I must say that working (and playing) with computers all of my life, I thoroughly enjoy cooking as a welcome diversion from the world of silicon into the world of the organic.
My general rules for cooking are as follows:
1. The wok is my best friend - in it I can do anything from simple stir fries to complex curries & other Asian dishes.
2. Stir, stir and stir some more.
3. Despite being a techie and part time programmer where accuracy and preparation are paramount, I NEVER obey a recipe. Cooking is always about tasting and making things up as you go along, I cannot stand the formality around eating - serve it up with a nice wine or two to friends and just get on with enjoying it.
4. Unless you do something really silly, or try to make a recipe that's far too complex, it's impossible to mess things up. Again, it's all about making it up as you go along with a rough knowledge of what herbs go with what meats or fish.
I've not used any Stardock software apart from the two Galactic Civilization games - and I've hardly played the first one anyway.
Yes, you need an Internet connection to register initially and to get updates but I have GC 2 installed on a laptop that travels everywhere with me and I can play the game happily with no CD or Internet connection wherever I go.
Things may be different for their application software but I cannot comment because I've simply never used any of it.
While Ou was typing, Graham was running Ferret and sniffing all the cookies that were being sent from Ou's laptop and Google.
This has nothing to do with any Google insecurity.
On a wired switched network, it's only possible to sniff from either a mirrored switch port or from a hub connection that has been put somewhere in the data path of the target being sniffed. Neither of these things are a particularly easy thing to do.
On a wireless network, sure, it's easy if the network is secure and encrypted - but anyone who uses an insecure unecrypted wireless network is a total fool if he or she is surprised that this kind of exploit works.
The fact is if any encryption key exchanges go on between encrypting endpoints, if you can sniff what the two are doing and catch the data flow at the right time as a "man-in-the-middle" attack, it's theoretically possible to intercept just about any type of connection - difficult but possible.
Since those same Federal Agents are financed from the taxes of US citizens, then the games companies who will be benefitting from additional sales due to the crack down on mod chips & piracy should therefore be taxed at a heavier rate in order to recover those taxes.
The argument that's used for mod chips is that purchasers of games should be allowed to make backup copies of them. But I don't consider that the real issue here.
Firstly, in the case of PC games (or indeed any system where games are installed to a hard drive), it should not be obligatory to have the CD or DVD in the drive to play them once installed as this creates totally unnecessary wear on the CD/DVD drive and the disc itself scratches a little more every time it's inserted or removed. Whilst I don't like the "spyware" concept of Valve's Steam, I do accept that being able to load my games on any PC I like without the disk is a good thing - though all praise to Stardock for just letting you get on and play Galactic Civilizations II without the disk once you've registered your product code with them. If every games company trusted me like Stardock does, I'd feel less inclined to rip them off at every opportunity (and, no, I don't work for Stardock).
Secondly, if your original CD/DVD goes faulty, the games company charges you for a replacement. This strikes me as wrong - if they won't let you back it up, then they should provide replacements (within a reasonable amount of time) for just the cost of postage.
Besides, Trent released a couple of tracks in a format that alows anyone (ANYONE) to mix it, remix it, cut it, mash it, to basically get a taste of what it feels like to play with the "source code" of music.
Sorry, but I've never understood this "music must be interactive" crap.
Either you're a musician that creates original and interesting music or you're not a musician in which case you listen to it.
If you need to "fiddle about" with it, then it probably wasn't perfect in the first place - in which case you're not listening to the right music and probably need to go off and do some more research to find better music.
Call me old fashioned but I pay for *finished* products. When I go into a burger bar, I do not expect to have to dive over the counter and add more pickles or put the cheese beneath the burger instead of on top of it.
Remixing has *NOTHING* to do with music or art - it is *PURELY* clever marketing to sell more product by making you believe you have some kind of input into it's creation, nothing more. It's about fashion and fad, so get used to it.
Probably even a public institution can rightly claim that it is not worth the tax money to maintain a separate version of the software that is only being used by one promille of the population.
But in my view of how things should be, that issue could never arise. Where the spending of public money/taxes on IT infrastructure is concerned, it would be my assumption that a lower cost/free/Open Source solution would automatically be favoured over a closed solution. My taxes should always be being spent getting the best value for money, not filling the corporate coffers of some private company. Therefore, it would be designed from the outset as a solution everyone can use.
