Is the point of this story that he should have said "make love to?" Hmmm, picture that for a moment.... and I can tell you aren't from farm country. Bulls don't sidle up to a cow, and bat their eyes, and break out a bottle of champagne, and spend an evening of silly flirtations, capped with an early evening kiss on the cheek, in hopes of coming back the next night for a romantic evening of "love making". They just come up behind the cow, jump up on 'em, and start thrusting away. But then again, I suppose you consider a film of Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson going at it all sweaty and graphic to be a romantic flick, all full of "making love" and stuff.;)
I want a site that is usable, rich in content, functionality and looks good Funny, I feel the same way. I find marked Hyperlinks to be very usable, and straight text or image gallerys are wonderfuly rich in content, load quite well, have every bit of functionality I want from a website, and if you change the colors of the text slightly, along with the background color the page actually looks pretty damn good. Hunting around for drop-sown slide-out pulsating menus don't fit in my definition of usable, rich content, or looking good. I am after information, not spinning icons, unmoveable background images, or those godforsaken bullshit flash "presentations". Those hinder my quest for the information that should be available right away. I don't know if they still do, but a one point, ASUS' website required Flash to get to the driver page off their very tiny, not well marked link for support. WTF?!? I guess I'm of the "old" generation where substance was way more important than "flash." It would be nice if the people wanting the web pages would actually put more thought into what their website says than what their website looks like.
windows: go to mfr website, download install file, run install file, (maybe) reboot. Proceed with using hardware.
Linux: go to mfr website...unsupported (dam), go to linux geek site(s)...hmmm no luck, go to google...hmm no luck, go to another linux site - helpful geek says "just download this source, read your device specs, change these numbers accordingly, compile to your kernel with this line: (insert big ass command line here) and you should be ok; tries it...works partially (not all features utilized or available). crap. *heavy sigh* *gives up*
Okay, but what happens when the device is no longer supported for Windows? If you have a non-supported hardware item for any OS you face the exact same problem. Sure, all the crap you buy at Office Depot or Best Buy will probably have Windows drivers for it, and maybe not for Linux, but big fucking deal. Most of that crap won't work in an SGI or Alpha box, and I doubt the crap you buy at those places will come with drivers for anything but Windows, even at the manufacturers' website. If you can't do some research before hand on what works with what, you have no one to blame but your self. I have three scanners, eight printers a serial pen tablet and a USB tablet that ALL work in Linux, but don't in BeOS.... Should I get on Slashdot and cry about it? No, If I want devices that work with BeOS, I go out and do some research until I find the device that does work with BeOS. I also have a bunch of components (video cards, network cards, etc.) that I can't get to work in Windows, even after cruising the mfg's website, but work perfectly fine in Linux. Why you might ask? They are Macintosh parts.
Not trying to flame, just point out that not everything works in every OS.
So, (and no, I haven't read the entire article) does this "technology" work no matter what the file type is? I mean, does it only work for MP3, or does it even work on the FLACC, AIFF, VQF, OGG, WMA(shudder), WAV, MIDI, or any other sound file/compression people may come up with? Not to mention if the song were rolled up in a tarball or "zipped" or renamed or encrypted or sent as a "hash" file (remember DeCSS? there was a version of it that came as a rather large prime number, which when run through some hash algorithm would leave you with the source code.)?
I realize the reason Microsoft is creating the "cut-rate" version of XP is two-fold, One, to stop(?) piracy, and Two, to stop people from thinking of switching to Linux. There are a couple of problems with that train of thought though. Last I heard, the target marketplace for the "cut-rate" or "crippled" or "streamlined" version is already able to get a "pirated" version of XP Pro (full-blown) for about US $5.00. So, why would someone want to buy a "crippled" version for US $37.50? Same applies to the segment wanting to switch to Linux. Why pay US $37.50 for a "cut-rate" version of XP, when you can get the Linux distro of your choice for the price of a burnable cd? food for thought.....
