OTOH, they took 6 mo.s to get my DSL connection working. But they charged me from day 1.
Assholes. Lucky for me that I already picked out my new ISP, I just don't have time to deal with switching right now. And it's not SBC.:) I prefer to spend money with small-time operators whenever I can, and switching to SBC would just be going to a larger company, I think. Only reason I signed with AT&T in the first place was because they were offering a killer deal and I was on dialup, and it was my entry into broadband. I'm interested in a little change of scenery...
I understand people come on hard times and need public housing, but settling down with a broadband connection seems very out of place.
Heh, you're talking about a demographic that typically has cable television, dude. Getting a broadband connection isn't "settling down", it's just as portable as your phone (land line, that is).
Using a P2P or playing games on KDE gives your kid nothing educationally. GUIs will change, programs will change, and by college your kid will end up having to learn something else anyway. Kids don't need computers to learn (at least on the elementary/junior high level). They need good textbooks, good involved teachers, and most importantly involved parents.
Playing games can. I played a lot of games like Sea Route to India, Oregon Trails, and so forth, when I was a kid. Also, having access to computers enabled me to learn a certain amount of critical thinking and analytical reasoning, skills which are useful no matter what line of work you pursue. What you say about learning in schools and stuff is important and necessary, and computers cannot be a substitute for such things. But the internet can be a very inexpensive resource for kids.
I would bet a good sum of money that the mom in the public housing situation wasn't using the computer as a TRUE educational tool for the 12 year old. I bet she was probably using it as a baby sitter, much the same way some parents throw Disney movies on the TV.
Heh, you're probably right about this. How involved a kid gets with a computer depends on many things. For me it was a lot of the killer video games, along with the programming books that were laying around the house. This is probably the same story for most of the people that read slashdot. There was also a lot of encouragement from my dad. "Dad, why don't we have a game about *insert topic here*?" "I dunno, son, why don't you make one?"
I've had broadband in my home, and regularly use very fast academic connections, but even I would not pay forty or fifty bucks a month in addition to a phone bill just to be able to see the pages of slashdot render faster.
When VOIP gets a bit more practical, or when I have time to look into it more, I'll do away with my phone line. In fact, I may do that anyway in favor of a cellphone, when my wife and I get a bit more out of debt. There are getting to be fewer and fewer reasons for a landline.:)
Say what you will, but SBC is taking quite a risk.
Um, what risk is that, exactly? SBC is HUGE. They might win. Think of that? Whether they do or not, the PR benefits of fighting the RIAA are ENORMOUS. Whoever in their staff recommended fighting the RIAA has got their finger firmly on the pulse of America, and knows which way the wind is blowing. (Let's see if I can produce another cheesy metaphor) You can't buy press like this! You can't buy advertising that's this good. I'm thinking about seeig if I can get SBC internet access in my own home, after seeing this. How many others like me are there? How much growth will they experience as a result of this fight, win or lose?
Ya know, it's really getting old hearing of these cases of people that are soooo poor they can't afford to buy this or that, but somehow manage to find it in their budget to pay for a broadband connection. I have little sympathy for the financial situation of a mom with 4 kids that's having a hard time making ends meet or a mom with a 12 year old living in public housing who somehow find the money to spend on something as frivalous as a broadband connection.
That is probably the most short-sighted post I've ever read. I would eat less to provide my kids with a broadband connection if I had to. Reason? Simple.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.
I have been poverty-struck myself, and am just now crawling out of it (arguably, in fact). I want my kids to be able to live without poverty, and in this day and age, access to the internet is an excellent way to provide my kids with resources they wouldn't have if I took your shortsighted point of view. With these resources they can find help with their homework, pursue whatever intellectual flights of fancy they have, network to other individuals, and leverage computing power into marketable skills that may well put them in a higher income bracket than I'm in. A broadband connection for a poor family is an investment into the kids' future, and a worthy one at that.
