I pay the membership cost. If his three friends paid as well, I would be able to pay less than I do. The end result is that his buddies are stealing from me and every other subscriber. By that logic, I'm also a thief because I don't use the service at all. No, you're not. You're not part of the equation, since you choose not to use the service.
They stole from me because I have the actual loss of the not-going-to-happen price drop that would happen if they subscribed. I also lose if SD closes up shop due to these thieves.
He's also stealing from us if you consider that he's creating goodwill or "street cred" by distributing the data illegally (he signed the contract I did). There's no free lunch here. By that logic, all slander and libel are also stealing. Depending on your definition of stealing, perhaps. I don't really care what you want to call it- I just argued that it's socially wrong.
The nature of theft is that it is counter-productive. The reason thieves are shunned by society, is that they consume without producing. No. You're thinking too hard. The nature of theft is that thieves take something away from someone else. Victim had a thing; thief takes that thing; victim no longer has that thing. Anything beyond that is using the word "theft" as a metaphor, and should be recognized as such. The way I see it, many things can be stolen, and possibly not delivered to the gainer in the same form. Your argument is that of one focused on money and possessions. The loss here is reputation, which to those who care about slander is often priceless. It may be that a legal system with a monetary focus leads to shoddy laws and their breaking in the first place.
The classic, observable case that really kills me is traffic. Every morning I run into traffic caused in no small part by a few selfish lane-shifting drivers, who in their efforts to get three cars ahead of others make merges turn into huge jams. I'm not sure if it's because they either don't care or don't understand what their actions are doing, but the sad truth is that they'll get stuck in the traffic the next day with me. Agreed. But that's not theft. Again, you're not thinking hard enough, and you're being argumentative for the sake of it, rather than being productive and actually contributing to the subject. Just as above but with a different kind of priceless. Time is money, as the saying goes. And mine's too valuable to school you further.
I pay the membership cost. If his three friends paid as well, I would be able to pay less than I do. The end result is that his buddies are stealing from me and every other subscriber. He's also stealing from us if you consider that he's creating goodwill or "street cred" by distributing the data illegally (he signed the contract I did). There's no free lunch here.
The nature of theft is that it is counter-productive. The reason thieves are shunned by society, is that they consume without producing. We pay dearly for the large amount of theft and corruption, and we're all responsible. As in many things, little infractions such as this which we allow with the excuse that "it's not hurting anyone", multiplied throughout society and become real problems.
The classic, observable case that really kills me is traffic. Every morning I run into traffic caused in no small part by a few selfish lane-shifting drivers, who in their efforts to get three cars ahead of others make merges turn into huge jams. I'm not sure if it's because they either don't care or don't understand what their actions are doing, but the sad truth is that they'll get stuck in the traffic the next day with me.
I know comments like this result in people calling me unrealistic and I don't care. It's idiots like that who let society fall into such a state. In "Imagine" John Lennon wasn't telling people to change overnight. He wanted people to become aware that they were causing their own misfortunes, and that only they had the power to change it. Work hard, be nice to strangers and raise your kids properly.
On the whole, this is a decent list of valid questions I wish consumers could get straight answers on. I think if students were given time to ponder these and other issues and then bring them up in an open forum, you'd have a good event.
But here's the point I have:
Be respectful.
I hate the RIAA/MPAA as much as any faithful Slashdotter, but by attacking a speaker (as many other posts have humorously suggested) you're not going to convince Microsoft to play fair, Cheney to allow accountability, or the MPAA to close up shop.
If at all possible, I think the best way to educate the students would be a fair debate of the issues. If your premise to the student is "this guy coming to campus has it all wrong- let's tell him why," you're not helping them think. Had the time been available, I'd try to get the "English 101" and other related classes to study these and other issues of interest. I wish I was allowed to choose interesting topics to write about, and I'm sure your students would be excited about the topic as well. Given that this sort of activity requires much more time, I'd promote self-study among the student body (and to be realistic- put an emphasis on reaching out to freshmen and honors students).
I don't think you understand the idea behind WalMart very well. Here's how it works:
Step 1: Buy cheap crap from China well below the cost of quality American/European-made goods. The cheaper the better, meaning don't expect (or even discourage) quality control on part of the manufacturer. Step 2: Make sure you spend enough on packaging, so that said crap looks good enough to sell. Step 3a: Sell crap for dirt cheap, causing customers to think they're getting a great deal, when in fact they are simply buying the cheapest (and thus lowest-quality) product on the market. Step 3b: Sell other standard goods (food, cosmetics) cheaper than other stores to reinforce the "good buy" image. Don't expect to make a profit on these, or even break even- that's not the point of these. Step 4: Allow returns, but don't provide quick service, so customers don't get into the habit of demanding either quality goods or decent service. Most people these days have been conditioned to think short-term, and will use the excuse "it only cost me $10, so it's not worth complaining about," causing them to buy that $10 kitchen appliance over and over instead of purchasing a $30 appliance, which would have lasted throughout (and not burnt so much toast). Step 5: Cut costs at all costs. Hire a minimal, untrained* staff of desperate people who will work for minimum wage. Build a PR machine dedicated to telling the public you're helping them, when in fact you're flooding the market with low-paying jobs. Guess what that all that supply does to the job market...
