Being ahead of your competitors in market share has its advantages. In the world of computer operating systems, among other things it means more people will buy your product regardless because it is the only thing they know, but also that more ISVs will develop for your OS simply because you're ahead.
That last one is the more important. Many (if not most) businesses buy computers for the (specialist) applications they need, and if those application require Windows, then so be it -- Linux will not even be considered. From a normal user's point of view, the coolest newest applications are always only available for Windows. Maybe the same functionality will be available 6-12 months later for Linux, but that's always 6-12 months too late.
Being a huge Linux fan myself, I often wonder what can be done. It's been suggested that we should focus more on products like WINE, but by definition this will never close the gap. Well, then what about solutions such as VMware? That's one of my favorites, but unfortunately it also makes systems more complex and expensive. My clients have never been fond of that.
Is there really nothing we can do? I don't know. One of our best chances was when the US government was investigating Microsoft for anti-trust and was poised to split up the company, thus weakening their monopoly position. It was such a pity to see good old Dubya move in and let them off the hook. However, they were effectively charged with policing themselves, so it's still possible that the next White House administration with review the whole affair, decide that Redmond has not kept themselves to the agreement and split them up anyway.
Another possibility is that, in their never-ending quest to satisfy their stockholders and squeeze more money out of their customers, Microsoft will eventually go too far and thus loose enough of their customers to make a difference. It would certainly help if some cool Linux apps were to come along to make that decision easier for the average Joe, but I don't see that as likely.
This battle could take a while. In the mean we just have to hang in there, keep improving our Linux systems and applications make sure we're there when Microsoft slips up. I think patience is the key.
Well, doing away with the so-called "free and fair" elections in the United States and just letting the big corporations decide who becomes the next president wouldn't really be changing a lot either. Hey, I'm already used to the idea!
Every big corporate business with aspirations to be evil sees Microsoft as a comrade....
That's ridiculous. All big corporations that have anything to do with the tech sector -- especially the evil ones -- distrust Microsoft. It's because they all want the same thing: to be in a monopoly position, just like Microsoft. They also know that getting there (and staying there) means that they have to play dirty, which is why they don't trust each other.
On the other hand, tech companies, especially ISVs, continue to work with Microsoft because most can't see themselves making as much money if they moved their products away from Windows. That's because Microsoft's operating systems reached critical market mass back way back in the early 90s and have never really been challenged since (most folks haven't even heard of Linux). I don't see this changing until the general perception is that Microsoft's share of the market for desktop operating systems has been reduced to 50% or less (because Apple and Linux will probably be sharing the other 50%).
Not totally surprising, but very sad.
on
Steve Irwin Dead
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Over the years I've very much enjoyed watching Steve Irwin. I was shocked this morning to hear of his accident and my heart goes out to his family and friends.
Having said that, I can't say I'm totally surprised. I know something about snakes, including venomous species, having been fascinated by them from a very early age on. That's why I was so astonished when I saw Steve's program for the first time and how he handled snakes. The crocodiles are one thing; reptile wranglers and herpetologists since Ross Allen have employed much the same methods -- there's really no other good way to do it. But, the snakes! When I first saw how he went about "tailing" Australia's highly dangerous elapids, I thought he was nuts! I still think he was nuts for doing that -- in literature, such methods are never recommended. It simply involves risks that are better -- and easy -- to avoid. How can I say it: people in the same business just tend to live longer when they don't take such risks.
However, we got used to seeing him do those kind of things. It was obvious that Steve had a gift. Only someone who has been around reptiles all of his life and knows instinctively how they behave and react could have done those things and make it look so easy. Indeed, get away with it for so long! It was great for TV, that's for sure! But, I guess that same risk-taking mentality finally got the better of him when he strayed too far from his usual environment. I don't know, but he just seemed a little out of his own element whenever he strapped on a scuba tank over his normal work clothes. Unfortunately, he took that same risk-taking mentality into the water with him and ended up getting stabbed to death by a stingray. How unfortunate. A freak accident? Perhaps, but he was obviously too close and probably doing something most experts would not recommend. But then again, he was Steve Irwin, so what could we expect?