Wow, how old is that? Somewhere around 8-9 years, maybe ? (I really like the watch, but I still have trouble with anything time related:)) I know before it I had a Casio Databank 50 that lasted 6 years on one battery. The manuals of both say you should get 1-2 years out of a battery with moderate useage of the backlight. The 150 actually uses the "Indiglo" style or whatever from Timex, the 50 used a very tiny white LED in one corner, which didn't work well, even in pitch black conditions.
What's pathetic is that you group 'christian fundamentalists' with terrorists, murderers, and pornographers.
Sad.
PATHETIC?!?! How the Hell is it pathetic to group ALL members of the human race together?? I think you've just proved the point of the prior post. If you exclude certain " 'ists" from the rest of humanity, where does it stop? Or do you think it's a Good Idea(TM) to restrict and separate human rights by which " 'ist" group you like?
I hope you're trolling. When you plug a thumb drive in, in Windows XP - it pops up a list of tasks. "Copy to My Documents, View as Slideshow, Open folder to view", etc.
Hmmm, let me see, yep, right there on my bench is a freshly built system, with Windows XP Pro, just loaded and updated, nothing else done with it. I pop in any one of my 5 USB sticks (all different manufacturers, sizes from 16MB to 512MB), and, sure enough, the steps I outlined in my previous post happen, it never once popped the list of tasks. I know the list you are talking about, but have only encountered it on inserting CDs with no autorun. Maybe it's different on a Gateway, Compaq, or Dell, I don't know, as we don't have any of those systems laying around.
Ignorance like that is grounded in zealotry and naivete and has nothing to do with reality.
Okay, I'm not actually trying to "zealot" this, maybe you prefer VStudio over KDevelop, and I prefer KDevelop over VStudio is because we've only really ever used our respective IDEs. I tried VStudio for CSCI I, but they only had the Academic version, which would add all kinds of crap to your executable (But not your code) to give a warning when the program was run that the program was not to be used for any reason except education. I used Kdevelop at home that semester, and ever since, so I am very much more familiar with KDevelop, probably, your situation is you've always used VStudio, so you are much more familiar with it. So, I claim it's a draw
Linux/Unix will start to make strides on the desktop when its users begin to realize how seriously far behind Microsoft they are in the areas that computers are actually used for and where they deliver the most productivity gains.
The only place I see Linux being "behind" Microsoft is in games and Autocad. Programming in Linux (using KDevelop) is faster, more intuitive, less confusing, and better laid out than in Visual Studio. KDE and Gnome are both so similar to Windows in their actions and the way they present themselves, that the only thing I can see end-users running into problems would be when they get "Start" and "K" confused.
However in reality the Windows GUI analogue interface is more powerful because it is easier to learn and therefore easier to manipulate. I thinnk what you mean here is you've never seen KDE or Gnome. Dragging an icon around the desktop is the same in KDE, Gnome, or Windows, so learning how to do that is even. When you talk about easier to manipulate, you must mean easier to install WebShots, as changing background images or colors are just as easy to change, and for Damn sure that's about all you can manipulate on Windows, without resorting to "advanced" techniques, which the common enduser would find just as difficult to run on Windows as KDE. If you are talking about true manipulation, hands down any desktop environment for Linux is easier to manipulate than Windows GUI, as you have ready access and permission to modify the source code. Try true manipulation on Windows, and see how far you get.
The Linux/Unix community needs to discard the entire command line mentality and start paying serious attention to ease-of-use and interface issues before ordinary people will take seriously their claim that they and their computer environment is somehow actually better than Windows. Okay, let's take one example, USB thumb drives. The following occurs with a default out of the box install of the OS. I use Mandrake Linux 9.1 and 9.2. I plug a USB drive into a USB port. An Icon appears on my desktop(KDE). I double click the icon, and a window opens, showing me the contents of the USB drive, which I can then do whatever with. Now, let's take the same USB drive, and plug it into the USB port of a Windows XP system. After a bit, down by the clock, a pop-up window claims new hardware found, and then proceeds to tell you what it is, if it found drivers for it, and that it's ready to use. The pop-up windows then disappears. To access the drive, you must then click on the "Start" button, move the mouse up to the "My Computer" Icon, single-click, then a window appears showing you the contents of "My Computer". You then move the mouse down, below the listed hard drives, below the listed CDROM drives, and finally come to a section where it lists "Removeable Disk" F:, or whatever letter it got assigned. Now you can finally double-click(Why are there someplaces you must single-click, and other places you must double-click? Remember, these are default installs) that Icon, which then shows you the contents of the USB drive. Tell me please, how the Windows way has better "ease-of-use", and what kind of "interface issue" it is to automatically, on the desktop, provide a single step solution to getting to my USB drive, rather than clicking all over the god-damned place, "drilling down" through several menus, to get to the same information?
