Re:There's nothing wrong with this bill
on
Congress Passes SWSA
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Because the simple fact of the matter is that most online music stations are NOT for-profit at all.
Most of them, from what I've seen at least, are run by either (A) non-profit radio stations or (B) individual music lovers using Shoutcast or Ogg or what-eva.
And if the RIAA promotes their common "it promotes piracy" party line in this case-- oh, really? How many people are going to pirate a cruddy 56/96/128Kbps stream?
I'm a Unix SA/Webmaster/Web programmer living in the NYC area. In my interviews, yes-- I have had plenty of written tests. Seems more employers use the infernal things than not, sometimes.
Personally, I feel they are ridiculous. Inevitably, you end up getting asked things like:
In SunOS 2.x, what was the command used to check how much belly lint has migrated into your power supply?
What is wrong with this piece of code? (inevitably written in your least favorite language)
In Perl, what is the function that returns the Hebrew date given the Latvian date?
I'm exaggerating a little-- but only a little.
The basis of most of these tests is simple-- rote memorization, and forcing the hapless test-taker to perform tasks with paper and pencil where they would ordinarily have 5 ORA books, a half dozen colleagues on AIM/ICQ/Yahoo! Messenger/MS Messenger to chat with, and Google.
Needless to say, this is not only unfair, but comically (tragically!) unrealistic.
Unfortunately, the only meaningful test of a programmer is the one thing they cannot do in an interview setting-- have the candidate perform a real, everyday assignment, with full access to everything they would usually have access to, without the artificial and performance-damaging stress of the test environment (remember, many of us get conditioned to stress out when in a testing environment. Remember all those horrid nail-biting Calc/Physics/Chem exams from High School and College?). But since that can't be done...
Personally, when I give interviews, my technique is to grill users on their general coding/SA philosophy, and their TRUE background-- that is, not only things they've done for corporations, but things they've done for non-profits, things they've done at home, things they've done while sitting on the john in Penn Station... It doesn't matter where you coded something to me. But unfortunately I seem to be alone with that opinion, and most employers only want to hear about things that you did in a commercial, for-profit environment.
A sad fact of the market nowadays is that a large proportion of job applicants are grossly underqualified. Most of my job, as I've explained to coworkers, is weeding out, for instance, Unix SA job applicants who've never adminned a Unix box ("But I have a certificate from Sun!")... programmer interns whose greatest programming achievement thus far is "I opened a Visual BASIC program's source code, and changed its background color"... and the like. (Both of these are actual examples pulled from my interviewing experiences. Scary.)
I personally feel the job of interviewing is easy, if you're a serious hacker yourself. Hackers can always recognize other hackers. Even though many of us lack much ability to 'sense' people (remember how many geeks are autistic, e.g. with Asperger's Syndrome or whatnot), a geek can almost always sense another geek, if they are AT ALL paying attention.
Of course, in some cases, The Boss specifically does not WANT a geek. If you are lucky, this sentiment will fizzle out before the end of the interviewing process, leaving you to select a geek for the job. But once, I recall my boss telling me she wants a "regular, ordinary" (suit-wearing) person to help SA our Unix boxes. The result was a disaster. We interviewed a number of of really well-presented, suit-clad, well-educated, polite young (and older) men-- absolutely none of whom proved qualified to even TOUCH a live Web site, let alone one of our size.
After sitting in on an interview, my boss admitted that I was right-- that looking good in a suit and having a few certificates from Sun does not a Unix SA make.
One (wo)man's fight is another (wo)man's non-issue, I suppose...
You do bring up some excellent points, and I am heartened to see someone who cares about reducing cruelty to animals. That is a beautiful sentiment.
I am personally no great fan of Linux over any other Unixlike system. FreeBSD is good in my book, as is Mac OS X, as is (insert Unixlike OS here). I dislike Windows more on moral grounds than on technical-- well, that isn't quite true. As of Win2K I disliked it more on moral grounds than on technical. 2K was a nice OS. A bit heavy, but nice, and stable, and compatible with darned near anything. NT 4 was also nice, if a bit more quirky and difficult (but efficient as all heck, even on older hardware).
XP, on the other hand, is a travesty. Just IMHO-- YMMV greatly. Me, I wish they would just go back to Win2K. Ever since XP came out, I've started to seriously dislike MS's technical actions, as well as their morality (or lack thereof-- you be the judge.)
But anyhow, really, I don't "like" Unix so much as I "dislike" Microsoft-- and, as noted, for mostly moral reasons.
Disliking Microsoft on moral grounds doesn't make that much sense to most people. That is because, when viewed in a vacuum, an inexplicable hatred for the most successful software company on Earth seems... odd. Very odd.
