Except that you can't really label major API and design changes as a point release. It SHOULD have been 4.0_ALPHA_01, 4.0_BETA_01, and 4.0_PROD coming soon.
I think we need to get over this misstep. I totally agree that they played the version number badly, but they also released plenty of warnings about what 4.0 meant and that it was different than a traditional point-oh release. I read these warnings and knew not to take 4.0 seriously. Why didn't other people?
Where KDE4 really fell flat for me was feature parity between the new core apps and their 3.5.x predecessors. My experience is that these crucial apps regressed or substantially changed in many ways. My work flow in photo image processing more or less died with the new Gwenview, which changed its feature set and behavior substantially, and I hear a lot of complaints from users of Amarok, which was a stellar music player in KDE 3.5. IMHO, the real "KDE is ready to use now" release (call it 4.0 or whatever) should have been the one where the core apps had at least 90% of their previous features, if not full feature parity.
Me, I'm still on KDE 3.5 and wondering where to go next. I love the new libraries and the overall look of the new desktop... but that's the problem: it's a new desktop. Whether I leap to KDE4, Gnome, or something else, it's the same amount of work to me, and that's where the KDE project screwed up.
We already have a half a million forums for these people to spout their crap on. Do we really need another?
Ah, but look how useful the musings of the masses can be when big news happens (yes, it's relevant to TFA, but in general you owe it to yourself to check out some of Mitchell and Webb's sketches if you haven't seen them before).
Learned nothing from the recent oil price spike did we?
No, the recent oil price spike confirms my point - and yours as well, since we don't inherently disagree on any of the basic features of supply and demand. Where we disagree is on the practical outcomes of supply and demand in the oil market.
The people shilling peak oil are just trying to make money off the "crisis" plain and simple - another feature of the market.
I think peak oil is a valid concept, since we know the production of oil is likely to hit a high point and then decline. That's all "peak oil" means. Your points on alternatives taking over the market as oil prices increase are perfectly true, but they do not contradict peak oil.
The economic reality is that peak oil is all bullshit. The MARKET says what the price will be. When supplies become truly scarce, oil prices will rise.
The concept of peak oil is based upon the market realities you cite, as well as observations about declining discoveries of oil resources. In a reasonably free market where everyone has good information about supply, this will lead to a gradual price shift as we approach the limits of the supply. We do not have this sort of free market, unfortunately. You're right that this will all become irrelevant once the market for energy has switched to alternatives, but that doesn't mean the price increase won't provoke a major crisis in the short term. And an oil crisis doesn't just affect transportation.
Whether it will run out in 20 years, or in 100 years, Oil WILL run out eventually.
That actually isn't true, but the likely outcome isn't a lot better. It's all supply and demand: as oil grows scarce its price will increase, and as that happens (gradually, you'd hope) demand will taper off because of the exorbitant price. Of course this assumes a free market in which all consumers have accurate information, and the scary thing about TFA is that it suggests we don't have accurate information about the oil market - this shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention - so we might be buying oil too cheaply given its current supply. That sort of arrangement isn't sustainable, so if it's true then there will eventually be a supply crisis and prices will spike suddenly. (You know, like the month after we dip below 10% unemployment and think everything is getting better.)
Whether we make the investment to retool our entire civilization now or in 100 years, we WILL have to do so.
I've always agreed with this approach, too. Since we know supplies are limited we should incentivise the creation of compatible alternatives, making oil part of a broader energy market. We seem to be doing that, slowly. Electric cars will eliminate the dependence of some drivers on oil specifically, and if enough people buy them we'll put oil alongside coal, solar, wind and old Soviet weapons in powering the grid. But it's probably not happening fast enough (if this whistleblower is correct). I recommend keeping lots of canned food in the basement.
Each copy has slight changes in that if he just publishes the paper it will be traced back to him. A typo here or there maybe, change of wording, etc.