Combine said broadband connection with the educational power and readily-available Free Software, and you might have a winning combination. We'll see about it, though.
My oldest kid still isn't school age, but she's already learned enough reading and enough about KDE to find movies she wants to watch. In the next month or so, I intent to sit down with her and show her how to use KDE to do things, play games, and so forth, and make sure the edutainment package with KDE is installed. Not bad for a 4-year-old, eh? With your shortsighted point of view, this wouldn't even be available as an option for her.
As for corporations being able to own copyright, who else should own copyright on a movie that the corp put 50 million into and had one person write the script, two more make changes, a director to film it and another person to do the final editing?
The original script writer should own his version of the script. A license should be secured to allow the people to make changes. Then, those two collectively own their changes, with the original script under license (can't be revoked, I don't think). The director should own copyright on his presentation of the script, and all the parts that he filmed. Collectively, the actors should own their parts. All of this is made under license from the scriptwriters, and licensed (in perpetuity, most likely) to the movie production company.
Riddle me this: Under the current system, if an actor plays a role in a public domain work, and that work gets copyrighted (note: they can copyright their presentation, but not the original work), such as Mel Gibson's portrayal of Hamlet, and then goes and does the same public domain work with a different company, plays the same role, and provides a similar interpretation (not possible for a clean-room interpretation, it's the same actor and the same role), then have they committed copyright infringement? If not, why not?
But it's mine. Why can't I sell/assign/give away the rights if I want to?
While I agree with you in spirit, I disagree in practice. The reason I disagree in practice is because it's through this exact right that the existing recording industry binds musicians to something resembling slavery. When the largest content distributors are powerful enough to tell the little content creators that "Your stuff will not be distributed unless you sign away your rights", then the rights provided for in copyright law are no longer available to the content creator, and for all practical purposes don't exist. The purpose of granting a creator a temporary monopoly on their work is to preserve their rights to commercial exploitation. Having the relevant industry force a creator to sign away their copyright in order to achieve commercial exploitation means that they effectively no longer have their rights. The music industry has done an excellent job of showing us why copyright law is screwed up, and Disney has certainly done quite a bit to help them (not that the other movie companies are exempt from criticism, Disney's just the most recently notorious).
So, basically, if you're a musician in our society and you want to become rich and famous off your music, copyright law guarantees you the right to attempt to do so. But the industry itself takes away that right. You might get lucky signing with an independent label, but your chances are better with a major label. But many indy labels and all major labels force you to give up your rights to your music, and then license it back to you for performance. Since the industry manages to trump copyright law, for all intents and purposes (even though they work within copyright law), then I say that copyright law has failed, and needs to be rethought.
I have a feeling (I'll have to do some research to be sure) that a decent production studio could be setup on open source software and mostly commodity hardware for about the same if not less than the record labels charge to record an album in their studios.
Let's talk about this.:) It's important.
First, talk about actual digital recording quality. I use an onboard sound system on my motherboard to do my recording because I don't have the money to buy a better sound card. The main problem I have has more to do with being in the case and on the motherboard than anything else. Anyway, it's got CD quality recording, stereo or mono (line in vs. mic in). One track at a time, of course. I get CD quality recordings out of post-production (I use that term lightly, none of my music has officially graduated to release status, yet). The main problems in these recordings are, right now, engineering problems. I.e. I'm not a very good sound engineer. However, in every track recorded, there's some interference from the playback. For example, in a vocal track, recorded with a playback of guitars, you will hear, very faintly, the guitars in the background. This interferes with the mix in the end, because it accumulates with each iteration where you playback a mix of the song and record another track on top of it. However, if you record only two tracks, the band without vocals, and the vocals separately, you eliminate the background noise almost completely. But that seriously limits what you can do with the mix. So, the solution is to get a high-end recording sound card, or one of those high-end USB boxes. It can get expensive to deal with this problem, and for my recordings (and many other low-budget artists) it's an acceptable tradeoff.