Was he crazy to do what he did? Maybe, maybe not. But, what he did do was use his talent to show the world that the creatures that he loved, the ones that give so many people nightmares, are actually fascinating. That they're not intrinsicly evil, but animals like any others, with important roles to play in the world's ecosystems. Except that they deserve a little more respect. On the whole, from an educational point of view, I think that what Steve did was good. Yes, he often took risks and seemed overly dramatic, but that also got a lot of people to watch his shows and learn things they otherwise would not have. That can only have been a good thing.
Yeah, but that's exactly the kind of solution that everyone's so frustrated with. The software may be free, but it's actually expensive because of the tape drive and all the tapes you have to buy. Hard disks are huge these days (we're up to 750 GB now) and even the biggest, most expensive tape backup solutions struggle to keep up. Maybe you can back up a few gigs on a little DAT tape or with an old DLT, but it's never enough.
Then there's the fact that it's not automatic. Larger companies often work with tape robots, smaller companies usually don't, but in both cases there's always a guy who specializes in keeping track of all those tapes. Get it wrong too often and you could be missing some important backups just when you needed them. And are the backup tapes kept off-site? If not, and the building is destroyed or the equipment stolen, you've got nothing.
All of those problems also applies to home solutions, only with extra complications. For example, your old tape drives breaks down, and for some reason you can't replace it with a similar model (too expensive, no longer available). Result: your expensive tape collection becomes useless. And if you can replace it with a newer model that can read your old tapes, will your old software also support your new tape drive? If not, you're forced to switch software and you can kiss your old backups goodbye again.
Conclusion: even if the software is free, if it uses tapes it has limited capacity, it's too expensive and it's unreliable. No way is that elegant.
Faubackup. Or perhaps dirvish. Either one works on Linux, and both are are pretty easy to use if you can write simple bash shell scripts. In the case of faubackup (http://faubackup.sourceforge.net/), the backups are made to disk and can be run automatically with crontab. If you combine faubackup with rsync, you can even make automatic backups to other hosts over the Internet. Dirvish also makes backups to disk, but doesn't require rsync for the remote stuff (http://www.dirvish.org/).
However, if you're hoping to find something elegant, reliable & cheap (free) for Windows, I don't think that exists. The Windows world is awash with expensive commercial backup solutions, almost always involving expensive hardware (tapes, yuk). The best way to backup Windows is... by using Linux. If there are any free Windows solutions, I doubt that they can hold a candle to the two mentioned above.
Although it's interesting that we've now been able to observe such a pair of dim objects in this configuration, I see nothing strange about its existence. Astronomers have known about binary (and trinary) star systems for ages, but those were always easy to spot because they're so luminous. Brown dwarfs, on the other hand, are much harder to find, but thanks to modern technology we've found quite a few and astronomers now believe that they are in general quite numerous. So, what's so strange about two brown dwarfs orbiting one another? Nothing, really. It may be the first time we've found a binary system like this, sure -- great! -- but it's not strange at all; that's just an adjective thrown in by the media to spice the story.
Sounds like this might be something NASA could be interested in for protection against micrometeoroid strikes in space. For instance, you could use it for space suits (nobody's been killed this way yet, although it's always a possibility), but also for space ships in general and perhaps even exposed portions of a hypothetical moon base (assuming most of it will be built underground). Of course, it would be most practical if the stuff could be made to stand up the the vacuum and extreme temperatures.