To understand why I dislike them, you have to look beyond the here and now-- to look at the issue fourth-dimensionally, if you will.
Basically-- Microsoft is monopolizing segment after segment of the computer field. First OSes, then flight simulators (!!!), then office suites, then they took their stab at joysticks (they've been making most excellent keyboards and mice all along. I can't comment on the joysticks, as I've never played with one. I'm not much of a gamer.)
This in and of itself isn't bad. What's bad is that Microsoft, like most companies would (as you'd say, "it's good business"), understandably slow the pace of "innovation" (to use their term) when they have achieved an appreciable monopoly.
To use an example here:
Somewhere between Win95 and Win98, as I reckon it, Microsoft cemented their 90+% OS monopoly. And thereby stopped producing any real "innovation" in this area. Consider the following:
Win95 + bugfixes + more drivers + some stuff from "Microsoft Plus!" + integration of IE, etc = Win98
Win98 + bugfixes + more drivers + bloat + more bloat = WinME
That's not innovation. That's the sort of things that most software packages release as free upgrades.
Similarly, on the "business-grade" side of the MS OS world: (i.e. the OSes with the NT-based kernels)
WinNT + bugfixes + many many more drivers + some stuff from "Microsoft Plus!" + integration of IE, etc + USB support = Win2K
Win2K + bugfixes + more drivers + bloat + lots of bloat + candy-coated GUI = WinXP
There's not much "there" there.
Windows isn't doing too much exciting or "innovative" any more since MS knows they have a monopoly in the OS world. There's no incentive for them to innovate!
The case of IE is even worse. After having thoroughly trounced Netscape and Co. in a prolonged "browser war", IE now has a ~95% market share. IE 6 was released in late August 2001. They haven't released 7.0 yet, or 6.5, or even 6.1 (correct me if I'm wrong).
In fact, rumor seems to be that there will never be an IE 7.
Instead, they will phase in "MSN Explorer"-- basically IE integrated with MSN's stuff, a la AOL's traditional "browser with tons of other goodies integrated into a nice cutesy interface" software.
But is slapping a cutesy-wootsy interface on top of Hotmail/Slate/Microsoft Messenger/etc. and glomming it atop IE "innovation"? Or is it primarily a marketing play to push MSN?
Anyhow. So 'innovation' in the OS field (dominated by MS) has slowed to a crawl. 'Innovation' in the browser field (ditto) has too-- unless you use one of the "alternative" browsers like Mozilla, which thank Goddess are still available, and making rapid headway. But the browser that 95% of the Web uses, IE for Windows, isn't advancing at all. And it's slated to be replaced by MSN Explorer-- a MS marketeer's wet dream.
MS is making real strides, and creating real "innovation", only in markets where it has not yet achieved dominance. Witness how many nifty things have happened in the world of Windows CE. Only now, as WinCE becomes the De Facto 'Standard' Handheld (the position formerly held by Palm before the Palm people managed to lodge their heads up their rear ends), is this innovation slowing.
The XBox is faring horridly. You can bet your buttons that MS will come out with something spectacular and new to boost their sagging video game sales.
Why? Because they are having to compete in that arena (unlike the OS, or browser, or (etc.) arenas).
When the competition ends, so does the innovation.
The reason that this concept is so important, and so worth complaining vocally about, is that we're talking about computers here. Computers are the new pencil and paper. They are a part of everyday life, and our development as an advanced technological civilization (or so we think ourselves) depends directly, in very large part, upon computers.
So as innovation in the entire computing field slowly grinds to a halt as MS dominates area after area after area after area, we will all bear the consequences.
Our very progress towards technological maturity-- towards the technology that we need to lift us off of our world, colonize space, cure human diseases, extend lifetimes dramatically-- it will be threatened by one single company.
But I spoke too soon-- actually, the problem with Microsoft is not just Microsoft any more. The Microsoft mindset ("lie, cheat, steal, and claim IP rights on everything you possibly can to get ahead") has spread, like a meme, to other fields.
Why do you think we don't have an AIDS cure yet? Simple... the drug companies researching HIV have snapped up quick-n-easy US patents on key technologies, genes, compounds, and the like.
This is not capitalism. Capitalism is a respectable system. This is 'market fascism'-- where each industry comes to be dominated by one or two titanic, all-powerful corporations asserting IP rights over everything under the sun, and thereby slowing progress industry-wide (and sometimes across industries).