The next problem is the connections to the sound card. Using regular, cheap cables that you get to hookup your sound, you get some interference. You really need some good shielding, however, this problem is not as severe as I'm making it sound. Interference from this connection is less of a problem than the one I mentioned above. However, there is a problem with connecting instruments to this. My solution is to use a Fostex FD-8 hard drive recorder as a mixer, connecting through the line out on the FD-8. This allows me to hook up a raw guitar to the FD-8, or a good mic, and balances the resistance properly to the computer. So I get the highest-possible fidelity to the computer from the instrument. Without spending money on a general-purpose solution like a mixer, you wind up requiring the individual musicians to deal with this problem. I also have a Boss GT-3 that has a line out, so for guitar recordings I can plug directly into the computer and get good fidelity. But this doesn't solve the problem for vocals or drums. I can apply this solution to vocals if needed, or I can use a cheap-ass computer mic. I'd rather use the GT-3 if I have to.
The next problem is the room itself. If you get all your guys to plug directly into the mixer without requiring a mic, except for vocals, then this problem is solved. Many artists prefer to mic their amps when recording, however, and the room becomes a big problem. Your living room may not be a good room for this. The problem still exists for vocals, and using effects you can hide the problem sufficiently, for most applications.
Now let's talk about actual equipment. In order to be able to process sound, you need a pretty good processor, fast motherboard (ie front bus), and a fair amount of memory for caching. I do alright with a 800mhz Duron with 256MB DDR. However, it's not good enough for my tastes. A faster processor and more memory would really help, but the motherboard itself is good enough. My system, on the current market, could probly be assembled for around $500 (not including hard drives, and you do need a lot of hard drive space). Ideally, however, I'd have a sound card that recorded 32-bit float (I don't know that these are even available, settle with
Yeah, right. Like hell I'd use that. They'd be former clients after that rant. They themselves thrive on proprietary protocols, software and tamper-proof embedded systems.
Good to see you read the whole page. I am filled with respect for your open mind.
How would you propose that I tell my clients that they must not don't sell me heavily macroed MS Office documents that I cannot open with "open office" because I'm a cheapskate who can't bother to buy and install MS Office to do business with them?
In other news, DaimlerChrysler has a press release saying that they are switching all of their servers to *BSD.
Shortly after, pundits everywhere declare "Dodge is dying".
Of historic significance, though, Yahoo! has run on FreeBSD for ages, and they've been dying for ages too. Coincidence?
Re:Ford's Engineering Dept. To Make Their Own Dist
on
Ford To Move To Linux
·
· Score: 1
The ease of repair, and even basic maintainance, for a Ford is much more difficult, when compared to other domestic car brands, and I'd imagine their OS, if designed in-house would be similarly difficult to use. I work in a garage, and we hate to work on Fords, because they're so hard to work on.
It's not the ease of repair that's the problem, it's the frequency. When I worked in a shop, we did't bitch about how hard HOndas were to work on, because we didn't get many of them. On the other had, when it was cold and rainy, and very few customers, we were happy that Ford was able to provide us with a steady revenue stream, even at Christmas time.
Ford is perfectly capable of rolling their own distro. If I can, they can. Their distro would be far superior to Richard Stallman's attempt at an automobile.
I beg to differ. Ford's distribution would closely resemble Windows (the two companies must hire from the same genepool, I swear). On the other hand, RMS's car would be fully-featured: power windows that don't break, sunroof, CD/DVD player, etc. All the good stuff. Um, except for the engine. Instead, they'd get hung up on how many cylinders it should have, how interchangeable the parts should be, which engine it should most resemble, the age-old carb or fuel-injected question, etc. Then some Fin would come along and toss in an engine he built, and some enterprising americans would sell the piss out of it, trying to beat Ford out of the market. Meanwhile, RMS would be trying to convince users to change the badge on the car to make it say "GNU/Somethingorother", explaining that since the car looks like GNU, feels like GNU, and runs like GNU, it should be called GNU no matter what engine is in it.