It's just like a draft screenplay for a new Star Wars movie or an episode of LOST. But come on, if the writers and producers don't take take these kinds of security measures, the treaty will be spoiled for its fans well before its release date. I for one am glad the Obama Administration has the same spoiler policy I do: I want to be surprised at the way my Internet connection is cut off by unregulated industry thugs. It's no fun if I already know how it happens.
Part of Russinovich's point is that Windows boxes don't interact with one another by SID, only by username/password credentials. Quoth TFA:
Windows doesn’t allow you to authenticate to another computer using an account known only to the local computer. Instead, you have to specify credentials for either an account local to the remote system or to a Domain account for a Domain the remote computer trusts. The remote computer retrieves the SIDs for a local account from its own Security Accounts Database (SAM) and for a Domain account from the Active Directory database on a Domain Controller (DC). The remote computer never references the machine SID of the connecting computer.
In other words, it’s not the SID that ultimately gates access to a computer, but an account’s user name and password: simply knowing the SID of an account on a remote system doesn’t allow you access to the computer or any resources on it. As further evidence that a SID isn’t sufficient, remember that built-in accounts like the Local System account have the same SID on every computer, something that would be a major security hole if it was.
So if the design of your network layout is that you allow the computers to access one another with common usernames and passwords, Russinovich is saying that your layout will work even if all the boxes have identical SIDs. Running NewSID is apparently unnecessary work, except in cases of keeping the SID of the first DC on a new AD domain from matching those on other boxes.
and to be fair, the quality of Outlook has improved a lot.
I love how Outlook uses almost 300MB of virtual memory at work. Seriously, wtf.
Yes, and while I like a the shiny bells and whistles of OL 2007, why is it slower to load my newest mail than 2003 was? And why has Advanced Find been hidden? After all, it's the only useful search feature in the app - I just ignore that search box with no options at the top of the mailbox. I hate unnecessary regressions (*cough* KDE4 *cough*).
Americans won't stand for it. They want to know NOW damnit, not tomorrow.
I don't think the American public would really be all that upset if the election results didn't come in until the next morning. I suspect it's actually the news media that wants the results ASAP, in order to get everyone watching the election day evening news so that they can charge more for ad space.
This is what I've always thought as well. There's a tendency to mistake what the media wants for what the people want, and really same-day should not be a requirement of our election system. In fact, I think it would be really nice if states and districts could be prohibited from releasing their numbers to the media until, say, 24 hours after polls close. Partially because it would improve the system, but mainly because it would annoy the press, and no one on either side of the political aisle really likes them nowadays.
I've always liked that idea (which I've seen before) because it treats subdomains in the same way it treats subdirectories under the document root, which opens a lot of possibilities for creative web hosting schemes (e.g., Slashdot could have put this story on a site at slashdot.org/tech, but when that server's load became high enough to justify a separate host the site could move to tech.slashdot.org - there would be no difference between/tech and tech. from a navigational standpoint).
Also, the dot-com boom would have been the com-slash boom, which would have been much cooler.
... the USA is aimed to be less of a superpower in the coming years than it has since you can remember.
Agreed. A fire has long been raging under the butt of the rest of the world to remove us from a position of influence. Observe the move away from the dollar as the world's primary oil currency. Reversing that trend may not be possible, but it's nice to finally see a president try. A lot of people on the right enjoy watching our leadership beat their chests and blow things up in the desert so much that they've overlooked the precarious position that silliness has put us in.
I also got an e-mail about this early this morning...
(URGENT BUSINESS ASSISTANCE STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL)
COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON
Good Day to you sir. I am the manager of Nobel committee (NORWEGIAN NOBEL COMMITTEE). I am writing you this letter to ask for your support and co-operation to carry out this transaction. We have placed the Nobel Peace Prize in a safe deposit box belonging to one of our foreign recipients who died alongside his entire family in march this year in a terrorist train bomb blast in Oslo some few months ago. Since this development,we have advertised for his next of kin or any close relation to come forward to claim this prize, but nobody came yet to apply for the claim.
