Neither is Notepad or Calculator, but they're both good to have. For many people, having a media player is critical to them -- they bought a computer expecting it to play music and video, and if it doesn't do so out of the box, then it's broken.
As far as IE goes, integration helps developers because they can always expect this IE rendering component to be available so they can render webpages embedded in their applications easily. This is important partially because MS has used HTML as part of the Windows GUI (help files, Active Desktop, etc), and tighter integration ensure uniformity across systems, and useful MS extensions.
I do think it would be better if they could be uninstalled -- you should be able to remove it for computers that truly don't need it (e.g. servers), and if you do need it, it's your own fault for uninstalling -- you have the freedom to shoot yourself in the foot.
I believe what the grandparent poster was implying by "One man, one vote" was that this means the vote of someone who is highly educated is equal to the vote of the village idiot.
The fact that your simple untrained eye is enough to see baboons are less inteligent that (most) people, makes obvious that [put your favorite ethnic group here] can't be soooo much "inteligent" (whatever the exact definition is) than your [hathred ethinc group here] or else you wouldn't need a group of scientists to tell you.
Good point. However, that doesn't mean that people won't harp over minor differences.
Regarding the on average, I agree. But you can still say that Group A is mucher better on average that Group B, so much so that a few standard deviations of Group A are completely above a few standard deviations of Group B.
Secondly, I'm not saying that we shouldn't do something, but rather I'm trying to present both sides and their perspectives. I don't think your analogies is very accurate. This is about discovering something about ourselves that could affect society in a fundametnal way -- I can't think of a good analogy for that situation. It would be fascinating to find out, but we should be careful what we ask for. Knowing certain things could redefine life and society as we know it.
This is true. There's a whole other can of worms here too, what with genetically selecting your children and what-not. As has been pointed out, this is a double-edged sword. I think there was a Slashdot article not long ago about certain genetic defects/variations that led to above average intelligence. It's impossible to draw a line here.
I'm sure everyone has heard the phrase "I don't want to know". Sometimes I wonder if there are some things that scientists should avoid studying. For example, what if it could be scientifically proven, without a doubt, that race A was in many ways superior to race B? The scientist may be perfectly capable of accepting this without it affecting his actions towards others, but the rest of the world may see this as an excuse or reason to treat race B as inferior.
Alternatively, the opposing view would be that yes, this should be allowed to happen, because it's the truth, and we should learn to adapt to this knowledge. Perhaps this is the more correct answer. But I think it all depends on your values, and I don't think there can ever be a correct answer to this question. But exploring both sides can be valuable insight.
They do note that that some games had weird graphical glitches that came and went after turning the additional pipelines on, so the increase in performance may come at the cost of quality, depending on the card you got.
Why should I listen to him if I don't want to do what he did in the first place? Really, his line of reasoning, I shouldn't pay any attention to him whatsoever.
One interesting thing about using liquid metals is that you would need to make sure that it stayed melted. This is pretty easy with water, but if your metal melts at room temperature, your pipes may freeze/burst and no liquid metal is going to get pumped... The longer your pipes are, the more problematic this could get with metals that melt around room temperature.
[blockquote]And this, kids, is the difference between 'reporting' and 'journalism'.[/blockquote]
I wish this was emphasized more -- I hear it every now and then, but I never heard it when I was growing up. There are a lot of people who have not had the difference explained to them (myself included), and with the increasing popularity of reporting over journalism, the distinction is becoming more and more relevant. Sensational reporting is naturally attractive, I don't think there's any changing that, but the value of fact-checking and analysis needs to be taught. I'm afraid a generation of bloggers is going to grow up unaware of this, and it's not really their fault -- they simply haven't been taught.
I've done this to one of my drives, and I blow on the PCB. Why? Because when you think about what typically fails on a HDD, it's the controller. Keep the electronics cool, the drive will last longer.
I've been doing this for a while now (I just used cover plates on each side with holes drilled in them instead of a bracket), and I'm sure that the dinky field put out by a fan is nothing compared to the super strong magnet present in the hard drive itself.
I think the point was that most people won't know what 6 things to click on to disable it for good. I mean, most everything is just clicks and keystrokes, but knowing what and where to click on is difficult for a lot of people.
Two things:
1. Just because you don't care doesn't mean other people won't care. A lot of people (especially in a business environment) do have more than one person logging.
2. The article is trying to point out something that Linux installs could improve on. That is all.
If you had read the article, you'd have realized that this was not Windows vs Linux. It was a report on how a fork bomb can take down default Linux installs, but not default BSD installs. Also, the article was clearly not concerned about single-user installs, but multi-user. Or if the box is hacked into, this is an extra bit of protection.
Slashdot Mirror
Neither is Notepad or Calculator, but they're both good to have. For many people, having a media player is critical to them -- they bought a computer expecting it to play music and video, and if it doesn't do so out of the box, then it's broken.