While at one level that beats custom developing GUIs for every app and sure as hell beats the old text mode 3270 green screens, we'd all be better off if there was a "universal client" that was a step up from the browser and used a more sensible protocol, at least on intranets.
People who buy and display them are beneath contempt -- they pollute the memory of The Greatest Comic Strip Evar Bar None.
I have to say, I like Calvin and Hobbes. However, if I were gonna vote for the Greatest Comic Strip Ever Bar None, I'd hope for instant runoff voting, so I could vote for Sexy Losers and Sinfest.
but they are not Calvin and should not be thought of that way.
Who are you, the fucking thought police? I'll think what I want, thankyouverymuch, and you can take your "should not be thought" thoughts and stick 'em up yer ass!
my wife, she wigged on me when I went linux. she could not use microsoft money. I need to find another alternative to everything she uses then she cannot object to it.
The ideal alternative is illegal, and it's still only a patch fix. I'll present it, then I'll ask a couple of questions.:)
Get a pirated copy of Windows 2000 Server (or any Windows server will do, so long as it has terminal services). Set it up as a terminal server and install all the software she needs windows for. Then stick it in a back room, headless and so forth. If you set the box up right, you won't need a keyboard/mouse/monitor hooked up. Put it on really old hardware (I've done it with 166mhz Pentium with no significant performance losses) so it'll be energy efficient. Use RDesktop from your linux box. That way, she has to go through a couple of hoops to get her stuff, but it's still available and runs natively for her. She'll be more likely, over time, to look at the alternatives available on her linux desktop (make sure you install all the goodies, at least, that worked for my wife, and she was supportive from the beginning: I was the one anal about certain pieces of software). A legal alternative is to use VNC, but I had significant performance issues with this, and it didn't allow multiple users to login to the box simultaneously. You *should* be able to tune VNC to knockout the performance issues I had, though.
Now, two questions:
First, give me a list of all the software she uses that she "depends" on. If you don't have this list, your migration will not be realistically possible, so make it. If you do have this list, email it to me (you'll have to go through some hoops for this, but you go to my website, linked in my sig, and use the contact link to send me email. I refuse to post my email address, obfuscated or plain, on slashdot) and I'll see what I can do to provide reasonable alternatives (this means I won't be suggesting GnuCash as a reasonable alternative to MS Money, it didn't work well for me. But it *did* work).
Second, can you program c++ and are you willing to work on an accounting package? I'm working on one (right this minute!) as an alternative to all the free stuff that's out there that'll suit all of my own personal needs, but I can really use some help.
I work in a diagnostics lab that deals with enteric parasites for one of its mainstay products. The in-house testing is done with fecal samples that are from known positive or negative individuals. The samples must be homogenized in a diluent before they are used with the kit. It is one person's unfortunate job to request, and process the samples into a 2 litre specimen master lot. It involves asking our in-house negative patient to crap in a collection container and bring it back to the lab, then taking said sample and placing it in a laboratory mixer (industrial blender) with the diluent, then filtering that mess into a 2L bottle. I'm just glad I work in the isolation lab, where I don't have to smell it.
I have to say, I'm very interested in the results of this research. Got anything you can share, even if it's just anecdotal? I'm not saying this is a great or bad job, I'm just saying that the results of this experiment are likely going to be fascinating, especially when you put them up next to a variety of religions and the personality archetypes attracted by each one.
Slashdot Mirror
OTOH, they took 6 mo.s to get my DSL connection working. But they charged me from day 1.
Assholes. Lucky for me that I already picked out my new ISP, I just don't have time to deal with switching right now. And it's not SBC. :) I prefer to spend money with small-time operators whenever I can, and switching to SBC would just be going to a larger company, I think. Only reason I signed with AT&T in the first place was because they were offering a killer deal and I was on dialup, and it was my entry into broadband. I'm interested in a little change of scenery...
I understand people come on hard times and need public housing, but settling down with a broadband connection seems very out of place.