Obviously, with my "command-line mentality" I must have missed where all the work to get to the USB drive on Windows is actually easy and intuitive.
What definition of "illusion" and "powerful" are you using? You say, "When Linux/Unix users complete the process of changing their entire approach to computing to fit this 1970's era approach, they find that they can do many things with command line manipulation that can't be done easily or at all with Window's GUI interface." Which you then claim, "This gives them the illusion that their OS is m
Many of the large companies have threatend to do this in the past if they don't receive preferential treatment.
And I say, then get the fuck out of here to those corporations. Yes, this would hurt the US economy to an extent, but think about if HP or Microsoft or some other major company were forced to move to another country, which the US would then decide to trade embargo? Gee, they moved out of the country for profit reasons, then get slapped with a "no trade with the US" clause. It would sure make for an interesting world, even though the US would never do that.
Hate PowerPoint? Well business wants it. Hate Access dB? Well, business loves it.
Actually, business loves the end result of those products, not the products themselves. It's just that they don't know/haven't had any alternative. It is true I don't work on Large business systems, but I spend all day with local small business', and I guarantee you the way they use Word and Excel files, they could just as readily use Wordpad and Lotus 123 or whatever, from DOS days. For MY customer base, a better thing to port over would be QuickBooks, as they all use that.
I can't imagine you've even considered those questions, since the answers would undoubtedly knock you off your holier-than-thou perch.
Nice, buddy. Way to equate having strong morals with being holier-than-thou. What kind of example do I set for my children? The employment environment is bad right now, so it's okay to sell drugs to kids. Our five year outlook isn't so good, so theft and unethical business will be acceptable. If you were to catch two people breaking into your car, to steal your stuff, would you let it slide? How about if one of them was lookout only, not actively participating in the break-in (because he didn't want to break the law, just make a few bucks to feed his kids, after all, jobs are scarce, remember?), just watching for cops, because the one doing the actual break-in was paying him to do so? Have you asked yourself these questions? For if you value money over morals, you will soon have neither.
Yes, I have quit jobs over managerial decisions that pushed my moral bounds. No, I did not have a backup plan, and yes, I was scared as Hell about not being able to feed my familiy, or keep a roof over our heads, because I live in a small town that doesn't have many high-tech positions in any field, especially computer related areas. As it turns out, I ended up getting a job with another company (who I'd never really considered as economically viable,) and am now making nearly double what I was, am learning new skills, have way more self-respect and peer-respect, have a boss whose morality and integrity is top-notch, and, most importantly, I never had to sell my morals to anyone for a few loaves of bread and a month's worth of shelter. It's amazing what having morals and ethics will do for a person, especially if one sticks to them. It is the scariest shit you'll ever do, but it is also the most rewarding, spiritually and financially.
Personally I don't see anything wrong with an employee remaining loyal to a company that allows him or her to put food on the table and a roof over his or her head. Not only is that admirable, but I would rather hire that person over one who decided to jump ship when times were tough.
Speaking of ships, it seems you admire the "all hands down with the ship" school of philosophy. That actually works in certain instances, but if the "hands" know the ship is sinking, with plenty of lead time to get off without going down with it, it seems you would much rather hire the ones who didn't get off the sinking ship, and thus completely fucked themselves and their families, than the ones who, with the tiniest bit of intelligence and awareness, actually got off said ship, so they could continue to provide for their families, rather than gloriously dying, due to some loyalty to the ship, rather than their families.
