You may be able to get sponsors for snacks, drinks, etc. If you convince enough people, you may also be able to get the speed stick folks to supply deodorant to the literally unwashed masses.:)
I've never been to a LAN party so my input will not weigh as much as those who have. However, it may be worth listening to in order to attract the demographic.
Have refreshments and clean bathrooms. Make the machines comfortable to use. If people bring their own kit, be sure to have enough people who have the same games installed to make a decent game or two. If possible, try to moderate the games with some sort of ranking system where the n00bs (like myself) don't get 0wn3d too much by those with m4d 5k177z. I say let them play in their own high-ranking games.
As gaming in general has moved away from the socially unacceptable geek culture and towards mainstream, you'll be gathering an ecclectic group of people with different social skills. Be sure to have enough space for divergent cultures to group themselves. Social retards like myself need to hang out with others like me (I know there are others out there, damn it!) while the more pop-culture trash talking "you are teh suxor" group can have their pissing contest elsewhere.
I enjoy FPS games (ET, UT, TFC), but am not too much into the strategy types (warcraft/starcraft) . I'd go to LAN party events (and would gladly pay theme-park-like admission for a day's worth) but am wary that it's not a social environment I'd be comfortable in.
Luke and Han are atop the remodeled cantina roof playing hover-hockey when some over-zealous hockey player shoots the hoverpuck off the rooftop.
"See any hoverpucks down there?"
3PO replies "the biggest pair of hovering discs you've ever seen!"
-----
Opening scene could cut to 3PO and R2D2 standing outside the cantina selling contraband bacta. -----
Luke and Han have a slow day at the moisture farm and discuss a few things.
"You know in that movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"You know, that part where they break into the animal testing lab and let the animals free? I mean some of those animals couldn't fend for themselves in the wild. They didn't ask to be there, but are helpless outside."
"So you're asking the moral question of who's responsible for the death of the animals that didn't survive outside captivity?"
Re:Own a computer, own a car
on
Security Alert
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
A bit of hyperbole there, but anyhoo, the spirit of the post was to get people to CARE about learning. Spitting out "truth" and details on "the problems and the hows and whys" isn't interesting until you can get their attention.
Even school has its barf-back education process. You get facts and dates and other mantras that they cram down your throat and learn to barf back during an exam. The real retained knowledge are the bits we found interesting, fun, or somehow important.
So of course not, don't lie and scare novice computer users and then have them helplessly fend for themselves -- that's not much education. Teach...but first convince them of why the knowledge is something worth learning.
Re:Own a computer, own a car
on
Security Alert
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
You'd get called an elitist (as I did) for suggesting the need for computer users to be competent.
Basic computer skills are a difficult enough concept for some -- and anything past "two clicks on the blue letter E" goes over their heads. Anti-virus, firewalls, and windows update? Way too complicated. Downloading and installing another browser? That's a challenge! (I got a call once from someone who couldn't install something from CD-ROM because it wasn't set to auto-run!) Reformat a hard drive and install an alternative operating system? Definitely too much.
There isn't any interest in knowing anything past 2 clicks on blue E. Solution? FUD 'em. (not essentially lies but fun half-truths) Tell them their machines are being constantly attacked over the net and they need to protect themselves. Teach them that their personal information can get stolen. Tell them that unless they learn the ropes, they'll have to deal with headaches and heartaches and big computer repair bills.
Hell, tell them that without a good firewall, (Osama || Saddam || tooth fairy) will break into their computers and terrorists will win. (That method seemed to work well with the average Joe Sixpack for a different, more lethal cause).
Either way, education is part of the solution...but you can only educate those that want to learn. The trick is to motivate people into learning and understanding computer security.
Fair enough. Clueless users and lazy admins are primarily at fault for most infections. However, there should be some sort of responsibility from the vendor to secure the product -- especially because of its demographic which ranges from the uber1337 to the clueless.
