You've got it wrong; they haven't pissed off their customers, they're probably in fact doing what their customers have asked. You forget that advertisers are their customers. Now they may have pissed off consumers who use their site (and thus generate the traffic they need to attract advertisers), but I'm pretty sure their customers (the advertisers) won't be at all upset about this.
People's computers already have Windows, why would they bother changing it?
Out of all the "regular" users I know, they pretty much use all the software they got on their computer when they bought it, and never install anything else. When their computer eventually grinds to a halt (from either a bloated registry or tons of spyware), they'll either buy a new computer, or pay for a $500 "upgrade" to fix it.
As far as most people know, this is just how computers work. They've heard of Linux, but really aren't interested in it because what they have now (e.g. the Windows that came with the computer) is good enough for them.
It's a fundamentally good idea; people who create something have exclusive rights to sell it.
Where things go wrong is when people decide to meddle with it, like continuously extending the period that it applies. Something like a 5 year limit would be appropriate in today's fast paced world. Just think; who here wants to buy a DVD or CD that is over 5 years old? Not unless it was originally issued in some other format, right?
Don't confuse copyright with the fallacy of "intellectual property". Intellectual Property is a collection of laws (copyright, patents, trademarks, etc.) which should never be grouped together, because each is different and for a different purpose.
This just reads like a Monty Python sketch to me (sympathies to those who live in the UK and will have to live the joke)...
An old man walks up to a street corner, looks around, sees no-one. Ever so slowly he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a cigarette and lighter. He puts the ciggie in his mouth, holds the light up to it, and:
CAMERA: Oi! You there! Do you really want to do that? OLD MAN: What?! Who's there? CAMERA: Look up, and a couple of metres to the right. OLD MAN looks up and faces the camera. CAMERA: You know smoking's bad for you right? OLD MAN: I just wanted one, and I can't have them at home because the wife gives me grief. CAMERA: Just one??! Just one you say??! You can't have just one, because once you start, you're hooked! OLD MAN: I know that, I got hooked a long time ago. CAMERA: Well you can get yourself unhooked right now. I won't have your type stinking up my town. OLD MAN: I beg your pardon? I live here! CAMERA: Not if I can help it! Now clear off before I send out the coppers! OLD MAN makes a rude gesture at the camera. CAMERA: Right! That's it! You've done it now! OLD MAN: Done what? I haven't even got to have my smoke yet! CAMERA: Don't play innocent with me, we've got the whole thing recorded. Police siren blares. OLD MAN: You bastard! All I wanted was a smoke and you call the bloody cops?! Police arrive, old man runs off. CAMERA: He went that way! After him! -- Not funny? If only it were just a bad joke.
Not really. Why would they go for the U.S. first? Regardless of who you are, it's easier to conquer your neighbors before trying to cross a rather large ocean.
Someone should have told this to the makers of Red Alert 2.
Star Wars fans!
All he has to do is make them in white.
No joke, I know a guy who paid $600 for a lightsabre that was nothing more than a fluorescent light with colouring on it and a handle. He'd definitely pay $2000 for something as cool looking as this.
By contrast, Windows is infamously easy to set up and admin (a single box).
I can't agree with this. A friend of mine was using Windows XP and needed to re-install because his computer became infested with trojans and viruses (he swears he has no idea how). So I tried to help him re-install Windows XP, and I'll be damned if I could get it to work. We put the install CD in, booted up and followed all the prompts and did everything the program asked for, yet when it rebooted it simply would not boot from the partition we installed it on. I then installed SuSE 9.1 on his computer - same thing, insert the CD, follow the prompts, and away you go - and encountered no difficulties whatsoever. He no longer wants Windows XP on his computer as it is too much trouble - he's happy enough with SuSE, it does everything he wants and more, without the need for installing extra software. Needless to say he wishes he could get his money back on his copy of Windows XP.
I think not.
The IC in ICBM is inter-continental - however India's rivalry has always been with Pakistan, who are on the same continent (thus no ICBM required for nuclear destruction). So hopefully this won't bother Pakistan at all.
In 2006 MS will release Longhorn and the new "revolutionary" WinFS which is based on NTFS and allows you to treat your entire network of devices as a single filesystem structure.
Do you mean the same style of single file system structure that Unix has had for over 30 years? This hardly seems revolutionary to me.
