If artists are bummed because folks won't buy an entire album (so-called artistic integrity), they can lay all the blame on William Shatner. He single-handedly demolished (pardon the pun) consumer demand for entire albums. He very nearly killed the music industry.
And for you nitpicking bastards, yes I am aware that schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder are completely different diseases from a clinical standpoint, but not in common usage.
But wo be unto the person diagosed with the wrong one!... but I pick nit.
I saw in a few places this weekend that VMWare may make an appearance at WWDC. I hope, hope, hope it's to announce:
1. VMWare for Mac OS X Tiger and Jaguar.
2. That they'll be behind the rumor virtualization technologies inside Leopard.
As much as I applaud Parallels' efforts in this area, it's very clear that VMWare has loads more experience. I am waiting with basted breasts that they'll jump in and simply have a product that can do more and better.
Why is it that, in nearly every printed interview, people "sit down for a chat?" Does this actually happen? Does sitting down precede chats that will be put to the printed word? What happens if the interview is almost over and the two realize they were actually standing through it? Does that mean they can't use the material committed in the upright position? Should they sit down and perform the entire interview again?
One day, I am going to conduct an entire interview leaning against a well.
Yeah, I did know the "stupid minds" quote was from "Plan 9 from Outer Space" but one of the other posters was right when he said that the first quote was from TOS Star Trek's "The Ultimate Computer." FWIW, I wasn't trying to go for a Wood/Trek mashup. I had initially thought the line "Plans 1 - 8" was from "Plan 9," but I had remembered them from the same movie. Ah well...
Has to be asked...
on
Driving Plan 9
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Were Plans 1-8 "not entirely successful?"
"You see! You see! Your stupid minds! STUPID! STUPID!"
If MS would offer whitebox builders the same price that they offer to the big OEMs like Dell and Gateway, they'd probably see a lot less for-profit piracy.
Quite true, but I doubt you can lay all of the blame at Microsoft's feet. This is the way the entire retail world works.
I've built many systems and what it really comes down to is the type of system you intend to build. There's no way in hell a whitebox builder can meet a $299.99 price. They can, however, compete well on a $1500+ system, even with Windows and Office. I've done it many times. And, no, I'm not pirating anything.
In any case, what MS does is what ATI, ASUS, and every one else does. It's still not an excuse to pirate software.
The number one key is to have the right equipment for 'hands free' operation. For cell phones this means buying and using the voice-dial features available on most phones now, and getting a headset for hands free operation in your vehicle.
Secondly you must learn to modify your driving habits so that if the conversation moves to a point of needing to take your eyes off the road (e.g. to search for or record information), that you then pull off the road and carry on the conversation without impacting your driving ability.
I think you're correct, to a point. Hands-free is good. Yes, I think one should have it. And, yes, you should pull off the road if the conversation moves to that off-topic point.
May I suggest that the reason pilots and heavy-equipment movers such as yourself have little-to-no trouble is because a lot of the conversation is about the trip? Granted, not all of the conversation is about the trip, but much of it is. Pilots communicate airspeed and altitude, for instance. Also, in many of those cases, there is a passenger who keeps a second-set of eyes on the road. In the air, some of the conversation between pilot and co-pilot are directly related to the aircraft and trip. Indeed, as I'm sure you know, there are strict regulations regarding the type of conversation that can happen during the critical phases of a flight.
Nothing really stops a professional from having a cellphone conversation with their friend about what Barbara really meant when she said, "just friends," but most professionals just don't. They know it's a bad idea. That's training, as you say, but it would have to come down to teaching regular drivers about cellphone responsibility and enforcing that responsibility and then there's also that point of personal accountability.
As a professional, you know the real danger that awaits you if you lose the shipment or crash the airplane. You are directly responsible to someone in a very real and personally-damaging way if you screw up. Regular folks? They just don't feel that accountable, it seems to me. And when they tap someone's bumper hard -- which happens often, and a cop WOULD stop both parties had he seen the bump, even though there is no physical damage -- they both shrug and move along.
Speaking of Windows, different multi-core processor architectures, Virtual PC, and.NET, have you looked at Xbox 360 lately?