XP SP2 addresses some of those issues -- like the firewalling being turned on by default. I'm willing to bet that Joe Sixpack wouldn't have done that on his own. With worms and viruses that travel through Outlook's preview pane or through sites rendered in IE -- there's some blame for the software.
Time and again, people will open attachments or click on unknown links...and such actions shouldn't be able to jeopardize the security of a machine.
Sure, awareness, knowledge, and healthy paranoia are the ultimate solutions to computer security, but the software has to cooperate, too.
Install just what is needed by default. Have the most secure options turned on by default. Make patching and testing fixes a high priority. If a bug is found and a fix is not immediately available, widely publish a workaround fix instead of hiding the bug until it can be fixed.
Some clueless users and lazy admins still may not follow advisories or patch their machines, and should take responsibility for their fate. Software developers/companies (both OSS and Closed) must take some share of the responsibility if they don't work hard enough to disclose, fix, or create awareness of a problem.
Office politics has never been one of my favorite things. To sacrifice product quality for "looking bad" is all too common in the biz world and it makes me cringe. To be put in the spot you were in must have been incredibly stressful -- ethics on one side and survival on the other.
Putting l0pth in the OSS arena was a long shot on my part, but I figured there are security/AV tools out there that are in the OSS world. Clam AV, Nessus, Nmap, Snort, to name a few. Open the product, sell services...the business model seems somewhat applicable to the security industry.
I suppose we could ask the Ximian folks how the Novell/Suse/Ximian family is working out.
In a somewhat-related note, are any of l0pth's stuff open source? I think I tried looking through for l0pthcrack or something to see if it was GPLed but didn't dig far enough.
The more I see these acquisitions happening, the more I'm appreciating the concept of the GPL.
Wasn't @stake originally some other black-hat-ish group...like l0pth or something? Next thing you know, virus/worm writers will start asking for employment at anti-virus/security firms.:)
Chiming in from a library whose computer lab++ was funded by a B&MG Foundation grant.
The machines run NT, they have a few edutainment titles. They run Office 2000. They gave material for "computer training" which were handouts on how to use Windows and Office. Had typos and instructional errors in them that nobody has bothered to find errata for. They apparently mandated that we not charge for the classes.
Guess what -- grant fund is now out. No more financial support from the foundation. All that time, we taught people how to use Windows with Microsoft's directives. We taught MS Office and with such familiarity, do you think the lower half of the "digital divide" would get Linux and OO.org when they purchase a computer? They think that's all there is! (hell, most of the librarians in the building think that's all there is!)
Will they get their grant money back in Windows/Office sales from those patrons? Probably not. Do they get mindshare? Definitely. If those aging machines were to be switched to Linux, most people won't go "oh neat, no pop-ups!" or "wow, the machines seem faster" -- they'll be bitching about a lack of shockwave support or how OO.org Writer isn't like Word.
As for books, the library carries a few Linux books. Not as many as your Windows XP/Office, and other Win32 software.
Just had to vent -- the library grants to low-income communities are nothing more than what we've decided Microsoft is -- a drug dealer giving the first hit away for free.
Call me old school, but remember back in the day when opening e-mail was ok, and that executable attachments were what we watched out for? Images were ok, MIDI files were ok, and a bit later, even MP3 files were ok.
Of course if the same codebase were used then, it NEVER was ok...but we sure thought things were juuuust fine.
Is this any way related to the leaked code that led to a vuln discovery regarding BMP files? I know it's a different format but seems like parsing image files spells some trouble.
Stateless installs? Sounds a bit like the terminal server project. I smell thin clients...are they going into fashion again?
Thin clients WOULD be a blessing, I imagine. Single configuration, one update, all the "personal files" in a server somewhere -- makes for easy updating and backing up. Also keeps hardware requirements down...which [buzzword warning] "helps lower TCO and increase ROI"
Interoperability is a great goal, but is anyone addressing patching/updating? Currently, it seems that these updates are handled as follows: download new packages, remove old packages, install new packages.
