"Bells and whistles", the way I've always heard the phrase used, refers nonessential but nice features. Having the ability to run on a machine with defective RAM would fall into this category...
"Bells and whistles" don't have to be misfeatures...
Yet when one reads the story instead of just the story post, one notices that the story post is a load of crap. The Economist said nothing of the sort -- as a matter of fact, it said mostly that Sun was in for it, and that Microsoft isn't in for that much trouble (since its dominance is in the workstation market).
From the article: The most likely outcome is that customers will face a choice between Linux, which is cheap and cheerful, and Windows, which offers more bells and whistles, is tightly integrated with other Microsoft products and is easier for unskilled staff to use, but costs more.
Okay, I'll certainly grant integration and easier to use for unskilled staff, but where does the Economist get more "bells and whistles" from? When I think "bells and whistles", I generally don't think of Windows...
Keep in mind that Microsoft has a long and rich tradition of buying anyone that makes better products than they do that they can't otherwise quash.
Remember Bungie, once pretty much the only significant Mac-only gaming company?
IIRC, id is a privately-owned company, but what if *you* were Carmack and MS offered to fund *your* rocket-making experiment, plus more Ferraris? Would you at least consider an exclusive license on one game?
I mean, here's what I'm saying. Carmack is a really damn good software engineer, and id is a really good company. Carmack's done tons and tons of work for Linux and other platforms -- he's been a powerful OpenGL ally, he's pushed Linux gaming, wrote large portions of the XFree86 GLX 3d driver for my Matrox card as volunteer work, has released all his games crossplatform (and I think id has consistently lost money on Linux releases). Lots of interest in Linux gaming came about *because* of his work, so he's indirectly responsible for much Linux gaming.
Yet, does him doing all this justify everyone expecting him to say no to lots of money *again*?
Instead of people telling Stanley Feinbaum that he's a troll every time he posts, it's *much* easier to just add him to your foes list. Less effort on your part, fewer trolls for everyone else.
This is also interesting for another reason. Back when people shared CPU cycles, there was actually some interest in writing efficient software. You waste tons of cycles, Johnny down the hall runs slower, and people are going to be looking at the CPU statistics with the evil eye.
When workstations became popular, things changed. If you don't use cycles, they're simply wasted. So you might as well suck down most of the cycles on the machine. Efficient software stops becoming worthwhile.
Moving to server-based software again might mean that programmers actually have to write decent software again.
In other words, Absolutly fucking useless idea for an office where you have lots of portable devices.
Good point. However, there are some factors affecting this. First, laptops are a bit of a nasty security issue (I won't even get into wireless Ethernet). Lots of times, it's a *bad* idea to have employees take data home. So if all you're doing with the laptops is moving them to meetings, around the company, etc, because
(a) it lets you concentrate lots of machines wherever you need them -- a meeting room, someone's cubicle, etc
(b) it's *still* a pain in the ass to deal with different machines, even after all these years. ("The keyboard is different on this workstation -- I don't like it")
I could see the benefits still being present.
Hmmm. Networks go donw. KIss your work good bye.
Oh, knock it off. Workstations go down, and this means that IT can guarantee that *everything* works when your workstation (far less reliable than servers with lots of reliability features) dies.
Written in Java. Fuck off. Java is pathetic. If it's server based, use a real language.
Okay, there I have to agree, but there isn't really anything as nice as Java for distributed, cross-platform work. Plus, it's possible that the server backend could be written in something else -- Java needs to be used for the UI, though.
And you knwo the other reason this wont work? Users liek to have control over their data and what they do.
At work, I think most people don't know or care. You're thinking of home users.
Users prefer PC's over some dumb terminal.
[shrug] Maybe. How do you know? Plus, this system isn't a dumb terminal...
No one's stopping you from making your own search engine. The only particular influence Google has is that they're very, very good.
I'd be more concerned about security issues -- think how much information about current issues and plans in your company leaks to Google in the form of keywords.
Beowulf is a very specific clustering implementation, which is suitable for some things and not for others. The word doesn't mean just "cluster", as the story poster seems to use it as.
id's always had a policy of staying small. As a result, they don't have very high costs (which means that they don't have a huge amount of presure to produce or go out of business). They're fairly flexible, and developrs have a large amount of say within the company (which is why we get Linux releases).