No, wait, I'm sorry, I got your analogy wrong. After re-reading your post, you seem to actually admire boot-licking curs who remain loyal to the regime, even when said regime is provenly corrupt, unethical, and immoral, not to mention, outright liars and con artists.
Dude, they are talking servers here, not gamer crap that ain't no big thing when the chip fries, or overall stability goes down, for a few extra Mhz. I would suggest to them, if the motherboard can handle it, add another 512MB RAM. Doubling the size of RAM would vastly improve overall system performance, without sacrificing stability. Overclocking is fine for those who merely play with their computers, it has no use for those who actually work with their computers.
Hmmm, I happen to like Mandrake, and use it on 5 systems. What their government does is their governments concern (re: the French.) And, as a funny historical side note to your comment...they will look back to the moment they threw their support behind a tin pot dictator and basically shitted on the idea of people living free from oppression. You do realize that, a few decades ago, the United States of America actually "...threw their support behind..." Iraq (and it's "tin pot dictator") with weapons, training, and intelligence during the Iran/Iraq war?
With your pathetic RAH-RAH pseudo-patriotic post (AC, of course), you give the impression that we should
Boycott anything and everything Italian, after all, they supported Hitler. Boycott anything and everything Japanese, after all, they bombed Pearl Harbor. Boycott anything and everything English, after all, they tried burning the White House. Boycott anything and everythinginsert any country in the world here because ALL government at one point or another does monumentally stupid shit. So you just go ahead and fuck off with your ridiculous boycotts, and eat your "freedom" fries, and I will happpily continue using my "freedom" distro.
Umm, hello...FK didn't say he wanted to stop hearing about SCO. He said he wainted one story per day until something happens. That won't solve his problems at all.
I guess this should be to the original post... but it seems to me, if he only wants to hear about SCO once a day, he could, 1. Quit hitting refresh every few minutes, or 2. Don't read more than one article about SCO per day!!! Jumpin' Jiminy, that's why there is a list of articles with (good or bad) summaries. If you don't want to hear about something more than once, look at the article title, figure out if you want to read it, then, either read it, or don't....
the fact that you have a choice is a pro for Linux, for BSD, for Windows, for every one of the OS out there you can choose from. So it is not a factor that is going to push you toward Linux as it can push you toward anything.
So, irregardless of how many options there are to chose from, choice is a factor of each, just like sets of numbers. So, each "set" of factors for any given operating system will have the factor of choice, among other, more varied factors, such as cost, security, who's the owner of the system, you or Microsoft, etc. Now, each of these factors represent the OS. Saying one factor that is common to all sets means it's invalid, is not only wrong, but dangerous. SET 1: {0,1,3,5} SET 2: {0,2,4,6} SET 3: {0,11,2300} Take the sets of numbers listed above. Notice that each set has the common factor of 0. You cannot say that 0 is therefore an invalid factor of SET 1 because it is contained in all sets now can you? Nor can you just remove the 0 as it will fundamentally change each set, not to mention you now have NO set with 0. Apply this to the factor of choice. You cannot remove it from the set of options which push you toward one OS, nor can you remove it from the options of all, or it will no longer exist. So, yeah, I see where you do not consider choice a driving force behind your reasons for running an OS, but that does NOT mean choice is irrelevant to someone else's reason for running an OS.
Actually, if you set your options in IE to disable ActiveX, JavaScript, and Java, you don't even need to install a third party blocker tool. Any web page that requires Java, JavaScript, or ActiveX is a page I don't need to visit. Anything they may have, I can find somewhere else. So Slashdot may not remember my password, but so what?
As the others have replyed, you can get a PS2 version of Linux. As a matter of fact, you can purchase from SONY a kit that includes a hard drive, Linux distro, and I think even a keyboard, for under $200.00.
Slashdot Mirror
Is the point of this story that he should have said "make love to?" ;)
Hmmm, picture that for a moment.... and I can tell you aren't from farm country. Bulls don't sidle up to a cow, and bat their eyes, and break out a bottle of champagne, and spend an evening of silly flirtations, capped with an early evening kiss on the cheek, in hopes of coming back the next night for a romantic evening of "love making". They just come up behind the cow, jump up on 'em, and start thrusting away.
