; holding property: the proprietary class 3. pertaining to property or ownership: proprietary rights. 4. belonging or controlled as property. 5. manufactured and sold only by the owner of the patent, formula, brand name or trademark associated with the product..."