Being so smart and everything, you'd think they would have bothered to check how many new articles usually appear on Slashdot in a 36 hour period. I once tried running an RSS feed reader for a while with links to only a few sites, but quickly became so inundated with interesting stories to read that I was soon wasting way too much time. Living in this Internet, information society, immersed in so much new data every day, it's almost as easy to forget it all again; that's why advertisers keep hammering at you every time you turn on your TV. I only remember more of it when the subject matter is relevant to my work or other interests. The physics stuff is always interesting, but I'm not a researcher in that field and it's probably not going to result in any new products for me to buy any time soon either. What's more, most of my friends aren't interested in that stuff, so I don't even get to discuss it with anyone -- i.e. next...
Indeed. Over the years I've read stories about MRAM that said it would some some day be possible to have PCs that would not necessarily have to be rebooted as a consequence for every time that they are turned off. In most cases the operating would simply remain in memory (MRAM) and continue its operations as soon as the PC is turned back on again. It would work like suspend-to-disk or suspend-to-RAM, except that, respectively, you wouldn't have to write/read anything to/from disk first or keep refreshing your RAM (using up power) to get the same results.
This would probably be good news in most cases, but there would still need to be some kind of reset button to wipe the MRAM banks in case the operating seizes up -- particularly important when running unstable operating systems, such as Windows. Now we just have to wait for the stuff to decrease in size and price. I think it's possible that a similar technology will eventually replace those old spinning, magnetic platters, but if this stuff only ends up replacing my RAM and cache without being too expensive, that will still be a big step forward.
By now I would have thought that it was common knowledge among Slashdot readers that Sophos' announcement basically speaks the truth. Although I personally would rather have heard them say that just about any other modern, PC operating system is safer than Windows, OS X is a good enough choice. Over the years I've had a number of clients who run OS X, know nothing about computers and never run any updates for it, but have never been infected with anything either. Sure, it's expensive, but it seems reliable and secure enough to me. Okay, Apple has a small market share, but there's nothing new about that either.
On the other hand, Microsoft's operating systems dominate the market and cost money to boot. However, their security and stability have always left much to be desired. For example, it's still the only major PC operating system that, when freshly installed and attached to the Internet (without a router/NAT), will become infected within seconds; an inexcusable flaw. If it wasn't for Microsoft's all-powerful marketing department, consumers would have given up on this dog years ago.
And let's be honest here: this kind of article appearing on a major news website is a major break with tradition! Usually, when you read an article about computer viruses and security issues on the BBC, for example, no mention is made of alternative operating systems; they simply conclude with some advice on how to keep your Windows PC from becoming infected. Previously, their only step in the other direction was an article by their in-house pundit, Bill Thompson, stating that he had given up on Windows and moved to OS X.
So, why on Earth is Slashdot suddenly doubting an announcement like the one Sophos just made? Because Sophos may have ulterior motives? Ridiculous! If all Windows users were suddenly to take their advice, Sophos would simply go bankrupt. Have the Slashdot editors gone soft? You'd almost think they were on Microsoft's payroll.
I think this is part of Cheney's zero percent strategy: even if there's a 1% chance that terrorists will take advantage of a certain situation, something has got to be done about it (people need to be questioned, perhaps arrested). We're seeing this a lot these days. Recently, I saw a telling description that went something like this:
It used to be that we'd often set people free who were 100% guilty, in order to minimize the chance of convicting someone innocent. Now we don't care if innocent people are sometimes convicted, just as long as those who are 100% guilty are never set free.
The result is that our freedoms are being eroded and replaced by a false sense of security. Maintaining security is never an easy task, but five years ago Bush and Cheney were not paying attention.
If M$ doesn't eventually use WGA to kill off illegal machines, I suppose this software could eventually be used in other ways to prompt the owners to do something about it, such as by suddenly:
Acting like nagware.
Limiting functionality.
Limiting performance.
Limiting Internet access.
Preventing (certain) updates.
Preventing further apps from being installed.
If none of the above, the WGA tool may simply be used by M$ to provide information about you and your machine. If they don't think your machine is properly licensed, perhaps they'll figure this will give them the right to collect additional information on you that they would otherwise not. Hell, it's closed-source malware, written by a convicted monopolist, reporting home to its master -- who the fsck knows what it's up to?! Trust it/them? No way! Glad I'm not using Windows.