Good ol' Carly decided that it would be a good idea to drop the entire calculator development division.
Well, regardless of whether the real money is in low-margin PCs or not, she got her merger bonus, so maybe it was the right choice...for her, if not the company.
Sure, they were popular with highschool and college kids, but people who do real work with calculators are pretty much unanimously in favour of HP's. Of course, this is a small and shrinking group of people, which is why HP is out of the calc business.
No, TI is more popular with incoming people than with dinosaurs precisely because HPs used to be more popular globally, fell out of popularity, and now all the younger people are using TIs. HP lost the market themselves, not because of a bunch of people who don't "do real work with calculators".
As far as I can tell, the only practical impact of this is a slap in the face to the HURD developers, who have just been bypassed by yet *another* kernel project...
What makes this kid unique is that his parents let him (a 12 year old) babysit a toddler by himself. Both parents were often out and he was by himself a great deal of the time. That and he was a rabid fan of pro-wresling and video games. He killed his cousin with a pro-wrestling manuever. I'm sure he didn't mean to kill him, but what do you expect when you see guys on TV smacking each other down and leave the ring exactly like they did when they first started to fight? The boy expected his cousin to not be hurt.
Nah, I don't think you can simply say that TV was responsible for the believe. Boys have tussled since the dawn of time. Nothing new at all there, and no one ever expects to kill or cripple anyone else. And most of the time, that holds true.
The fact that pro wrestling has happened to become popular has nothing, as far as I can tell, to do with it.
Uh, huh. The old "it's 'natural', and 'natural is healthy'". Love it. Leads to tons of fallacies and irrational actions (like people spending *stupid* amounts of money on their grocery bills).
But, let's see. Continuing your pot smoking analogy, "Pharmboy", smoking pot isn't particularly natural. But damned if people still don't seem to want to do it.
Hell, having antibiotics and medicine and year-round fresh vegetables isn't all that natural either, you know?
So, I'm not saying that your argument is wrong. Maybe TV/video game violence *is* bad. But you can't claim that it's bad simply because it didn't exist historically.
Re:How about with lost keys?
on
OpenPGP Meetup
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· Score: 1
I hope you had an expiry date on the certificates. That's what it's there for.
I don't really know how getting together at local bar or whatever brings crypto "into the mainstream", but maybe you can sign the bartender's key or something.
Umm...network effects from keysignings, which (to be technically accurate) require in-person identity verification?
I never really went out for that much effort. If I've emailed a person back and forth a few times, and their email address is on their web page, I pretty happily sign their key. PGP should be *useful*, not an anchor around one's neck.
Oh, sorry. Yeah, I use timidity, and it's a lovely piece of software, but I didn't mean MIDI softsynth -- I was talking about software implementations of synthesizers -- you know, those funky devices that have little sliders and things that you can move around to make unusual sounds? Electronica folks love em?
Could this be a step towards one record lable that won't be total asses about copyright and ripping your songs to mp3 format?
From the *one* company that has a controls an entire consumer hardware platform? Hell, no. If this isn't a hoax somehow, it'd be a play toward building a media playback system that the media companies will go for. And one *hell* of a lucrative positioning, if it works.
"Apple-compatible" audio. They have a portable player and the desktop already in place, and then they just need a home theater system. Apple is the sole company in the world that could build an entire *working* DRM system. MS doesn't have the hardware control.
Damn, in retrospect, Jobs actually had a cohesive plan these last few years. Who woulda thunk?
Slashdot Mirror
He knows if he gives them exclusive rights he'll be directly supporting a monopoly.
Sure, but why should he have to be a martyr to benefit other people?
I mean, do you avoid shopping at WalMart?
"Bells and whistles", the way I've always heard the phrase used, refers nonessential but nice features. Having the ability to run on a machine with defective RAM would fall into this category...
"Bells and whistles" don't have to be misfeatures...
economist.. i dont think MS is really a loser.