But then again, I suppose you consider a film of Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson going at it all sweaty and graphic to be a romantic flick, all full of "making love" and stuff.
I want a site that is usable, rich in content, functionality and looks good
Funny, I feel the same way. I find marked Hyperlinks to be very usable, and straight text or image gallerys are wonderfuly rich in content, load quite well, have every bit of functionality I want from a website, and if you change the colors of the text slightly, along with the background color the page actually looks pretty damn good. Hunting around for drop-sown slide-out pulsating menus don't fit in my definition of usable, rich content, or looking good. I am after information, not spinning icons, unmoveable background images, or those godforsaken bullshit flash "presentations". Those hinder my quest for the information that should be available right away.
I don't know if they still do, but a one point, ASUS' website required Flash to get to the driver page off their very tiny, not well marked link for support. WTF?!?
I guess I'm of the "old" generation where substance was way more important than "flash." It would be nice if the people wanting the web pages would actually put more thought into what their website says than what their website looks like.
windows: go to mfr website, download install file, run install file, (maybe) reboot. Proceed with using hardware. Linux: go to mfr website...unsupported (dam), go to linux geek site(s)...hmmm no luck, go to google...hmm no luck, go to another linux site - helpful geek says "just download this source, read your device specs, change these numbers accordingly, compile to your kernel with this line: (insert big ass command line here) and you should be ok; tries it...works partially (not all features utilized or available). crap. *heavy sigh* *gives up*
Okay, but what happens when the device is no longer supported for Windows? If you have a non-supported hardware item for any OS you face the exact same problem.
Sure, all the crap you buy at Office Depot or Best Buy will probably have Windows drivers for it, and maybe not for Linux, but big fucking deal. Most of that crap won't work in an SGI or Alpha box, and I doubt the crap you buy at those places will come with drivers for anything but Windows, even at the manufacturers' website.
If you can't do some research before hand on what works with what, you have no one to blame but your self.
I have three scanners, eight printers a serial pen tablet and a USB tablet that ALL work in Linux, but don't in BeOS.... Should I get on Slashdot and cry about it? No, If I want devices that work with BeOS, I go out and do some research until I find the device that does work with BeOS.
I also have a bunch of components (video cards, network cards, etc.) that I can't get to work in Windows, even after cruising the mfg's website, but work perfectly fine in Linux. Why you might ask? They are Macintosh parts.
Not trying to flame, just point out that not everything works in every OS.
So, (and no, I haven't read the entire article) does this "technology" work no matter what the file type is? I mean, does it only work for MP3, or does it even work on the FLACC, AIFF, VQF, OGG, WMA(shudder), WAV, MIDI, or any other sound file/compression people may come up with? Not to mention if the song were rolled up in a tarball or "zipped" or renamed or encrypted or sent as a "hash" file (remember DeCSS? there was a version of it that came as a rather large prime number, which when run through some hash algorithm would leave you with the source code.)?
OOOOOH, I wish I had mod points for you! Can you settle for me quickly scribbling NUMA on my knuckles??
I realize the reason Microsoft is creating the "cut-rate" version of XP is two-fold, One, to stop(?) piracy, and Two, to stop people from thinking of switching to Linux. There are a couple of problems with that train of thought though. Last I heard, the target marketplace for the "cut-rate" or "crippled" or "streamlined" version is already able to get a "pirated" version of XP Pro (full-blown) for about US $5.00. So, why would someone want to buy a "crippled" version for US $37.50? Same applies to the segment wanting to switch to Linux. Why pay US $37.50 for a "cut-rate" version of XP, when you can get the Linux distro of your choice for the price of a burnable cd?
food for thought.....
That there's an incandescent bulb, not an LED. White LEDs didn't exist when that watch came out.
That would explain it's very poor lighting ability.......
Wow, how old is that? :)) I know before it I had a Casio Databank 50 that lasted 6 years on one battery.
