Congress has already approved the changes. The changes relate to a bill that passed several years ago when the Treasury department wanted to change the faces, add color changing ink, watermarks, etc. to our "new" bills. The legislature that was passed used very open language that allows the Treasury department to modify the look of US money in an attempt to foil counterfieters. However, the changes to money must be consistant with that goal. For example, we can't just start putting out quarters with holes in them just because its "exotic".
In an article on the front page of the USA Today, "...each denomination will feature a combination of 'subtle' [exact word from Treasury representatives] colors in areas that are now neutral." The first bill to be updated? The venerable $20, with $50s and $100s to follow no more than a year and a half later.
The other interesting thing that the USA Today article points out: "Companies spent $350 million to retrofit [vending] machines in the last change in 1996, according to the National Automatic Merchandising Association. Metro, Washington D.C.'s subway system, spent $2.5 million to retrofit it's fare card machines six years ago." I remember that. It totally sucked to ride the Metro for about 6 months unless you had an old style $20. Maybe this time it'll go a bit smoother since companies had to do it in recent memory.
Because you downloaded Kazaa, and the license agreement that you accepted by doing so says that Kazaa can do these things. This is what's known as "pulled" content, you asked for it. A virus, on the other hand, is "pushed" content. Most likely you didn't want it, or seek it out; instead it was sent to you. Also it most certainly it doesn't come with a license agreement for you to digitally accept.
Not that I side with Kazaa. I think it's super shady that cloaked their ad component in leagalese so that they can legally claim that you wanted it!
You can upgrade each component of the operating system independently. The reason that people buy or download a newer version and "Upgrade" is to get the latest packages in one swoop. Red Hat's installer is based on RPM and one of the features of the RPM Package Manager is that it can Upgrade software to the latest version. Basically you point the rpm command at the newer version of the software you want and it will remove the old version and install the new version. There are quite a few packages on the Red Hat distro, 1233 packages on 7.2 to be exact. That's a lot of RPM commands to issue to update the machine.
One of the features of the Red Hat installer is that it will allow you to "Upgrade" as opposed to install the machine. Which basically consists of running an rpm -F for every package that you have installed on your machine. Recall that rpm -F will Freshen a package, if the package is there, but an older version we upgrade it, if the package is not installed, we die bitterly complaining that you can not Freshen a package that is not currently installed. So what the Red Hat installer does when you upgrade the system is determine which RPMS are currently installed on your older, current version of Red Hat Linux. Then it determines if there are newer versions of the software on the new version of Red Hat Linux. If the software has a newer version on the new RHL distro, the software is Freshened; if the software does not exist on the new RHL distro (like a 3rd party package or one that Red Hat no longer distributes) it is left alone.
Basically it's just a convenience issue, but as an added bonus of buying the box, you can now install the newer version of RHL on additional machines!
Red Hat wanted to release a new version of their product in Spring, but the features that the developers thought would be major enhancements would/could not be ready in time. So, instead of going to 8.0 (A major version number with very few new major features) Red Hat decided to go to 7.3. Most of the same features as the other 7.x line, of course, the latest versions of packages; with some minor new stuff. That's why 7.3 not 8.0. Not significant enough change in the distro to warrent a Major version change.
I've noticed lots of small things though. Mostly the fact that the latest packages fix a lot of the annoying, uh, undocumented features, of 7.2.
Home Depot was experimenting with Linux as the point of sale operating system over 2 years ago. They had a test store up and working more than a year ago in Atlanta, GA.
Other companies, like IBM, who currently use Flex OS have also been experimenting with Linux instead. Most POS terminals are simply PCs with a cash drawer anyway.
I think the more important question is will this massive DOS attack or encouraged hacking of American computers count in President Bush's War on Terrorism? While the US can engage in a relativly small conflict in Afghanistan, I doubt the US military could control the scale as well in an attack on China. I envision that it would instead have to be a full blown knock-down-drag-out war. I'm not quite sure if American citizens are up for that. Especially in response to some Internet sites/services being unavailable. If they attack military machines, Pres. Bush is going to be hoppin' mad!
Also, I'd be interested in knowing exactly how China has chosen the machines that they will be attacking. Perhaps they should not sting the sleeping bear.