And indeed, when looking at formal statements by banks, most internet providers, and other similar commercial services the standpoint usually is "we only support Windows, but you may be able to use your Mac or Linux system at your own risk. don't bother calling us when it doesn't work".
But I don't have a problem with that statement necessarily. Everyone knows that if you bother to run Linux then you're probably quite technically savvy and can support yourself fairly adequately. More importantly, the bank/ISP system *MUST* be implemented using open standards so that anyone can write applications for that system.
I'm also a Linux user and geek as well as the local "PC repairman who does freebies for friends & family".
I have actually gone a stage further with Windows users I support (at least from the perspective of their personal/home PCs) and told them that I simply will not fix their PCs free-of-charge any longer unless they use Firefox & Thunderbird as well as demonstrating that they regularly run (and keep updated) AVG AntiVirus Personal, AdAware Personal and Spybot S&D. Every one of these is a free tool (for personal use at least) and there are therefore no excuses.
Since I've done this, the number of problems I am having to fix has dropped dramatically. No, this doesn't help corporate environments but I'm sure there are a lot of us out here tasked with fixing personal PCs and can therefore apply this type of leverage to lazy users.
n such a market, it is not surprising that only Windows is supported.
I'm afraid that's not the issue in this instance.
Presumably the "department of finance" that you talk about is a government office that is ultimately providing a service to *ALL* citizens, not just those who run Microsoft Windows. Therefore, they have an obligation to implement all of their systems in an *OPEN* fashion that does not exclude anyone from using that service, a service that was ultimately financed by everyone's taxes.
Here in the UK, where we all pay a TV license for the services of the BBC, there has already been a *SEVERE* backlash against them for intending to implement media streaming of their programming using Microsoft DRM techniques - to the point where they are now climbing down on this decision and looking at alternative open solutions that everyone can use.
I have absolutely no problem with a commercial entity not choosing to support Linux due to financial constraints and profitability - but a government or public-financed institution is setting a very disturbing trend if it excludes all those who choose not to pay the Microsoft tax.
Over here in the UK I read a magazine called "Classic Rock" because I'm a middle-aged old duffer into Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Black Sabbath and, yes, even the occasional (classic 70s) Elton John album.
A couple of months ago, a freebie brochure-cum-mini magazine fell out listing all of the rock music festivals going on in-and-around Europe over the summer - no lies, but there were *at least* 70 music festivals!
I guess one reason for this is the ludicrous prices of concert tickets and the rip-off sellers like Ticketmaster that charge *extortionate* booking fees simply for putting a couple of tickets in the post - the fact is that a festival is going to give you "more bands for your money".
I don't like a lot of the modern music but I don't see any shortage of live gigs to go to and the whole live music scene is very vibrant - hell, even heroes of mine like Uriah Heep and Magnum, all of them approaching their 60s, are touring quite regularly *and* charging reasonable amounts for tickets.
The sad fact is that Elton John is a "has-been" and has now become more media celebrity than musician - these days, he's more known for his gay marriage to his partner, wild parties & sucking up to Disney to write film soundtracks rather than the classic music he did during the 70s like "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Captain Fantastic".
Nope, I can't stand music downloads & most modern music either but the fact is that I can still buy CDs at reasonable prices (not in rip-off stores like Virgin or HMV) and there is more than enough live music for me to go and see - so what anyone else does is up to them, I'm in my 40s and well catered for...
Don't expect to get modded up "Funny" or anything.
Most of the Slashdotters are Yanks who are still in bed anyway and never saw the Sinclair Spectrum - they had the infinitely less preferable Commodore 64.
Sorry, but if you're serious about using Linux then it's up to you to get off your backside and devote some time to learning how an operating system and free software works - it is not going to just drop into your lap.
There is a wealth of free Linux distributions & free software out on the Internet and a far greater number of people will to devote time to helping others with Linux issues - however, to interact with that community, you need to demonstrate some self motivation and interest in your own computer, rather than expecting someone else to fix it.
Nobody is forcing you to use Linux. If Windows does the job you need it to do then stick with it - only one of the minority of Linux zealots would tell you to do otherwise.