Somewhere around 8-9 years, maybe ? (I really like the watch, but I still have trouble with anything time related
The manuals of both say you should get 1-2 years out of a battery with moderate useage of the backlight. The 150 actually uses the "Indiglo" style or whatever from Timex, the 50 used a very tiny white LED in one corner, which didn't work well, even in pitch black conditions.
Who here still wears one? I don't see any of my geeky friends use these types of watches anymore. I prefer them over PDAs.
That would be me. Casio Databank 150, peeling chrome, scratched bezel, worn keys and all.
What's pathetic is that you group 'christian fundamentalists' with terrorists, murderers, and pornographers. Sad.
PATHETIC?!?! How the Hell is it pathetic to group ALL members of the human race together?? I think you've just proved the point of the prior post. If you exclude certain " 'ists" from the rest of humanity, where does it stop? Or do you think it's a Good Idea(TM) to restrict and separate human rights by which " 'ist" group you like?
I hope you're trolling. When you plug a thumb drive in, in Windows XP - it pops up a list of tasks. "Copy to My Documents, View as Slideshow, Open folder to view", etc.
Hmmm, let me see, yep, right there on my bench is a freshly built system, with Windows XP Pro, just loaded and updated, nothing else done with it. I pop in any one of my 5 USB sticks (all different manufacturers, sizes from 16MB to 512MB), and, sure enough, the steps I outlined in my previous post happen, it never once popped the list of tasks. I know the list you are talking about, but have only encountered it on inserting CDs with no autorun. Maybe it's different on a Gateway, Compaq, or Dell, I don't know, as we don't have any of those systems laying around.
Ignorance like that is grounded in zealotry and naivete and has nothing to do with reality.
Okay, I'm not actually trying to "zealot" this, maybe you prefer VStudio over KDevelop, and I prefer KDevelop over VStudio is because we've only really ever used our respective IDEs. I tried VStudio for CSCI I, but they only had the Academic version, which would add all kinds of crap to your executable (But not your code) to give a warning when the program was run that the program was not to be used for any reason except education. I used Kdevelop at home that semester, and ever since, so I am very much more familiar with KDevelop, probably, your situation is you've always used VStudio, so you are much more familiar with it.
So, I claim it's a draw
Linux/Unix will start to make strides on the desktop when its users begin to realize how seriously far behind Microsoft they are in the areas that computers are actually used for and where they deliver the most productivity gains.
The only place I see Linux being "behind" Microsoft is in games and Autocad. Programming in Linux (using KDevelop) is faster, more intuitive, less confusing, and better laid out than in Visual Studio. KDE and Gnome are both so similar to Windows in their actions and the way they present themselves, that the only thing I can see end-users running into problems would be when they get "Start" and "K" confused.
However in reality the Windows GUI analogue interface is more powerful because it is easier to learn and therefore easier to manipulate.
I thinnk what you mean here is you've never seen KDE or Gnome. Dragging an icon around the desktop is the same in KDE, Gnome, or Windows, so learning how to do that is even. When you talk about easier to manipulate, you must mean easier to install WebShots, as changing background images or colors are just as easy to change, and for Damn sure that's about all you can manipulate on Windows, without resorting to "advanced" techniques, which the common enduser would find just as difficult to run on Windows as KDE. If you are talking about true manipulation, hands down any desktop environment for Linux is easier to manipulate than Windows GUI, as you have ready access and permission to modify the source code. Try true manipulation on Windows, and see how far you get.
The Linux/Unix community needs to discard the entire command line mentality and start paying serious attention to ease-of-use and interface issues before ordinary people will take seriously their claim that they and their computer environment is somehow actually better than Windows.
Okay, let's take one example, USB thumb drives. The following occurs with a default out of the box install of the OS. I use Mandrake Linux 9.1 and 9.2. I plug a USB drive into a USB port. An Icon appears on my desktop(KDE). I double click the icon, and a window opens, showing me the contents of the USB drive, which I can then do whatever with.