I admit that GIMP lacks all the features of Photoshop, but let's face it; most of the jobs that Photoshop is being used to create don't use many of these features. Once an image of say a chair is transferred from film to e, there isn't much that's needed to put the damned thing in a catalog. Maybe some smoothing of pixalation 'n stuff from a low-res scanner because the company was too damned cheap to spring for one with a decent res. Anyway. Think of all the content on Amazon, or any of the other millions of online or paper catalogs that are published. How many of those use the features that you refer to? Now if you're modelling concept cars for Ford (who also uses a lot of Linux) or something...
I'm not saying that you are incorrect or that photoshop is a bad app, simply that it is overkill for many of the things it's used for and that the companies who spend big $$ for the Adobe licenses could probably save on licenses and improve some otherwise lacking areas in their shops by switching to GIMP. I've seen it successfully done, with the clients even happy afterwards.
My understanding of the Dreamworks gig is that they use a WHOLE lot of proprietary, non-distributed, in house graphics stuff on their RHL farm, so they'd be kind of reluctant to work with the XFree people.
I disagree with your statement that Linux is not ready for primetime. I think it is, but it needs to be protected from the users. Why is it that Window$ needs to be rebooted everytime you make a little change like switching your workgroup or installing a program? (Yes XP people, I understand that Micro$oft has made significant improvements in this area with XP.) Because you can't tell a user to restart their networking subsystem! I think Macintosh was onto something when dealing with the home market; just give the users access to the application layer. This is one of the big things that Window$ has caught onto as well. Just say no to the command line; Don't let users even get remotely close. That way they can't screw up the system. Mandrake has done some really great work in this arena. They have simplified the user interface a fair amount and hidden a lot of nice (for administrators) programs away from the user. The user has to be somewhat educated to find them and even more so to use them. I think that is the direction Linux is going. With a little bit of GUI tweaking Linux is more than ready to be used by my grandmother.
Not to quibble or anything, but Shrek was rendered on a Linux farm, a Red Hat Linux farm. The success and quality of that movie is the reason that large firms like Kodak have started looking into porting thier now SGI image and digital film apps to Linux.
About all the Adobe links here, GIMP!!! Manipulate your images with Gnu Image Manipulation Program. I've switched several formerly psychoticly addicted Photoshop people over to it and they are exceedingly happy. Given, it doesn't have ALL the features of Photoshop, but it's really close and most of the graphic artists that I've worked with use the features that are available in both GIMP and Photo, Photo only features; not so much.
I've started using CD-Rs and CD-RWs as back up media, they're relatively inexpensive and robust. Since I don't use the majority of the media to burn copywritten material, would it be fair to charge me an additional tax?
Also, what if I am burning copywritten material? As the Boston Globe article points out, I am allowed to make as many personal use copies as I want. As long as I don't distribute or sell the copies it is permissable. Is it legal, or fair, for the record industry to both recieve a kickback from tax revenue AND employ anti-copying methods? I think not.
Red Hat has decided to start a "Club". It costs only $5 to join but you can become an executive or corporate member for a little more. Many Linux companies today are experiencing a cash flow shortage, Red Hat wants to avoid such embarrassing shortfalls by getting the request for membership out early. Now this isn't a charity, by joining the "Club" you'll get a membership card and a secret decoder ring!
90 percent of hatters are not marketing people. I don't know where the article got that statistic, and would be quite interested in knowing.
Most of Red Hat's revenue does not come from selling the box set, but from other sources; check out their last quarterly report . Not that the company doesn't make money on people buying the box, but that's not the companies largest revenue stream. Red Hat is a service company and it makes sense, stratigically, to target enterprise customers; they have very deep pockets and are willing to pay for an all encompassing solution, including services like consulting and support. Unlike you and me, aka the cheap bastards!! Well, I don't know about you, but I'm definitely one. Pay for software, you must be mad! Sorry little rant.
As for the fact that Red Hat is targeting a Uni* to Linux migration. Well, some people will disagree with me, but Linux, even with all it's graphical user stuff, is not ready for my Grandmother to use. It's getting there, but I don't think it's there yet. So if a large chunk of the population is unable or uninterested in your software, who do you sell it to? Is it reasonable to think that the people who would be interested in Linux are people who are already interested and are using Uni*? The two are very similar and it's far easier for an administrator or developer who is familiar with Uni* to switch to Linux rather than one who is used to Window$. Corporations have been employing Uni* for quite some time and have been paying people like $un a hefty price for hardware, OS, and support. In the current economic climate, I think it's a great strategy for a company to move to a lower cost IT solution. Why shouldn't Red Hat be the people to turn to? I say kudos Red Hat!