To this effect,i and other official in my department have decided to look for a trusted foreign partner who can stand in as the next of kin of the deceased as we cannot do it only ourselves and claim this money. We need a foreign partner who is a foreign head of state or other dignitary to apply for the prize on our behalf because of the fact that the recipientwas a foreign and we don't want this prize to go into the treasury as unclaimed fund.
Every document to effect this process will emanate from my table and i will perfect every document to be in accordance with the prize award law and guideline,so you have nothing to worry about and we have agreed that 30% of this money will be for you,while 10%will be for any expenses uncured on both sides while 60% will be for my colleagues and me. If you are willing to help us, please indicate by replying this letter and putting in your name, private telephone number,fax and permanent residential address via my private email address below.I awaits your immediate response to enable us start this transaction as soon as i recieved your reply,i will send you a text application form for immediate APPLICATIION OF CLAIM.
Please contact me even if you are not interested in my prposal to you to enable us scout for another partner in the event of non-interest on your part. Thanks for your co-operation
During the election, about 95% of African-Americans voted for Barack Hussein Obama due solely to the color of his skin.
Yeah! And those racists who voted for Obama skewed the election results for John Kerry and Al Gore as well. (Disclaimer: I only read text-based political news, and eschew images due to my slow connection, so I'm assuming those candidates were both black, too.)
Yeah, like how George W. Bush came from a middle-class family and Barack Obama inherited his fantastic wealth, right?
Joke all you want, but liberals can't argue with the fact that Jimmy Carter was a privileged member of the peanut farming elite, and Barack Obama was an elite community organizer. The poor, grass-roots, salt-of-the-earth self-made lawyers, Ivy Leaguers and oilmen on the Republican side can't possibly compete with that. It's unfair, I tell ya.
There's a lot of British topical humor that didn't translate well to American, yet despite that it succeeded here. Though the Pythons did intentionally try to make something that wasn't so overwhelmingly topical, which was the style at the time.
The funny thing is, sometimes when they got topical we Americans were able to grok what they were talking about, even though we didn't know the politics and culture very well. Their style of humor usually translated perfectly even without Cliff's Notes. I think topical humor sometimes contains its own explanations.
I used to find Brother printers terrible to configure for networking. Rather than defaulting to using DHCP so that a usable address would be assigned to it automatically (and be apparent on a test page), they'd pick some specific address that was incompatible with your network, and there was no simple way to change it without using a Windows-only app. It was as if someone who had never used a networked device of any kind had come up with the work flow for unboxing and using it, and it was an epic annoyance compared to the elegance of the HP LaserJets (which defaulted to DHCP, and which I can still configure for a static IP address in my sleep). Perhaps Brother printers have changed since then, but it's always left a bad taste in my mouth and I don't think I'd touch one of their printers again.
When someone on/. Reads TFA and links a Car analogy - does that cancel each other out?
Not at all. The person in your example is a bit like someone who drives a Chevy and then builds their own hot rod. Does the hot rod cancel out the Chevy? I think not.
Previously, [IBM] used MS Office but actually recommended their customers to use Symphony.
This reminds me of what happened to OS/2. IBM messed that up royally, and it had long term consequences. The screw-up had a lot to do with the fact that they didn't present a united front for their own product (not entirely surprising, since they were also a Windows-selling OEM... not to mention a massive, labyrinthine company). It's nice to see them dog-fooding their office suite as thoroughly as possible - perhaps they've learned a thing or two in the past decade and a half.
Slashdot Mirror
I love it when a fanatic offers us a "history" lesson as seen through his magic, revisionist glasses.
Remember, that's exactly what Hitler tried to do.
Except that you can't really label major API and design changes as a point release. It SHOULD have been 4.0_ALPHA_01, 4.0_BETA_01, and 4.0_PROD coming soon.
I think we need to get over this misstep. I totally agree that they played the version number badly, but they also released plenty of warnings about what 4.0 meant and that it was different than a traditional point-oh release. I read these warnings and knew not to take 4.0 seriously. Why didn't other people?