I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I know we don't have Walmarts here in Australia. Now sad to say guys, while they MIGHT dominate the United States (and Canada, and whereever else they may be) that's still not the whole world. When I see Walmart stores opening in Australia then I will start to get worried. (Although I don't see Coles/Myer or Woolworths letting them get a foot in the door to begin with).
Windows 98 was actually the "big launch" for USB on the PC, as it was a heavily touted feature. Windows 98 had much better support for USB than Win95C.
> Lastly - to tell people they have to install a certain OS on their home computer is silly. Everything is moving to device independence.. not to 'you have to use linux'. That's no better than 'you have to use windows'.
Who said anything about telling people what to use at home? This is about what the universities are using on their own computers, as you so elegantly pointed out, what does it matter what they use at home?
> If you mean Linux, I assume you somehow are going to fund training all the students how to use it, along with getting all of the school's faculty and staff to support it, along with providing for Linux patch management efforts. Yeah, right. Back to the real world we go...
Insightful? That isn't insightful, that's just plain flamebait. Obviously you've never even tried using Linux! There's nothing difficult about it at all - KDE and Gnome look enough like Windows that anyone familiar with Windows can figure out how to use it for what they want. Let's not forget that in universities, most of the students just want to use word processing for reports and stuff. KOffice, OpenOffice, etc. really don't look much different to Microsoft Word which is what most people are used to using, so I don't see any retraining costs there. And the suggestion that perhaps staff wouldn't WANT to use Linux? You're forgetting that universities are where Linux came from! RMS started the GNU project in the labs at MIT, Linus was still a student when he started Linux. I know most of the staff at my university prefer Linux but don't use it on their destktops because stupid coroporate policy dictates that they must use Windows for their desktop!
As for computer science students - should they be made to use Linux? Yes! Unix (and thus Linux) was first designed as a programmer's OS, so if they can't figure out how to use it they sure as hell won't have a chance in their computer science course!
What was all this about again? Worms? What are they? I wouldn't know, I use Linux, never had any problems with worms, trojans, viruses, etc. Everytime I see the headline "virus causes $200 trillion damage" or some other ridiculously over-inflated estimate, I just laugh. I guess it's their fault for continuing to use an OS that has so many times caused so much trouble for them.
Aren't you concerned that the publicity photos available on your website make you out to be too young and attractive to have sufficient credibility?
If you look at successful politicians, most are neither young nor physically attractive, as these qualities tend to make people believe that a candidate is neither sufficiently experienced, or simply is not trustworthy.
I'm not sure of the voting system in the UK, but I know the voting system in the USA is a plurality voting system. This means that you only get to vote for one person, and if they don't win, bad luck.
Perhaps if they had a better voting system (such as the runoff voting system used in Australia), more people in this situation would vote. I live in Australia, and I know my vote is usually for someone who I think won't win - but I don't care, because my second preference for the vote will usually be someone I DO think will win. This means that if the person I wanted to win wins, good on them, but if they don't get enough votes then the vote will go to the person who I thought had more chance of winning. And of course I'm free to only vote for the person I want to win if I so choose.
If you don't vote, your opinion doesn't count.
This leaves the people that do vote as the only people the government cares about. Don't you feel that your apathy is letting your country down, since you don't have a hand in deciding who gets to run it?
When you don't have a say in who runs your country, you're living in a dictatorship. Better to spend 5 minutes voting every 5 or so years (however often elections are in the US) and know that you did your part for your country, than to wait until a hostile government is elected who introduces something terrible such as conscription (just as an example) and then realise you had the power to stop it but did nothing don't you think?
3) Jane brings her computer to you as a professional repair person to fix a part. While fixing the computer, you browse through her files to make sure everything is working correctly. You notice some files have interesting names and discover that Jane is having an affair. Do you tell her husband? Should Jane be able to sue you for breach of confidentiality if you do?
Or should you tell Jane that you found out about her affair and blackmail her into having an affair with you?
Don't you think it's funny that they're "copy-protecting" audio CDs so that CD-ROM drives can't read them, and in the process screwing over people trying to read them with audio CD players thinking that people will upgrade their CD players to play "copy protected" CDs?
Actually I think "usage restricted" is a better term.
It's funny because when you think about it, when was the last time you bought a CD player? What about a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive? Computer hardware will soon be able to handle their little trick, and before they know it their usage restrictions will only be affecting people who DON'T try and play them on CD players!
Slashdot Mirror
One ring to rule them all?