I, for one, applaud M$'s evil WGA initiative. I suspect that there will be many dissatisfied Windows users out there who will finally decide to step over to Linux and other operating systems because of this. Earlier, I did not believe this would happen until after Vista got rolled out, but perhaps I was wrong.
Personally, I'm happy that I'm still able to run the few Windows apps that I must on Win98 with VMware.
Incidentally, I ran into an old friend the other day. He knows little about PCs, but he said that he got more work done than ever these days on his Windows PC... by booting it up with a Kubuntu Live CD!:-))
My grandfather was an engineer and was responsible for laying many gas and electrical networks in the Netherlands after WWII. He visited the United States in the early 50's together with my mother and one of the things that astonished him was that all of the power grid and phone lines were up in the air! Naturally, lightning strikes are an eternal problem with this design.
In the Netherlands, as in many (most?) European countries, most of the power grid (except for the very high voltages) and all of the phone system is underground. More expensive? Well, maybe initially, which I'm sure is the reason why US utility companies are not so enthusiastic about the idea, but certainly not afterwards. Environmentally invasive? Oh, give me a break! You bury them along the roads, not somewhere in the woods! The roads will always be more of a problem environmentally than the power- and phone lines buried in the ground next to them! Longer repair times? Perhaps, but then they wouldn't have to be repaired nearly as often, now would they?
China is a nuclear power, just as we are: any all-out war would be destined to end rather suddenly. In other words, starting a war like that would be suicide. Besides, we're pretty much economically interdependent anyway, so starting a war would make no sense. It's better to stay friendly.
Imagine invading Iraq next time without committing a single soldier outside of US borders. IMHO, that's the vision.
If I remember correctly, both Iraq wars were over in record time. This time around, it's the occupation that's the problem: not something you need (better) bombers for.
So, it never hurts to spend even more money on an even bigger stick? That sounds like something that a lobbyist for Northrop Grumman would say. Come, on; there have to be limits. Besides, this particular kind of big stick is completely useless against today's home-grown terrorists. And little guys like Saddam Hussein are completely overwhelmed by the weapons that we already have. Also, waving a big stick around like that can be seen as a sign of insecurity.
c) I like to know that if someone ever attacks me I'l be able to wipe the floors with them.
That sounds overly confident to me -- even delusional. Like you just got your 1st Dan. How old are you anyway?
Oh, I'm all for a good military, but is there never a limit to what the military really needs? The Air Force already has a long-range strategic bomber (the B-52), a supersonic bomber (the B-1) and a hideously expensive stealth bomber (the B-2). No other country in the world has an arsenal like this, so do we really need a supersonic stealth bomber that's going to cost the taxpayer untold billions of dollars? If we're so desperate to get along with our neighbors (Europe, India, China), why do we have to keep our military so armed to the teeth with all these hyper-expensive mega-weapons -- as if the Cold War never ended? The only thing this achieves is to keep America's military-industrial complex happy.
Poisonous is a better description. The problem is that these alien toads look like tasty morsels to many Australian predators. Unfortunately for any animal that decides to makes a meal of one, it will also be its last.
I don't think there's any easy answer to this problem. In neighboring New Zealand, they successfully exterminated alien rats on some of their Islands by airdropping poisoned bait. That's not going to work on these toads, since although they're known to even eat stuff like plants, carrion and dog food (not just insects), they're now far too wide spread. I fear that the only way out will be to introduce a natural enemy, preferably something like a virus or a specific parasite (if one exists).
We've been doing this for a while now and find that it really is the best way to get software to interoperate -- even if the other stuff is made by parties you've never even heard of. Also, it's a form of cooperation that tends to go down well with your clients.
That assumes that only bodies born within their star's circumstellar disk are planets.