That seems fine for smaller bits of software but for a KDE bug fix or an OO.o update, downloads can go to the 100MBs or more. Fine on a DSL line, but dial-up users are still going to get hit hard.
I understand that OSS is better at fixing bugs and that's great -- but between Mandrake 10CE and now, it feels like I've downloaded another distro worth of updates. Is there something being done (maybe the whole binary diffs thing mentioned before) to decrease the size of update files?
I'm posting this as part of an LSB thread in the speculation that binary compatibility may one day lead to (smaller) patches that can be applied to LSB-compliant distros...so a KDE bug stays a KDE bug and not a MDK bug, SUSE bug, RH bug, Debian bug, etc.
If you could imagine a...ok, well maybe after ten years, we all could. The horse has been so beaten and tenderized that even takko vell wants a piece of the action.
I've never seen a beowulf cluster personally. I've never run anything on one. However I do know that it made "supercomputing" more affordable. That in itself is a feat -- and a primary goal of most Open Source software. A proverbial "Hats off" to the open source hackeres out there. Thanks...and keep hacking.
Now if I can gather enough old 486 machines, will I be able to run Doom III? With WINE? At least it'll keep me warm during the winter months.
So we're implying that they're selling the service of compiling the software for you? I suppose that's ok. Are the binaries compiled from the same source code or are there secret bits (cedega-style) that get folded into the special binary download?
Next queshhun -- if I got the binary (or compiled one myself) and made it available on my site for free download, will they be cool about it?
Of course I have my X-Chat for mandrake already included in the installation so I'm not all that concerned from that standpoint. I'm also not concerned enough to actually RTFA to answer the questions I posed here.:)
Look, folks, I've played the messenger part. I've done my part in telling others to try Mozilla. Done my evangelism with the pop-up blocking and the tabbed browsing. I've preached the security of not using IE and all its ugly security issues. I've even pointed to articles from official-ish proclamations asking people to use alternate browsers.
I've managed to switch a few people to Firefox, and that's good. However, there's the frustration of knowing there will be people out there who will not switch, not even know what a "Browser" is, and will definitely not be going to a web site, downloading an executable, and running it to install Firefox. Too intimidating, they'd say. Now what?
We've given them sufficient reason, and enough encouragement. There will be a LOT of people out there who will not bother installing a browser that didn't come with their machine. Though they'll happily install a Bonzi Buddy or Comet Cursor. How do we handle that great majority?
I love the Firefox, don't get me wrong. I'd love to see more people using it instead of IE. However, like any good soldier that's been out in the battlefield long enough, a morale boost would be nice on occasion...or at least more words of wisdom.
Let's see...you train your whole life to have a shot at this thing, enjoy the moment, and want to share that moment with anyone and everyone using your own words. Sounds like natural progression in technology, eh?
Well, too bad. You've got corporate sponsors -- shoes, clothes, probably even the plane ticket to Athens. Then you've got people who commercialize this event so bad that they won't even let you share your thoughts unless they can make money off of it. You're a commodity, not some olympic hero. You're merchandise to be marketed and sold to a public who admire you. Your honor and glory amount to a feel-good story soundbyte...and that's about it.
So much for the spirit of the olympics. I'd have taken the laurel wreath and the vat of olive oil. Then again I'm not an athlete...and I'm not at all marketable...so a good bottle of olive oil sounds nice.
For the gentoo folks who emerge from source and all that fun stuff. How 'bout the not-so-cool people who use the other distros like RH or MDK? I figure they'll show up in contrib in a few days but I've been bitten before when I upgraded a RH9 to KDE 3.2 using repositories...locked up my machine badly and used that as an excuse to transition to mandrake 10CE (which had 3.2 by default). Haven't even gone to the 10 Official because I've adopted the "hey, if I don't NEED to upgrade, I won't" more religiously.
For the more cautious/paranoid folks out there, when can we expect the distros to package 3.3 officially?