* Have you ever tried getting help from a blueshirt? It's a waste of time. They're very hard to locate, don't know product placement, and often lack even a basic grasp of English; and I live in New England. And compared to most other stores I use, I find they're totally unmotivated to assist customers. I worked at Staples during college, and my experience was as different as can be.
In short, because desktop is the key to truly getting acceptance of Free Software.
The long answer is this:
Because my grandmother couldn't really care less (or tell) whether her webmail gets served via Samba or IIS.
Because Mono is a project designed to allow running commercial software on Linux (I know that's a generalization, but let's be honest), and assuming wide acceptance of Linux kind of defeats the point of using Mono as a metric.
Because there are only a handful of people who actually make decisions about which groupware package to use.
Because until your average computer purchaser knows that there is such a thing as Free Software, they will keep using the junk from Microsoft they see on store shelves.
I wish OpenOffice would be a significant catalyst to Free Software emergence. But even as wonderful a suite as it is on top of Windows, it's not getting adopted since people use the false logic that if they use Microsoft Windows, they should use Microsoft Word. I expect wider consumer awareness following an increasing number of government bodies adopting it, but the rate seems very slow, and recent news of document standards has not been encouraging. OpenOffice is a wonderful technical success story, but rather mediocre when it comes to marketing and evangelism. I don't know the numbers, but I assume Firefox is beating it by far, despite competing in a wider market. I'd give Pidgin (once Gaim) its own paragraph, but it similarly failed in marketing in the U.S. (why does my Alma Mater still install Trillian on its lab computers?).
Firefox (why wasn't that one mentioned) is another example that doesn't really help very much. Sure, it's Free Software, but Internet Explorer is free (as in beer), so it's not a major decision on part of the consumer. Also, it's not as complicated or critical as an office suite or and operating system. People who try Firefox don't have to worry about it sucking a year down the road, since they can switch back. Not so with the bigger systems. It's a great way to demonstrate that Free Software is innovative and secure, but I don't think it's going to alleviate the fear people have of (Free Software == free software) fallacy.
Another important item for your list could have been Wikipedia, which while not important from a Free Software standpoint (though MediaWiki is widely adopted) has been very helpful in exposing the advantages of the Bazaar over the Cathedral (required reading). It may prove a significant player in the adoption of Free Software.
To me it seems that a Linux-based Desktop operating system is the only way wide adoption and recognition of Free Software will happen. My girlfriend loved that I could install a free office suite on her aging Windows machine, as well as a browser that didn't crash. But to her these were simply anomalies- she didn't grasp the idea that there is a LOT of software that was both freely available and of high quality. This was until her Windows installation finally expired and she started using our MythTV station as a desktop. She still fears having Linux installed on her next computer, fearing a lack of geekiness. It still *seems* hard to use, and that perception must be changed.
I see three sub-goals in accomplishing this: * We really need the media to stop calling Linux a piece of software built by hobbyists- it hasn't been that for a very long time, as well as not referring to it as simply being free (as in beer), which is a very bad word. A counter to Microsoft FUD would probably help too. * We need ((non-enterprise)-consumer)-quality distributions and corporations who back them with financial and technical support. My grandmother couldn't care less about the new RHEL- it sounds like overkill and she's not paying for that. * Following the above two, decision makers may be able allow these to be installed so the public becomes aware that Linux is capable of being a mainstream operating sy
How do you see that working? Do you think there's any kind of "personal identification detail" that Wikipedia would use that MI5 couldn't forge for such an operation?
>> What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?
The answer to the question is very simple: Infiltrate MI5.
I'm sorry to bring up the old fighting fire cliche, but that's how counter-intelligence works. Well, using that and disinformation. Which do you think is more in line with Wikipedia's goal?
> The point is that Microsoft can buy it and then fix it, thus elliminating the market value of the exploit. Even after Microsoft "fixes" a security hole, the security problem isn't gone. It's only removed from patched computers. I don't recall what kind of numbers are involved, but there's still plenty of value in an "old" exploit, especially for thugs targeting home users' computers.