No, but that's the theory for how our solar system formed, and there's plenty of visual evidence now that circumstellar disks are quite common. However, if another star wanders too close, it is possible for such planets to be bumped out of orbit. Also, just recently astronomers discovered some systems with central bodies not too much larger than jupiter, so it seems planet-sized objects can form all on their own too.
What if a body escapes the attraction of a star and orbits another?
Absolutely, and I'm sure this happens every once in a while, but stellar distances being what they usually are, I seriously doubt that this can be anything other than a very rare occurrence indeed.
AFAIK, when planets are born in a star's circumstellar disk, this automatically puts them all in the same plane and orbital direction (the same direction as the star's rotation). Any planets orbiting differently, such as in retrograde or even polar orbits, will have been captured,
Slashdot Mirror
Being ahead of your competitors in market share has its advantages. In the world of computer operating systems, among other things it means more people will buy your product regardless because it is the only thing they know, but also that more ISVs will develop for your OS simply because you're ahead.
That last one is the more important. Many (if not most) businesses buy computers for the (specialist) applications they need, and if those application require Windows, then so be it -- Linux will not even be considered. From a normal user's point of view, the coolest newest applications are always only available for Windows. Maybe the same functionality will be available 6-12 months later for Linux, but that's always 6-12 months too late.
Being a huge Linux fan myself, I often wonder what can be done. It's been suggested that we should focus more on products like WINE, but by definition this will never close the gap. Well, then what about solutions such as VMware? That's one of my favorites, but unfortunately it also makes systems more complex and expensive. My clients have never been fond of that.
Is there really nothing we can do? I don't know. One of our best chances was when the US government was investigating Microsoft for anti-trust and was poised to split up the company, thus weakening their monopoly position. It was such a pity to see good old Dubya move in and let them off the hook. However, they were effectively charged with policing themselves, so it's still possible that the next White House administration with review the whole affair, decide that Redmond has not kept themselves to the agreement and split them up anyway.
Another possibility is that, in their never-ending quest to satisfy their stockholders and squeeze more money out of their customers, Microsoft will eventually go too far and thus loose enough of their customers to make a difference. It would certainly help if some cool Linux apps were to come along to make that decision easier for the average Joe, but I don't see that as likely.
This battle could take a while. In the mean we just have to hang in there, keep improving our Linux systems and applications make sure we're there when Microsoft slips up. I think patience is the key.
Well, doing away with the so-called "free and fair" elections in the United States and just letting the big corporations decide who becomes the next president wouldn't really be changing a lot either. Hey, I'm already used to the idea!
On the other hand, tech companies, especially ISVs, continue to work with Microsoft because most can't see themselves making as much money if they moved their products away from Windows. That's because Microsoft's operating systems reached critical market mass back way back in the early 90s and have never really been challenged since (most folks haven't even heard of Linux). I don't see this changing until the general perception is that Microsoft's share of the market for desktop operating systems has been reduced to 50% or less (because Apple and Linux will probably be sharing the other 50%).
Over the years I've very much enjoyed watching Steve Irwin. I was shocked this morning to hear of his accident and my heart goes out to his family and friends.
Having said that, I can't say I'm totally surprised. I know something about snakes, including venomous species, having been fascinated by them from a very early age on. That's why I was so astonished when I saw Steve's program for the first time and how he handled snakes. The crocodiles are one thing; reptile wranglers and herpetologists since Ross Allen have employed much the same methods -- there's really no other good way to do it. But, the snakes! When I first saw how he went about "tailing" Australia's highly dangerous elapids, I thought he was nuts! I still think he was nuts for doing that -- in literature, such methods are never recommended. It simply involves risks that are better -- and easy -- to avoid. How can I say it: people in the same business just tend to live longer when they don't take such risks.