As always, thanks to the KDE folks for continually updating and improving the software.
It's not that Java left, it's all the attention it's now getting from the.NET crowds. I'm sure Mono has a few things to do with it, too. Oh, and that whole Eclipse project thing -- I must admit all the talk of Eclipse made me take another look at Java.
Maybe it's also the improvements (and lower price) of hardware that makes Java attractive again. That may compensate for any speed loss in the desktop java apps.
Then again, maybe we're just falling victim to the Sun Microsystems re-hype.
Wasn't there a time ago when all the rage was a thin-client and online software rentals? It seemed these were the visions of both the ol' dot-net strategy as well as one of SUN's pushes for Java-based apps.
Everything was going online, they said, and we would rent software instead of purchasing (leasing) them. We'd subscribe to Microsoft Word or Excel, and they'd hold our files for us so we can access them anywhere. We'd have cheap console machines that run little more than Virtual Machines which would hook onto the real apps online. Kinda like the LTSP now.
It seemed like a strange enough idea, but had its advantages. Less maintenance, but serious privacy issues...especially when people like MS hadn't marketed "Trustworth Computing" yet.:)
Agents looking for the anomaly? Sounds like a hack sci-fi social commentary movie. Someone cue Ellison, I think they need to contact The Oracle.
This just seems too intrusive. Has biometrics proven itself enough for people to spend fortunes implementing such things? Sure, the olympics is a high-profile event that probably requires some over-the-top deterrance, but this?
Unfortunately, I'm not alone in my inability to find the elusive balance between security and privacy.
You'd think hospitals would be experts at patching things up. They'd also be experts in um...worms, and to some extent viruses, too. Someone needs some PC-Cillin, stat!
On a more serious note, there exists the current dillema -- do you not wait to patch and risk borking things or do you test things out for a (prolonged) period of time risking system exposure?
It's a grim reality that patches will on occasion break something else. It's a matter of which risk is bigger -- exposure to attack, or breaking critical components. I believe that exposure to attack can be dealt with much easier with layers of security. Preventing the breakage of critical components, on the other hand, really demands the time and effort to test the patches before massive deployment.
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale A tale of a fateful trip That started from a "Unix Port" Aboard a sinking ship.
The mate was a mighty selling man The skipper wasn't sure Six passengers sat sail back then For a legal language tour (a legal language tour)
The language started getting rough The chrysler case was tossed (almost) If not for the "courage" of the fearless crew The lawsuits would be lost (the lawsuits would be lost)
The ship held ground on the shore of this Old Mormon Desert Isle With Billy Gates And Ballmer too Some millionaire Named McBride A Courtroom Star McNealy and Canadians Here on Darl McBride's Isle
With their post-Java-quarrel handshakes, it may not be too much of a stretch for the conspiracy theorists to think these actions are somewhat Microsoft-related. With all that Munich stuff being covered here recently, and all.
With Redhat sort of doing its own thing, SUSE places 2nd, if I recall correctly. I wonder if it's a way to pull a Tonya Harding on the other contender just to slow adoption down a little. You know, the way MS helped SCO out a bit to try and disrupt adoption that way too. Of course as many have pointed out, Linux being Linux, support will just switch to another distro and get on with it.
Hopefully the sale doesn't happen. I'm not sure how well the folks at Ximian would enjoy working for SUN. SUN would take Java Desktop over SUSE, and Java over the mono project. That sounds like a dark cloud in the making.
I just figured maybe enough people would care. You know, the kind that donate to PBS, or send money to the EFF, support MandrakeClub, or other cause you believe in.
Money is a great (if not more powerful) way to vote for things. That's why some of us pay the 5 dollar premium on school-sale or girl scout cookies. You could get cheaper ones at the local store, but you spend the extra cash because it goes to a good cause. (or you've got co-workers and you feel obligated to support their child's soccer team or whatnot):)
Slashdot Mirror
You may be able to get sponsors for snacks, drinks, etc. If you convince enough people, you may also be able to get the speed stick folks to supply deodorant to the literally unwashed masses. :)
I've never been to a LAN party so my input will not weigh as much as those who have. However, it may be worth listening to in order to attract the demographic.