Now, let's take the same USB drive, and plug it into the USB port of a Windows XP system. After a bit, down by the clock, a pop-up window claims new hardware found, and then proceeds to tell you what it is, if it found drivers for it, and that it's ready to use. The pop-up windows then disappears. To access the drive, you must then click on the "Start" button, move the mouse up to the "My Computer" Icon, single-click, then a window appears showing you the contents of "My Computer". You then move the mouse down, below the listed hard drives, below the listed CDROM drives, and finally come to a section where it lists "Removeable Disk" F:, or whatever letter it got assigned. Now you can finally double-click(Why are there someplaces you must single-click, and other places you must double-click? Remember, these are default installs) that Icon, which then shows you the contents of the USB drive.
Tell me please, how the Windows way has better "ease-of-use", and what kind of "interface issue" it is to automatically, on the desktop, provide a single step solution to getting to my USB drive, rather than clicking all over the god-damned place, "drilling down" through several menus, to get to the same information?
Obviously, with my "command-line mentality" I must have missed where all the work to get to the USB drive on Windows is actually easy and intuitive.
What definition of "illusion" and "powerful" are you using? You say, "When Linux/Unix users complete the process of changing their entire approach to computing to fit this 1970's era approach, they find that they can do many things with command line manipulation that can't be done easily or at all with Window's GUI interface."
Which you then claim, "This gives them the illusion that their OS is m
Many of the large companies have threatend to do this in the past if they don't receive preferential treatment.
And I say, then get the fuck out of here to those corporations.
Yes, this would hurt the US economy to an extent, but think about if HP or Microsoft or some other major company were forced to move to another country, which the US would then decide to trade embargo? Gee, they moved out of the country for profit reasons, then get slapped with a "no trade with the US" clause. It would sure make for an interesting world, even though the US would never do that.
Hate PowerPoint? Well business wants it. Hate Access dB? Well, business loves it.
Actually, business loves the end result of those products, not the products themselves. It's just that they don't know/haven't had any alternative. It is true I don't work on Large business systems, but I spend all day with local small business', and I guarantee you the way they use Word and Excel files, they could just as readily use Wordpad and Lotus 123 or whatever, from DOS days. For MY customer base, a better thing to port over would be QuickBooks, as they all use that.
And how many geeks refuse to fly commercial flights because of TSA restrictions?
I would be one of them.
I can't imagine you've even considered those questions, since the answers would undoubtedly knock you off your holier-than-thou perch.
Nice, buddy. Way to equate having strong morals with being holier-than-thou.
What kind of example do I set for my children?
The employment environment is bad right now, so it's okay to sell drugs to kids.
Our five year outlook isn't so good, so theft and unethical business will be acceptable.
If you were to catch two people breaking into your car, to steal your stuff, would you let it slide? How about if one of them was lookout only, not actively participating in the break-in (because he didn't want to break the law, just make a few bucks to feed his kids, after all, jobs are scarce, remember?), just watching for cops, because the one doing the actual break-in was paying him to do so?
Have you asked yourself these questions? For if you value money over morals, you will soon have neither.
Yes, I have quit jobs over managerial decisions that pushed my moral bounds. No, I did not have a backup plan, and yes, I was scared as Hell about not being able to feed my familiy, or keep a roof over our heads, because I live in a small town that doesn't have many high-tech positions in any field, especially computer related areas. As it turns out, I ended up getting a job with another company (who I'd never really considered as economically viable,) and am now making nearly double what I was, am learning new skills, have way more self-respect and peer-respect, have a boss whose morality and integrity is top-notch, and, most importantly, I never had to sell my morals to anyone for a few loaves of bread and a month's worth of shelter.
It's amazing what having morals and ethics will do for a person, especially if one sticks to them. It is the scariest shit you'll ever do, but it is also the most rewarding, spiritually and financially.
Personally I don't see anything wrong with an employee remaining loyal to a company that allows him or her to put food on the table and a roof over his or her head. Not only is that admirable, but I would rather hire that person over one who decided to jump ship when times were tough.
Speaking of ships, it seems you admire the "all hands down with the ship" school of philosophy. That actually works in certain instances, but if the "hands" know the ship is sinking, with plenty of lead time to get off without going down with it, it seems you would much rather hire the ones who didn't get off the sinking ship, and thus completely fucked themselves and their families, than the ones who, with the tiniest bit of intelligence and awareness, actually got off said ship, so they could continue to provide for their families, rather than gloriously dying, due to some loyalty to the ship, rather than their families.
