But why the fuck did I need to fuck around in vi and my X config file to get Ubuntu to run at anything higher than 640x480 when Windows and OS X just worked...
On my Dell Inspiron 1150 (which is, admittedly, a piece of crap), Ubuntu automatically recognizes and configures my video, audio, and network (Ethernet) hardware.
The latest and greatest Windows XP Professional, right from MSDN, does not recognize my video, audio, and network hardware. The network issue produces an interesting chicken-and-egg problem (how to get the network drivers on the system without having network drivers?), fortunately easily solved by my access to a second computer and a USB flash drive.
And no, Dell failed to ship me a drivers CD, which I didn't notice until my hard drive crashed, which left me having to reload the OS. Which only operated in 640x480 mode until I downloaded the appropriate video drivers.
So, when do you think Windows will catch up with Ubuntu?;-)
Ugh. Security holes? Malicious code? I knew there was a reason I switched to Firefox. This just proves IE is worthless. Oh wait, this is about firefox? Ummm... Hooray! Firefox is even more secure now!
First, whoever rated you insightful should never be allowed to moderate again. Sheesh. You're trolling, pure and simple.
Second, Microsoft makes one billion dollars in profit every month. In my opinion, they should be held to a higher standard.
Third, you're grossly misrepresenting most Firefox users, who don't expect Firefox to be perfect.
Fourth, Firefox is a safer browser to browse the web with, whether you like it or not.
I'm simply shocked and amazed your post got modded +5! Where to begin?
But really, what will we find? That a few simple organisms once existed on mars, and that Mars once had water? But don't we know this now?
No, we don't know that a few simple organisms once existed on Mars. And if we did discover that, the repercussions would be staggering.
The Europeans focus much more heavily on aero-sciences, and we seem to be a lot more captivated by reaching the moon (etc).
We're captivated by reaching the moon?! We haven't been there in how many decades, with no real, solid plan to go back? I hardly see us as being captivated.
The Europeans are busy doing piles and piles of research (which will ultimately find many useful things), and similar research in this country is largely the burden of private organizations.
Research is a burden for private organizations?! More like, research (coupled with development) is what enables them to produce new, useful, and innovative products which makes them lots and lots of money!
All the tangible benefits we've reaped from space travel (tang, velcro, etc) could have been discovered much more cheaply (or if you prefer, in greater abundance for the same price) if we were simply focusing on inventing and not reaching some milestone out in space.
Way to cherry pick some lame sounding inventions. You and I and everyone else knows scores of incredibly valuable things came out of our race to the moon in the 60s and 70s.
I guess what i'm saying is that I'm not sure how to feel about this; It's science, and exploration, and both are good (imo), but if we want to prioritize, wouldn't billions of dollars be better spent focusing on fixing our own messed up planet?
You're assuming that if those dollars were freed up, they'd go to fixing up our messed up planet. What makes you think that would happen? The money would probably be given to the rich as yet another tax break, or something else equally lame like yet another unpopular and tragically unsuccessful war.
Assuming there is some inherent benefit to going to the moon/mars/wherever, is it really necessary to send *HUMANS*?
Well, uh, yes. Having every human being on the same planetary body is a bad idea for the long term interests of the human race. "The dinosaurs went extinct because they didn't have a space program."
I promise this post isn't a troll, I am a filmmaker, and interested in science, but obviously I have some question as to the science-value of putting men on a rock in space.
I need people NOW that can grok device drivers, understand and use Unix facilities, fiddle with DBs, write decent code in C, C++, Java, and shell, and can also whip together a decent WS interface. Someone who does all of those.
If you find someone who can do all those things, they're either (a) lying, or (b) do all those things poorly.
1) You're calling bullshit on the £200, well that reputable manufacturer would be Dell... go take a look at the special offers they advertise in the UK press.
I'm still calling bullshit on the £200. From your original post, you claim you can get a PC with these specs for £200:
* 2.4 GHz Celeron
* 512 MB RAM
* Windows XP Professional
* Keyboard
* Mouse
* 17 inch LCD panel
I've been playing around on Dell's web site, and I just don't see that kind of deal happening.