Well, now you're just talking crazy.:-)
Are you saying that MS will move to a proprietary O/S on PPC? Actually, that might be kinda cool!
Then Ballmer will be forced out, replaced by John Sculley, who will run it for years until replaced by Michael Spindler and, eventually, the lame-duck Gil Amelio.
Then, in 15 years, Bill Gates will come back wearing hip clothes and a corrected spinal curvature. He'll introduce a line of colorful computers called, "iWin," which will take the industry by storm. But, of course, Gates II, is not finished yet. He tosses out Windows for a new O/S called OS Y which is based on something weird called "bee-ess-dee." It will be lauded for its wonderful security practices and stability, but Gates won't be satisfied until he puts the whole thing back on Intel chips, rechristening the partnership as Y-Tel.
Eventually Gates II succumbs to a genetic disorder that kills his liver. BusinessWeek falls over itself wondering what will happen to Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Ballmer continues to throw chairs... onto trucks in the back of J.P. Lawhorn Furniture in Syosset, New York.
Does the name "Geek Squad" kind of offend anyone besides me, even just a little bit?
Yeah, it does me, too. I think it's because it plays to a stereotype, which is always, imho, offensive. Certainly we wouldn't allow a place called, "Jew Moneylenders" that advertised the fact that they're good cause they're Jews. That's what Geek Squad does. IMHO.
* I had an Atari Lynx.
* King's Quest IV--you throw a golden ball into the POND? What the fuck?
* Burgertime on the NES--worrrrrrst controllllls evaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrr!
* Rush'n Attack on the NES. Did you beat this game? You're a fucking liar.
Huh. I kinda liked the Lynx. It was interesting for its time. Yeah, I don't think it would have been a huge success whatever marketing muscle might be put behind it, but the concept was interesting and I think it helped further mobile gaming.
As for Burgertime, I don't know if you've ever tried that game on an Intellivision, but I think that game on THAT system was the "worrrrrrst controllllls evaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrr!"
Gahdammit. I am one of hundreds of thousands of/. users and NO ONE listened to my prophetic vision back in April? Dammit. I called the cops. They wouldn't listen either. I am just too darned potent!;-)
Uh... Oh... maybe the didn't listen to me.
--
I've worked with and on computers for nearly thirty years and I'm frequently surprised by the amount of piracy in workplaces. Oh, I'm not talking about out-right piracy like bittorrented copies of cracked Photoshop, but lots of little things.
For instance, I've worked in commercial printers that literally had thousands of typefaces. Let's say you have a job you need printed on a printing press. You collect all the images, layout files, typefaces, etc., and you send that to the printer. The printer is supposed to delete those fonts when the job is complete. They don't, of course, so you have millions of pirated typefaces out there.
Another example: images that are only supposed to be used once, logos "retouched" and used in other publications, templates you're supposed to pay for obtained from non-traditional (i.e. free) sources, trials that miraculously seem to go on forever, etc.
Stuff like this happens in all kinds of offices all over the planet. There are so many companies out there who, if they took a real and honest accounting of the software and tools and plug-ins they have, would find that if they did actually purchase everything they own, they'd likely not have half of it. And if they did, they would have spent themselves into bankruptcy. But they rationalize that it's all necessary, it's something they need to do in order to do business. Indeed, many companies couldn't perform some of their services without the stuff they obtained.
I dunno. I think that, one day, someone really large with lots and lots of locations and chances to pirate stuff is going to get slammed with a huge fine and it's going to open a very large can of worms. If Best Buy really did use Winternals products illegally, it would not surprise me in the slightest, and it would be very, very typical of most companies, large and small.
P.S. And, yes, I can't claim my hands are completely clean.
Ok, so I get the premise. If a OEM driver causes a _crash,_ then the crash report will be sent to Microsoft which will include information about the crashed driver. If Microsoft receives enough reports, they may remove the certification status for that OEM drive.
On paper, it sounds pretty good.
But, to me anyway, here's why it may not work:
1. It presumes the problem is faulty driver coding. Does it take into account other applications open at the time? What about tricky conflicts? I've been around enough to see MANY applications that kill drivers, like Word causing video driver crashes. Who's fault?