As far as IE goes, integration helps developers because they can always expect this IE rendering component to be available so they can render webpages embedded in their applications easily. This is important partially because MS has used HTML as part of the Windows GUI (help files, Active Desktop, etc), and tighter integration ensure uniformity across systems, and useful MS extensions.
I do think it would be better if they could be uninstalled -- you should be able to remove it for computers that truly don't need it (e.g. servers), and if you do need it, it's your own fault for uninstalling -- you have the freedom to shoot yourself in the foot.
I believe what the grandparent poster was implying by "One man, one vote" was that this means the vote of someone who is highly educated is equal to the vote of the village idiot.
Regarding the on average, I agree. But you can still say that Group A is mucher better on average that Group B, so much so that a few standard deviations of Group A are completely above a few standard deviations of Group B.
Secondly, I'm not saying that we shouldn't do something, but rather I'm trying to present both sides and their perspectives. I don't think your analogies is very accurate. This is about discovering something about ourselves that could affect society in a fundametnal way -- I can't think of a good analogy for that situation. It would be fascinating to find out, but we should be careful what we ask for. Knowing certain things could redefine life and society as we know it.
This is true. There's a whole other can of worms here too, what with genetically selecting your children and what-not. As has been pointed out, this is a double-edged sword. I think there was a Slashdot article not long ago about certain genetic defects/variations that led to above average intelligence. It's impossible to draw a line here.
I'm sure everyone has heard the phrase "I don't want to know". Sometimes I wonder if there are some things that scientists should avoid studying. For example, what if it could be scientifically proven, without a doubt, that race A was in many ways superior to race B? The scientist may be perfectly capable of accepting this without it affecting his actions towards others, but the rest of the world may see this as an excuse or reason to treat race B as inferior.
Alternatively, the opposing view would be that yes, this should be allowed to happen, because it's the truth, and we should learn to adapt to this knowledge. Perhaps this is the more correct answer. But I think it all depends on your values, and I don't think there can ever be a correct answer to this question. But exploring both sides can be valuable insight.
from the users-need-to-think-before-they-pick-names dept.
How excellent.
They do note that that some games had weird graphical glitches that came and went after turning the additional pipelines on, so the increase in performance may come at the cost of quality, depending on the card you got.
I guess that wouldn't be triangulation then :-)
D'oh! Forgot about that :-]
Yes, clearly this is all his fault.
That last bit was sarcasm, by the
way.
One interesting thing about using liquid metals is that you would need to make sure that it stayed melted. This is pretty easy with water, but if your metal melts at room temperature, your pipes may freeze/burst and no liquid metal is going to get pumped... The longer your pipes are, the more problematic this could get with metals that melt around room temperature.
[blockquote]And this, kids, is the difference between 'reporting' and 'journalism'.[/blockquote] I wish this was emphasized more -- I hear it every now and then, but I never heard it when I was growing up. There are a lot of people who have not had the difference explained to them (myself included), and with the increasing popularity of reporting over journalism, the distinction is becoming more and more relevant. Sensational reporting is naturally attractive, I don't think there's any changing that, but the value of fact-checking and analysis needs to be taught. I'm afraid a generation of bloggers is going to grow up unaware of this, and it's not really their fault -- they simply haven't been taught.
I've done this to one of my drives, and I blow on the PCB. Why? Because when you think about what typically fails on a HDD, it's the controller. Keep the electronics cool, the drive will last longer.
I've been doing this for a while now (I just used cover plates on each side with holes drilled in them instead of a bracket), and I'm sure that the dinky field put out by a fan is nothing compared to the super strong magnet present in the hard drive itself.
Say it out loud a few times. It's a (bad) pun. :-]
Forgot to add to my previous comment, I think this is fine -- if you can't figure out how to do it, you shouldn't be doing it anyway.
I'm not saying it's hard, just that a lot of people would have a hard time doing even that.
They've had enough time to upgrade by now. I'm picturing Nelson in my head, pointing at the exec "HA-HA!"
I think the point was that most people won't know what 6 things to click on to disable it for good. I mean, most everything is just clicks and keystrokes, but knowing what and where to click on is difficult for a lot of people.
I like how he duped the word "for" in his comment: Update for for the dupe.
Two things: 1. Just because you don't care doesn't mean other people won't care. A lot of people (especially in a business environment) do have more than one person logging. 2. The article is trying to point out something that Linux installs could improve on. That is all.
If you had read the article, you'd have realized that this was not Windows vs Linux. It was a report on how a fork bomb can take down default Linux installs, but not default BSD installs. Also, the article was clearly not concerned about single-user installs, but multi-user. Or if the box is hacked into, this is an extra bit of protection.