2) I'm wrong about the operating system.. Ok, yes, technically it does come with an operating system... Now you tell me how I'm going to run AutoCAD on WindowsCE
I never said a thin client PC was appropriate for all business users, so I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make here.
3) "Way to pull random numbers out of your arse." Well wohoo, just because I didn't include the 2 weeks of background research in my post I'm "pulling numbers out of my arse". Tell you what, you go research thin client PC's with a virtual server backend and come back to me when you can get the price under £600 a user.
My department runs a pretty nice Windows Server 2003 system to which multiple people connect with Remote Desktop. We easily beat £600 per user.
4) Yes, thin clients do reduce administrative costs, very, very slightly...
I've looked over our I.S. expenses more than once, and claiming that PC maintenance costs are low seems like an outright lie to me.
My post got modded informative by being informative. Oh look, yours didn't.
You posted much sooner. Sheesh. Quit being such a child.
I'd love to move our office to thin clients however I really can't justify the cost. For £200 I can get a 2.4Ghz Celeron with 512MB of RAM, XP Pro, a keyboard, mouse and 17" flat panel monitor.
I'm calling bullshit on this. However, I'm happy to be corrected on this if someone can point me to a reputable company that'll sell a system with these specs for £200 (which is approximately $375 USD, according to Google).
But hold on, that box doesn't include monitor, keyboard, mouse, or operating system.
You're right about the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. But you're wrong about the operating system. It includes an operating system. Did you even review the specs?
Hmm... so right now I can replace a £200 PC if I spend about £600 per user on a thin client solution... and that will save me money how exactly?
Way to pull random numbers out of your arse.
Until somebody takes a brave leap of coming up with a simple design and mass producing these the prices simply aren't even nearly competative.
The point of thin clients is to reduce administrative costs. Users can no longer install viruses, trojans, worms, etc. on their computers. You give people a username and password, and they remote into a server where everything they need is already installed and maintained - in one central place.
I'm not saying thin clients are better than fat clients, I'm just pointing out where the benefits supposedly exist.
How your post managed to get modded informative is beyond me.
And then there's Java. Java is marked restricted in the ports because of licensing issues, is non-redistributable (hope I spelled that right). Java is a real pain in the arse on FreeBSD.
From the FreeBSD web site:
The FreeBSD Foundation has negotiated a license with Sun Microsystems to distribute FreeBSD binaries for the Java Runtime Environment (JRE(TM)) and Java Development Kit (JDK(TM)).
On the server platform, source-code portability is probably more than sufficient.
I disagree. I'm reasonably geeky, and spend my fair share of time on Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows Server. I very much appreciate being able to deploy many Java programs to any system and run those Java programs with a simple command like:
java -jar foo.jar
I like the fact that the compilation is being done by the Java VM behind the scenes, so I don't have to explicitly compile it. I just make sure a JVM is there. I don't have to make sure all the appropriate compilers and linkers are present, and at the right release level, I don't have to make sure all the appropriate dynamic libraries are present, and at the right release level, etc.
We go to great lengths like JIT compiling to get around the fact that the object is delivered as a sort of p-code. If you're going to compile it, compile it to native code.
Again, I disagree. I really enjoyed seeing nice performance improvements in Java programs just by upgrading from Java 1.2 to 1.3, from 1.3 to 1.4, and from 1.4 to 1.5. I didn't have to wait for the vendors of those Java programs to release new binaries that took advantage of Java compiler improvements.
I just upgraded the Java VM, and a whole bunch of Java programs performed better. That's convenience. That's ease-of-use. That's user friendly.
That said, this is one instance where it would have been nice to be able to play the games as applets in the browser.
I couldn't agree more. Having them available to play as applets would be incredibly convenient for people who want to test drive the games a bit. It's one reason HTML/JavaScript is so popular...it's incredibly easy and accessible to the consumer of the technology.
