Nah, it's pretty normal. Take a look at any recent story with a MS or OSS focus, and as soon as someone makes a post critical of Microsoft products, there'll be half a dozen;
"I've been running MS [product name] for over a year and have yet to experience a single crash with MS [product name]."
or similar type of posts. You often get modded down pretty heavily for the criticism too.
It looks like MS marketing keeps an eye on Slashdot.
What have OSS developers come up with on their own lately?
I'm sure plenty of people will give you examples, but the correct answer is that OSS developers don't need to.
Computer users have given Microsoft more than sixty billion dollars for their operating system software over the past ten years. The cost of production of Windows is close to zero, the same cost as OSS software which you can get for free. What we've been paying Microsoft for is their development costs, and if development and innovation from Microsoft is minimal, we're not getting what we're paying for.
Whether XP SP2 is $60,000,000,000 better than NT4, I'll leave up to you to decide.
I used to work for one of the big-box style electronics places, and just about every average computer shopper was convinced they needed MS Office.
Yep, and that's how the big change will eventually happen. It won't be because Linux is better than Windows - it's not enough better to motivate change. What'll happen is that someone will come up with a new form factor or new concept that'll make the Windows Way uncool.
Then every one of those customers will be plonking their cash down for the LinuxStation Minipod, they'll realise it was always the music, videos, words that mattered, not the tool that played them.
That will be the beginning of the end for the monoculture era of computing.
Secondly there are metadata standards and ways of getting information out of files. There's the obvious title / author / subject tags in HTML, and equivalejnt in MS Word files, OpenDocument, Dublin Core, etc.
This is going to be the interesting part, and is probably why Google has been showing so much interest in Open Office/OpenDocument. When the pages of this web are XML served by a Google database, and the browser is an XML reader/editor based on OOo or equivalent, you have a much richer, more collaborative internet. A rich web, layered on top of the existing net.
Google will be in on the ground floor of this too, and because huge amounts of the metadata will be part of the structure of the rich web, they'll be able to index it and deliver the aggregate information (which is their product) an order of magnitude more effectively than before.
Yeah, I parsed this thing as "Remote Control [designed] for Humans." I was thinking "Great! Finally I can program that VCR." Sadly, it's just another tool for turning excess humans into golems. Sigh.
Basically though, the former Manager of Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), Michael Speck, repeatedly said that Australians would not be sued for non-commercial infringement of recording industry copyright. He resigned in May, and his successor appears much more interested in prosecutions.
I'm still waiting for a window manager based on a first-person shooter interface
I wrote a wireframed 3d filemanager close to fifteen years ago. It used a shopping cart and room (directory) metaphor, where you could snag files from the walls of the rooms, put them in your basket or run them from where they were. You moved around your filesystem in pseudo 3d space, and could "jump" to any one of three shopping carts.
It sucked. Working with filesystems in FPS 3d seems like a good idea, but in reality, it's much slower than 2d filemangers. If you want to try it, there was a Descent-like FPS called Virus which turned your filesystem into the play arena for the game. It sucked too, but not as bad as my filemanger...
Bush is working heavily with Monsanto to ensure that the DMCA is found to be applicable to current life forms.
I think I got most of that, and I can understand the difference between DNA, RNA and PNA, but does DMCA have a peptide base as well and if so, what does the M stand for?
Re:automated accident prevention?-Foamy head.
on
Tux Can Even Milk Cows!
·
· Score: -1, Troll
Yes, but your milkshakes are going to have an awful funny taste.
Ergo, anyone expressing opinion in disagreement with ozmanjusri = freak (and Slashdot foe!)
It was expressed as a mildly amusing comment, and is obviously optional. If I'd been serious, I would be the freak and you the foe.
However, given your determination to be offended, I think my earlier assessment of extreme paranoia looks like the most accurate commentary on this conversation.
Have a look at the top of this posting. You'll see my handle and ID number, ozmanjusri (601766). Next to it is a little round grey glassy dot. Click the dot, and wait for the page to load. Select the "Foe" option, and then click the "Yup, I'm positive" button.
Congratulations. You are now unequivically a freak.
If the US invaded Taiwan, then China would get involved
China already has to get involved. The precurser chemical for Tamiflu is shikimic acid, which can only be derived from a plant called star anise. The only sources of significant quantities of that variety of star anise in the world are four provinces in China. One company has contracted to buy the whole crop of star anise.