However, we got used to seeing him do those kind of things. It was obvious that Steve had a gift. Only someone who has been around reptiles all of his life and knows instinctively how they behave and react could have done those things and make it look so easy. Indeed, get away with it for so long! It was great for TV, that's for sure! But, I guess that same risk-taking mentality finally got the better of him when he strayed too far from his usual environment. I don't know, but he just seemed a little out of his own element whenever he strapped on a scuba tank over his normal work clothes. Unfortunately, he took that same risk-taking mentality into the water with him and ended up getting stabbed to death by a stingray. How unfortunate. A freak accident? Perhaps, but he was obviously too close and probably doing something most experts would not recommend. But then again, he was Steve Irwin, so what could we expect?
Was he crazy to do what he did? Maybe, maybe not. But, what he did do was use his talent to show the world that the creatures that he loved, the ones that give so many people nightmares, are actually fascinating. That they're not intrinsicly evil, but animals like any others, with important roles to play in the world's ecosystems. Except that they deserve a little more respect. On the whole, from an educational point of view, I think that what Steve did was good. Yes, he often took risks and seemed overly dramatic, but that also got a lot of people to watch his shows and learn things they otherwise would not have. That can only have been a good thing.
He will be sorely missed.
Yeah, but that's exactly the kind of solution that everyone's so frustrated with. The software may be free, but it's actually expensive because of the tape drive and all the tapes you have to buy. Hard disks are huge these days (we're up to 750 GB now) and even the biggest, most expensive tape backup solutions struggle to keep up. Maybe you can back up a few gigs on a little DAT tape or with an old DLT, but it's never enough.
Then there's the fact that it's not automatic. Larger companies often work with tape robots, smaller companies usually don't, but in both cases there's always a guy who specializes in keeping track of all those tapes. Get it wrong too often and you could be missing some important backups just when you needed them. And are the backup tapes kept off-site? If not, and the building is destroyed or the equipment stolen, you've got nothing.
All of those problems also applies to home solutions, only with extra complications. For example, your old tape drives breaks down, and for some reason you can't replace it with a similar model (too expensive, no longer available). Result: your expensive tape collection becomes useless. And if you can replace it with a newer model that can read your old tapes, will your old software also support your new tape drive? If not, you're forced to switch software and you can kiss your old backups goodbye again.
Conclusion: even if the software is free, if it uses tapes it has limited capacity, it's too expensive and it's unreliable. No way is that elegant.
Faubackup. Or perhaps dirvish. Either one works on Linux, and both are are pretty easy to use if you can write simple bash shell scripts. In the case of faubackup (http://faubackup.sourceforge.net/), the backups are made to disk and can be run automatically with crontab. If you combine faubackup with rsync, you can even make automatic backups to other hosts over the Internet. Dirvish also makes backups to disk, but doesn't require rsync for the remote stuff (http://www.dirvish.org/).
However, if you're hoping to find something elegant, reliable & cheap (free) for Windows, I don't think that exists. The Windows world is awash with expensive commercial backup solutions, almost always involving expensive hardware (tapes, yuk). The best way to backup Windows is... by using Linux. If there are any free Windows solutions, I doubt that they can hold a candle to the two mentioned above.
Although it's interesting that we've now been able to observe such a pair of dim objects in this configuration, I see nothing strange about its existence. Astronomers have known about binary (and trinary) star systems for ages, but those were always easy to spot because they're so luminous. Brown dwarfs, on the other hand, are much harder to find, but thanks to modern technology we've found quite a few and astronomers now believe that they are in general quite numerous. So, what's so strange about two brown dwarfs orbiting one another? Nothing, really. It may be the first time we've found a binary system like this, sure -- great! -- but it's not strange at all; that's just an adjective thrown in by the media to spice the story.
Sounds like this might be something NASA could be interested in for protection against micrometeoroid strikes in space. For instance, you could use it for space suits (nobody's been killed this way yet, although it's always a possibility), but also for space ships in general and perhaps even exposed portions of a hypothetical moon base (assuming most of it will be built underground). Of course, it would be most practical if the stuff could be made to stand up the the vacuum and extreme temperatures.