Java Web Start is interesting and cool technology, but I feel so much less safe running Java Web Start programs compared to applets. Also, JWS programs need to be uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs (on Windows) one at a time.
I feel applets still have a lot to offer, and that Sun (and others) should keep doing their best to improve the applet experience and use them where appropriate.
And even with greater globalization, the report argues that the lower wage scales in India and China are not pushing down pay for U.S. IT workers. Citing information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it said that IT workers have seen steady gains in average annual wages for different fields in the sector of between about two to five percent a year.
As everyone knows (or should know), if your compensation increases aren't keeping pace with inflation (historically, 3.5% to 4% per year), you're effectively getting a pay cut, not a pay raise.
I'm not sure whether or not the article is being misleading on purpose, but it serves to make me skeptical of all its content.
If you put this into perspective on the mono case. Then what will happen when the c# "standard" is widely used?
I'm glad someone mentioned this, even though you didn't get moderated up.
It scares me that the Mono folks are dismissing the possibility of Microsoft crushing Mono with patents some day, while at the same time, Microsoft has decided to patent a non-novel, widespread technology and charge royalties.
Right around the time Linus Torvalds announced his employment with Transmeta, he said something to the effect that the world already had a portable byte code, and that byte code was x86.
Lawyers are destroying this country, heck they practically own it. 90% of congress are lawyers, 9/10 medical suits are frivolous and the 'industry' of medical law is about playing the averages. In my home state of Georgia(USA) medical practioners have their own insurance union, they lose 1 Billion dollars a year defending against frivolous lawsuits. Only 1 in 10 of those suits actually stick...it's practically extortion.
I'd like to see some references to your statistics. They seem too...convenient. 90% this, 9 out of 10 that, $1 billion here, 1 out of 10 there.
Likewise, recent changes to IP are one of the worst things to happen to science and industry. Used correctly IP has its place in prompting innovation, but lawyers are turning IP into something strictly to leverage lawsuits with. That doesn't benefit customers, scientific organizations or industry leaders...but it does syphon mountains of cash to the IP lawyers.
I know it's popular to hate lawyers, so what I'm about to say will probably burn my karma to cinders. But, the simple truth is, it's not the fault of lawyers. They're working within the system, getting paid by clients to do what they do. You want less patent lawsuits? Reform the patent system. Don't burn lawyers at the stake.
Just wait till 2006 when the Kansas State Board of Education will have to face the voters on this issue.
Yeah, just like George W. Bush had to "face the voters" after his abysmal first term and after starting the debacle in Iraq. The same man who considers Intelligent Design a theory as scientifically as valid as Evolution. Who has publically stated his support for teaching "the other side" (Intelligent Design).
In case you hadn't noticed, Americans are becoming less and less intelligent as the years go by.
And now, I must suffer getting voted into oblivion by a million neo-cons. Goodbye, karma.
Of course, I think the developers who left these vulnerabilities open should be financially responsible for the damage this may cause.
I'm amused your comment has been rated interesting, when you're clearly joking. (You are joking, aren't you?)
For those that don't get it: If software developers and software companies were responsible for every little bug, (1) Programs like Notepad would cost tens of thousands of dollars, and (2) Free software wouldn't exist.
Nobody would be able to afford the legal risk of being a software developer.
Could Eric's attempts to kill MS be anymore obvious? IIRC 40% of MS' profits are from Office. If people (read: companies) realize that free (and higher quality) is better than $300-600 / license (and lower quality) the open source world could start to get the penetration it needs to hit a tipping point.
Mod parent up. This is a good point.
All competitors of Microsoft - whether or not they're in the office suite business - would do well to consider donating developers and code to OpenOffice.org. It would hit Microsoft right where it hurts - in one of their two major cash cows - making it harder for Microsoft to compete in general (because less money would be flowing from their cash cows into their other divisions).
Make sure you lay the blame at the feet of those who deserve it: American CEOs.