In the case of Tamiflu, the US may decide to threaten Roche with licensing the drug, so they'd be hypocritical to sanction Taiwan.
In the US, senator Charles Schumer has threatened legislation compulsory to license Tamiflu unless Roche allowed generic producers to boost the number of pills in circulation.
What is it with Sony and their obsession with screwing Australians? Crippled Playstations, DRM'd CDs that won't play in cars, mod chip wars, ridiculous region coding, Anthony Callea, and now this garbage. What did we do? Let a dingo eat their CEO's baby?
Those pricks must own more Australian politicians than USCIB and PMA combined...
Microsoft has called the Antikythera mechanism the most astonishing technologinal innovation the world and microsoft have ever seen
The Antikythera mechanism is *not* user friendly, and until it is Antikythera will stay with >1% marketshare.
Take installation. Antikythera zealots are now saying "oh installing is so easy, just do hammer-dowel install package or hit package": Yes, because hitting with "hammer" makes so much more sense to new users than double-whipping a slave that does "setups".
Antikythera zealots are far too forgiving when judging the difficultly of Antikythera configuration issues and far too harsh when judging the difficulty of slave storage issues. Example comments:
User: "How do I get Quake 0.03 to run in Antikythera?"
Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redtoga, you have to smelt quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.tin, then do chmod +x with a file.....
Slashdot Mirror
Bizarre, man. Bizarre.
Nah, it's pretty normal. Take a look at any recent story with a MS or OSS focus, and as soon as someone makes a post critical of Microsoft products, there'll be half a dozen;
"I've been running MS [product name] for over a year and have yet to experience a single crash with MS [product name]."
or similar type of posts. You often get modded down pretty heavily for the criticism too.
It looks like MS marketing keeps an eye on Slashdot.
What have OSS developers come up with on their own lately?
I'm sure plenty of people will give you examples, but the correct answer is that OSS developers don't need to.
Computer users have given Microsoft more than sixty billion dollars for their operating system software over the past ten years. The cost of production of Windows is close to zero, the same cost as OSS software which you can get for free. What we've been paying Microsoft for is their development costs, and if development and innovation from Microsoft is minimal, we're not getting what we're paying for.
Whether XP SP2 is $60,000,000,000 better than NT4, I'll leave up to you to decide.
I used to work for one of the big-box style electronics places, and just about every average computer shopper was convinced they needed MS Office.
Yep, and that's how the big change will eventually happen. It won't be because Linux is better than Windows - it's not enough better to motivate change. What'll happen is that someone will come up with a new form factor or new concept that'll make the Windows Way uncool.
Then every one of those customers will be plonking their cash down for the LinuxStation Minipod, they'll realise it was always the music, videos, words that mattered, not the tool that played them.
That will be the beginning of the end for the monoculture era of computing.
Secondly there are metadata standards and ways of getting information out of files. There's the obvious title / author / subject tags in HTML, and equivalejnt in MS Word files, OpenDocument, Dublin Core, etc.
This is going to be the interesting part, and is probably why Google has been showing so much interest in Open Office/OpenDocument. When the pages of this web are XML served by a Google database, and the browser is an XML reader/editor based on OOo or equivalent, you have a much richer, more collaborative internet. A rich web, layered on top of the existing net.
Google will be in on the ground floor of this too, and because huge amounts of the metadata will be part of the structure of the rich web, they'll be able to index it and deliver the aggregate information (which is their product) an order of magnitude more effectively than before.
Yeah, I parsed this thing as "Remote Control [designed] for Humans." I was thinking "Great! Finally I can program that VCR."
Sadly, it's just another tool for turning excess humans into golems. Sigh.
But the legislation is there for a test case if anyone is unfortunate enough to be picked on by a recording label.
3 1-457_guests.php
This started in June this year. The case hasn't attracted much media attention for some reason, but the bulk of the story can be found here;
http://www.themusic.com.au/im_m/archive/2005/0505
Basically though, the former Manager of Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), Michael Speck, repeatedly said that Australians would not be sued for non-commercial infringement of recording industry copyright. He resigned in May, and his successor appears much more interested in prosecutions.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the contextual toolbars in Office 12 work. Present the options you need for the tool you're using at the time.