Where KDE4 really fell flat for me was feature parity between the new core apps and their 3.5.x predecessors. My experience is that these crucial apps regressed or substantially changed in many ways. My work flow in photo image processing more or less died with the new Gwenview, which changed its feature set and behavior substantially, and I hear a lot of complaints from users of Amarok, which was a stellar music player in KDE 3.5. IMHO, the real "KDE is ready to use now" release (call it 4.0 or whatever) should have been the one where the core apps had at least 90% of their previous features, if not full feature parity.
Me, I'm still on KDE 3.5 and wondering where to go next. I love the new libraries and the overall look of the new desktop ... but that's the problem: it's a new desktop. Whether I leap to KDE4, Gnome, or something else, it's the same amount of work to me, and that's where the KDE project screwed up.
We already have a half a million forums for these people to spout their crap on. Do we really need another?
Ah, but look how useful the musings of the masses can be when big news happens (yes, it's relevant to TFA, but in general you owe it to yourself to check out some of Mitchell and Webb's sketches if you haven't seen them before).
Learned nothing from the recent oil price spike did we?
No, the recent oil price spike confirms my point - and yours as well, since we don't inherently disagree on any of the basic features of supply and demand. Where we disagree is on the practical outcomes of supply and demand in the oil market.
The people shilling peak oil are just trying to make money off the "crisis" plain and simple - another feature of the market.
I think peak oil is a valid concept, since we know the production of oil is likely to hit a high point and then decline. That's all "peak oil" means. Your points on alternatives taking over the market as oil prices increase are perfectly true, but they do not contradict peak oil.
The economic reality is that peak oil is all bullshit. The MARKET says what the price will be. When supplies become truly scarce, oil prices will rise.
The concept of peak oil is based upon the market realities you cite, as well as observations about declining discoveries of oil resources. In a reasonably free market where everyone has good information about supply, this will lead to a gradual price shift as we approach the limits of the supply. We do not have this sort of free market, unfortunately. You're right that this will all become irrelevant once the market for energy has switched to alternatives, but that doesn't mean the price increase won't provoke a major crisis in the short term. And an oil crisis doesn't just affect transportation.
Whether it will run out in 20 years, or in 100 years, Oil WILL run out eventually.
That actually isn't true, but the likely outcome isn't a lot better. It's all supply and demand: as oil grows scarce its price will increase, and as that happens (gradually, you'd hope) demand will taper off because of the exorbitant price. Of course this assumes a free market in which all consumers have accurate information, and the scary thing about TFA is that it suggests we don't have accurate information about the oil market - this shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention - so we might be buying oil too cheaply given its current supply. That sort of arrangement isn't sustainable, so if it's true then there will eventually be a supply crisis and prices will spike suddenly. (You know, like the month after we dip below 10% unemployment and think everything is getting better.)
Whether we make the investment to retool our entire civilization now or in 100 years, we WILL have to do so.
I've always agreed with this approach, too. Since we know supplies are limited we should incentivise the creation of compatible alternatives, making oil part of a broader energy market. We seem to be doing that, slowly. Electric cars will eliminate the dependence of some drivers on oil specifically, and if enough people buy them we'll put oil alongside coal, solar, wind and old Soviet weapons in powering the grid. But it's probably not happening fast enough (if this whistleblower is correct). I recommend keeping lots of canned food in the basement.
Each copy has slight changes in that if he just publishes the paper it will be traced back to him. A typo here or there maybe, change of wording, etc.
It's just like a draft screenplay for a new Star Wars movie or an episode of LOST. But come on, if the writers and producers don't take take these kinds of security measures, the treaty will be spoiled for its fans well before its release date. I for one am glad the Obama Administration has the same spoiler policy I do: I want to be surprised at the way my Internet connection is cut off by unregulated industry thugs. It's no fun if I already know how it happens.
Windows doesn’t allow you to authenticate to another computer using an account known only to the local computer. Instead, you have to specify credentials for either an account local to the remote system or to a Domain account for a Domain the remote computer trusts. The remote computer retrieves the SIDs for a local account from its own Security Accounts Database (SAM) and for a Domain account from the Active Directory database on a Domain Controller (DC). The remote computer never references the machine SID of the connecting computer.