Only when you've put some serious effort into learning Linux, and the general UNIX mindset, can you appreciate what it can do for your productivity in terms of security, stability & automation. Until then, don't even try to understand it...
That's because I listen to pretty obscure (on the whole) rock & blues music that doesn't get any airplay - so I use the downloads to preview an album. If I like it, I buy it because I'm old fashioned and like a nice shiny disc to play loud on a reasonable hifi - if I don't like it, I delete the MP3s.
I will NEVER pay for downloaded music and the stuff I download for free is not something I necessary play immediately - it might sit on my hard disk for a week or two before I get round to listening to it. Therefore this system is of bugger all use to me.
With that said, I really don't care what the RIAA, MS etc do to restricting music - I have almost 1000 albums on CD and more than enough music to listen to over the rest of my lifetime anyway.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the teens and "20 somethings" these days treat music as a fashion item that just gets deleted when it becomes unfashionable - as a result, it's mostly plasticised trash that they don't want to pay for. Therefore the RIAA and MS will force them to pay for it.
No other OEMs bother to make desktops into ergonomic or stylish designs.
It's a *TOOL* - it performs a job, whether its wrting a document, editing pictures or playing a game. It does *NOT* need to be stylish or ergonomic, except for those insecure people who need approval and/or admiration from their peers for everything they do, and therefore need everything they own to be *NOTICED*.
And let's face it - that last episode of this season was the biggest load of crap so far in the revised Dr Who.
Casting John Simm as The Master was inspired (and I thoroughly recommend to anyone here to get hold of "Life On Mars", an excellent British "cop show with a twist" that finished recently in which he also had a lead role) and the two lead up episodes were great - but the finale was a TOTAL letdown.
But as for the subliminal messages, Apple users are more like magpies, attracted to the little shiny silver apples glinting in the sunlight...
Doesn't that mean that the players have already got a (first) life?
Re:Why do Open Information People Care?
on
Vista is Watching You
·
· Score: 4, Informative
In fact, I'd bet there's MORE applications on Linux that send your private information back to some web server somewhere, just because Linux sockets are easier to write for than their Windows cousins and so Linux has and will always have a lead over networking for developers.
Let's assume for one moment that what you are saying is correct (although I don't believe for one moment that it is), then since these are independent applications, then it's very easy to disable or uninstall them if you don't like them phoning home. So, pray tell, how would you do this in Windows where the "phoning home" is being done by a stealth application that's running as part of the intrinsic underlying OS.
Also, you're turning this into a "Windows vs Linux" discussion which is an overly simplistic viewpoint. Open Source applications are subject to constant peer review meaning that any suspicious "phoning home" would be rapidly identified and brought out into public attention. I can't comment on YaST as I don't use SuSE Linux but I suspect, as a commercial entity, they are interested in user information but since there are a myriad of Open Source applications that run on Windows also, this is more a case of Open vs Closed Source, not Windows vs Linux.
So, you might charaterize things less harshly as follows : Linux tries to let you keep your personal information private but all of your work product is public, and Windows keeps all of your work product private but your personal information is public.
Sorry, but that's utter trash. Aside from stability, "free beer" and customisability, the main reason I use Linux as my primary OS choice is that it allows *ME* to take responsibility for protecting *MY* information and does not allow me to dump that responsibility into the hands of some private entity.
I am one of the first people to volunteer to take part in surveys and information gathering excercises because when I am *ASKED* to provide information and have the choice of what information to and not to provide, it can be very useful to someone who is designing or marketting a product or service. But I am *NOT* going to let someone just take that information - and if that means never using Vista then so be it...
Why would any Linux user need a desktop search tool anyhow?
Bearing in mind that *most* stuff on Linux is in plain text anyhow, the standard text tools like grep, awk and sed, along with good use of find is more than enough - get to grip with a few regular expressions and it can beat any single binary hands down.
It's not that Google desktop for Linux is binary, more that it's redundant.
I have to admit that I never understood the popularity of Halo either.
Sure, I completed Halo Combat Evolved on my PC - it was good fun, if a little annoying with the "Disney-ish" aliens running about but not a patch on Half-Life or Far Cry.
As for multiplayer, I played a little on a friend's X-Box but have never tried it on the PC purely because it's not going to better Unreal Tournament 2004 or Counter-strike.