People often tell me "Well, people have a choice. They can go run Linux or Mac OS or FreeBSD if they want to." And that's quite true. But in a world where MS has convinced (either through their dominance itself-- i.e. the simple reality of "95% of our clientele run Windows; we don't need to support any other OS"-- or through browbeating them into submission) nearly everyone in the field to only support Windows, well...
How attractive does Linux, or Mac OS, or FreeBSD, or BeOS or OS/2 or what-eva look when you walk into CompUSA and see a whole giant store full of goodies and software that work with Windows, and a few measly shelves full of stuff marked "Works with Linux" or "Mac compatible"? (More of the latter than the former, but still.. you get my point). Most people would conclude that Windows is the way to go. And thus the monopoly is maintained.
At one point, in the distant, distant past, I thought SlashDot was a gathering for Unix/Linux/Be/Mac/NON MSFT geeks.
Quite long ago, I realized that I was mistaken.
Oh well. Anyhow, you might not run Linux on the desktop, but I do-- for moral reasons as much as for technical ones. But the point is moot; regardless of OS, I think it only fair for hardware manufacturers to disclose their APIs/protocols to everyone (not just MS)-- so we can all use their products.
It is very irritating when you really want to buy some hot new video-capture card, or sound board, or modem, or (???) and find that it only works with Windows.
The MS apologists do make quite a bit of noise about "capitalism", but they seem to forget the "free market" part! I do respect capitalism when properly executed-- but forcing me to use Windows in order to use a simple mouse (e.g. my aforementioned Win-Only Kensington Mouse-in-a-Box USB) is just short of insane. Not to mention highly irritating...
My home page is in shambles because I've moved servers, usernames, home directories, and now I'm working on a new site.
I spend more time working on other peoples' sites (for money) than on mine (for free). It's the only way I can pay the rent, in these lousy economic times.
Heck, I'm lazy. I'll just put up a "Coming back soon..." page.
(plugs a very common brand of USB mouse into her computer. It won't work) "Here's one reason why."
(plugs a very common brand of USB scanner into her computer. It won't work, and SANE lists its driver as not being available at all, or as being "experimental") "Here's another reason."
Shall I go on? USB is potentially really bad since, as I've mentioned quite a few times here, USB devices (with a few exceptions) seem to use non-standardized, proprietary, roll-your-own protocols which are difficult (and potentially ILLEGAL, under the DMCA) to reverse-engineer-- so that nice new USB mouse/scanner/can-opener that you bought might not work under anything but Windows.
Since I don't run Windows, but I still think I have the right to new hardware... well, that's why I dislike USB. Something about it seems to bring out the worst in hardware developers-- at least, in terms of protocols/drivers/support. Most of the nice new whiz-bang USB gizmos in stores do not work under Linux. There's no reason for this to be so, but it is so. You don't have the same problem with serial/SCSI/CompactFlash/PCMCIA devices so much... but support for USB geegaws is VERY iffy and spotty.
Right now, I'm using a PS/2 (not USB) mouse on my system, PRECISELY because my shiny new USB mice didn't work under 2.4.19...
One of my desktops does-- but it runs Debian. And, as mentioned, driver support for USB stuff under Anything But Windows(TM) can be very fickle.
I can't even use plain old cheap commodity USB mice (I like Kensington Mouse-in-a-Box USBs-- they cost $6 and are actually pretty darned well-made) with Linux. I had to hunt about for quite a bit on eBay to find one of the few Linux-compatible USB scanners. I certainly wouldn't expect a device like this to have a Linux driver any time soon.
.
Like I said before-- I donno why, but certain sorts of ports (the biggest exemplars might be USB and Parallel) seem to encourage companies to "roll their own" protocol... whereas other sorts of ports (e.g. SCSI, plain-old-db9-serial, CF) tend to lead to devices that use plain-Jane, commodity protocols and are easy to write drivers for (without requiring detailed specs from the company, or potentially-illegal-thanks-to-the-DMCA reverse engineering...)
Because in addition to the type that are $10 and plug into USB, there are also the type that are $10 and plug into PCMCIA. And several other types besides.
The idea of a polished oaken computer case gives me a woody. Well, it would if I get a woody.:) (I am of the Chick side of the Force) Wait! I can always install Debian 3.0 on it...
(rimshot)
Hmm. I kinda-sorta made a computer out of natural materials once... when money was short and I had plenty of spare parts sitting about, I built a machine using ordinary paper in place of the handy-dandy metal plate (donno what they're called) that the motherboard attaches to. In fact, I used the campus foodservice newsletter.:D
Actually, I don't dual-boot. I run Debian and only Debian. Well, I do dual-boot if you count the four or five different kernels in my lilo.conf.;) Color me loony.:)
But you lost your wager. I hope it was for something good, like a life. I seem to have lost mine...;) (I might not like Windows much, but Windows people seem to have Lives much more than us old Unix fogeys. I'll grant you that much.)
