# The MandrakeMove Boxed Edition is now available at MandrakeStore.com. The Boxed Edition provides the MandrakeMove system, plus the capability to save configuration and personal data to a USB key, plus additional commercial software such as NVidia(R) drivers, Acrobat(R) ReaderTM, RealPlayerTM, FlashPlayerTM, and MandrakeMove documentation.
I call that a good reason to buy the boxed version. When travelling, this is the perfect way to have your office at hand with 99% of the Wintel-Boxes out there.
" Does anyone know how much the US government spends on Microsoft software every year?"
That's irrelevant, because Microsoft is an American company and every product sold by them directly benefits the US economy.
It's a completely different story with any NON-US entity, since every MS-product sold also directly benefits the US-economy and directly harms this entity's own IT-industry.
We have a vendor lock-in, no R&D in the country, no nondor-trained staff etc.
That is the point and that's why every single government in the world is going to switch to non-NS products in the long run, no matter how high the discount.
"Americans don't want to live in squaler. Because they want a decent life, we've been forced to look elseswhere. When Americans are ready to live in mud huts, we'll bring there jobs back." said an HP spokeperson, shorltly befor heading off in her limosine."
Seems like they've already outsourced Spelling 101 to India. "
Fiorina, or any other CEO, tries to hire the best people for the least amount of money.
Would you do the same? If so, you are a hypocrite, if not, you are a fool."
Why don't you ask an exec of one of the defense industry's megacorps?
That's the only sector where outsourcing is a NoNo. Incidentally, that's the only sector which produces economic growth in the US and the one sector that invests most of its capital into R&D.
Now, if only the defense industry were good for something else than bombing the fuck out of people.
Sorry for the double post, I fell into my own HTML and not-preview trap, so I might as well add the motivation behind saying what I said. So:
"Why should I take the effort to write an interesting, researched argument when my post will be quickly modded down and not read?"
1. Some will ignore it.
2. Some will read part of it, then skip to the next article.
3. Some will read the whole thing.
4. Some will archive it, and forward it to a lot of people.
5. Maybe one, or more people will reply to you telling you what
they thought of the article. They might even follow it up if
they have something to add.
This is sadly the ideal picture. People will follow-up even though they have nothing to add, although you have to suffer from a severe case of [...] talent and luck to ever experience case 4 and 5. Some very good [...] posts have generated absolutely no response, or in other words the same response as you'd get if you wrote it on a piece of paper only to flush it out the toilet. Then why post?
Because you fucking feel like it!
[...]
I think that sums up nicely why one should never post something and think about possibly being modded down. There will always be enough people to read a posting, no matter what moderators say. You may not hear back from them, but they are still there, trust me.
With that in mind, I found the newsgroup in question one of the most inspiring places on the net, remarkably free of group think and full of controversial ideas. Actually, it is one of those places Paul Graham talks about in his essay where you can "think the unthinkable", and further on he says:
"The trouble with keeping your thoughts secret, though, is that you lose the advantages of discussion. Talking about an idea leads to more ideas. So the optimal plan, if you can manage it, is to have a few trusted friends you can speak openly to."
It's up to you to regard/. as such a "friendly" place, but by NOT posting because of thinking about being modded down you may already have decided.
Sorry for the double post, I fell into my own HTML and not-preview trap, so I might as well add the motivation behind saying what I said. So:
"Why should I take the effort to write an interesting, researched argument when my post will be quickly modded down and not read?"
1. Some will ignore it.
2. Some will read part of it, then skip to the next article.
3. Some will read the whole thing.
4. Some will archive it, and forward it to a lot of people.
5. Maybe one, or more people will reply to you telling you what
they thought of the article. They might even follow it up if
they have something to add.
This is sadly the ideal picture. People will follow-up even though
they have nothing to add, although you have to suffer from a severe case
of [...] talent and luck to ever experience case 4 and 5. Some very
good [...] posts have generated absolutely no response, or in other
words the same response as you'd get if you wrote it on a piece of paper
only to flush it out the toilet. Then why post?
Because you fucking feel like it!
[...]