Halo's a reasonable game but owes far more of its sales to hype rather than quality.
Rubbish! If you think CDs are overpriced then you're not:
a) Buying them from the right retailers - High Street stores like HMV and Virgin in the UK are *RIP OFF MERCHANTS* and I fail to understand how they stay in business, and
b) You're not listening to the right music. The idea that CDs have "one or two good tracks" is utter nonsense! That may be the case for plasticised modern pop music but there are plenty of 100% classic albums out there no matter what genre you like - it's just a case of doing some research before you buy.
The real problem is that music has become far too "disposable" for a lot of people meaning that they're unwilling to give it time and effort - both in hunting down the best CD prices and finding good music.
Slashdot Mirror
My general rules for cooking are as follows:
1. The wok is my best friend - in it I can do anything from simple stir fries to complex curries & other Asian dishes.
2. Stir, stir and stir some more.
3. Despite being a techie and part time programmer where accuracy and preparation are paramount, I NEVER obey a recipe. Cooking is always about tasting and making things up as you go along, I cannot stand the formality around eating - serve it up with a nice wine or two to friends and just get on with enjoying it.
4. Unless you do something really silly, or try to make a recipe that's far too complex, it's impossible to mess things up. Again, it's all about making it up as you go along with a rough knowledge of what herbs go with what meats or fish.
Any other programming cooks reading this?
It's called "capitalism", you are a "consumer", you have a "choice".
And no, I'm not a WoW player & never have been - my Blizzard experiences ended with Warcraft 2, Starcraft & Diablo.
Yes, you need an Internet connection to register initially and to get updates but I have GC 2 installed on a laptop that travels everywhere with me and I can play the game happily with no CD or Internet connection wherever I go.
Things may be different for their application software but I cannot comment because I've simply never used any of it.
This has nothing to do with any Google insecurity.
On a wired switched network, it's only possible to sniff from either a mirrored switch port or from a hub connection that has been put somewhere in the data path of the target being sniffed. Neither of these things are a particularly easy thing to do.
On a wireless network, sure, it's easy if the network is secure and encrypted - but anyone who uses an insecure unecrypted wireless network is a total fool if he or she is surprised that this kind of exploit works.
The fact is if any encryption key exchanges go on between encrypting endpoints, if you can sniff what the two are doing and catch the data flow at the right time as a "man-in-the-middle" attack, it's theoretically possible to intercept just about any type of connection - difficult but possible.
Move along, there really is nothing to see here.
Since those same Federal Agents are financed from the taxes of US citizens, then the games companies who will be benefitting from additional sales due to the crack down on mod chips & piracy should therefore be taxed at a heavier rate in order to recover those taxes.
Firstly, in the case of PC games (or indeed any system where games are installed to a hard drive), it should not be obligatory to have the CD or DVD in the drive to play them once installed as this creates totally unnecessary wear on the CD/DVD drive and the disc itself scratches a little more every time it's inserted or removed. Whilst I don't like the "spyware" concept of Valve's Steam, I do accept that being able to load my games on any PC I like without the disk is a good thing - though all praise to Stardock for just letting you get on and play Galactic Civilizations II without the disk once you've registered your product code with them. If every games company trusted me like Stardock does, I'd feel less inclined to rip them off at every opportunity (and, no, I don't work for Stardock).
Secondly, if your original CD/DVD goes faulty, the games company charges you for a replacement. This strikes me as wrong - if they won't let you back it up, then they should provide replacements (within a reasonable amount of time) for just the cost of postage.
Sorry, but I've never understood this "music must be interactive" crap.
Either you're a musician that creates original and interesting music or you're not a musician in which case you listen to it.
If you need to "fiddle about" with it, then it probably wasn't perfect in the first place - in which case you're not listening to the right music and probably need to go off and do some more research to find better music.
Call me old fashioned but I pay for *finished* products. When I go into a burger bar, I do not expect to have to dive over the counter and add more pickles or put the cheese beneath the burger instead of on top of it.
Remixing has *NOTHING* to do with music or art - it is *PURELY* clever marketing to sell more product by making you believe you have some kind of input into it's creation, nothing more. It's about fashion and fad, so get used to it.