2. Will Microsoft pore over all this data? Drivers crash for... what?... dozens of reasons? Hundreds? Is MS going to pore over _all_ this data, identify actual driver problems? OR just send blanket data to OEM and say, "OK, you've lost your certification. Sorry it didn't work out. You'll have to find out why your driver crashes, here are the 7,500 reports. Have a nice day."
3. Will the data contain enough information for the OEM, who really gets a bunch of MS-formatted data, get enough real information to solve the problem?
4. According to TFA, this only works on the "Premium" edition of Vista. In that version, drivers have to be certified. If "Premium" proves to not be a best-seller, how many OEMs will bother with certification? I still have to click through "non-certified" dialogues in XP today.
Also, I suppose it should be said that this is yet more information that MS will get about users' computers.
The Great Swarm isn't going to be doing much special requesting, which means there's not going to be all that many machines that actually wind up with linux on the hard drive.
Better than nothing, I guess. Sigh.
Yes, you're right, but I think it ultimately depends on what they wind up doing. If they offer a button during the customization phase of ordering, then that's progress. Yes, we would hope that, say, when the next Ubuntu came out they'd put a big flash banner on the front page announcing it's now available for all Lenovo laptops, but it's all still progress.
I think it's very interesting that they decided to backtrack at all. Clearly they've changed their minds and certainly that has to have come from some sort of outside pressure. In years past, I think any company such as this could have just as easily said, "Screw 'em." But Lenovo didn't. And for whatever reason they ultimately wound up announcing their backtrack, it's still progress.
Slashdot Mirror
If artists are bummed because folks won't buy an entire album (so-called artistic integrity), they can lay all the blame on William Shatner. He single-handedly demolished (pardon the pun) consumer demand for entire albums. He very nearly killed the music industry.
*My main PC is a Fedora Core box. My wife's main PC is a Mac. We share this Windows box, mainly for gaming.
:-D
It's okay, man. You don't have to prove yourself to us.
"60 single men"
Wow! That's quite a few.
You go, gran.
And for you nitpicking bastards, yes I am aware that schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder are completely different diseases from a clinical standpoint, but not in common usage.
... but I pick nit.
But wo be unto the person diagosed with the wrong one!
I saw in a few places this weekend that VMWare may make an appearance at WWDC. I hope, hope, hope it's to announce:
1. VMWare for Mac OS X Tiger and Jaguar.
2. That they'll be behind the rumor virtualization technologies inside Leopard.
As much as I applaud Parallels' efforts in this area, it's very clear that VMWare has loads more experience. I am waiting with basted breasts that they'll jump in and simply have a product that can do more and better.
m
Actually, in my case it's because my girlfriend (well, wife)
I'm curious what made you suddenly remember...
... I am having a Seinfeld moment.
Why is it that, in nearly every printed interview, people "sit down for a chat?" Does this actually happen? Does sitting down precede chats that will be put to the printed word? What happens if the interview is almost over and the two realize they were actually standing through it? Does that mean they can't use the material committed in the upright position? Should they sit down and perform the entire interview again?
One day, I am going to conduct an entire interview leaning against a well.
Yeah, I did know the "stupid minds" quote was from "Plan 9 from Outer Space" but one of the other posters was right when he said that the first quote was from TOS Star Trek's "The Ultimate Computer." FWIW, I wasn't trying to go for a Wood/Trek mashup. I had initially thought the line "Plans 1 - 8" was from "Plan 9," but I had remembered them from the same movie. Ah well...
Were Plans 1-8 "not entirely successful?"
"You see! You see! Your stupid minds! STUPID! STUPID!"
So why the fanboy slant in the summary?
/.!!!!!!)
/.!!!!!!)
Well, I can guess...
Fanboy read the title.
Fanboy _may_ have skimmed the article.
Fanboy didn't understand the distinction.
Fanboy rapidly submitted it! (I'm gonna be on
Editor read the title.
Editor _may_ have skimmed the article.
Editor didn't understand the distinction.
Editor rapidly published it! (I'm gonna be on
You can aleady get release candidate 3
Quick! Someone with power tag this story "oldnewsday."