You've got it wrong; they haven't pissed off their customers, they're probably in fact doing what their customers have asked. You forget that advertisers are their customers. Now they may have pissed off consumers who use their site (and thus generate the traffic they need to attract advertisers), but I'm pretty sure their customers (the advertisers) won't be at all upset about this.
People's computers already have Windows, why would they bother changing it?
Out of all the "regular" users I know, they pretty much use all the software they got on their computer when they bought it, and never install anything else. When their computer eventually grinds to a halt (from either a bloated registry or tons of spyware), they'll either buy a new computer, or pay for a $500 "upgrade" to fix it.
As far as most people know, this is just how computers work. They've heard of Linux, but really aren't interested in it because what they have now (e.g. the Windows that came with the computer) is good enough for them.
127.0.0.1 is a system given right
It's a fundamentally good idea; people who create something have exclusive rights to sell it. Where things go wrong is when people decide to meddle with it, like continuously extending the period that it applies. Something like a 5 year limit would be appropriate in today's fast paced world. Just think; who here wants to buy a DVD or CD that is over 5 years old? Not unless it was originally issued in some other format, right? Don't confuse copyright with the fallacy of "intellectual property". Intellectual Property is a collection of laws (copyright, patents, trademarks, etc.) which should never be grouped together, because each is different and for a different purpose.
Just doing her job.
This just reads like a Monty Python sketch to me (sympathies to those who live in the UK and will have to live the joke) ...
An old man walks up to a street corner, looks around, sees no-one. Ever so slowly he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a cigarette and lighter. He puts the ciggie in his mouth, holds the light up to it, and:
CAMERA: Oi! You there! Do you really want to do that?
OLD MAN: What?! Who's there?
CAMERA: Look up, and a couple of metres to the right.
OLD MAN looks up and faces the camera.
CAMERA: You know smoking's bad for you right?
OLD MAN: I just wanted one, and I can't have them at home because the wife gives me grief.
CAMERA: Just one??! Just one you say??! You can't have just one, because once you start, you're hooked!
OLD MAN: I know that, I got hooked a long time ago.
CAMERA: Well you can get yourself unhooked right now. I won't have your type stinking up my town.
OLD MAN: I beg your pardon? I live here!
CAMERA: Not if I can help it! Now clear off before I send out the coppers!
OLD MAN makes a rude gesture at the camera.
CAMERA: Right! That's it! You've done it now!
OLD MAN: Done what? I haven't even got to have my smoke yet!
CAMERA: Don't play innocent with me, we've got the whole thing recorded.
Police siren blares.
OLD MAN: You bastard! All I wanted was a smoke and you call the bloody cops?!
Police arrive, old man runs off.
CAMERA: He went that way! After him!
--
Not funny? If only it were just a bad joke.
Not really. Why would they go for the U.S. first? Regardless of who you are, it's easier to conquer your neighbors before trying to cross a rather large ocean.
Someone should have told this to the makers of Red Alert 2.I thought maybe the US was trying to cut down on its chocolate intake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutella
Star Wars fans! All he has to do is make them in white. No joke, I know a guy who paid $600 for a lightsabre that was nothing more than a fluorescent light with colouring on it and a handle. He'd definitely pay $2000 for something as cool looking as this.
I knew it had to take a villain of the calibur of Blofeld to come up with such a diabolical plan as SCO!
I think not. The IC in ICBM is inter-continental - however India's rivalry has always been with Pakistan, who are on the same continent (thus no ICBM required for nuclear destruction). So hopefully this won't bother Pakistan at all.
In 2006 MS will release Longhorn and the new "revolutionary" WinFS which is based on NTFS and allows you to treat your entire network of devices as a single filesystem structure.
Do you mean the same style of single file system structure that Unix has had for over 30 years? This hardly seems revolutionary to me.
It would also help to explain the explosion of STD's in the Ann Arbor MI area.
Obviously not in article.
I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I know we don't have Walmarts here in Australia. Now sad to say guys, while they MIGHT dominate the United States (and Canada, and whereever else they may be) that's still not the whole world. When I see Walmart stores opening in Australia then I will start to get worried. (Although I don't see Coles/Myer or Woolworths letting them get a foot in the door to begin with).
Windows 98 was actually the "big launch" for USB on the PC, as it was a heavily touted feature. Windows 98 had much better support for USB than Win95C.