But in my view of how things should be, that issue could never arise. Where the spending of public money/taxes on IT infrastructure is concerned, it would be my assumption that a lower cost/free/Open Source solution would automatically be favoured over a closed solution. My taxes should always be being spent getting the best value for money, not filling the corporate coffers of some private company. Therefore, it would be designed from the outset as a solution everyone can use.
And indeed, when looking at formal statements by banks, most internet providers, and other similar commercial services the standpoint usually is "we only support Windows, but you may be able to use your Mac or Linux system at your own risk. don't bother calling us when it doesn't work".
But I don't have a problem with that statement necessarily. Everyone knows that if you bother to run Linux then you're probably quite technically savvy and can support yourself fairly adequately. More importantly, the bank/ISP system *MUST* be implemented using open standards so that anyone can write applications for that system.
I have actually gone a stage further with Windows users I support (at least from the perspective of their personal/home PCs) and told them that I simply will not fix their PCs free-of-charge any longer unless they use Firefox & Thunderbird as well as demonstrating that they regularly run (and keep updated) AVG AntiVirus Personal, AdAware Personal and Spybot S&D. Every one of these is a free tool (for personal use at least) and there are therefore no excuses.
Since I've done this, the number of problems I am having to fix has dropped dramatically. No, this doesn't help corporate environments but I'm sure there are a lot of us out here tasked with fixing personal PCs and can therefore apply this type of leverage to lazy users.
I'm afraid that's not the issue in this instance.
Presumably the "department of finance" that you talk about is a government office that is ultimately providing a service to *ALL* citizens, not just those who run Microsoft Windows. Therefore, they have an obligation to implement all of their systems in an *OPEN* fashion that does not exclude anyone from using that service, a service that was ultimately financed by everyone's taxes.
Here in the UK, where we all pay a TV license for the services of the BBC, there has already been a *SEVERE* backlash against them for intending to implement media streaming of their programming using Microsoft DRM techniques - to the point where they are now climbing down on this decision and looking at alternative open solutions that everyone can use.
I have absolutely no problem with a commercial entity not choosing to support Linux due to financial constraints and profitability - but a government or public-financed institution is setting a very disturbing trend if it excludes all those who choose not to pay the Microsoft tax.
A couple of months ago, a freebie brochure-cum-mini magazine fell out listing all of the rock music festivals going on in-and-around Europe over the summer - no lies, but there were *at least* 70 music festivals!
I guess one reason for this is the ludicrous prices of concert tickets and the rip-off sellers like Ticketmaster that charge *extortionate* booking fees simply for putting a couple of tickets in the post - the fact is that a festival is going to give you "more bands for your money".
I don't like a lot of the modern music but I don't see any shortage of live gigs to go to and the whole live music scene is very vibrant - hell, even heroes of mine like Uriah Heep and Magnum, all of them approaching their 60s, are touring quite regularly *and* charging reasonable amounts for tickets.
The sad fact is that Elton John is a "has-been" and has now become more media celebrity than musician - these days, he's more known for his gay marriage to his partner, wild parties & sucking up to Disney to write film soundtracks rather than the classic music he did during the 70s like "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Captain Fantastic".
Nope, I can't stand music downloads & most modern music either but the fact is that I can still buy CDs at reasonable prices (not in rip-off stores like Virgin or HMV) and there is more than enough live music for me to go and see - so what anyone else does is up to them, I'm in my 40s and well catered for...
Most of the Slashdotters are Yanks who are still in bed anyway and never saw the Sinclair Spectrum - they had the infinitely less preferable Commodore 64.
There is a wealth of free Linux distributions & free software out on the Internet and a far greater number of people will to devote time to helping others with Linux issues - however, to interact with that community, you need to demonstrate some self motivation and interest in your own computer, rather than expecting someone else to fix it.
Nobody is forcing you to use Linux. If Windows does the job you need it to do then stick with it - only one of the minority of Linux zealots would tell you to do otherwise.
Only when you've put some serious effort into learning Linux, and the general UNIX mindset, can you appreciate what it can do for your productivity in terms of security, stability & automation. Until then, don't even try to understand it...
That's because I listen to pretty obscure (on the whole) rock & blues music that doesn't get any airplay - so I use the downloads to preview an album. If I like it, I buy it because I'm old fashioned and like a nice shiny disc to play loud on a reasonable hifi - if I don't like it, I delete the MP3s.