Heh, you're talking about a demographic that typically has cable television, dude. Getting a broadband connection isn't "settling down", it's just as portable as your phone (land line, that is).
Using a P2P or playing games on KDE gives your kid nothing educationally. GUIs will change, programs will change, and by college your kid will end up having to learn something else anyway. Kids don't need computers to learn (at least on the elementary/junior high level). They need good textbooks, good involved teachers, and most importantly involved parents.
Playing games can. I played a lot of games like Sea Route to India, Oregon Trails, and so forth, when I was a kid. Also, having access to computers enabled me to learn a certain amount of critical thinking and analytical reasoning, skills which are useful no matter what line of work you pursue. What you say about learning in schools and stuff is important and necessary, and computers cannot be a substitute for such things. But the internet can be a very inexpensive resource for kids.
I would bet a good sum of money that the mom in the public housing situation wasn't using the computer as a TRUE educational tool for the 12 year old. I bet she was probably using it as a baby sitter, much the same way some parents throw Disney movies on the TV.
Heh, you're probably right about this. How involved a kid gets with a computer depends on many things. For me it was a lot of the killer video games, along with the programming books that were laying around the house. This is probably the same story for most of the people that read slashdot. There was also a lot of encouragement from my dad. "Dad, why don't we have a game about *insert topic here*?" "I dunno, son, why don't you make one?"
Grommett won first place with his mechanical trousers
Erm, Wallace invented the trousers, Grommit was just the dog. (And a fucking PENGUIN used them to rob a bank)
What in the name of all that is geeky won FIRST place??
"Pills to lose your virginity before you're 25"
"Use human fat to power steam engine"
Ok, I'm ot as funny as I thought I was. 'night.
Didn't any of you moderators watch Back to the Future 2? jeez. No sense of humor at all on these guys.
Hmm, you must've missed the first one, where Mr. Fusion made its first appearance.
How can you explain the Navy's researchers generating heat and helium-4 other than fusion?
The Rear Admirals were talking again.
Did it take you this long to beat it?
Asshole, I still haven't beaten it.
Oh yeah, I've never played it, for that matter.
Hmm, maybe you're not an asshole.
Are you an asshole?
I've had broadband in my home, and regularly use very fast academic connections, but even I would not pay forty or fifty bucks a month in addition to a phone bill just to be able to see the pages of slashdot render faster.
Let's see. Dialup: $20. Dedicated phone line: $20. Dialup + dedicated phone line: $40
*rifles through some bills*
Last internet bill: $46
When VOIP gets a bit more practical, or when I have time to look into it more, I'll do away with my phone line. In fact, I may do that anyway in favor of a cellphone, when my wife and I get a bit more out of debt. There are getting to be fewer and fewer reasons for a landline. :)
Say what you will, but SBC is taking quite a risk.
Um, what risk is that, exactly? SBC is HUGE. They might win. Think of that? Whether they do or not, the PR benefits of fighting the RIAA are ENORMOUS. Whoever in their staff recommended fighting the RIAA has got their finger firmly on the pulse of America, and knows which way the wind is blowing. (Let's see if I can produce another cheesy metaphor) You can't buy press like this! You can't buy advertising that's this good. I'm thinking about seeig if I can get SBC internet access in my own home, after seeing this. How many others like me are there? How much growth will they experience as a result of this fight, win or lose?
Ya know, it's really getting old hearing of these cases of people that are soooo poor they can't afford to buy this or that, but somehow manage to find it in their budget to pay for a broadband connection. I have little sympathy for the financial situation of a mom with 4 kids that's having a hard time making ends meet or a mom with a 12 year old living in public housing who somehow find the money to spend on something as frivalous as a broadband connection.
That is probably the most short-sighted post I've ever read. I would eat less to provide my kids with a broadband connection if I had to. Reason? Simple.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.