Cons/Expos are fun. I remember, as a little kid, having such a joy of a time at Applefest.. going about with my little plastic baggie, collecting freebie disks, flyers, even having my photo digitally printed onto a mock-up issue of A+:) (A true feat back then! It was rather pixellated, but still cool.)
If Comdex dies, what if a bunch of geeks and tech companies got together to hold a new con, on a shoestring budget? Like, for instance, couldn't tents be pitched on a large field in Central Park (NYC), and the con/expo be held there? Much cheaper than renting a convention center in Vegas, or the Javits Center in NYC. Plus, you're outside (yes, with that big yellow day-star thingy;) I don't see it much myself...), which is a cool change of pace from the fluorescent-lights-and-Jolt indoor life of most coders.
They could even serve hot dogs. NYC hot dogs are the best!
Just had a thought. Actually, a GREAT standard to use here would be CompactFlash (not that silly proprietary MemoryStick stuff. Genuine, pop-into-$10-adaptor-and-shove-into-PCMCIA-slot CompactFlash.)
The buttonset definitions could be stored as plain text files, designed to be human-readable and human-editable. Something like Windows's INI files...
Ooh, please don't just recommend USB like that. USB can be dangerous in the wrong hands.
The land of USB peripherals seems to be the land of "rolling your own" protocols. For that (and possibly other) reasons, USB support in Linux is pretty sparse. Heck, I have some USB mice (!!!) that refuse to work (namely, the nice, cheap, $6 (but surprisingly high-quality) Kensington Mouse-in-a-Box USB (with scrolly wheel) even as of 2.4.19.
I'm not quite sure why, but some sorts of ports seem to invite "roll your own protocol"-itis. Parallel ports spawned much of this sort of behavior-- remember all the parallel port scanners, digital cameras, and electric tweezers that came out in the mid-90s? Ditto USB; everything seems to do things its own way.
Then there's serial. Serial is serial is serial, by and by, it's easy to reverse engineer things (since the tools to do so have been around for decades-- heck, you can just plug a serial device into a dumb terminal and watch the data flow by-- or more likely watch the device try to handshake with a non-existant desktop;) ) Also SCSI. I've never heard of a modern SCSI scanner brand that ISN'T supported by Linux. ALL modern SCSI CD-ROM drives are supported. ALL SCSI hard drives (since they adhere to the same standard.)
But step into the world of USB and the picture gets a bit murkier... unless you're running Windows, of course, where all the drivers are available since the hardware manufacturers themselves make it.
Case in point: I lack a SCSI card in my box at the moment. And I needed a scanner, and didn't want to do any weird diddling with parport scanners. So I decided to go USB. It took me a whole 15 minutes of scanning through dozens, and dozens, and dozens of USB scanner listings on eBay to find one that was supported "stably" (not listed as "experimental" on the SANE page) under Linux/Unix...
You can update new device interfaces via a modem...
Mo-dem? What's a mo-dem?... I think I remember Mo-dems...those were those slow things with the blinkylights that we all had before we got residential DSL and cable...right? And you could type +++ATH0 and it e(6`|:fK6@(^*&#~~~NO CARRIER
Hmm... I wonder if "prior art" would apply here? Like, my name is Jessica-- I already have 'jessica.org' (per an agreement with the former user of that domain name-- a pr0n site, of course... which is why jessica.org is banned by a lot of firewalls to this day, and I have to point people to "jb.twu.net"), but let's say I wanted jlb.com or something.. and some company, say Jamie's Lemon Bars, Inc., was fighting with me for that name.
Could I make an argument in court that since I have born the initials JLB since the '70s, but Jamie's confectionary business is only, say, 10 years old, I should get it?
In this case, my existence would be the prior art. It'd be kind of hard to prove I don't exist. But proving that merely existing constitutes "prior art" in a dispute over a name-- ah, that might be harder...
Naah, us chicks can geek out too. We just can't go mentioning it here on SlashDot, or we'll get responses like this one...
(grins, and goes back to compiling ALSA)
AAACK! I MENTIONED GEEKING OUT!;) OK, start the barrage;)
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Because the simple fact of the matter is that most online music stations are NOT for-profit at all.
Most of them, from what I've seen at least, are run by either (A) non-profit radio stations or (B) individual music lovers using Shoutcast or Ogg or what-eva.
And if the RIAA promotes their common "it promotes piracy" party line in this case-- oh, really? How many people are going to pirate a cruddy 56/96/128Kbps stream?