Have refreshments and clean bathrooms. Make the machines comfortable to use. If people bring their own kit, be sure to have enough people who have the same games installed to make a decent game or two. If possible, try to moderate the games with some sort of ranking system where the n00bs (like myself) don't get 0wn3d too much by those with m4d 5k177z. I say let them play in their own high-ranking games.
As gaming in general has moved away from the socially unacceptable geek culture and towards mainstream, you'll be gathering an ecclectic group of people with different social skills. Be sure to have enough space for divergent cultures to group themselves. Social retards like myself need to hang out with others like me (I know there are others out there, damn it!) while the more pop-culture trash talking "you are teh suxor" group can have their pissing contest elsewhere.
I enjoy FPS games (ET, UT, TFC), but am not too much into the strategy types (warcraft/starcraft) . I'd go to LAN party events (and would gladly pay theme-park-like admission for a day's worth) but am wary that it's not a social environment I'd be comfortable in.
In any case, good luck to you.
Possible scenes:
Luke and Han are atop the remodeled cantina roof playing hover-hockey when some over-zealous hockey player shoots the hoverpuck off the rooftop.
"See any hoverpucks down there?"
3PO replies "the biggest pair of hovering discs you've ever seen!"
-----
Opening scene could cut to 3PO and R2D2 standing outside the cantina selling contraband bacta.
-----
Luke and Han have a slow day at the moisture farm and discuss a few things.
"You know in that movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"You know, that part where they break into the animal testing lab and let the animals free? I mean some of those animals couldn't fend for themselves in the wild. They didn't ask to be there, but are helpless outside."
"So you're asking the moral question of who's responsible for the death of the animals that didn't survive outside captivity?"
A bit of hyperbole there, but anyhoo, the spirit of the post was to get people to CARE about learning. Spitting out "truth" and details on "the problems and the hows and whys" isn't interesting until you can get their attention.
Even school has its barf-back education process. You get facts and dates and other mantras that they cram down your throat and learn to barf back during an exam. The real retained knowledge are the bits we found interesting, fun, or somehow important.
So of course not, don't lie and scare novice computer users and then have them helplessly fend for themselves -- that's not much education. Teach...but first convince them of why the knowledge is something worth learning.
You'd get called an elitist (as I did) for suggesting the need for computer users to be competent.
Basic computer skills are a difficult enough concept for some -- and anything past "two clicks on the blue letter E" goes over their heads. Anti-virus, firewalls, and windows update? Way too complicated. Downloading and installing another browser? That's a challenge! (I got a call once from someone who couldn't install something from CD-ROM because it wasn't set to auto-run!) Reformat a hard drive and install an alternative operating system? Definitely too much.
There isn't any interest in knowing anything past 2 clicks on blue E. Solution? FUD 'em. (not essentially lies but fun half-truths) Tell them their machines are being constantly attacked over the net and they need to protect themselves. Teach them that their personal information can get stolen. Tell them that unless they learn the ropes, they'll have to deal with headaches and heartaches and big computer repair bills.
Hell, tell them that without a good firewall, (Osama || Saddam || tooth fairy) will break into their computers and terrorists will win. (That method seemed to work well with the average Joe Sixpack for a different, more lethal cause).
Either way, education is part of the solution...but you can only educate those that want to learn. The trick is to motivate people into learning and understanding computer security.
Fair enough. Clueless users and lazy admins are primarily at fault for most infections. However, there should be some sort of responsibility from the vendor to secure the product -- especially because of its demographic which ranges from the uber1337 to the clueless.
XP SP2 addresses some of those issues -- like the firewalling being turned on by default. I'm willing to bet that Joe Sixpack wouldn't have done that on his own. With worms and viruses that travel through Outlook's preview pane or through sites rendered in IE -- there's some blame for the software.