I have been poverty-struck myself, and am just now crawling out of it (arguably, in fact). I want my kids to be able to live without poverty, and in this day and age, access to the internet is an excellent way to provide my kids with resources they wouldn't have if I took your shortsighted point of view. With these resources they can find help with their homework, pursue whatever intellectual flights of fancy they have, network to other individuals, and leverage computing power into marketable skills that may well put them in a higher income bracket than I'm in. A broadband connection for a poor family is an investment into the kids' future, and a worthy one at that.
Combine said broadband connection with the educational power and readily-available Free Software, and you might have a winning combination. We'll see about it, though.
My oldest kid still isn't school age, but she's already learned enough reading and enough about KDE to find movies she wants to watch. In the next month or so, I intent to sit down with her and show her how to use KDE to do things, play games, and so forth, and make sure the edutainment package with KDE is installed. Not bad for a 4-year-old, eh? With your shortsighted point of view, this wouldn't even be available as an option for her.
As for corporations being able to own copyright, who else should own copyright on a movie that the corp put 50 million into and had one person write the script, two more make changes, a director to film it and another person to do the final editing?
The original script writer should own his version of the script. A license should be secured to allow the people to make changes. Then, those two collectively own their changes, with the original script under license (can't be revoked, I don't think). The director should own copyright on his presentation of the script, and all the parts that he filmed. Collectively, the actors should own their parts. All of this is made under license from the scriptwriters, and licensed (in perpetuity, most likely) to the movie production company.
Riddle me this: Under the current system, if an actor plays a role in a public domain work, and that work gets copyrighted (note: they can copyright their presentation, but not the original work), such as Mel Gibson's portrayal of Hamlet, and then goes and does the same public domain work with a different company, plays the same role, and provides a similar interpretation (not possible for a clean-room interpretation, it's the same actor and the same role), then have they committed copyright infringement? If not, why not?
But it's mine. Why can't I sell/assign/give away the rights if I want to?
While I agree with you in spirit, I disagree in practice. The reason I disagree in practice is because it's through this exact right that the existing recording industry binds musicians to something resembling slavery. When the largest content distributors are powerful enough to tell the little content creators that "Your stuff will not be distributed unless you sign away your rights", then the rights provided for in copyright law are no longer available to the content creator, and for all practical purposes don't exist. The purpose of granting a creator a temporary monopoly on their work is to preserve their rights to commercial exploitation. Having the relevant industry force a creator to sign away their copyright in order to achieve commercial exploitation means that they effectively no longer have their rights. The music industry has done an excellent job of showing us why copyright law is screwed up, and Disney has certainly done quite a bit to help them (not that the other movie companies are exempt from criticism, Disney's just the most recently notorious).
So, basically, if you're a musician in our society and you want to become rich and famous off your music, copyright law guarantees you the right to attempt to do so. But the industry itself takes away that right. You might get lucky signing with an independent label, but your chances are better with a major label. But many indy labels and all major labels force you to give up your rights to your music, and then license it back to you for performance. Since the industry manages to trump copyright law, for all intents and purposes (even though they work within copyright law), then I say that copyright law has failed, and needs to be rethought.
I have a feeling (I'll have to do some research to be sure) that a decent production studio could be setup on open source software and mostly commodity hardware for about the same if not less than the record labels charge to record an album in their studios.
Let's talk about this. :) It's important.
First, talk about actual digital recording quality. I use an onboard sound system on my motherboard to do my recording because I don't have the money to buy a better sound card. The main problem I have has more to do with being in the case and on the motherboard than anything else. Anyway, it's got CD quality recording, stereo or mono (line in vs. mic in). One track at a time, of course. I get CD quality recordings out of post-production (I use that term lightly, none of my music has officially graduated to release status, yet). The main problems in these recordings are, right now, engineering problems. I.e. I'm not a very good sound engineer. However, in every track recorded, there's some interference from the playback. For example, in a vocal track, recorded with a playback of guitars, you will hear, very faintly, the guitars in the background. This interferes with the mix in the end, because it accumulates with each iteration where you playback a mix of the song and record another track on top of it. However, if you record only two tracks, the band without vocals, and the vocals separately, you eliminate the background noise almost completely. But that seriously limits what you can do with the mix. So, the solution is to get a high-end recording sound card, or one of those high-end USB boxes. It can get expensive to deal with this problem, and for my recordings (and many other low-budget artists) it's an acceptable tradeoff.