> Its still in Microsoft's best interest to buy it as early as possible and fix it as early as possible. If it is so clearly in their interest, as your proof-less assertion claims, why don't they? Why haven't they spent some of the widely press-released security efforts for Vista in creating an exploit bounty program? Why don't they blow Linux away every time we see a new stupid apples-to-oranges comparison of which is the more secure? Or are you suggesting that the endless resources of Microsoft, enjoyed by corrupt researchers and politicians, can't find their way into the black market?
You should have done a better job background reading- I'm not a 21 year-old senior, or new to technology.
I work for the US government, currently on a semantic web research project. For the last ten years I've consistently worked on the kind of hard problems most people rarely encounter, and worked on systems you couldn't imagine. Yeah, I'm not an old fart who worked with punch cards, but a look back at the last decade provides nothing for which to be ashamed.
I'm no fan of Dell, but this and many other posts are not fair.
Do your "price lists" include labor, or just the parts? Are they identical to Dell's parts? You also ignore that Dell buys in bulk, and likely pays even less than wholesale.
Each upgrade requires that they create a non-standard computer, meaning it's going to cost them extra to build.
Besides, they're doing just what Alienware does. Want a premium computer? Pay for it. Remember how little Dell makes on hardware, and you'll understand why they need to do this.
I'd give Dell the benefit of the doubt first. Contact them to question the matter and see if they'll call this a mistake and correct it. If they don't, you can not only keep calling them rotten bastards, but have some proof.
You're talking about OLE, where Microsoft only allowed the combination and transfer of data objects (and otherwise reusing application code) from one application to another. You could take an Excel worksheet and paste it into a Word document. That's pretty cool, and at useful once in a long while, but it's hardly smart enough to be compared to Semantic Web. The web equivalent is simply embedding images and Flash games- i.e. Web 1.0.
At work I get many emails about upcoming internal conferences, tech talks, vendor presentations and such. They all come in the form of an Outlook email, but contain data including event title, date/time, location, and more recognizable bits of information. But when I drag the email onto a calendar folder to create a "Meeting" object, none of the data is put in the appropriate fields. That's the kind of thing Semantic Web is supposed do.
The stuff Microsoft had was useful, but it's obsolete today. It only provided the ability to share data between one application and another application. Today we need to share data between any of millions of applications (web sites), and we can't afford to write dedicated code for each one of those. We need the Semantic Web.
> Achieving it for 'stuff' in general, which seems to be the aim of the Semantic Web, is probably flat-out impossible. "Ingenuity and resourcefulness" my foot. You don't even make an argument against it, not to mention any attempt at proof. Since don't even understand what the Semantic Web is about, how could you possibly dismiss it so casually?
But I must stop and thank you. Pessimists like you make us real technologists so much cooler. It's great to hear people say "it can't be done," because it makes solving those problems so much sweeter. My prediction: expect some serious in-your-face fist-pumping.
I don't understand this mention about being certified by ECMA. Granted, I'm not well versed in the document format wars, but I've never heard of this outfit. A brief glance at their "standards list" looks to me they simply allow corporations to take their existing technology and call them a "standard". So guess how surprised I was, when I took a look at the page on "Office Open XML Formats"
Is it me, or is that "certification" highly suspect?
As a consumer, I expect standards to come before commercial implementations, such as we've seen here regarding the many 802.11n progress updates. I want standards to be smart, not just come from a de facto implementation. I want many interested parties working together to hammer out an acceptable standard, so that I won't be told that I need Internet Explorer to view some lazy slob's web page. I think the free market would benefit if competition would not be between so-called "standards", but between implementations.
It looks like it's also about money to me. And when it comes to money, Microsoft is the last entity I would trust.
Good point regarding the initial and continuing financial investment aspect of farming.
I'm no MMO expert, but my experience playing the 2-week WOW trial suggests that the action of farming directly leads to leveling.
I also figure any decently-run Chinese Gold Farm would reduce the investment time in character building by doing at these two things: * Have one (English speaking) employee study which quests provide a good (experience+gold)/time ratio and document how to most efficiently complete them. * Figure a good way to store and transfer items which assist budding characters to level at an increased rate (by fighting higher-level monsters etc.)
I agree that spam is a terrible thing. I'd love to see spammers drawn and quartered for what they do.
But you forget something important- this is the US legal system we're talking about. This one guy may have sent out a LOT of spam, but not all of it. He didn't cause the situation today, only contributed to it. By our justice system, he must pay for what he did, not be a scape-goat which pays for the sins of all spammers. The rest must be hunted down as well, or we'll have accomplished nothing by jailing this one.