Being so smart and everything, you'd think they would have bothered to check how many new articles usually appear on Slashdot in a 36 hour period. I once tried running an RSS feed reader for a while with links to only a few sites, but quickly became so inundated with interesting stories to read that I was soon wasting way too much time. Living in this Internet, information society, immersed in so much new data every day, it's almost as easy to forget it all again; that's why advertisers keep hammering at you every time you turn on your TV. I only remember more of it when the subject matter is relevant to my work or other interests. The physics stuff is always interesting, but I'm not a researcher in that field and it's probably not going to result in any new products for me to buy any time soon either. What's more, most of my friends aren't interested in that stuff, so I don't even get to discuss it with anyone -- i.e. next...
Indeed. Over the years I've read stories about MRAM that said it would some some day be possible to have PCs that would not necessarily have to be rebooted as a consequence for every time that they are turned off. In most cases the operating would simply remain in memory (MRAM) and continue its operations as soon as the PC is turned back on again. It would work like suspend-to-disk or suspend-to-RAM, except that, respectively, you wouldn't have to write/read anything to/from disk first or keep refreshing your RAM (using up power) to get the same results.
This would probably be good news in most cases, but there would still need to be some kind of reset button to wipe the MRAM banks in case the operating seizes up -- particularly important when running unstable operating systems, such as Windows. Now we just have to wait for the stuff to decrease in size and price. I think it's possible that a similar technology will eventually replace those old spinning, magnetic platters, but if this stuff only ends up replacing my RAM and cache without being too expensive, that will still be a big step forward.
By now I would have thought that it was common knowledge among Slashdot readers that Sophos' announcement basically speaks the truth. Although I personally would rather have heard them say that just about any other modern, PC operating system is safer than Windows, OS X is a good enough choice. Over the years I've had a number of clients who run OS X, know nothing about computers and never run any updates for it, but have never been infected with anything either. Sure, it's expensive, but it seems reliable and secure enough to me. Okay, Apple has a small market share, but there's nothing new about that either.
On the other hand, Microsoft's operating systems dominate the market and cost money to boot. However, their security and stability have always left much to be desired. For example, it's still the only major PC operating system that, when freshly installed and attached to the Internet (without a router/NAT), will become infected within seconds; an inexcusable flaw. If it wasn't for Microsoft's all-powerful marketing department, consumers would have given up on this dog years ago.
And let's be honest here: this kind of article appearing on a major news website is a major break with tradition! Usually, when you read an article about computer viruses and security issues on the BBC, for example, no mention is made of alternative operating systems; they simply conclude with some advice on how to keep your Windows PC from becoming infected. Previously, their only step in the other direction was an article by their in-house pundit, Bill Thompson, stating that he had given up on Windows and moved to OS X.
So, why on Earth is Slashdot suddenly doubting an announcement like the one Sophos just made? Because Sophos may have ulterior motives? Ridiculous! If all Windows users were suddenly to take their advice, Sophos would simply go bankrupt. Have the Slashdot editors gone soft? You'd almost think they were on Microsoft's payroll.
- It used to be that we'd often set people free who were 100% guilty, in order to minimize the chance of convicting someone innocent. Now we don't care if innocent people are sometimes convicted, just as long as those who are 100% guilty are never set free.
The result is that our freedoms are being eroded and replaced by a false sense of security. Maintaining security is never an easy task, but five years ago Bush and Cheney were not paying attention.- Acting like nagware.
- Limiting functionality.
- Limiting performance.
- Limiting Internet access.
- Preventing (certain) updates.
- Preventing further apps from being installed.