I think that sums up nicely why one should never post something and think
about possibly being modded down. There will always be enough people to
read a posting, no matter what moderators say. You may not hear back from
them, but they are still there, trust me.
With that in mind, I found the newsgroup in question one of the most inspiring
places on the net, remarkably free of group think and full of controversial
ideas. Actually, it is one of those places Paul Graham talks about in his
essay where you can "think the unthinkable", and further on he says:
"The trouble with keeping your thoughts secret, though, is that you lose
the advantages of discussion. Talking about an idea leads to more ideas.
So the optimal plan, if you can manage it, is to have a few trusted friends
you can speak openly to."
It's up to you to regard/. as such a "friendly" place, but by NOT posting
because of thinking about being modded down you may already have decided.
"Why should I take the effort to write an interesting, researched argument when my post will be quickly modded down and not read?"
Because you fucking feel like it.
With $50 billion in the bank comes political clout that no open source project can hope to counter. MS, along with their industry lackys, will push for, and we will have enacted legislation making it illegal to use software that doesn't have "content protection" built in at the hardware level. Of course only "approved" software will have any real access to the hardware, and any thought of truely open source operating systems will be lost. Major hardware vendors will produce motherboards, processors, and mass storage devices for sale in the USA that can only be accessed by approved software with proper digital ids and signatures. Of course this will be able to be hacked, but it will relagate open source back into a hobby! No amount of GPL'd code can overcome the fact that it will be a crime(as in DMCA) to break the "trusted computing" layer in hardware to allow code not certified "acceptable" to have free access to the CD/DVD/network/RAM/processor/video card etc.... Just a nightmare that Orwell would be proud of!
Your last sentence is incomplete. It has to end with "in the USA".
For thirty years, Microsoft competed
in a market that had essentially
zero competition. Now, after having delivered fairly robust and stable
systems (Windows XP and 2k), they are no longer selling to untapped
markets. Of course their profits are going to taper off. This has
absolutely nothing to do with Linux, BSD, Apple, or Sun. This has
everything to do with classic market mechanics.
You are completely missing the point:
You are assuming technological standstill and I doubt that very
much. In 2 or 3 years Microsoft's products will be outdated and old,
meaning that fancy new hightech stuff needs constant development,
support and the need to pay for that from a stream of revenue.
And we are seeing a deep erosion of that stream these days with
discounts all over the place in critical parts of the market.
In the near future we will have two kinds of platforms. One platform will be a fully integrated appliance that runs Windows in DRM-nightmare mode with BIOS lockin.
[...]
The other camp will be composed of business users, hackers, and those curious enough to want to do more with their computer than what the manufacturer tells them to.
You are forgetting Non-US government systems, banks, energy systems and other critical computer controlled environments. Those you will hardly see on a platform that needs to give an infinite amount of trust to one single corporation. Only really stupid governments will not understand that losing control over your critical systems in a totally networked world is a threat to each state's national security.
If Microsoft cannot reach and pentrate these markets, their loss of money will reach ginormous proportions.
While we can simply assume that there will be a "Next Generation Secure Computing Base", we can also assume that it will not be controlled by Microsoft.
"However, synaptic touchpad and pcmcia Wi-Fi seem to be broken in 2.6 so had to go back to 2.4 kernel."
Huh? PCMCIA WiFi definitely is not borken in the 2.6 kernel, it even supports a wider variety of cards than with the previous versions.
Slashdot Mirror
# The MandrakeMove Boxed Edition is now available at MandrakeStore.com. The Boxed Edition provides the MandrakeMove system, plus the capability to save configuration and personal data to a USB key, plus additional commercial software such as NVidia(R) drivers, Acrobat(R) ReaderTM, RealPlayerTM, FlashPlayerTM, and MandrakeMove documentation.
I call that a good reason to buy the boxed version. When travelling, this is the perfect way to have your office at hand with 99% of the Wintel-Boxes out there.
"Oh yea, and these US companies aren't outsourcing work overseas?"
I wasn't talking about US-companies. Please read more carefully.
" Does anyone know how much the US government spends on Microsoft software every year?"
That's irrelevant, because Microsoft is an American company and every product sold by them directly benefits the US economy.