In other words, it’s not the SID that ultimately gates access to a computer, but an account’s user name and password: simply knowing the SID of an account on a remote system doesn’t allow you access to the computer or any resources on it. As further evidence that a SID isn’t sufficient, remember that built-in accounts like the Local System account have the same SID on every computer, something that would be a major security hole if it was.
So if the design of your network layout is that you allow the computers to access one another with common usernames and passwords, Russinovich is saying that your layout will work even if all the boxes have identical SIDs. Running NewSID is apparently unnecessary work, except in cases of keeping the SID of the first DC on a new AD domain from matching those on other boxes.
and to be fair, the quality of Outlook has improved a lot.
I love how Outlook uses almost 300MB of virtual memory at work. Seriously, wtf.
Yes, and while I like a the shiny bells and whistles of OL 2007, why is it slower to load my newest mail than 2003 was? And why has Advanced Find been hidden? After all, it's the only useful search feature in the app - I just ignore that search box with no options at the top of the mailbox. I hate unnecessary regressions (*cough* KDE4 *cough*).
I don't think the American public would really be all that upset if the election results didn't come in until the next morning. I suspect it's actually the news media that wants the results ASAP, in order to get everyone watching the election day evening news so that they can charge more for ad space.
This is what I've always thought as well. There's a tendency to mistake what the media wants for what the people want, and really same-day should not be a requirement of our election system. In fact, I think it would be really nice if states and districts could be prohibited from releasing their numbers to the media until, say, 24 hours after polls close. Partially because it would improve the system, but mainly because it would annoy the press, and no one on either side of the political aisle really likes them nowadays.
http:org/slashdot/tech/story/... (use SRV record)
I've always liked that idea (which I've seen before) because it treats subdomains in the same way it treats subdirectories under the document root, which opens a lot of possibilities for creative web hosting schemes (e.g., Slashdot could have put this story on a site at slashdot.org/tech, but when that server's load became high enough to justify a separate host the site could move to tech.slashdot.org - there would be no difference between /tech and tech. from a navigational standpoint).
Also, the dot-com boom would have been the com-slash boom, which would have been much cooler.
... the USA is aimed to be less of a superpower in the coming years than it has since you can remember.
Agreed. A fire has long been raging under the butt of the rest of the world to remove us from a position of influence. Observe the move away from the dollar as the world's primary oil currency. Reversing that trend may not be possible, but it's nice to finally see a president try. A lot of people on the right enjoy watching our leadership beat their chests and blow things up in the desert so much that they've overlooked the precarious position that silliness has put us in.
I also got an e-mail about this early this morning ...
(URGENT BUSINESS ASSISTANCE STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL)
COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON
Good Day to you sir. I am the manager of Nobel committee (NORWEGIAN NOBEL COMMITTEE). I am writing you this letter to ask for your support and co-operation to carry out this transaction. We have placed the Nobel Peace Prize in a safe deposit box belonging to one of our foreign recipients who died alongside his entire family in march this year in a terrorist train bomb blast in Oslo some few months ago. Since this development,we have advertised for his next of kin or any close relation to come forward to claim this prize, but nobody came yet to apply for the claim.
To this effect,i and other official in my department have decided to look for a trusted foreign partner who can stand in as the next of kin of the deceased as we cannot do it only ourselves and claim this money. We need a foreign partner who is a foreign head of state or other dignitary to apply for the prize on our behalf because of the fact that the recipientwas a foreign and we don't want this prize to go into the treasury as unclaimed fund.
Every document to effect this process will emanate from my table and i will perfect every document to be in accordance with the prize award law and guideline,so you have nothing to worry about and we have agreed that 30% of this money will be for you,while 10%will be for any expenses uncured on both sides while 60% will be for my colleagues and me. If you are willing to help us, please indicate by replying this letter and putting in your name, private telephone number,fax and permanent residential address via my private email address below.I awaits your immediate response to enable us start this transaction as soon as i recieved your reply,i will send you a text application form for immediate APPLICATIION OF CLAIM.