So Gentoo has ext3 and reiserfs support, hmm, have you seen Red Hat? Gentoo has an easy way to install packages and can even do it from a connection to a ftp or http server, and uses this process to do the distro install...Sounds an awful like RPM. I realize that Portage has a few more features, but this is far from innovative. Dependency based start-up scripts???? Come on that's so 1985 System V!!
I'm sure the people at Gentoo put a lot of work into their distro, but I think that calling it innovative is a bit of a stretch. Besides companies like Red Hat and Suse offer features to maintain the install base. I see no mention of that it the description of Gentoo. Maintaining one, two,...five machines by hand is OK, but what about 1000?
No offence, but I need some more content before I go jumping on the Gentoo bandwagon.
I disagree. Grunt rushing is a valid strategy, look at the Ruso-Japanese war and WWII for examples in practice.
It is up to the recipient of the grunt rush to develop units, tech, and buildings, in such a way that they can defend against the grunt rush. The key to grunt rushers is that they spend all their resources making grunts, so if you can stave off their rush, and develop technically, you will win the campaign. The grunt rusher will handicap themselves for the rest of the game by allocating all their resources to the original army.
I also disagree on the point of having different races is a waste of time. We saw in Blizzards Starcraft that different races are set up to have different strengths/weaknesses which influences the strategy of the players. Both offensively and defensively. In addition, once a player discovers an opponents race, they can cater their strategy appropriately. With expansion packs and patches, Starcraft was able to maintain a mostly level playing field among the different races' units.
Personally I'm looking forward to the new hero capability refered to in the review. Should be an interesting feature to add into the Warcraft mix.
Yes, it's truely ashame that companies don't make more money off of the Internet. If I had a nickel for everytime someone clicked my link , the world would be a better place. I mean, imagine people enjoying the Internet with out referer fees and dynamic redirects. What a horrible thought.
BTW did you click my link yet? How about my link now? I have no vested interest if you click my link . NO really, I don't; in fact whatever you do, don't click my link . Please, for the love of God, DON'T DO IT!!!! my link
Slashdot Mirror
Congress has already approved the changes. The changes relate to a bill that passed several years ago when the Treasury department wanted to change the faces, add color changing ink, watermarks, etc. to our "new" bills. The legislature that was passed used very open language that allows the Treasury department to modify the look of US money in an attempt to foil counterfieters. However, the changes to money must be consistant with that goal. For example, we can't just start putting out quarters with holes in them just because its "exotic".
In an article on the front page of the USA Today, "...each denomination will feature a combination of 'subtle' [exact word from Treasury representatives] colors in areas that are now neutral." The first bill to be updated? The venerable $20, with $50s and $100s to follow no more than a year and a half later.
The other interesting thing that the USA Today article points out: "Companies spent $350 million to retrofit [vending] machines in the last change in 1996, according to the National Automatic Merchandising Association. Metro, Washington D.C.'s subway system, spent $2.5 million to retrofit it's fare card machines six years ago." I remember that. It totally sucked to ride the Metro for about 6 months unless you had an old style $20. Maybe this time it'll go a bit smoother since companies had to do it in recent memory.
-Runz
Because you downloaded Kazaa, and the license agreement that you accepted by doing so says that Kazaa can do these things. This is what's known as "pulled" content, you asked for it. A virus, on the other hand, is "pushed" content. Most likely you didn't want it, or seek it out; instead it was sent to you. Also it most certainly it doesn't come with a license agreement for you to digitally accept.
Not that I side with Kazaa. I think it's super shady that cloaked their ad component in leagalese so that they can legally claim that you wanted it!
-Runz
Appartently the sleeper will awaken.
-Runz
You can upgrade each component of the operating system independently. The reason that people buy or download a newer version and "Upgrade" is to get the latest packages in one swoop. Red Hat's installer is based on RPM and one of the features of the RPM Package Manager is that it can Upgrade software to the latest version. Basically you point the rpm command at the newer version of the software you want and it will remove the old version and install the new version. There are quite a few packages on the Red Hat distro, 1233 packages on 7.2 to be exact. That's a lot of RPM commands to issue to update the machine.
One of the features of the Red Hat installer is that it will allow you to "Upgrade" as opposed to install the machine. Which basically consists of running an rpm -F for every package that you have installed on your machine. Recall that rpm -F will Freshen a package, if the package is there, but an older version we upgrade it, if the package is not installed, we die bitterly complaining that you can not Freshen a package that is not currently installed. So what the Red Hat installer does when you upgrade the system is determine which RPMS are currently installed on your older, current version of Red Hat Linux. Then it determines if there are newer versions of the software on the new version of Red Hat Linux. If the software has a newer version on the new RHL distro, the software is Freshened; if the software does not exist on the new RHL distro (like a 3rd party package or one that Red Hat no longer distributes) it is left alone.