American CEOs are sacrificing long-term viability for short-term profits. Sure, chasing the H-1B fad or offshore outsourcing work will save you money this quarter. But eventually, American software companies will fail because they did such a good job training their future competition.
All actions like these do is force development of next gen p2p like Mute Filesharing.
MUTE looks even worse than BitTorrent. If you participate in the network, even if you personally never download anything illegally, copyrighted material may be flowing through your connection. I'd worry about being held liable for copyright infringement just by knowingly and willingly allowing my connection to be used in this way.
Sure, Linux would be nowhere without Gnu, but Gnu would be nowhere without Linux. Can't we just call it a happy symbiosis instead of trying to say it's one or the other's baby?
This just in: GigsVT (208848) confirms BSD is dead.
What stupidity. There are a bunch of reasons to criticize her: no judicial experience or constitutional scholarship; hell, she's just a Bush flunky. The fact that she was hired as an advocate for Microsoft isn't one of them. I mean, get some goddamn perspective.
Seeing as she has absolutely no experience at all as a judge at any level how the hell else are we supposed to judge her? Looking at the cases and clients she worked for at least tells us something.
And before you jump to some conclusion, I'm not saying she made the right or wrong choice arguing for Microsoft nor am I saying the case was decided incorrectly.
Slashdot Mirror
On my Dell Inspiron 1150 (which is, admittedly, a piece of crap), Ubuntu automatically recognizes and configures my video, audio, and network (Ethernet) hardware.
The latest and greatest Windows XP Professional, right from MSDN, does not recognize my video, audio, and network hardware. The network issue produces an interesting chicken-and-egg problem (how to get the network drivers on the system without having network drivers?), fortunately easily solved by my access to a second computer and a USB flash drive.
And no, Dell failed to ship me a drivers CD, which I didn't notice until my hard drive crashed, which left me having to reload the OS. Which only operated in 640x480 mode until I downloaded the appropriate video drivers.
So, when do you think Windows will catch up with Ubuntu? ;-)
First, whoever rated you insightful should never be allowed to moderate again. Sheesh. You're trolling, pure and simple.
Second, Microsoft makes one billion dollars in profit every month. In my opinion, they should be held to a higher standard.
Third, you're grossly misrepresenting most Firefox users, who don't expect Firefox to be perfect.
Fourth, Firefox is a safer browser to browse the web with, whether you like it or not.
Here's a link to the single page print version of the article.
If you find someone who can do all those things, they're either (a) lying, or (b) do all those things poorly.
I'm still calling bullshit on the £200. From your original post, you claim you can get a PC with these specs for £200:
* 2.4 GHz Celeron
* 512 MB RAM
* Windows XP Professional
* Keyboard
* Mouse
* 17 inch LCD panel
I've been playing around on Dell's web site, and I just don't see that kind of deal happening.
2) I'm wrong about the operating system.. Ok, yes, technically it does come with an operating system... Now you tell me how I'm going to run AutoCAD on WindowsCEI never said a thin client PC was appropriate for all business users, so I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make here.
3) "Way to pull random numbers out of your arse." Well wohoo, just because I didn't include the 2 weeks of background research in my post I'm "pulling numbers out of my arse". Tell you what, you go research thin client PC's with a virtual server backend and come back to me when you can get the price under £600 a user.
My department runs a pretty nice Windows Server 2003 system to which multiple people connect with Remote Desktop. We easily beat £600 per user.
4) Yes, thin clients do reduce administrative costs, very, very slightly...
I've looked over our I.S. expenses more than once, and claiming that PC maintenance costs are low seems like an outright lie to me.
My post got modded informative by being informative. Oh look, yours didn't.
You posted much sooner. Sheesh. Quit being such a child.
I'm calling bullshit on this. However, I'm happy to be corrected on this if someone can point me to a reputable company that'll sell a system with these specs for £200 (which is approximately $375 USD, according to Google).
But hold on, that box doesn't include monitor, keyboard, mouse, or operating system.