Oh, so this is why there's so much "tagging" on the Internets nowadays.
"18 year old Mariana Gottemoff does immoral things with a bearclaw - click here to view"
Actually, it kind of depends on the bearclaw.
Animal or Pastry?
Employees suck!
;-)
You're in luck. Many companies fire them these days!
Internet Tubes.
Be the first to own one!
Quite true, but I doubt you can lay all of the blame at Microsoft's feet. This is the way the entire retail world works.
I've built many systems and what it really comes down to is the type of system you intend to build. There's no way in hell a whitebox builder can meet a $299.99 price. They can, however, compete well on a $1500+ system, even with Windows and Office. I've done it many times. And, no, I'm not pirating anything.
In any case, what MS does is what ATI, ASUS, and every one else does. It's still not an excuse to pirate software.
I think you're correct, to a point. Hands-free is good. Yes, I think one should have it. And, yes, you should pull off the road if the conversation moves to that off-topic point.
May I suggest that the reason pilots and heavy-equipment movers such as yourself have little-to-no trouble is because a lot of the conversation is about the trip? Granted, not all of the conversation is about the trip, but much of it is. Pilots communicate airspeed and altitude, for instance. Also, in many of those cases, there is a passenger who keeps a second-set of eyes on the road. In the air, some of the conversation between pilot and co-pilot are directly related to the aircraft and trip. Indeed, as I'm sure you know, there are strict regulations regarding the type of conversation that can happen during the critical phases of a flight.
Nothing really stops a professional from having a cellphone conversation with their friend about what Barbara really meant when she said, "just friends," but most professionals just don't. They know it's a bad idea. That's training, as you say, but it would have to come down to teaching regular drivers about cellphone responsibility and enforcing that responsibility and then there's also that point of personal accountability.
As a professional, you know the real danger that awaits you if you lose the shipment or crash the airplane. You are directly responsible to someone in a very real and personally-damaging way if you screw up. Regular folks? They just don't feel that accountable, it seems to me. And when they tap someone's bumper hard -- which happens often, and a cop WOULD stop both parties had he seen the bump, even though there is no physical damage -- they both shrug and move along.
Speaking of Windows, different multi-core processor architectures, Virtual PC, and .NET, have you looked at Xbox 360 lately?
:-)
... onto trucks in the back of J.P. Lawhorn Furniture in Syosset, New York.
Well, now you're just talking crazy.
Are you saying that MS will move to a proprietary O/S on PPC? Actually, that might be kinda cool!
Then Ballmer will be forced out, replaced by John Sculley, who will run it for years until replaced by Michael Spindler and, eventually, the lame-duck Gil Amelio.
Then, in 15 years, Bill Gates will come back wearing hip clothes and a corrected spinal curvature. He'll introduce a line of colorful computers called, "iWin," which will take the industry by storm. But, of course, Gates II, is not finished yet. He tosses out Windows for a new O/S called OS Y which is based on something weird called "bee-ess-dee." It will be lauded for its wonderful security practices and stability, but Gates won't be satisfied until he puts the whole thing back on Intel chips, rechristening the partnership as Y-Tel.
Eventually Gates II succumbs to a genetic disorder that kills his liver. BusinessWeek falls over itself wondering what will happen to Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Ballmer continues to throw chairs
Does the name "Geek Squad" kind of offend anyone besides me, even just a little bit?
Yeah, it does me, too. I think it's because it plays to a stereotype, which is always, imho, offensive. Certainly we wouldn't allow a place called, "Jew Moneylenders" that advertised the fact that they're good cause they're Jews. That's what Geek Squad does. IMHO.
Some lowlights...
* I had an Atari Lynx.
* King's Quest IV--you throw a golden ball into the POND? What the fuck?
* Burgertime on the NES--worrrrrrst controllllls evaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrr!
* Rush'n Attack on the NES. Did you beat this game? You're a fucking liar.
Huh. I kinda liked the Lynx. It was interesting for its time. Yeah, I don't think it would have been a huge success whatever marketing muscle might be put behind it, but the concept was interesting and I think it helped further mobile gaming.