Please contact me even if you are not interested in my prposal to you to enable us scout for another partner in the event of non-interest on your part. Thanks for your co-operation
Thorbjørn Jagland, Den norske Nobelkomité
During the election, about 95% of African-Americans voted for Barack Hussein Obama due solely to the color of his skin.
Yeah! And those racists who voted for Obama skewed the election results for John Kerry and Al Gore as well. (Disclaimer: I only read text-based political news, and eschew images due to my slow connection, so I'm assuming those candidates were both black, too.)
Yeah, like how George W. Bush came from a middle-class family and Barack Obama inherited his fantastic wealth, right?
Joke all you want, but liberals can't argue with the fact that Jimmy Carter was a privileged member of the peanut farming elite, and Barack Obama was an elite community organizer. The poor, grass-roots, salt-of-the-earth self-made lawyers, Ivy Leaguers and oilmen on the Republican side can't possibly compete with that. It's unfair, I tell ya.
Man did you all miss a load of karma by posting as AC. Oh... wait...
His chief moderation would have been Funny ... Funny and Insightful. Insightful and Funny ...
His two moderations would have been Funny and Insightful ... and Underrated ...
His three moderations would have been Funny, Insightful, Underrated ... and Interesting ...
His four ... no ... Amongst his many moderations would have been such words as Funny, Insightful, Underrated ...
I'll come in again.
He did, PriceIke, he did.
"I disagree. Because you are quoting something surreal does not make it any less surreal."
Yeah, and you can't quote Caddyshack and Ferris Bueller all day long, you gotta break it up with something...
Can I borrow your towel for a sec? My car just hit a water buffalo. Dr. Rosenrosen, I'm here to get to the records room.
Where are the knights who always say: "First Post"?
They are no longer The Knights Who Say First Post. They are now the Knights Who Say Ekki-ekki-ekki-pitang-zoom-boing!
There's a lot of British topical humor that didn't translate well to American, yet despite that it succeeded here. Though the Pythons did intentionally try to make something that wasn't so overwhelmingly topical, which was the style at the time.
The funny thing is, sometimes when they got topical we Americans were able to grok what they were talking about, even though we didn't know the politics and culture very well. Their style of humor usually translated perfectly even without Cliff's Notes. I think topical humor sometimes contains its own explanations.
No, it's the removing of the hats that really irks people. Indoors or outdoors, it's clearly immoral.
I used to find Brother printers terrible to configure for networking. Rather than defaulting to using DHCP so that a usable address would be assigned to it automatically (and be apparent on a test page), they'd pick some specific address that was incompatible with your network, and there was no simple way to change it without using a Windows-only app. It was as if someone who had never used a networked device of any kind had come up with the work flow for unboxing and using it, and it was an epic annoyance compared to the elegance of the HP LaserJets (which defaulted to DHCP, and which I can still configure for a static IP address in my sleep). Perhaps Brother printers have changed since then, but it's always left a bad taste in my mouth and I don't think I'd touch one of their printers again.
It beat the crap out of TOS and was the best trek of all time!
Thanks for pointing that out, Kanye, but the award is being presented to TOS.
When someone on /. Reads TFA and links a Car analogy - does that cancel each other out?
Not at all. The person in your example is a bit like someone who drives a Chevy and then builds their own hot rod. Does the hot rod cancel out the Chevy? I think not.
Previously, [IBM] used MS Office but actually recommended their customers to use Symphony.
This reminds me of what happened to OS/2. IBM messed that up royally, and it had long term consequences. The screw-up had a lot to do with the fact that they didn't present a united front for their own product (not entirely surprising, since they were also a Windows-selling OEM ... not to mention a massive, labyrinthine company). It's nice to see them dog-fooding their office suite as thoroughly as possible - perhaps they've learned a thing or two in the past decade and a half.