Personally, I feel they are ridiculous. Inevitably, you end up getting asked things like:
In SunOS 2.x, what was the command used to check how much belly lint has migrated into your power supply?
What is wrong with this piece of code? (inevitably written in your least favorite language)
In Perl, what is the function that returns the Hebrew date given the Latvian date?
I'm exaggerating a little-- but only a little.
The basis of most of these tests is simple-- rote memorization, and forcing the hapless test-taker to perform tasks with paper and pencil where they would ordinarily have 5 ORA books, a half dozen colleagues on AIM/ICQ/Yahoo! Messenger/MS Messenger to chat with, and Google.
Needless to say, this is not only unfair, but comically (tragically!) unrealistic.
Unfortunately, the only meaningful test of a programmer is the one thing they cannot do in an interview setting-- have the candidate perform a real, everyday assignment, with full access to everything they would usually have access to, without the artificial and performance-damaging stress of the test environment (remember, many of us get conditioned to stress out when in a testing environment. Remember all those horrid nail-biting Calc/Physics/Chem exams from High School and College?). But since that can't be done...
Personally, when I give interviews, my technique is to grill users on their general coding/SA philosophy, and their TRUE background-- that is, not only things they've done for corporations, but things they've done for non-profits, things they've done at home, things they've done while sitting on the john in Penn Station... It doesn't matter where you coded something to me. But unfortunately I seem to be alone with that opinion, and most employers only want to hear about things that you did in a commercial, for-profit environment.
A sad fact of the market nowadays is that a large proportion of job applicants are grossly underqualified. Most of my job, as I've explained to coworkers, is weeding out, for instance, Unix SA job applicants who've never adminned a Unix box ("But I have a certificate from Sun!")... programmer interns whose greatest programming achievement thus far is "I opened a Visual BASIC program's source code, and changed its background color"... and the like. (Both of these are actual examples pulled from my interviewing experiences. Scary.)
I personally feel the job of interviewing is easy, if you're a serious hacker yourself. Hackers can always recognize other hackers. Even though many of us lack much ability to 'sense' people (remember how many geeks are autistic, e.g. with Asperger's Syndrome or whatnot), a geek can almost always sense another geek, if they are AT ALL paying attention.
Of course, in some cases, The Boss specifically does not WANT a geek. If you are lucky, this sentiment will fizzle out before the end of the interviewing process, leaving you to select a geek for the job. But once, I recall my boss telling me she wants a "regular, ordinary" (suit-wearing) person to help SA our Unix boxes. The result was a disaster. We interviewed a number of of really well-presented, suit-clad, well-educated, polite young (and older) men-- absolutely none of whom proved qualified to even TOUCH a live Web site, let alone one of our size.
After sitting in on an interview, my boss admitted that I was right-- that looking good in a suit and having a few certificates from Sun does not a Unix SA make.
Anyhow, just my 2c... YMMV. Sorry for rambling.
Sounds like a new FPS.
You do bring up some excellent points, and I am heartened to see someone who cares about reducing cruelty to animals. That is a beautiful sentiment.
I am personally no great fan of Linux over any other Unixlike system. FreeBSD is good in my book, as is Mac OS X, as is (insert Unixlike OS here). I dislike Windows more on moral grounds than on technical-- well, that isn't quite true. As of Win2K I disliked it more on moral grounds than on technical. 2K was a nice OS. A bit heavy, but nice, and stable, and compatible with darned near anything. NT 4 was also nice, if a bit more quirky and difficult (but efficient as all heck, even on older hardware).
XP, on the other hand, is a travesty. Just IMHO-- YMMV greatly. Me, I wish they would just go back to Win2K. Ever since XP came out, I've started to seriously dislike MS's technical actions, as well as their morality (or lack thereof-- you be the judge.)
But anyhow, really, I don't "like" Unix so much as I "dislike" Microsoft-- and, as noted, for mostly moral reasons.
Disliking Microsoft on moral grounds doesn't make that much sense to most people. That is because, when viewed in a vacuum, an inexplicable hatred for the most successful software company on Earth seems
To understand why I dislike them, you have to look beyond the here and now-- to look at the issue fourth-dimensionally, if you will.
Basically-- Microsoft is monopolizing segment after segment of the computer field. First OSes, then flight simulators (!!!), then office suites, then they took their stab at joysticks (they've been making most excellent keyboards and mice all along. I can't comment on the joysticks, as I've never played with one. I'm not much of a gamer.)
This in and of itself isn't bad. What's bad is that Microsoft, like most companies would (as you'd say, "it's good business"), understandably slow the pace of "innovation" (to use their term) when they have achieved an appreciable monopoly.