You're right about the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. But you're wrong about the operating system. It includes an operating system. Did you even review the specs?
Hmm... so right now I can replace a £200 PC if I spend about £600 per user on a thin client solution... and that will save me money how exactly?
Way to pull random numbers out of your arse.
Until somebody takes a brave leap of coming up with a simple design and mass producing these the prices simply aren't even nearly competative.
The point of thin clients is to reduce administrative costs. Users can no longer install viruses, trojans, worms, etc. on their computers. You give people a username and password, and they remote into a server where everything they need is already installed and maintained - in one central place.
I'm not saying thin clients are better than fat clients, I'm just pointing out where the benefits supposedly exist.
How your post managed to get modded informative is beyond me.
From the FreeBSD web site:
The FreeBSD Foundation has negotiated a license with Sun Microsystems to distribute FreeBSD binaries for the Java Runtime Environment (JRE(TM)) and Java Development Kit (JDK(TM)).
Enjoy!
On the server platform, source-code portability is probably more than sufficient.
I disagree. I'm reasonably geeky, and spend my fair share of time on Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows Server. I very much appreciate being able to deploy many Java programs to any system and run those Java programs with a simple command like:
java -jar foo.jar
I like the fact that the compilation is being done by the Java VM behind the scenes, so I don't have to explicitly compile it. I just make sure a JVM is there. I don't have to make sure all the appropriate compilers and linkers are present, and at the right release level, I don't have to make sure all the appropriate dynamic libraries are present, and at the right release level, etc.
We go to great lengths like JIT compiling to get around the fact that the object is delivered as a sort of p-code. If you're going to compile it, compile it to native code.
Again, I disagree. I really enjoyed seeing nice performance improvements in Java programs just by upgrading from Java 1.2 to 1.3, from 1.3 to 1.4, and from 1.4 to 1.5. I didn't have to wait for the vendors of those Java programs to release new binaries that took advantage of Java compiler improvements.
I just upgraded the Java VM, and a whole bunch of Java programs performed better. That's convenience. That's ease-of-use. That's user friendly.
Raph Koster is excellent at designing unfun games. I'm not sure this is a bad thing for the company "losing" him...
I couldn't agree more. Having them available to play as applets would be incredibly convenient for people who want to test drive the games a bit. It's one reason HTML/JavaScript is so popular...it's incredibly easy and accessible to the consumer of the technology.
Java Web Start is interesting and cool technology, but I feel so much less safe running Java Web Start programs compared to applets. Also, JWS programs need to be uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs (on Windows) one at a time.
I feel applets still have a lot to offer, and that Sun (and others) should keep doing their best to improve the applet experience and use them where appropriate.
As everyone knows (or should know), if your compensation increases aren't keeping pace with inflation (historically, 3.5% to 4% per year), you're effectively getting a pay cut, not a pay raise.
I'm not sure whether or not the article is being misleading on purpose, but it serves to make me skeptical of all its content.
If you put this into perspective on the mono case. Then what will happen when the c# "standard" is widely used?
I'm glad someone mentioned this, even though you didn't get moderated up.
It scares me that the Mono folks are dismissing the possibility of Microsoft crushing Mono with patents some day, while at the same time, Microsoft has decided to patent a non-novel, widespread technology and charge royalties.
Given the following code:
int i = 42;
foo(i);
In C, you know that foo() can't change the value of i.
In C++, you don't know that foo() can't change the value of i.
Right around the time Linus Torvalds announced his employment with Transmeta, he said something to the effect that the world already had a portable byte code, and that byte code was x86.
Lawyers are destroying this country, heck they practically own it. 90% of congress are lawyers, 9/10 medical suits are frivolous and the 'industry' of medical law is about playing the averages. In my home state of Georgia(USA) medical practioners have their own insurance union, they lose 1 Billion dollars a year defending against frivolous lawsuits. Only 1 in 10 of those suits actually stick...it's practically extortion.