Yet when one reads the story instead of just the story post, one notices that the story post is a load of crap. The Economist said nothing of the sort -- as a matter of fact, it said mostly that Sun was in for it, and that Microsoft isn't in for that much trouble (since its dominance is in the workstation market).
From the article:
The most likely outcome is that customers will face a choice between Linux, which is cheap and cheerful, and Windows, which offers more bells and whistles, is tightly integrated with other Microsoft products and is easier for unskilled staff to use, but costs more.
Okay, I'll certainly grant integration and easier to use for unskilled staff, but where does the Economist get more "bells and whistles" from? When I think "bells and whistles", I generally don't think of Windows...
Keep in mind that Microsoft has a long and rich tradition of buying anyone that makes better products than they do that they can't otherwise quash.
Remember Bungie, once pretty much the only significant Mac-only gaming company?
IIRC, id is a privately-owned company, but what if *you* were Carmack and MS offered to fund *your* rocket-making experiment, plus more Ferraris? Would you at least consider an exclusive license on one game?
I mean, here's what I'm saying. Carmack is a really damn good software engineer, and id is a really good company. Carmack's done tons and tons of work for Linux and other platforms -- he's been a powerful OpenGL ally, he's pushed Linux gaming, wrote large portions of the XFree86 GLX 3d driver for my Matrox card as volunteer work, has released all his games crossplatform (and I think id has consistently lost money on Linux releases). Lots of interest in Linux gaming came about *because* of his work, so he's indirectly responsible for much Linux gaming.
Yet, does him doing all this justify everyone expecting him to say no to lots of money *again*?
I am sure you're trolling, but anyway.
Instead of people telling Stanley Feinbaum that he's a troll every time he posts, it's *much* easier to just add him to your foes list. Less effort on your part, fewer trolls for everyone else.
This is also interesting for another reason. Back when people shared CPU cycles, there was actually some interest in writing efficient software. You waste tons of cycles, Johnny down the hall runs slower, and people are going to be looking at the CPU statistics with the evil eye.
When workstations became popular, things changed. If you don't use cycles, they're simply wasted. So you might as well suck down most of the cycles on the machine. Efficient software stops becoming worthwhile.
Moving to server-based software again might mean that programmers actually have to write decent software again.
Laptops.
Portable devices.
In other words, Absolutly fucking useless idea for an office where you have lots of portable devices.
Good point. However, there are some factors affecting this. First, laptops are a bit of a nasty security issue (I won't even get into wireless Ethernet). Lots of times, it's a *bad* idea to have employees take data home. So if all you're doing with the laptops is moving them to meetings, around the company, etc, because
(a) it lets you concentrate lots of machines wherever you need them -- a meeting room, someone's cubicle, etc
(b) it's *still* a pain in the ass to deal with different machines, even after all these years. ("The keyboard is different on this workstation -- I don't like it")
I could see the benefits still being present.
Hmmm. Networks go donw. KIss your work good bye.
Oh, knock it off. Workstations go down, and this means that IT can guarantee that *everything* works when your workstation (far less reliable than servers with lots of reliability features) dies.
Written in Java. Fuck off. Java is pathetic. If it's server based, use a real language.
Okay, there I have to agree, but there isn't really anything as nice as Java for distributed, cross-platform work. Plus, it's possible that the server backend could be written in something else -- Java needs to be used for the UI, though.
And you knwo the other reason this wont work? Users liek to have control over their data and what they do.
At work, I think most people don't know or care. You're thinking of home users.
Users prefer PC's over some dumb terminal.
[shrug] Maybe. How do you know? Plus, this system isn't a dumb terminal...
No one's stopping you from making your own search engine. The only particular influence Google has is that they're very, very good.
I'd be more concerned about security issues -- think how much information about current issues and plans in your company leaks to Google in the form of keywords.
Beowulf is a very specific clustering implementation, which is suitable for some things and not for others. The word doesn't mean just "cluster", as the story poster seems to use it as.
id's always had a policy of staying small. As a result, they don't have very high costs (which means that they don't have a huge amount of presure to produce or go out of business). They're fairly flexible, and developrs have a large amount of say within the company (which is why we get Linux releases).