I remember that! That was that launch where they were showing off USB "plug and play" and it made windows BSOD, right?> Lastly - to tell people they have to install a certain OS on their home computer is silly. Everything is moving to device independence.. not to 'you have to use linux'. That's no better than 'you have to use windows'. Who said anything about telling people what to use at home? This is about what the universities are using on their own computers, as you so elegantly pointed out, what does it matter what they use at home?
> If you mean Linux, I assume you somehow are going to fund training all the students how to use it, along with getting all of the school's faculty and staff to support it, along with providing for Linux patch management efforts. Yeah, right. Back to the real world we go...
Insightful? That isn't insightful, that's just plain flamebait. Obviously you've never even tried using Linux! There's nothing difficult about it at all - KDE and Gnome look enough like Windows that anyone familiar with Windows can figure out how to use it for what they want. Let's not forget that in universities, most of the students just want to use word processing for reports and stuff. KOffice, OpenOffice, etc. really don't look much different to Microsoft Word which is what most people are used to using, so I don't see any retraining costs there. And the suggestion that perhaps staff wouldn't WANT to use Linux? You're forgetting that universities are where Linux came from! RMS started the GNU project in the labs at MIT, Linus was still a student when he started Linux. I know most of the staff at my university prefer Linux but don't use it on their destktops because stupid coroporate policy dictates that they must use Windows for their desktop!
As for computer science students - should they be made to use Linux? Yes! Unix (and thus Linux) was first designed as a programmer's OS, so if they can't figure out how to use it they sure as hell won't have a chance in their computer science course!
What was all this about again? Worms? What are they? I wouldn't know, I use Linux, never had any problems with worms, trojans, viruses, etc. Everytime I see the headline "virus causes $200 trillion damage" or some other ridiculously over-inflated estimate, I just laugh. I guess it's their fault for continuing to use an OS that has so many times caused so much trouble for them.
Here's some fuel for your flamewar:
- Colour
- Favourite
- Flavour
- Offence
- Licence
- Standardise
- Metre
- Centre
- Analogue
- Catalogue
- Doughnut
- Draught
- Encyclopaedia
- Grey
- Honour
- Omelette
- Sulphur
- Tyre
- Aeroplane
- Analyse
- Enrolment
It's a sad day when you post something as simple and innocent as a list of words and just know that you're going to get modded flamebait.Aren't you concerned that the publicity photos available on your website make you out to be too young and attractive to have sufficient credibility? If you look at successful politicians, most are neither young nor physically attractive, as these qualities tend to make people believe that a candidate is neither sufficiently experienced, or simply is not trustworthy.
I'm not sure of the voting system in the UK, but I know the voting system in the USA is a plurality voting system. This means that you only get to vote for one person, and if they don't win, bad luck. Perhaps if they had a better voting system (such as the runoff voting system used in Australia), more people in this situation would vote. I live in Australia, and I know my vote is usually for someone who I think won't win - but I don't care, because my second preference for the vote will usually be someone I DO think will win. This means that if the person I wanted to win wins, good on them, but if they don't get enough votes then the vote will go to the person who I thought had more chance of winning. And of course I'm free to only vote for the person I want to win if I so choose.
If you don't vote, your opinion doesn't count. This leaves the people that do vote as the only people the government cares about. Don't you feel that your apathy is letting your country down, since you don't have a hand in deciding who gets to run it? When you don't have a say in who runs your country, you're living in a dictatorship. Better to spend 5 minutes voting every 5 or so years (however often elections are in the US) and know that you did your part for your country, than to wait until a hostile government is elected who introduces something terrible such as conscription (just as an example) and then realise you had the power to stop it but did nothing don't you think?
3) Jane brings her computer to you as a professional repair person to fix a part. While fixing the computer, you browse through her files to make sure everything is working correctly. You notice some files have interesting names and discover that Jane is having an affair. Do you tell her husband? Should Jane be able to sue you for breach of confidentiality if you do?
Or should you tell Jane that you found out about her affair and blackmail her into having an affair with you?Don't you think it's funny that they're "copy-protecting" audio CDs so that CD-ROM drives can't read them, and in the process screwing over people trying to read them with audio CD players thinking that people will upgrade their CD players to play "copy protected" CDs? Actually I think "usage restricted" is a better term. It's funny because when you think about it, when was the last time you bought a CD player? What about a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive? Computer hardware will soon be able to handle their little trick, and before they know it their usage restrictions will only be affecting people who DON'T try and play them on CD players!