To use an example here:
Somewhere between Win95 and Win98, as I reckon it, Microsoft cemented their 90+% OS monopoly. And thereby stopped producing any real "innovation" in this area. Consider the following:
- Win95 + bugfixes + more drivers + some stuff from "Microsoft Plus!" + integration of IE, etc = Win98
- Win98 + bugfixes + more drivers + bloat + more bloat = WinME
That's not innovation. That's the sort of things that most software packages release as free upgrades.Similarly, on the "business-grade" side of the MS OS world: (i.e. the OSes with the NT-based kernels)
- WinNT + bugfixes + many many more drivers + some stuff from "Microsoft Plus!" + integration of IE, etc + USB support = Win2K
- Win2K + bugfixes + more drivers + bloat + lots of bloat + candy-coated GUI = WinXP
There's not much "there" there.Windows isn't doing too much exciting or "innovative" any more since MS knows they have a monopoly in the OS world. There's no incentive for them to innovate!
The case of IE is even worse. After having thoroughly trounced Netscape and Co. in a prolonged "browser war", IE now has a ~95% market share. IE 6 was released in late August 2001. They haven't released 7.0 yet, or 6.5, or even 6.1 (correct me if I'm wrong).
In fact, rumor seems to be that there will never be an IE 7.
Instead, they will phase in "MSN Explorer"-- basically IE integrated with MSN's stuff, a la AOL's traditional "browser with tons of other goodies integrated into a nice cutesy interface" software.
But is slapping a cutesy-wootsy interface on top of Hotmail/Slate/Microsoft Messenger/etc. and glomming it atop IE "innovation"? Or is it primarily a marketing play to push MSN?
Anyhow. So 'innovation' in the OS field (dominated by MS) has slowed to a crawl. 'Innovation' in the browser field (ditto) has too-- unless you use one of the "alternative" browsers like Mozilla, which thank Goddess are still available, and making rapid headway. But the browser that 95% of the Web uses, IE for Windows, isn't advancing at all. And it's slated to be replaced by MSN Explorer-- a MS marketeer's wet dream.
MS is making real strides, and creating real "innovation", only in markets where it has not yet achieved dominance. Witness how many nifty things have happened in the world of Windows CE. Only now, as WinCE becomes the De Facto 'Standard' Handheld (the position formerly held by Palm before the Palm people managed to lodge their heads up their rear ends), is this innovation slowing.
The XBox is faring horridly. You can bet your buttons that MS will come out with something spectacular and new to boost their sagging video game sales.
Why? Because they are having to compete in that arena (unlike the OS, or browser, or (etc.) arenas).
When the competition ends, so does the innovation.
The reason that this concept is so important, and so worth complaining vocally about, is that we're talking about computers here. Computers are the new pencil and paper. They are a part of everyday life, and our development as an advanced technological civilization (or so we think ourselves) depends directly, in very large part, upon computers.
So as innovation in the entire computing field slowly grinds to a halt as MS dominates area after area after area after area, we will all bear the consequences.
Our very progress towards technological maturity-- towards the technology that we need to lift us off of our world, colonize space, cure human diseases, extend lifetimes dramatically-- it will be threatened by one single company.
But I spoke too soon-- actually, the problem with Microsoft is not just Microsoft any more. The Microsoft mindset ("lie, cheat, steal, and claim IP rights on everything you possibly can to get ahead") has spread, like a meme, to other fields.
Why do you think we don't have an AIDS cure yet? Simple... the drug companies researching HIV have snapped up quick-n-easy US patents on key technologies, genes, compounds, and the like.
This is not capitalism. Capitalism is a respectable system. This is 'market fascism'-- where each industry comes to be dominated by one or two titanic, all-powerful corporations asserting IP rights over everything under the sun, and thereby slowing progress industry-wide (and sometimes across industries).
People often tell me "Well, people have a choice. They can go run Linux or Mac OS or FreeBSD if they want to." And that's quite true. But in a world where MS has convinced (either through their dominance itself-- i.e. the simple reality of "95% of our clientele run Windows; we don't need to support any other OS"-- or through browbeating them into submission) nearly everyone in the field to only support Windows, well...
How attractive does Linux, or Mac OS, or FreeBSD, or BeOS or OS/2 or what-eva look when you walk into CompUSA and see a whole giant store full of goodies and software that work with Windows, and a few measly shelves full of stuff marked "Works with Linux" or "Mac compatible"? (More of the latter than the former, but still.. you get my point). Most people would conclude that Windows is the way to go. And thus the monopoly is maintained.