I'd like to see some references to your statistics. They seem too...convenient. 90% this, 9 out of 10 that, $1 billion here, 1 out of 10 there.
Likewise, recent changes to IP are one of the worst things to happen to science and industry. Used correctly IP has its place in prompting innovation, but lawyers are turning IP into something strictly to leverage lawsuits with. That doesn't benefit customers, scientific organizations or industry leaders...but it does syphon mountains of cash to the IP lawyers.
I know it's popular to hate lawyers, so what I'm about to say will probably burn my karma to cinders. But, the simple truth is, it's not the fault of lawyers. They're working within the system, getting paid by clients to do what they do. You want less patent lawsuits? Reform the patent system. Don't burn lawyers at the stake.
Your hate is misplaced.
Just wait till 2006 when the Kansas State Board of Education will have to face the voters on this issue.
Yeah, just like George W. Bush had to "face the voters" after his abysmal first term and after starting the debacle in Iraq. The same man who considers Intelligent Design a theory as scientifically as valid as Evolution. Who has publically stated his support for teaching "the other side" (Intelligent Design).
In case you hadn't noticed, Americans are becoming less and less intelligent as the years go by.
And now, I must suffer getting voted into oblivion by a million neo-cons. Goodbye, karma.
Of course, I think the developers who left these vulnerabilities open should be financially responsible for the damage this may cause.
I'm amused your comment has been rated interesting, when you're clearly joking. (You are joking, aren't you?)
For those that don't get it: If software developers and software companies were responsible for every little bug, (1) Programs like Notepad would cost tens of thousands of dollars, and (2) Free software wouldn't exist.
Nobody would be able to afford the legal risk of being a software developer.
Could Eric's attempts to kill MS be anymore obvious? IIRC 40% of MS' profits are from Office. If people (read: companies) realize that free (and higher quality) is better than $300-600 / license (and lower quality) the open source world could start to get the penetration it needs to hit a tipping point.
Mod parent up. This is a good point.
All competitors of Microsoft - whether or not they're in the office suite business - would do well to consider donating developers and code to OpenOffice.org. It would hit Microsoft right where it hurts - in one of their two major cash cows - making it harder for Microsoft to compete in general (because less money would be flowing from their cash cows into their other divisions).
Is it just me, or is Microsoft "all bark, and no bite" lately?
They're going to do this, they're working on that, they're going to be bigger than [insert market leader here].
I'd like it if Microsoft would just STFU and show me the goods, rather than keep telling me how great they'll be tomorrow.
Make sure you lay the blame at the feet of those who deserve it: American CEOs.
American CEOs are sacrificing long-term viability for short-term profits. Sure, chasing the H-1B fad or offshore outsourcing work will save you money this quarter. But eventually, American software companies will fail because they did such a good job training their future competition.
All actions like these do is force development of next gen p2p like Mute Filesharing.
MUTE looks even worse than BitTorrent. If you participate in the network, even if you personally never download anything illegally, copyrighted material may be flowing through your connection. I'd worry about being held liable for copyright infringement just by knowingly and willingly allowing my connection to be used in this way.
Sure, Linux would be nowhere without Gnu, but Gnu would be nowhere without Linux. Can't we just call it a happy symbiosis instead of trying to say it's one or the other's baby?
This just in: GigsVT (208848) confirms BSD is dead.
It will be a daunting task to convince people to change.
That's true, but it's a heck of a lot easier to get people to try your solution when all they need to try it is their web browser and a URL...
What stupidity. There are a bunch of reasons to criticize her: no judicial experience or constitutional scholarship; hell, she's just a Bush flunky. The fact that she was hired as an advocate for Microsoft isn't one of them. I mean, get some goddamn perspective.
Seeing as she has absolutely no experience at all as a judge at any level how the hell else are we supposed to judge her? Looking at the cases and clients she worked for at least tells us something.
And before you jump to some conclusion, I'm not saying she made the right or wrong choice arguing for Microsoft nor am I saying the case was decided incorrectly.