Basically it's just a convenience issue, but as an added bonus of buying the box, you can now install the newer version of RHL on additional machines!
-Runz
Red Hat wanted to release a new version of their product in Spring, but the features that the developers thought would be major enhancements would/could not be ready in time. So, instead of going to 8.0 (A major version number with very few new major features) Red Hat decided to go to 7.3. Most of the same features as the other 7.x line, of course, the latest versions of packages; with some minor new stuff. That's why 7.3 not 8.0. Not significant enough change in the distro to warrent a Major version change.
I've noticed lots of small things though. Mostly the fact that the latest packages fix a lot of the annoying, uh, undocumented features, of 7.2.
-Runz
Home Depot was experimenting with Linux as the point of sale operating system over 2 years ago. They had a test store up and working more than a year ago in Atlanta, GA.
Other companies, like IBM, who currently use Flex OS have also been experimenting with Linux instead. Most POS terminals are simply PCs with a cash drawer anyway.
-Runz
Or so the Germans would have us believe!
-Runz
I think the more important question is will this massive DOS attack or encouraged hacking of American computers count in President Bush's War on Terrorism? While the US can engage in a relativly small conflict in Afghanistan, I doubt the US military could control the scale as well in an attack on China. I envision that it would instead have to be a full blown knock-down-drag-out war. I'm not quite sure if American citizens are up for that. Especially in response to some Internet sites/services being unavailable. If they attack military machines, Pres. Bush is going to be hoppin' mad!
Also, I'd be interested in knowing exactly how China has chosen the machines that they will be attacking. Perhaps they should not sting the sleeping bear.
-Runz
I admit that GIMP lacks all the features of Photoshop, but let's face it; most of the jobs that Photoshop is being used to create don't use many of these features. Once an image of say a chair is transferred from film to e, there isn't much that's needed to put the damned thing in a catalog. Maybe some smoothing of pixalation 'n stuff from a low-res scanner because the company was too damned cheap to spring for one with a decent res. Anyway. Think of all the content on Amazon, or any of the other millions of online or paper catalogs that are published. How many of those use the features that you refer to? Now if you're modelling concept cars for Ford (who also uses a lot of Linux) or something...
I'm not saying that you are incorrect or that photoshop is a bad app, simply that it is overkill for many of the things it's used for and that the companies who spend big $$ for the Adobe licenses could probably save on licenses and improve some otherwise lacking areas in their shops by switching to GIMP. I've seen it successfully done, with the clients even happy afterwards.
-Runz
My understanding of the Dreamworks gig is that they use a WHOLE lot of proprietary, non-distributed, in house graphics stuff on their RHL farm, so they'd be kind of reluctant to work with the XFree people.
I disagree with your statement that Linux is not ready for primetime. I think it is, but it needs to be protected from the users. Why is it that Window$ needs to be rebooted everytime you make a little change like switching your workgroup or installing a program? (Yes XP people, I understand that Micro$oft has made significant improvements in this area with XP.) Because you can't tell a user to restart their networking subsystem! I think Macintosh was onto something when dealing with the home market; just give the users access to the application layer. This is one of the big things that Window$ has caught onto as well. Just say no to the command line; Don't let users even get remotely close. That way they can't screw up the system. Mandrake has done some really great work in this arena. They have simplified the user interface a fair amount and hidden a lot of nice (for administrators) programs away from the user. The user has to be somewhat educated to find them and even more so to use them. I think that is the direction Linux is going. With a little bit of GUI tweaking Linux is more than ready to be used by my grandmother.
-Runz
Not to quibble or anything, but Shrek was rendered on a Linux farm, a Red Hat Linux farm. The success and quality of that movie is the reason that large firms like Kodak have started looking into porting thier now SGI image and digital film apps to Linux.
About all the Adobe links here, GIMP!!! Manipulate your images with Gnu Image Manipulation Program. I've switched several formerly psychoticly addicted Photoshop people over to it and they are exceedingly happy. Given, it doesn't have ALL the features of Photoshop, but it's really close and most of the graphic artists that I've worked with use the features that are available in both GIMP and Photo, Photo only features; not so much.
-Runz
I've started using CD-Rs and CD-RWs as back up media, they're relatively inexpensive and robust. Since I don't use the majority of the media to burn copywritten material, would it be fair to charge me an additional tax?