Oh yeah.. I almost forgot.
"ELENDIL!!!
At one point, in the distant, distant past, I thought SlashDot was a gathering for Unix/Linux/Be/Mac/NON MSFT geeks.
Quite long ago, I realized that I was mistaken.
Oh well. Anyhow, you might not run Linux on the desktop, but I do-- for moral reasons as much as for technical ones. But the point is moot; regardless of OS, I think it only fair for hardware manufacturers to disclose their APIs/protocols to everyone (not just MS)-- so we can all use their products.
It is very irritating when you really want to buy some hot new video-capture card, or sound board, or modem, or (???) and find that it only works with Windows.
The MS apologists do make quite a bit of noise about "capitalism", but they seem to forget the "free market" part! I do respect capitalism when properly executed-- but forcing me to use Windows in order to use a simple mouse (e.g. my aforementioned Win-Only Kensington Mouse-in-a-Box USB) is just short of insane. Not to mention highly irritating...
(JessLeah weilds Vorpal Sword +3 and attacks Evil Troll.)
My home page is in shambles because I've moved servers, usernames, home directories, and now I'm working on a new site.
I spend more time working on other peoples' sites (for money) than on mine (for free). It's the only way I can pay the rent, in these lousy economic times.
Heck, I'm lazy. I'll just put up a "Coming back soon..." page.
(plugs a very common brand of USB mouse into her computer. It won't work) "Here's one reason why."
(plugs a very common brand of USB scanner into her computer. It won't work, and SANE lists its driver as not being available at all, or as being "experimental") "Here's another reason."
Shall I go on? USB is potentially really bad since, as I've mentioned quite a few times here, USB devices (with a few exceptions) seem to use non-standardized, proprietary, roll-your-own protocols which are difficult (and potentially ILLEGAL, under the DMCA) to reverse-engineer-- so that nice new USB mouse/scanner/can-opener that you bought might not work under anything but Windows.
Since I don't run Windows, but I still think I have the right to new hardware... well, that's why I dislike USB. Something about it seems to bring out the worst in hardware developers-- at least, in terms of protocols/drivers/support. Most of the nice new whiz-bang USB gizmos in stores do not work under Linux. There's no reason for this to be so, but it is so. You don't have the same problem with serial/SCSI/CompactFlash/PCMCIA devices so much... but support for USB geegaws is VERY iffy and spotty.
Right now, I'm using a PS/2 (not USB) mouse on my system, PRECISELY because my shiny new USB mice didn't work under 2.4.19...
Well, my laptop does not have USB on it.
One of my desktops does-- but it runs Debian. And, as mentioned, driver support for USB stuff under Anything But Windows(TM) can be very fickle.
I can't even use plain old cheap commodity USB mice (I like Kensington Mouse-in-a-Box USBs-- they cost $6 and are actually pretty darned well-made) with Linux. I had to hunt about for quite a bit on eBay to find one of the few Linux-compatible USB scanners. I certainly wouldn't expect a device like this to have a Linux driver any time soon.
. Like I said before-- I donno why, but certain sorts of ports (the biggest exemplars might be USB and Parallel) seem to encourage companies to "roll their own" protocol... whereas other sorts of ports (e.g. SCSI, plain-old-db9-serial, CF) tend to lead to devices that use plain-Jane, commodity protocols and are easy to write drivers for (without requiring detailed specs from the company, or potentially-illegal-thanks-to-the-DMCA reverse engineering...)
Because in addition to the type that are $10 and plug into USB, there are also the type that are $10 and plug into PCMCIA. And several other types besides.
Hey, if Hilary Rosen can do it...
;)
:)
Now you've got me curious to see which of my friends put up that drivel...
Oh yeah! Taura. Taura can code me straight under a table, so even I won't criticize her for the notice.
The idea of a polished oaken computer case gives me a woody. Well, it would if I get a woody. :) (I am of the Chick side of the Force) Wait! I can always install Debian 3.0 on it...
:D
(rimshot)
Hmm. I kinda-sorta made a computer out of natural materials once... when money was short and I had plenty of spare parts sitting about, I built a machine using ordinary paper in place of the handy-dandy metal plate (donno what they're called) that the motherboard attaches to. In fact, I used the campus foodservice newsletter.
Actually, I don't dual-boot. I run Debian and only Debian. Well, I do dual-boot if you count the four or five different kernels in my lilo.conf. ;) Color me loony. :)
;) (I might not like Windows much, but Windows people seem to have Lives much more than us old Unix fogeys. I'll grant you that much.)
But you lost your wager. I hope it was for something good, like a life. I seem to have lost mine...