It's a completely different story with any NON-US entity, since every MS-product sold also directly benefits the US-economy and directly harms this entity's own IT-industry.
We have a vendor lock-in, no R&D in the country, no nondor-trained staff etc.
That is the point and that's why every single government in the world is going to switch to non-NS products in the long run, no matter how high the discount.
"Americans don't want to live in squaler. Because they want a decent life, we've been forced to look elseswhere. When Americans are ready to live in mud huts, we'll bring there jobs back." said an HP spokeperson, shorltly befor heading off in her limosine."
Seems like they've already outsourced Spelling 101 to India.
"
" You're an idiot. What's going to stop anyone from shipping a body to India and having it processed there?"
I see a niche: Become a dead body outsourcing consultant.
Welcome to the People's Republic of Slashdot.
Fiorina, or any other CEO, tries to hire the best people for the least amount of money.
Would you do the same? If so, you are a hypocrite, if not, you are a fool."
Why don't you ask an exec of one of the defense industry's megacorps?
That's the only sector where outsourcing is a NoNo. Incidentally, that's the only sector which produces economic growth in the US and the one sector that invests most of its capital into R&D.
Now, if only the defense industry were good for something else than bombing the fuck out of people.
"Proud owner of a Mensa membership card."
I doubt that.
"Well, isn't that kind of a fundamentally flawed problem?"
Scott Kirwin said that, not Carly Fiorina, and he meant it as an argument against offshoring.
That doesn't make it any more intelligent.
A problem is fundamental and reasoning can be flawed.
In this case it's flawed reasoning and that is a fundamental problem.
I am just listening to npr.org with mplayer.
What was your question?
"So, can you play Real 10 content in Linux? If you were trying really hard to be optimistic, you could say "not yet", I suppose."
Wrong.
Just tried all the videos you mentioned and mplayer (what else) plays them all.
"Weren't a few of the terrorists citizens of germany?"
No.
Lack of evidence either way is far from being "obvious...that the SCO lawsuit is utterly without merit."
That is not true in a legal sense and the SCO story is a legal one.
You may now call me an idiot.
Sorry for the double post, I fell into my own HTML and not-preview trap, so I might as well add the motivation behind saying what I said. So:
/. as such a "friendly" place, but by NOT posting
"Why should I take the effort to write an interesting, researched argument when my post will be quickly modded down and not read?"
1. Some will ignore it.
2. Some will read part of it, then skip to the next article.
3. Some will read the whole thing.
4. Some will archive it, and forward it to a lot of people.
5. Maybe one, or more people will reply to you telling you what
they thought of the article. They might even follow it up if
they have something to add.
This is sadly the ideal picture. People will follow-up even though
they have nothing to add, although you have to suffer from a severe case
of [...] talent and luck to ever experience case 4 and 5. Some very
good [...] posts have generated absolutely no response, or in other
words the same response as you'd get if you wrote it on a piece of paper
only to flush it out the toilet. Then why post?
Because you fucking feel like it!
[...]
I think that sums up nicely why one should never post something and think
about possibly being modded down. There will always be enough people to
read a posting, no matter what moderators say. You may not hear back from
them, but they are still there, trust me.
With that in mind, I found the newsgroup in question one of the most inspiring
places on the net, remarkably free of group think and full of controversial
ideas. Actually, it is one of those places Paul Graham talks about in his
essay where you can "think the unthinkable", and further on he says:
"The trouble with keeping your thoughts secret, though, is that you lose
the advantages of discussion. Talking about an idea leads to more ideas.
So the optimal plan, if you can manage it, is to have a few trusted friends
you can speak openly to."
It's up to you to regard
because of thinking about being modded down you may already have decided.