Time and again, people will open attachments or click on unknown links...and such actions shouldn't be able to jeopardize the security of a machine.
Sure, awareness, knowledge, and healthy paranoia are the ultimate solutions to computer security, but the software has to cooperate, too.
Install just what is needed by default. Have the most secure options turned on by default. Make patching and testing fixes a high priority. If a bug is found and a fix is not immediately available, widely publish a workaround fix instead of hiding the bug until it can be fixed.
Some clueless users and lazy admins still may not follow advisories or patch their machines, and should take responsibility for their fate. Software developers/companies (both OSS and Closed) must take some share of the responsibility if they don't work hard enough to disclose, fix, or create awareness of a problem.
Office politics has never been one of my favorite things. To sacrifice product quality for "looking bad" is all too common in the biz world and it makes me cringe. To be put in the spot you were in must have been incredibly stressful -- ethics on one side and survival on the other.
Putting l0pth in the OSS arena was a long shot on my part, but I figured there are security/AV tools out there that are in the OSS world. Clam AV, Nessus, Nmap, Snort, to name a few. Open the product, sell services...the business model seems somewhat applicable to the security industry.
I suppose we could ask the Ximian folks how the Novell/Suse/Ximian family is working out.
In a somewhat-related note, are any of l0pth's stuff open source? I think I tried looking through for l0pthcrack or something to see if it was GPLed but didn't dig far enough.
The more I see these acquisitions happening, the more I'm appreciating the concept of the GPL.
Wasn't @stake originally some other black-hat-ish group...like l0pth or something? Next thing you know, virus/worm writers will start asking for employment at anti-virus/security firms. :)
Chiming in from a library whose computer lab++ was funded by a B&MG Foundation grant.
The machines run NT, they have a few edutainment titles. They run Office 2000. They gave material for "computer training" which were handouts on how to use Windows and Office. Had typos and instructional errors in them that nobody has bothered to find errata for. They apparently mandated that we not charge for the classes.
Guess what -- grant fund is now out. No more financial support from the foundation. All that time, we taught people how to use Windows with Microsoft's directives. We taught MS Office and with such familiarity, do you think the lower half of the "digital divide" would get Linux and OO.org when they purchase a computer? They think that's all there is! (hell, most of the librarians in the building think that's all there is!)
Will they get their grant money back in Windows/Office sales from those patrons? Probably not. Do they get mindshare? Definitely. If those aging machines were to be switched to Linux, most people won't go "oh neat, no pop-ups!" or "wow, the machines seem faster" -- they'll be bitching about a lack of shockwave support or how OO.org Writer isn't like Word.
As for books, the library carries a few Linux books. Not as many as your Windows XP/Office, and other Win32 software.
Just had to vent -- the library grants to low-income communities are nothing more than what we've decided Microsoft is -- a drug dealer giving the first hit away for free.
Call me old school, but remember back in the day when opening e-mail was ok, and that executable attachments were what we watched out for? Images were ok, MIDI files were ok, and a bit later, even MP3 files were ok.
Of course if the same codebase were used then, it NEVER was ok...but we sure thought things were juuuust fine.
Is this any way related to the leaked code that led to a vuln discovery regarding BMP files? I know it's a different format but seems like parsing image files spells some trouble.
Stateless installs? Sounds a bit like the terminal server project. I smell thin clients...are they going into fashion again?
Thin clients WOULD be a blessing, I imagine. Single configuration, one update, all the "personal files" in a server somewhere -- makes for easy updating and backing up. Also keeps hardware requirements down...which [buzzword warning] "helps lower TCO and increase ROI"
Interoperability is a great goal, but is anyone addressing patching/updating? Currently, it seems that these updates are handled as follows: download new packages, remove old packages, install new packages.