> Dude,
I'm a girl.
> How many people have CompactFlash devices on their computers?
Everyone who owns a laptop. CompactFlash + $10 cheapy adaptor = PCMCIA.
(Jessie recompiles libLanguage.so on your brain, and re-installs.) "Can you parse it now?" :) Then your head segfaults. "SPEWWWWwww!"
Cons/Expos are fun. I remember, as a little kid, having such a joy of a time at Applefest.. going about with my little plastic baggie, collecting freebie disks, flyers, even having my photo digitally printed onto a mock-up issue of A+ :) (A true feat back then! It was rather pixellated, but still cool.)
;) I don't see it much myself...), which is a cool change of pace from the fluorescent-lights-and-Jolt indoor life of most coders.
If Comdex dies, what if a bunch of geeks and tech companies got together to hold a new con, on a shoestring budget? Like, for instance, couldn't tents be pitched on a large field in Central Park (NYC), and the con/expo be held there? Much cheaper than renting a convention center in Vegas, or the Javits Center in NYC. Plus, you're outside (yes, with that big yellow day-star thingy
They could even serve hot dogs. NYC hot dogs are the best!
Just had a thought. Actually, a GREAT standard to use here would be CompactFlash (not that silly proprietary MemoryStick stuff. Genuine, pop-into-$10-adaptor-and-shove-into-PCMCIA-slot CompactFlash.)
....
The buttonset definitions could be stored as plain text files, designed to be human-readable and human-editable. Something like Windows's INI files...
[Sony TV]
button "1": 20x20+0+0, "0x85A6"
button "2": 20x20+30+0, "0x85A7"
button "3":
etc...
Ooh, please don't just recommend USB like that. USB can be dangerous in the wrong hands.
;) ) Also SCSI. I've never heard of a modern SCSI scanner brand that ISN'T supported by Linux. ALL modern SCSI CD-ROM drives are supported. ALL SCSI hard drives (since they adhere to the same standard.)
The land of USB peripherals seems to be the land of "rolling your own" protocols. For that (and possibly other) reasons, USB support in Linux is pretty sparse. Heck, I have some USB mice (!!!) that refuse to work (namely, the nice, cheap, $6 (but surprisingly high-quality) Kensington Mouse-in-a-Box USB (with scrolly wheel) even as of 2.4.19.
I'm not quite sure why, but some sorts of ports seem to invite "roll your own protocol"-itis. Parallel ports spawned much of this sort of behavior-- remember all the parallel port scanners, digital cameras, and electric tweezers that came out in the mid-90s? Ditto USB; everything seems to do things its own way.
Then there's serial. Serial is serial is serial, by and by, it's easy to reverse engineer things (since the tools to do so have been around for decades-- heck, you can just plug a serial device into a dumb terminal and watch the data flow by-- or more likely watch the device try to handshake with a non-existant desktop
But step into the world of USB and the picture gets a bit murkier... unless you're running Windows, of course, where all the drivers are available since the hardware manufacturers themselves make it.
Case in point: I lack a SCSI card in my box at the moment. And I needed a scanner, and didn't want to do any weird diddling with parport scanners. So I decided to go USB. It took me a whole 15 minutes of scanning through dozens, and dozens, and dozens of USB scanner listings on eBay to find one that was supported "stably" (not listed as "experimental" on the SANE page) under Linux/Unix...
You can update new device interfaces via a modem...
Mo-dem? What's a mo-dem?... I think I remember Mo-dems...those were those slow things with the blinkylights that we all had before we got residential DSL and cable...right? And you could type +++ATH0 and it e(6`|:fK6@(^*&#~~~NO CARRIER
Hmm... I wonder if "prior art" would apply here? Like, my name is Jessica-- I already have 'jessica.org' (per an agreement with the former user of that domain name-- a pr0n site, of course... which is why jessica.org is banned by a lot of firewalls to this day, and I have to point people to "jb.twu.net"), but let's say I wanted jlb.com or something.. and some company, say Jamie's Lemon Bars, Inc., was fighting with me for that name.
Could I make an argument in court that since I have born the initials JLB since the '70s, but Jamie's confectionary business is only, say, 10 years old, I should get it?
In this case, my existence would be the prior art. It'd be kind of hard to prove I don't exist. But proving that merely existing constitutes "prior art" in a dispute over a name-- ah, that might be harder...
Naah, us chicks can geek out too. We just can't go mentioning it here on SlashDot, or we'll get responses like this one... (grins, and goes back to compiling ALSA)
;) OK, start the barrage ;)
AAACK! I MENTIONED GEEKING OUT!