Also, what if I am burning copywritten material? As the Boston Globe article points out, I am allowed to make as many personal use copies as I want. As long as I don't distribute or sell the copies it is permissable. Is it legal, or fair, for the record industry to both recieve a kickback from tax revenue AND employ anti-copying methods? I think not.
-Runz
Red Hat has decided to start a "Club". It costs only $5 to join but you can become an executive or corporate member for a little more. Many Linux companies today are experiencing a cash flow shortage, Red Hat wants to avoid such embarrassing shortfalls by getting the request for membership out early. Now this isn't a charity, by joining the "Club" you'll get a membership card and a secret decoder ring!
;-)
Whoops! That's Mandrake
-Runz
90 percent of hatters are not marketing people. I don't know where the article got that statistic, and would be quite interested in knowing.
Most of Red Hat's revenue does not come from selling the box set, but from other sources; check out their last quarterly report . Not that the company doesn't make money on people buying the box, but that's not the companies largest revenue stream. Red Hat is a service company and it makes sense, stratigically, to target enterprise customers; they have very deep pockets and are willing to pay for an all encompassing solution, including services like consulting and support. Unlike you and me, aka the cheap bastards!! Well, I don't know about you, but I'm definitely one. Pay for software, you must be mad! Sorry little rant.
As for the fact that Red Hat is targeting a Uni* to Linux migration. Well, some people will disagree with me, but Linux, even with all it's graphical user stuff, is not ready for my Grandmother to use. It's getting there, but I don't think it's there yet. So if a large chunk of the population is unable or uninterested in your software, who do you sell it to? Is it reasonable to think that the people who would be interested in Linux are people who are already interested and are using Uni*? The two are very similar and it's far easier for an administrator or developer who is familiar with Uni* to switch to Linux rather than one who is used to Window$. Corporations have been employing Uni* for quite some time and have been paying people like $un a hefty price for hardware, OS, and support. In the current economic climate, I think it's a great strategy for a company to move to a lower cost IT solution. Why shouldn't Red Hat be the people to turn to? I say kudos Red Hat!
-Runz
So Gentoo has ext3 and reiserfs support, hmm, have you seen Red Hat? Gentoo has an easy way to install packages and can even do it from a connection to a ftp or http server, and uses this process to do the distro install...Sounds an awful like RPM. I realize that Portage has a few more features, but this is far from innovative. Dependency based start-up scripts???? Come on that's so 1985 System V!!
...five machines by hand is OK, but what about 1000?
I'm sure the people at Gentoo put a lot of work into their distro, but I think that calling it innovative is a bit of a stretch. Besides companies like Red Hat and Suse offer features to maintain the install base. I see no mention of that it the description of Gentoo. Maintaining one, two,
No offence, but I need some more content before I go jumping on the Gentoo bandwagon.
-Runz
So, then I should endeavor to be like you? Oh, wait you said LESS gay.
I can also stoop to insulting someone personally rather than simply disagreeing with their opinion.
I disagree. Grunt rushing is a valid strategy, look at the Ruso-Japanese war and WWII for examples in practice.
It is up to the recipient of the grunt rush to develop units, tech, and buildings, in such a way that they can defend against the grunt rush. The key to grunt rushers is that they spend all their resources making grunts, so if you can stave off their rush, and develop technically, you will win the campaign. The grunt rusher will handicap themselves for the rest of the game by allocating all their resources to the original army.
I also disagree on the point of having different races is a waste of time. We saw in Blizzards Starcraft that different races are set up to have different strengths/weaknesses which influences the strategy of the players. Both offensively and defensively. In addition, once a player discovers an opponents race, they can cater their strategy appropriately. With expansion packs and patches, Starcraft was able to maintain a mostly level playing field among the different races' units.
Personally I'm looking forward to the new hero capability refered to in the review. Should be an interesting feature to add into the Warcraft mix.
-Runz
It's all good, I have my f and at least there are no ^ to trip me up. Rogues RULE! Great post, it made me laugh. -Runz
Yes, it's truely ashame that companies don't make more money off of the Internet. If I had a nickel for everytime someone clicked my link , the world would be a better place. I mean, imagine people enjoying the Internet with out referer fees and dynamic redirects. What a horrible thought.
BTW did you click my link yet? How about my link now? I have no vested interest if you click my link . NO really, I don't; in fact whatever you do, don't click my link . Please, for the love of God, DON'T DO IT!!!! my link