I will NEVER pay for downloaded music and the stuff I download for free is not something I necessary play immediately - it might sit on my hard disk for a week or two before I get round to listening to it. Therefore this system is of bugger all use to me.
With that said, I really don't care what the RIAA, MS etc do to restricting music - I have almost 1000 albums on CD and more than enough music to listen to over the rest of my lifetime anyway.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the teens and "20 somethings" these days treat music as a fashion item that just gets deleted when it becomes unfashionable - as a result, it's mostly plasticised trash that they don't want to pay for. Therefore the RIAA and MS will force them to pay for it.
Hey, it's Microsoft. They make money from other peoples' ideas. That's what they've always done.
That's just a big black bloke talking over a repetitive riff he's stolen from some proper music.
It's a *TOOL* - it performs a job, whether its wrting a document, editing pictures or playing a game. It does *NOT* need to be stylish or ergonomic, except for those insecure people who need approval and/or admiration from their peers for everything they do, and therefore need everything they own to be *NOTICED*.
It's like a moronic dwarf - it's not big and it's not clever.
Casting John Simm as The Master was inspired (and I thoroughly recommend to anyone here to get hold of "Life On Mars", an excellent British "cop show with a twist" that finished recently in which he also had a lead role) and the two lead up episodes were great - but the finale was a TOTAL letdown.
But as for the subliminal messages, Apple users are more like magpies, attracted to the little shiny silver apples glinting in the sunlight...
Doesn't that mean that the players have already got a (first) life?
Let's assume for one moment that what you are saying is correct (although I don't believe for one moment that it is), then since these are independent applications, then it's very easy to disable or uninstall them if you don't like them phoning home. So, pray tell, how would you do this in Windows where the "phoning home" is being done by a stealth application that's running as part of the intrinsic underlying OS.
Also, you're turning this into a "Windows vs Linux" discussion which is an overly simplistic viewpoint. Open Source applications are subject to constant peer review meaning that any suspicious "phoning home" would be rapidly identified and brought out into public attention. I can't comment on YaST as I don't use SuSE Linux but I suspect, as a commercial entity, they are interested in user information but since there are a myriad of Open Source applications that run on Windows also, this is more a case of Open vs Closed Source, not Windows vs Linux.
So, you might charaterize things less harshly as follows : Linux tries to let you keep your personal information private but all of your work product is public, and Windows keeps all of your work product private but your personal information is public.
Sorry, but that's utter trash. Aside from stability, "free beer" and customisability, the main reason I use Linux as my primary OS choice is that it allows *ME* to take responsibility for protecting *MY* information and does not allow me to dump that responsibility into the hands of some private entity.
I am one of the first people to volunteer to take part in surveys and information gathering excercises because when I am *ASKED* to provide information and have the choice of what information to and not to provide, it can be very useful to someone who is designing or marketting a product or service. But I am *NOT* going to let someone just take that information - and if that means never using Vista then so be it...
Bearing in mind that *most* stuff on Linux is in plain text anyhow, the standard text tools like grep, awk and sed, along with good use of find is more than enough - get to grip with a few regular expressions and it can beat any single binary hands down.
It's not that Google desktop for Linux is binary, more that it's redundant.
Sure, I completed Halo Combat Evolved on my PC - it was good fun, if a little annoying with the "Disney-ish" aliens running about but not a patch on Half-Life or Far Cry.
As for multiplayer, I played a little on a friend's X-Box but have never tried it on the PC purely because it's not going to better Unreal Tournament 2004 or Counter-strike.
Halo's a reasonable game but owes far more of its sales to hype rather than quality.
...frickin' laser beams on their heads!
Rubbish! If you think CDs are overpriced then you're not:
a) Buying them from the right retailers - High Street stores like HMV and Virgin in the UK are *RIP OFF MERCHANTS* and I fail to understand how they stay in business, and
b) You're not listening to the right music. The idea that CDs have "one or two good tracks" is utter nonsense! That may be the case for plasticised modern pop music but there are plenty of 100% classic albums out there no matter what genre you like - it's just a case of doing some research before you buy.
The real problem is that music has become far too "disposable" for a lot of people meaning that they're unwilling to give it time and effort - both in hunting down the best CD prices and finding good music.