That seems fine for smaller bits of software but for a KDE bug fix or an OO.o update, downloads can go to the 100MBs or more. Fine on a DSL line, but dial-up users are still going to get hit hard.
I understand that OSS is better at fixing bugs and that's great -- but between Mandrake 10CE and now, it feels like I've downloaded another distro worth of updates. Is there something being done (maybe the whole binary diffs thing mentioned before) to decrease the size of update files?
I'm posting this as part of an LSB thread in the speculation that binary compatibility may one day lead to (smaller) patches that can be applied to LSB-compliant distros...so a KDE bug stays a KDE bug and not a MDK bug, SUSE bug, RH bug, Debian bug, etc.
If you could imagine a...ok, well maybe after ten years, we all could. The horse has been so beaten and tenderized that even takko vell wants a piece of the action.
I've never seen a beowulf cluster personally. I've never run anything on one. However I do know that it made "supercomputing" more affordable. That in itself is a feat -- and a primary goal of most Open Source software. A proverbial "Hats off" to the open source hackeres out there. Thanks...and keep hacking.
Now if I can gather enough old 486 machines, will I be able to run Doom III? With WINE? At least it'll keep me warm during the winter months.
So we're implying that they're selling the service of compiling the software for you? I suppose that's ok. Are the binaries compiled from the same source code or are there secret bits (cedega-style) that get folded into the special binary download?
:)
Next queshhun -- if I got the binary (or compiled one myself) and made it available on my site for free download, will they be cool about it?
Of course I have my X-Chat for mandrake already included in the installation so I'm not all that concerned from that standpoint. I'm also not concerned enough to actually RTFA to answer the questions I posed here.
Mod: -1 Self-Confessed Laziness
Look, folks, I've played the messenger part. I've done my part in telling others to try Mozilla. Done my evangelism with the pop-up blocking and the tabbed browsing. I've preached the security of not using IE and all its ugly security issues. I've even pointed to articles from official-ish proclamations asking people to use alternate browsers.
I've managed to switch a few people to Firefox, and that's good. However, there's the frustration of knowing there will be people out there who will not switch, not even know what a "Browser" is, and will definitely not be going to a web site, downloading an executable, and running it to install Firefox. Too intimidating, they'd say. Now what?
We've given them sufficient reason, and enough encouragement. There will be a LOT of people out there who will not bother installing a browser that didn't come with their machine. Though they'll happily install a Bonzi Buddy or Comet Cursor. How do we handle that great majority?
I love the Firefox, don't get me wrong. I'd love to see more people using it instead of IE. However, like any good soldier that's been out in the battlefield long enough, a morale boost would be nice on occasion...or at least more words of wisdom.
Are Belong To Us
Let's see...you train your whole life to have a shot at this thing, enjoy the moment, and want to share that moment with anyone and everyone using your own words. Sounds like natural progression in technology, eh?
Well, too bad. You've got corporate sponsors -- shoes, clothes, probably even the plane ticket to Athens. Then you've got people who commercialize this event so bad that they won't even let you share your thoughts unless they can make money off of it. You're a commodity, not some olympic hero. You're merchandise to be marketed and sold to a public who admire you. Your honor and glory amount to a feel-good story soundbyte...and that's about it.
So much for the spirit of the olympics. I'd have taken the laurel wreath and the vat of olive oil. Then again I'm not an athlete...and I'm not at all marketable...so a good bottle of olive oil sounds nice.
For the gentoo folks who emerge from source and all that fun stuff. How 'bout the not-so-cool people who use the other distros like RH or MDK? I figure they'll show up in contrib in a few days but I've been bitten before when I upgraded a RH9 to KDE 3.2 using repositories...locked up my machine badly and used that as an excuse to transition to mandrake 10CE (which had 3.2 by default). Haven't even gone to the 10 Official because I've adopted the "hey, if I don't NEED to upgrade, I won't" more religiously.
For the more cautious/paranoid folks out there, when can we expect the distros to package 3.3 officially?