Good ol' Carly decided that it would be a good idea to drop the entire calculator development division.
Well, regardless of whether the real money is in low-margin PCs or not, she got her merger bonus, so maybe it was the right choice...for her, if not the company.
Sure, they were popular with highschool and college kids, but people who do real work with calculators are pretty much unanimously in favour of HP's. Of course, this is a small and shrinking group of people, which is why HP is out of the calc business.
No, TI is more popular with incoming people than with dinosaurs precisely because HPs used to be more popular globally, fell out of popularity, and now all the younger people are using TIs. HP lost the market themselves, not because of a bunch of people who don't "do real work with calculators".
As far as I can tell, the only practical impact of this is a slap in the face to the HURD developers, who have just been bypassed by yet *another* kernel project...
What makes this kid unique is that his parents let him (a 12 year old) babysit a toddler by himself. Both parents were often out and he was by himself a great deal of the time. That and he was a rabid fan of pro-wresling and video games. He killed his cousin with a pro-wrestling manuever. I'm sure he didn't mean to kill him, but what do you expect when you see guys on TV smacking each other down and leave the ring exactly like they did when they first started to fight? The boy expected his cousin to not be hurt.
Nah, I don't think you can simply say that TV was responsible for the believe. Boys have tussled since the dawn of time. Nothing new at all there, and no one ever expects to kill or cripple anyone else. And most of the time, that holds true.
The fact that pro wrestling has happened to become popular has nothing, as far as I can tell, to do with it.
Do you have any idea what it does to your brain to associate killing and the sounds of killing with RELAXATION?
Which, of course, begs the question: do *you*?
Uh, huh. The old "it's 'natural', and 'natural is healthy'". Love it. Leads to tons of fallacies and irrational actions (like people spending *stupid* amounts of money on their grocery bills).
But, let's see. Continuing your pot smoking analogy, "Pharmboy", smoking pot isn't particularly natural. But damned if people still don't seem to want to do it.
Hell, having antibiotics and medicine and year-round fresh vegetables isn't all that natural either, you know?
So, I'm not saying that your argument is wrong. Maybe TV/video game violence *is* bad. But you can't claim that it's bad simply because it didn't exist historically.
I hope you had an expiry date on the certificates. That's what it's there for.
No real reason you have to link a real life name to a PGP key.
Just an email address...that's all you really need.
For example, Red Hat signs their RPMs with a GPG key that isn't used for sending mail or anything else.
I don't really know how getting together at local bar or whatever brings crypto "into the mainstream", but maybe you can sign the bartender's key or something.
Umm...network effects from keysignings, which (to be technically accurate) require in-person identity verification?
I never really went out for that much effort. If I've emailed a person back and forth a few times, and their email address is on their web page, I pretty happily sign their key. PGP should be *useful*, not an anchor around one's neck.
Sony doesn't have absolute control over the PC hardware it makes -- it's constrained by compatibility with other systems.
Apple's the only single company that can say "Okay, we're revamping the hardware to be secure, and the software to run in a trusted environment."
Sorry, consumer *computer* hardware platform.
Dunno about the rest of you, but my "broadband" connection is only a few millimeters wide...
I connect to broads with a much, much, thicker connection.
Oh, sorry. Yeah, I use timidity, and it's a lovely piece of software, but I didn't mean MIDI softsynth -- I was talking about software implementations of synthesizers -- you know, those funky devices that have little sliders and things that you can move around to make unusual sounds? Electronica folks love em?
Ya, Apple Records is *definitely* going to want a piece of the pie...
Could this be a step towards one record lable that won't be total asses about copyright and ripping your songs to mp3 format?
From the *one* company that has a controls an entire consumer hardware platform? Hell, no. If this isn't a hoax somehow, it'd be a play toward building a media playback system that the media companies will go for. And one *hell* of a lucrative positioning, if it works.
"Apple-compatible" audio. They have a portable player and the desktop already in place, and then they just need a home theater system. Apple is the sole company in the world that could build an entire *working* DRM system. MS doesn't have the hardware control.
Damn, in retrospect, Jobs actually had a cohesive plan these last few years. Who woulda thunk?