They'll Probably work in a very similar way to the contextual toolbars Photoshop has had for a long while.
once worked under a very intelligent person. One of his pearls of wisdom was this:
"A companies IT infrastructure is like a highway. No one really notices it when everything is smooth. However, just add one pothole..."
Ah yes, you've worked with Captain Obvious as well. Now there's a guy who gets around...
I'm still waiting for a window manager based on a first-person shooter interface
I wrote a wireframed 3d filemanager close to fifteen years ago. It used a shopping cart and room (directory) metaphor, where you could snag files from the walls of the rooms, put them in your basket or run them from where they were. You moved around your filesystem in pseudo 3d space, and could "jump" to any one of three shopping carts.
It sucked. Working with filesystems in FPS 3d seems like a good idea, but in reality, it's much slower than 2d filemangers. If you want to try it, there was a Descent-like FPS called Virus which turned your filesystem into the play arena for the game. It sucked too, but not as bad as my filemanger...
Bush is working heavily with Monsanto to ensure that the DMCA is found to be applicable to current life forms.
I think I got most of that, and I can understand the difference between DNA, RNA and PNA, but does DMCA have a peptide base as well and if so, what does the M stand for?
Yes, but your milkshakes are going to have an awful funny taste.
...and oddly familiar to most ACs...
mutual desire to have the "last word"
Ozmanjusri has left the building. The last word is yours for the taking.
It identifies the cow, then finds the udders
A tool for finding udders? I really do not want to see where this story ends up...
Ergo, anyone expressing opinion in disagreement with ozmanjusri = freak (and Slashdot foe!)
It was expressed as a mildly amusing comment, and is obviously optional. If I'd been serious, I would be the freak and you the foe.
However, given your determination to be offended, I think my earlier assessment of extreme paranoia looks like the most accurate commentary on this conversation.
Have a look at the top of this posting. You'll see my handle and ID number, ozmanjusri (601766). Next to it is a little round grey glassy dot. Click the dot, and wait for the page to load. Select the "Foe" option, and then click the "Yup, I'm positive" button.
Congratulations. You are now unequivically a freak.
Ergo, anyone expressing religious opinion = freak.
How cordial.
A less paranoid individual would have read it as "anyone threatening a child = freak."
My words are my own. Your interpretation is your own.
Desire to harm anyone expressing religious opinion is much less neanderthal than doing harm in religion's name.
The desire to protect one's children from freaks predates the neanderthals by a long way.
If the US invaded Taiwan, then China would get involved
China already has to get involved. The precurser chemical for Tamiflu is shikimic acid, which can only be derived from a plant called star anise. The only sources of significant quantities of that variety of star anise in the world are four provinces in China. One company has contracted to buy the whole crop of star anise.
Guess which company?
Sony BMG Are bitching like they did for Japan.
What is it with Sony and their obsession with screwing Australians? Crippled Playstations, DRM'd CDs that won't play in cars, mod chip wars, ridiculous region coding, Anthony Callea, and now this garbage. What did we do? Let a dingo eat their CEO's baby?
Those pricks must own more Australian politicians than USCIB and PMA combined...
a few thousand m^3 of waist
I know obesity is a problem in the US, but that's just extreme!
Mobilephones are targeted at a minority group with a strong voice. This group loves "cool"; cool means: change/difference, which implies featuritis.
The early '90s called. They want their yuppie group think back.
Wake up there princess, you've been asleep for a looong time. Everybody has mobile phones now.
Microsoft has called the Antikythera mechanism the most astonishing technologinal innovation the world and microsoft have ever seen
The Antikythera mechanism is *not* user friendly, and until it is Antikythera will stay with >1% marketshare.
Take installation. Antikythera zealots are now saying "oh installing is so easy, just do hammer-dowel install package or hit package": Yes, because hitting with "hammer" makes so much more sense to new users than double-whipping a slave that does "setups".
Antikythera zealots are far too forgiving when judging the difficultly of Antikythera configuration issues and far too harsh when judging the difficulty of slave storage issues. Example comments:
User: "How do I get Quake 0.03 to run in Antikythera?" Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redtoga, you have to smelt quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.tin, then do chmod +x with a file.....
And yes, you should stop buying self-help books.
I'd like to, but I just can't help myself.
So how does this redefine the phrase COMPACT CAR?
You mean it's not an instruction. Whoops.