Sorry for the double post, I fell into my own HTML and not-preview trap, so I might as well add the motivation behind saying what I said. So: "Why should I take the effort to write an interesting, researched argument when my post will be quickly modded down and not read?" 1. Some will ignore it. 2. Some will read part of it, then skip to the next article. 3. Some will read the whole thing. 4. Some will archive it, and forward it to a lot of people. 5. Maybe one, or more people will reply to you telling you what they thought of the article. They might even follow it up if they have something to add. This is sadly the ideal picture. People will follow-up even though they have nothing to add, although you have to suffer from a severe case of [...] talent and luck to ever experience case 4 and 5. Some very good [...] posts have generated absolutely no response, or in other words the same response as you'd get if you wrote it on a piece of paper only to flush it out the toilet. Then why post? Because you fucking feel like it! [...] I think that sums up nicely why one should never post something and think about possibly being modded down. There will always be enough people to read a posting, no matter what moderators say. You may not hear back from them, but they are still there, trust me. With that in mind, I found the newsgroup in question one of the most inspiring places on the net, remarkably free of group think and full of controversial ideas. Actually, it is one of those places Paul Graham talks about in his essay where you can "think the unthinkable", and further on he says: "The trouble with keeping your thoughts secret, though, is that you lose the advantages of discussion. Talking about an idea leads to more ideas. So the optimal plan, if you can manage it, is to have a few trusted friends you can speak openly to." It's up to you to regard /. as such a "friendly" place, but by NOT posting
because of thinking about being modded down you may already have decided.
"Why should I take the effort to write an interesting, researched argument when my post will be quickly modded down and not read?" Because you fucking feel like it.
"Simple. Replace "SCO" with "Whorehouse Piano Player"."
Whorehouse Piano Players are respectable musicians.
Ask Vladimir Horowitz or Johannes Brahms.
With $50 billion in the bank comes political clout that no open source project can hope to counter. MS, along with their industry lackys, will push for, and we will have enacted legislation making it illegal to use software that doesn't have "content protection" built in at the hardware level. Of course only "approved" software will have any real access to the hardware, and any thought of truely open source operating systems will be lost. Major hardware vendors will produce motherboards, processors, and mass storage devices for sale in the USA that can only be accessed by approved software with proper digital ids and signatures. Of course this will be able to be hacked, but it will relagate open source back into a hobby! No amount of GPL'd code can overcome the fact that it will be a crime(as in DMCA) to break the "trusted computing" layer in hardware to allow code not certified "acceptable" to have free access to the CD/DVD/network/RAM/processor/video card etc.... Just a nightmare that Orwell would be proud of!
Your last sentence is incomplete. It has to end with "in the USA".
For thirty years, Microsoft competed in a market that had essentially zero competition. Now, after having delivered fairly robust and stable systems (Windows XP and 2k), they are no longer selling to untapped markets. Of course their profits are going to taper off. This has absolutely nothing to do with Linux, BSD, Apple, or Sun. This has everything to do with classic market mechanics.
You are completely missing the point:
You are assuming technological standstill and I doubt that very much. In 2 or 3 years Microsoft's products will be outdated and old, meaning that fancy new hightech stuff needs constant development, support and the need to pay for that from a stream of revenue. And we are seeing a deep erosion of that stream these days with discounts all over the place in critical parts of the market.
In the near future we will have two kinds of platforms. One platform will be a fully integrated appliance that runs Windows in DRM-nightmare mode with BIOS lockin.
[...]
The other camp will be composed of business users, hackers, and those curious enough to want to do more with their computer than what the manufacturer tells them to.
You are forgetting Non-US government systems, banks, energy systems and other critical computer controlled environments. Those you will hardly see on a platform that needs to give an infinite amount of trust to one single corporation. Only really stupid governments will not understand that losing control over your critical systems in a totally networked world is a threat to each state's national security.
If Microsoft cannot reach and pentrate these markets, their loss of money will reach ginormous proportions.
While we can simply assume that there will be a "Next Generation Secure Computing Base", we can also assume that it will not be controlled by Microsoft.
"In order to stay healthy mentally, you've got to explore the extremes."
That's what alt.tasteless is for.
"However, synaptic touchpad and pcmcia Wi-Fi seem to be broken in 2.6 so had to go back to 2.4 kernel." Huh? PCMCIA WiFi definitely is not borken in the 2.6 kernel, it even supports a wider variety of cards than with the previous versions.
"It's called Afghan Loyalty." ITYM Stockholm Syndrom.
"Strictly speaking, Linux cannot and probably will never be able to "advertise" in the same sense that Microsoft can. "
I must have imagined these IBM spots then.