As always, thanks to the KDE folks for continually updating and improving the software.
It's not that Java left, it's all the attention it's now getting from the .NET crowds. I'm sure Mono has a few things to do with it, too. Oh, and that whole Eclipse project thing -- I must admit all the talk of Eclipse made me take another look at Java.
Maybe it's also the improvements (and lower price) of hardware that makes Java attractive again. That may compensate for any speed loss in the desktop java apps.
Then again, maybe we're just falling victim to the Sun Microsystems re-hype.
Wasn't there a time ago when all the rage was a thin-client and online software rentals? It seemed these were the visions of both the ol' dot-net strategy as well as one of SUN's pushes for Java-based apps.
:)
Everything was going online, they said, and we would rent software instead of purchasing (leasing) them. We'd subscribe to Microsoft Word or Excel, and they'd hold our files for us so we can access them anywhere. We'd have cheap console machines that run little more than Virtual Machines which would hook onto the real apps online. Kinda like the LTSP now.
It seemed like a strange enough idea, but had its advantages. Less maintenance, but serious privacy issues...especially when people like MS hadn't marketed "Trustworth Computing" yet.
Agents looking for the anomaly? Sounds like a hack sci-fi social commentary movie. Someone cue Ellison, I think they need to contact The Oracle.
This just seems too intrusive. Has biometrics proven itself enough for people to spend fortunes implementing such things? Sure, the olympics is a high-profile event that probably requires some over-the-top deterrance, but this?
Unfortunately, I'm not alone in my inability to find the elusive balance between security and privacy.
You'd think hospitals would be experts at patching things up. They'd also be experts in um...worms, and to some extent viruses, too. Someone needs some PC-Cillin, stat!
On a more serious note, there exists the current dillema -- do you not wait to patch and risk borking things or do you test things out for a (prolonged) period of time risking system exposure?
It's a grim reality that patches will on occasion break something else. It's a matter of which risk is bigger -- exposure to attack, or breaking critical components. I believe that exposure to attack can be dealt with much easier with layers of security. Preventing the breakage of critical components, on the other hand, really demands the time and effort to test the patches before massive deployment.
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from a "Unix Port"
Aboard a sinking ship.
The mate was a mighty selling man
The skipper wasn't sure
Six passengers sat sail back then
For a legal language tour (a legal language tour)
The language started getting rough
The chrysler case was tossed (almost)
If not for the "courage" of the fearless crew
The lawsuits would be lost (the lawsuits would be lost)
The ship held ground on the shore of this
Old Mormon Desert Isle
With Billy Gates
And Ballmer too
Some millionaire
Named McBride
A Courtroom Star
McNealy and Canadians
Here on Darl McBride's Isle
Nothing accelerates windows like a good ol' fashioned 9.8m/s^2
With their post-Java-quarrel handshakes, it may not be too much of a stretch for the conspiracy theorists to think these actions are somewhat Microsoft-related. With all that Munich stuff being covered here recently, and all.
With Redhat sort of doing its own thing, SUSE places 2nd, if I recall correctly. I wonder if it's a way to pull a Tonya Harding on the other contender just to slow adoption down a little. You know, the way MS helped SCO out a bit to try and disrupt adoption that way too. Of course as many have pointed out, Linux being Linux, support will just switch to another distro and get on with it.
Hopefully the sale doesn't happen. I'm not sure how well the folks at Ximian would enjoy working for SUN. SUN would take Java Desktop over SUSE, and Java over the mono project. That sounds like a dark cloud in the making.
I just figured maybe enough people would care. You know, the kind that donate to PBS, or send money to the EFF, support MandrakeClub, or other cause you believe in.
:)
Money is a great (if not more powerful) way to vote for things. That's why some of us pay the 5 dollar premium on school-sale or girl scout cookies. You could get cheaper ones at the local store, but you spend the extra cash because it goes to a good cause. (or you've got co-workers and you feel obligated to support their child's soccer team or whatnot)