If none of the above, the WGA tool may simply be used by M$ to provide information about you and your machine. If they don't think your machine is properly licensed, perhaps they'll figure this will give them the right to collect additional information on you that they would otherwise not. Hell, it's closed-source malware, written by a convicted monopolist, reporting home to its master -- who the fsck knows what it's up to?! Trust it/them? No way! Glad I'm not using Windows.I, for one, applaud M$'s evil WGA initiative. I suspect that there will be many dissatisfied Windows users out there who will finally decide to step over to Linux and other operating systems because of this. Earlier, I did not believe this would happen until after Vista got rolled out, but perhaps I was wrong.
:-))
Personally, I'm happy that I'm still able to run the few Windows apps that I must on Win98 with VMware.
Incidentally, I ran into an old friend the other day. He knows little about PCs, but he said that he got more work done than ever these days on his Windows PC... by booting it up with a Kubuntu Live CD!
My grandfather was an engineer and was responsible for laying many gas and electrical networks in the Netherlands after WWII. He visited the United States in the early 50's together with my mother and one of the things that astonished him was that all of the power grid and phone lines were up in the air! Naturally, lightning strikes are an eternal problem with this design.
In the Netherlands, as in many (most?) European countries, most of the power grid (except for the very high voltages) and all of the phone system is underground. More expensive? Well, maybe initially, which I'm sure is the reason why US utility companies are not so enthusiastic about the idea, but certainly not afterwards. Environmentally invasive? Oh, give me a break! You bury them along the roads, not somewhere in the woods! The roads will always be more of a problem environmentally than the power- and phone lines buried in the ground next to them! Longer repair times? Perhaps, but then they wouldn't have to be repaired nearly as often, now would they?
If I remember correctly, both Iraq wars were over in record time. This time around, it's the occupation that's the problem: not something you need (better) bombers for.
So, it never hurts to spend even more money on an even bigger stick? That sounds like something that a lobbyist for Northrop Grumman would say. Come, on; there have to be limits. Besides, this particular kind of big stick is completely useless against today's home-grown terrorists. And little guys like Saddam Hussein are completely overwhelmed by the weapons that we already have. Also, waving a big stick around like that can be seen as a sign of insecurity.
c) I like to know that if someone ever attacks me I'l be able to wipe the floors with them.
That sounds overly confident to me -- even delusional. Like you just got your 1st Dan. How old are you anyway?
Oh, I'm all for a good military, but is there never a limit to what the military really needs? The Air Force already has a long-range strategic bomber (the B-52), a supersonic bomber (the B-1) and a hideously expensive stealth bomber (the B-2). No other country in the world has an arsenal like this, so do we really need a supersonic stealth bomber that's going to cost the taxpayer untold billions of dollars? If we're so desperate to get along with our neighbors (Europe, India, China), why do we have to keep our military so armed to the teeth with all these hyper-expensive mega-weapons -- as if the Cold War never ended? The only thing this achieves is to keep America's military-industrial complex happy.
Poisonous is a better description. The problem is that these alien toads look like tasty morsels to many Australian predators. Unfortunately for any animal that decides to makes a meal of one, it will also be its last.
I don't think there's any easy answer to this problem. In neighboring New Zealand, they successfully exterminated alien rats on some of their Islands by airdropping poisoned bait. That's not going to work on these toads, since although they're known to even eat stuff like plants, carrion and dog food (not just insects), they're now far too wide spread. I fear that the only way out will be to introduce a natural enemy, preferably something like a virus or a specific parasite (if one exists).
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toad
Support open standards.
We've been doing this for a while now and find that it really is the best way to get software to interoperate -- even if the other stuff is made by parties you've never even heard of. Also, it's a form of cooperation that tends to go down well with your clients.
Absolutely, and I'm sure this happens every once in a while, but stellar distances being what they usually are, I seriously doubt that this can be anything other than a very rare occurrence indeed.
AFAIK, when planets are born in a star's circumstellar disk, this automatically puts them all in the same plane and orbital direction (the same direction as the star's rotation). Any planets orbiting differently, such as in retrograde or even polar orbits, will have been captured,