The next problem is the connections to the sound card. Using regular, cheap cables that you get to hookup your sound, you get some interference. You really need some good shielding, however, this problem is not as severe as I'm making it sound. Interference from this connection is less of a problem than the one I mentioned above. However, there is a problem with connecting instruments to this. My solution is to use a Fostex FD-8 hard drive recorder as a mixer, connecting through the line out on the FD-8. This allows me to hook up a raw guitar to the FD-8, or a good mic, and balances the resistance properly to the computer. So I get the highest-possible fidelity to the computer from the instrument. Without spending money on a general-purpose solution like a mixer, you wind up requiring the individual musicians to deal with this problem. I also have a Boss GT-3 that has a line out, so for guitar recordings I can plug directly into the computer and get good fidelity. But this doesn't solve the problem for vocals or drums. I can apply this solution to vocals if needed, or I can use a cheap-ass computer mic. I'd rather use the GT-3 if I have to.
The next problem is the room itself. If you get all your guys to plug directly into the mixer without requiring a mic, except for vocals, then this problem is solved. Many artists prefer to mic their amps when recording, however, and the room becomes a big problem. Your living room may not be a good room for this. The problem still exists for vocals, and using effects you can hide the problem sufficiently, for most applications.
Now let's talk about actual equipment. In order to be able to process sound, you need a pretty good processor, fast motherboard (ie front bus), and a fair amount of memory for caching. I do alright with a 800mhz Duron with 256MB DDR. However, it's not good enough for my tastes. A faster processor and more memory would really help, but the motherboard itself is good enough. My system, on the current market, could probly be assembled for around $500 (not including hard drives, and you do need a lot of hard drive space). Ideally, however, I'd have a sound card that recorded 32-bit float (I don't know that these are even available, settle with
Yeah, right. Like hell I'd use that. They'd be former clients after that rant. They themselves thrive on proprietary protocols, software and tamper-proof embedded systems.
Good to see you read the whole page. I am filled with respect for your open mind.
How would you propose that I tell my clients that they must not don't sell me heavily macroed MS Office documents that I cannot open with "open office" because I'm a cheapskate who can't bother to buy and install MS Office to do business with them?
Like this.
In other news, DaimlerChrysler has a press release saying that they are switching all of their servers to *BSD.
Shortly after, pundits everywhere declare "Dodge is dying".
Of historic significance, though, Yahoo! has run on FreeBSD for ages, and they've been dying for ages too. Coincidence?
The ease of repair, and even basic maintainance, for a Ford is much more difficult, when compared to other domestic car brands, and I'd imagine their OS, if designed in-house would be similarly difficult to use. I work in a garage, and we hate to work on Fords, because they're so hard to work on.
It's not the ease of repair that's the problem, it's the frequency. When I worked in a shop, we did't bitch about how hard HOndas were to work on, because we didn't get many of them. On the other had, when it was cold and rainy, and very few customers, we were happy that Ford was able to provide us with a steady revenue stream, even at Christmas time.
So, can I chmod people to keep them from driving my truck?
Won't make any difference. DO you know how easy it is to chown a Ford truck?
Ford is perfectly capable of rolling their own distro. If I can, they can. Their distro would be far superior to Richard Stallman's attempt at an automobile.