No, wait, I'm sorry, I got your analogy wrong. After re-reading your post, you seem to actually admire boot-licking curs who remain loyal to the regime, even when said regime is provenly corrupt, unethical, and immoral, not to mention, outright liars and con artists.
Dude, they are talking servers here, not gamer crap that ain't no big thing when the chip fries, or overall stability goes down, for a few extra Mhz.
I would suggest to them, if the motherboard can handle it, add another 512MB RAM. Doubling the size of RAM would vastly improve overall system performance, without sacrificing stability.
Overclocking is fine for those who merely play with their computers, it has no use for those who actually work with their computers.
Hmmm, I happen to like Mandrake, and use it on 5 systems. What their government does is their governments concern (re: the French.) And, as a funny historical side note to your comment ...they will look back to the moment they threw their support behind a tin pot dictator and basically shitted on the idea of people living free from oppression.
You do realize that, a few decades ago, the United States of America actually "...threw their support behind..." Iraq (and it's "tin pot dictator") with weapons, training, and intelligence during the Iran/Iraq war?
With your pathetic RAH-RAH pseudo-patriotic post (AC, of course), you give the impression that we should Boycott anything and everything Italian, after all, they supported Hitler. Boycott anything and everything Japanese, after all, they bombed Pearl Harbor. Boycott anything and everything English, after all, they tried burning the White House. Boycott anything and everything insert any country in the world here because ALL government at one point or another does monumentally stupid shit.
So you just go ahead and fuck off with your ridiculous boycotts, and eat your "freedom" fries, and I will happpily continue using my "freedom" distro.
Umm, hello...FK didn't say he wanted to stop hearing about SCO. He said he wainted one story per day until something happens. That won't solve his problems at all.
I guess this should be to the original post... but it seems to me, if he only wants to hear about SCO once a day, he could,
1. Quit hitting refresh every few minutes, or
2. Don't read more than one article about SCO per day!!!
Jumpin' Jiminy, that's why there is a list of articles with (good or bad) summaries. If you don't want to hear about something more than once, look at the article title, figure out if you want to read it, then, either read it, or don't....
the fact that you have a choice is a pro for Linux, for BSD, for Windows, for every one of the OS out there you can choose from. So it is not a factor that is going to push you toward Linux as it can push you toward anything.
So, irregardless of how many options there are to chose from, choice is a factor of each, just like sets of numbers.
So, each "set" of factors for any given operating system will have the factor of choice, among other, more varied factors, such as cost, security, who's the owner of the system, you or Microsoft, etc.
Now, each of these factors represent the OS. Saying one factor that is common to all sets means it's invalid, is not only wrong, but dangerous.
SET 1: {0,1,3,5}
SET 2: {0,2,4,6}
SET 3: {0,11,2300}
Take the sets of numbers listed above. Notice that each set has the common factor of 0. You cannot say that 0 is therefore an invalid factor of SET 1 because it is contained in all sets now can you?
Nor can you just remove the 0 as it will fundamentally change each set, not to mention you now have NO set with 0.
Apply this to the factor of choice. You cannot remove it from the set of options which push you toward one OS, nor can you remove it from the options of all, or it will no longer exist.
So, yeah, I see where you do not consider choice a driving force behind your reasons for running an OS, but that does NOT mean choice is irrelevant to someone else's reason for running an OS.
Actually, if you set your options in IE to disable ActiveX, JavaScript, and Java, you don't even need to install a third party blocker tool. Any web page that requires Java, JavaScript, or ActiveX is a page I don't need to visit. Anything they may have, I can find somewhere else. So Slashdot may not remember my password, but so what?
Now that's funny!!! Too bad I don't have mod points.
As the others have replyed, you can get a PS2 version of Linux. As a matter of fact, you can purchase from SONY a kit that includes a hard drive, Linux distro, and I think even a keyboard, for under $200.00.