"Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities..."
and further down:
"Information about products not manufactured by Apple is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute Apples recommendation or endorsement."
I don't think commercial software is automatically simpler and more reliable. The great number of OSS options is admitedly complicated, but it is silly to think that just because something costs money, it must be better than the free alternative.
Its not that commercial software is automatically or must be better than OSS, its that it usually is.
I'll never go back to Windows (for all the usual reasons), but I've been using Linux (Mandrake, RH, SuSE) as my primary desktop for five years, and I've finally had enough. There are some gems in OSS, but overall I'm tired of my computing system being so buggy. These are 1995 problems that I'm having in 2005. Hacking is fun when you're creating something new, but it gets old real fast when you're fixing things that shouldn't be broken.
I've just switched to OSX, and except for the price tag, its got the best of all worlds. It just works(TM).
When I was in grade school, my parents moved back and forth between California and Spain about every year, so I experienced both educational systems. The differences were profound.
When I was in 3rd grade in Spain, school got out at 5pm. Every child learned English (that subject was easy for me) and French. There were arts and crafts and there was recess, but mostly it was hard work. And every evening I had lots of homework and there was usually some kind of quiz to study for.
Every year I came back to California was a joke for me. Simply by virtue of having had the previous year's training in Spain, I was years ahead of my American classmates in Math, History, Science... and even English. I was always at the head of the class and I even skipped a grade.
Despite all this, I've always felt American schools gave me something that the Spanish schools did not -- creativity and independence. American graduates are not the world-wide leaders in science and technology, but they sure do seem to end up inventing an awful lot of it. I don't mean to flame or troll here (I'm Spanish/American), but I don't see a lot of hi-tech gadgets that were invented in Spain. A lot of stuff gets made elsewhere, but a lot of it was invented in America. (Again, no jingoistic pride intended here -- just simple and general personal observations.)
Our educational system is very badly broken and needs to be fixed. But we are doing something right.
I've purchased 3 Dells in my life. Two of them had major hardware failures just after warranty expiration. One was fixable (at considerable expense), the other was not and had to be scrapped.
My next computer's going to be a Thinkpad. Linux support is better anyway.
The author of Behind Deep Blue makes an interesting point about the term "Man vs. Machine" (the subject of a few comments posted below) -- he says when he looked around at his fellow programmers, he saw human faces. He preferred to think of the contest as "Performer vs. Toolmaker".
BTW, the book is indeed a great read.
Re:Everything except the flip cover
on
New Treo Reviewed
·
· Score: 1
Another great feature of the 300's flip cover: it protects me from accidentally dialing a phone number when its bouncing around in my pocket. I get calls at least once a week from somebody who dialed me by mistake.
Before I upgrade to the 600, I'd like to make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen.
Something similar to this scenario happened in the Tom Clancy novel Debt of Honor, except it was the good guys that were firing the transmitter (actually a very intense beam of light, IIRC) to crash the planes of the bad guys.
There was a Nike commercial that ran a little while ago with Michael Jordan saying:
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
I have no more love for MS and what they do and how they do it than anyone else here, but no one ever accomplishes very much without repeated failures along the way.
What operating system did the Enterprise run on? Was it UNIX-based, something totally new, or was it Windows 2300?
I figured the real reason the M-5 went nuts in "The Ultimate Computer" wasn't because of Dr. Richard Deystrom's psycho engrams, but because Microsoft has a habit of engineering incompatibilities with competitor's products. Also, Spock must have known when he asked the computer to calculate the absolute value of PI in "Wolf in the Fold" that only a Microsoft OS could be crippled by a runaway process like that.
Old but good light bulb jokes
on
Science Askew
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two. One to screw it in, and one to recognize that the lightbulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality inside a netherworld of endless obscurity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness.
Q: How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently, ODF is safe from this patent.
From Apple's support page:
"Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities..."
and further down:
"Information about products not manufactured by Apple is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute Apples recommendation or endorsement."
I don't think commercial software is automatically simpler and more reliable. The great number of OSS options is admitedly complicated, but it is silly to think that just because something costs money, it must be better than the free alternative.
Its not that commercial software is automatically or must be better than OSS, its that it usually is.
I'll never go back to Windows (for all the usual reasons), but I've been using Linux (Mandrake, RH, SuSE) as my primary desktop for five years, and I've finally had enough. There are some gems in OSS, but overall I'm tired of my computing system being so buggy. These are 1995 problems that I'm having in 2005. Hacking is fun when you're creating something new, but it gets old real fast when you're fixing things that shouldn't be broken.
I've just switched to OSX, and except for the price tag, its got the best of all worlds. It just works(TM).
When I was in grade school, my parents moved back and forth between California and Spain about every year, so I experienced both educational systems. The differences were profound.
When I was in 3rd grade in Spain, school got out at 5pm. Every child learned English (that subject was easy for me) and French. There were arts and crafts and there was recess, but mostly it was hard work. And every evening I had lots of homework and there was usually some kind of quiz to study for.
Every year I came back to California was a joke for me. Simply by virtue of having had the previous year's training in Spain, I was years ahead of my American classmates in Math, History, Science... and even English. I was always at the head of the class and I even skipped a grade.
Despite all this, I've always felt American schools gave me something that the Spanish schools did not -- creativity and independence. American graduates are not the world-wide leaders in science and technology, but they sure do seem to end up inventing an awful lot of it. I don't mean to flame or troll here (I'm Spanish/American), but I don't see a lot of hi-tech gadgets that were invented in Spain. A lot of stuff gets made elsewhere, but a lot of it was invented in America. (Again, no jingoistic pride intended here -- just simple and general personal observations.)
Our educational system is very badly broken and needs to be fixed. But we are doing something right.
I'm sure France is just getting back at Google for this: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.ht
I've purchased 3 Dells in my life. Two of them had major hardware failures just after warranty expiration. One was fixable (at considerable expense), the other was not and had to be scrapped.
My next computer's going to be a Thinkpad. Linux support is better anyway.
The author of Behind Deep Blue makes an interesting point about the term "Man vs. Machine" (the subject of a few comments posted below) -- he says when he looked around at his fellow programmers, he saw human faces. He preferred to think of the contest as "Performer vs. Toolmaker".
BTW, the book is indeed a great read.
Another great feature of the 300's flip cover: it protects me from accidentally dialing a phone number when its bouncing around in my pocket. I get calls at least once a week from somebody who dialed me by mistake. Before I upgrade to the 600, I'd like to make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen.
Something similar to this scenario happened in the Tom Clancy novel Debt of Honor, except it was the good guys that were firing the transmitter (actually a very intense beam of light, IIRC) to crash the planes of the bad guys.
There was a Nike commercial that ran a little while ago with Michael Jordan saying:
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
I have no more love for MS and what they do and how they do it than anyone else here, but no one ever accomplishes very much without repeated failures along the way.
...believe it or not, is 888-GO-LINUX (888-465-4689). Just FYI...
Entrusting computer security to Microsoft is like entrusting national defense to France. And this analogy gets stronger and stronger all the time.
I figured the real reason the M-5 went nuts in "The Ultimate Computer" wasn't because of Dr. Richard Deystrom's psycho engrams, but because Microsoft has a habit of engineering incompatibilities with competitor's products. Also, Spock must have known when he asked the computer to calculate the absolute value of PI in "Wolf in the Fold" that only a Microsoft OS could be crippled by a runaway process like that.
A: Two. One to screw it in, and one to recognize that the lightbulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality inside a netherworld of endless obscurity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness.
Q: How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Fish.