I beg to differ. Ford's distribution would closely resemble Windows (the two companies must hire from the same genepool, I swear). On the other hand, RMS's car would be fully-featured: power windows that don't break, sunroof, CD/DVD player, etc. All the good stuff. Um, except for the engine. Instead, they'd get hung up on how many cylinders it should have, how interchangeable the parts should be, which engine it should most resemble, the age-old carb or fuel-injected question, etc. Then some Fin would come along and toss in an engine he built, and some enterprising americans would sell the piss out of it, trying to beat Ford out of the market. Meanwhile, RMS would be trying to convince users to change the badge on the car to make it say "GNU/Somethingorother", explaining that since the car looks like GNU, feels like GNU, and runs like GNU, it should be called GNU no matter what engine is in it.
While at one level that beats custom developing GUIs for every app and sure as hell beats the old text mode 3270 green screens, we'd all be better off if there was a "universal client" that was a step up from the browser and used a more sensible protocol, at least on intranets.
Irony is, we've had that for years already.
People who buy and display them are beneath contempt -- they pollute the memory of The Greatest Comic Strip Evar Bar None.
I have to say, I like Calvin and Hobbes. However, if I were gonna vote for the Greatest Comic Strip Ever Bar None, I'd hope for instant runoff voting, so I could vote for Sexy Losers and Sinfest.
but they are not Calvin and should not be thought of that way.
Who are you, the fucking thought police? I'll think what I want, thankyouverymuch, and you can take your "should not be thought" thoughts and stick 'em up yer ass!
my wife, she wigged on me when I went linux. she could not use microsoft money. I need to find another alternative to everything she uses then she cannot object to it.
The ideal alternative is illegal, and it's still only a patch fix. I'll present it, then I'll ask a couple of questions. :)
Get a pirated copy of Windows 2000 Server (or any Windows server will do, so long as it has terminal services). Set it up as a terminal server and install all the software she needs windows for. Then stick it in a back room, headless and so forth. If you set the box up right, you won't need a keyboard/mouse/monitor hooked up. Put it on really old hardware (I've done it with 166mhz Pentium with no significant performance losses) so it'll be energy efficient. Use RDesktop from your linux box. That way, she has to go through a couple of hoops to get her stuff, but it's still available and runs natively for her. She'll be more likely, over time, to look at the alternatives available on her linux desktop (make sure you install all the goodies, at least, that worked for my wife, and she was supportive from the beginning: I was the one anal about certain pieces of software). A legal alternative is to use VNC, but I had significant performance issues with this, and it didn't allow multiple users to login to the box simultaneously. You *should* be able to tune VNC to knockout the performance issues I had, though.
Now, two questions:
First, give me a list of all the software she uses that she "depends" on. If you don't have this list, your migration will not be realistically possible, so make it. If you do have this list, email it to me (you'll have to go through some hoops for this, but you go to my website, linked in my sig, and use the contact link to send me email. I refuse to post my email address, obfuscated or plain, on slashdot) and I'll see what I can do to provide reasonable alternatives (this means I won't be suggesting GnuCash as a reasonable alternative to MS Money, it didn't work well for me. But it *did* work).
Second, can you program c++ and are you willing to work on an accounting package? I'm working on one (right this minute!) as an alternative to all the free stuff that's out there that'll suit all of my own personal needs, but I can really use some help.
Feeding trolls.
I work in a diagnostics lab that deals with enteric parasites for one of its mainstay products. The in-house testing is done with fecal samples that are from known positive or negative individuals. The samples must be homogenized in a diluent before they are used with the kit. It is one person's unfortunate job to request, and process the samples into a 2 litre specimen master lot. It involves asking our in-house negative patient to crap in a collection container and bring it back to the lab, then taking said sample and placing it in a laboratory mixer (industrial blender) with the diluent, then filtering that mess into a 2L bottle. I'm just glad I work in the isolation lab, where I don't have to smell it.
I have to say, I'm very interested in the results of this research. Got anything you can share, even if it's just anecdotal? I'm not saying this is a great or bad job, I'm just saying that the results of this experiment are likely going to be fascinating, especially when you put them up next to a variety of religions and the personality archetypes attracted by each one.