As for Burgertime, I don't know if you've ever tried that game on an Intellivision, but I think that game on THAT system was the "worrrrrrst controllllls evaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrr!"
Gahdammit. I am one of hundreds of thousands of /. users and NO ONE listened to my prophetic vision back in April? Dammit. I called the cops. They wouldn't listen either. I am just too darned potent! ;-)
Uh... Oh... maybe the didn't listen to me.
--
I've worked with and on computers for nearly thirty years and I'm frequently surprised by the amount of piracy in workplaces. Oh, I'm not talking about out-right piracy like bittorrented copies of cracked Photoshop, but lots of little things.
For instance, I've worked in commercial printers that literally had thousands of typefaces. Let's say you have a job you need printed on a printing press. You collect all the images, layout files, typefaces, etc., and you send that to the printer. The printer is supposed to delete those fonts when the job is complete. They don't, of course, so you have millions of pirated typefaces out there.
Another example: images that are only supposed to be used once, logos "retouched" and used in other publications, templates you're supposed to pay for obtained from non-traditional (i.e. free) sources, trials that miraculously seem to go on forever, etc.
Stuff like this happens in all kinds of offices all over the planet. There are so many companies out there who, if they took a real and honest accounting of the software and tools and plug-ins they have, would find that if they did actually purchase everything they own, they'd likely not have half of it. And if they did, they would have spent themselves into bankruptcy. But they rationalize that it's all necessary, it's something they need to do in order to do business. Indeed, many companies couldn't perform some of their services without the stuff they obtained.
I dunno. I think that, one day, someone really large with lots and lots of locations and chances to pirate stuff is going to get slammed with a huge fine and it's going to open a very large can of worms. If Best Buy really did use Winternals products illegally, it would not surprise me in the slightest, and it would be very, very typical of most companies, large and small.
P.S. And, yes, I can't claim my hands are completely clean.
P.P.S. Don't copy that floppy.
*crunch* *crunch* *swallow*
Hmmm... tastes like chicken.
Ok, so I get the premise. If a OEM driver causes a _crash,_ then the crash report will be sent to Microsoft which will include information about the crashed driver. If Microsoft receives enough reports, they may remove the certification status for that OEM drive.
... what? ... dozens of reasons? Hundreds? Is MS going to pore over _all_ this data, identify actual driver problems? OR just send blanket data to OEM and say, "OK, you've lost your certification. Sorry it didn't work out. You'll have to find out why your driver crashes, here are the 7,500 reports. Have a nice day."
On paper, it sounds pretty good.
But, to me anyway, here's why it may not work:
1. It presumes the problem is faulty driver coding. Does it take into account other applications open at the time? What about tricky conflicts? I've been around enough to see MANY applications that kill drivers, like Word causing video driver crashes. Who's fault?
2. Will Microsoft pore over all this data? Drivers crash for
3. Will the data contain enough information for the OEM, who really gets a bunch of MS-formatted data, get enough real information to solve the problem?
4. According to TFA, this only works on the "Premium" edition of Vista. In that version, drivers have to be certified. If "Premium" proves to not be a best-seller, how many OEMs will bother with certification? I still have to click through "non-certified" dialogues in XP today.
Also, I suppose it should be said that this is yet more information that MS will get about users' computers.
The Great Swarm isn't going to be doing much special requesting, which means there's not going to be all that many machines that actually wind up with linux on the hard drive.
Better than nothing, I guess. Sigh.
Yes, you're right, but I think it ultimately depends on what they wind up doing. If they offer a button during the customization phase of ordering, then that's progress. Yes, we would hope that, say, when the next Ubuntu came out they'd put a big flash banner on the front page announcing it's now available for all Lenovo laptops, but it's all still progress.
I think it's very interesting that they decided to backtrack at all. Clearly they've changed their minds and certainly that has to have come from some sort of outside pressure. In years past, I think any company such as this could have just as easily said, "Screw 'em." But Lenovo didn't. And for whatever reason they ultimately wound up announcing their backtrack, it's still progress.
I think every gamer, whether a Nintendo fan or not, is eager to see the Wii in action.
Waa?