TFA specifically mentions Cisco as a "leader" which, according to his bullshit, should reject Open Source, but it's one of the biggest corporations releasing open source stuff. Screw Oracle and their so-called "support" of Open Source- Cisco actually releases its own software open sourced! A friend of mine built a business around their open Linksys routers. Sounds pretty American to me.
Further all the "anti-marxist" bullshit in TFA ignores the fact that Open Source is not communist in the least. Nobody works to provide for "those who can't". In fact, it's very much based on self-interest, just not the cut-throat competitive self-interest that proprietary development firms utilize. Few and far between are developers who will code something they don't think is a good idea.
I agree that this isn't a fool-proof (or even decent) method of obtaining a psychological profile on someone.
But if nothing else, they can monitor what kind of shopper you are. Do you hoard your money like I do, trying to accumulate everything for that one large purchase; or are you a spender, expending your on-hand cash every time you see something you want then and there. To know this is to know what kind of ads to show you.
And you back that up with what? Why do people like you even bother posting when you know you'll get rated a 1 at best?
Oh, let me guess. You dropped out a few semesters after starting college to start an evil empire that sells second-rate operating systems and bloated word-processors.
Anybody with half an IQ point would realize that Gore's political career was over when he quit his bid for the White House and has about as much of a chance as Bill Clinton does of running in 2008. I haven't seen the movie (yet) and I'm sure my right-wing nutjob parent hasn't either, but reviews don't mention anything about a political platform, but a serious look at the global warning issue (whether it is right or not is another matter, which is actually worth questioning).
Parent: please post more stupidity including the terms "MSM" and Holywood - this is fun. Oh, and please do tell us a Hillary joke. We love watching you squim knowing she'll be our COMMANDER IN CHIEF soon...
Don't blame three-letter acronyms for the demise of computer games- blame the corporate need to "build" games faster and cheaper, stifling the creativity of potentially brilliant designers. Same goes for lots of products- everything today is about advertising, which means it looks nice* but doesn't necessarily work well.
* (have you seen any WOW commercials on TV? They only show the trailer to attract customers- I wish they would show me what playing is like, since the installer crashes on me and I'm not upgrading my hardware just to test it. And no, I don't have any friends who play it.)
Mandriva does sound like the intuitive choice to make. I would guess that it is likely to be the best translation to French, and has support in the users' native language (see the language selection combobox and at last bullet - looks like they translated from French to English) - that's a huge benefit.
I tried Mandrake a few years ago on my personal machine. I found it a nice looking interface and decent for desktop users. Last year, I tried supporting a colleague who installed the current (at the time) Mandriva and I pretty much gave up on it. Basically, my current beliefs on Mandriva are that it's a nice distro for a home or office user, as long as nothing has a chance of breaking. Support personnel for these boxes would have to be either current Mandriva users, or require some studying/training. Then again, Mandriva may have a high share of the French Linux market, providing plenty of gurus.
In any other language, I would feel a little better about Ubuntu, since it's also easy to maintain for general Linux/Unix admins (I was an AIX guy a decade ago). It also makes it (mostly) easy to upgrade to newer versions, and you really can't beat the repositories they have.
Which is all fine and dandy until your hard drive dies.
Like parent, I like to store the paper. Like grandparent, I download statements from my banks, credit cards, etc.
Unlike parent, I'm painfully aware that there is an equal likeliness to my hard drive dying of my files catching fire, eating liquid death (flooding insurance is only so helpful), getting lost during a move, and so on.
I much prefer paper statements since I actually read them, making little marks when necessary ($43.22 at "CHARLIE PATRIOT"- WTF was that?). I'm not going to rely on them lasting, and don't want to keep them forever. I would like to keep the information, so a file will be sufficient in the long run. I wish my bank did that for me, but OTOH, they don't care to, and can they really be trusted to?
See, those that go to Iraq are not drafted, they have chosen to go into the armed forces of their own free will. Making a comparison with someone "his age" dodging service, and dying from a calculated risk is not very good.
The comparison is very valid. Place the following two sets of options on a morality/patriotic/courage/whatever-you-want-to-ca ll-it scale, with the historical 'draft' being "better" than 'dodge', and 'enlist' being better than 'not enlist'. Equate the two who are passive (what normally happens): draft and not enlist. Dodging is clearly two degrees worse than enlisting.
Besides that, there was no calculation of risk for many of them. Nobody expected three years ago that we'd lose thousands of soldiers (and have many many more injured), or have soldiers in hazardous service in multiple tours of duty. Young people are notorious for ignoring their mortality and dismissing the possibility of their dying, and war isn't something you can "calculate" on a personal level. Join that with the huge monetary value promised to recruits (cash, college tuition and career skills). Add that it's known that the poor and those trying to gain citizenship (who are far more desperate for the money) are highly targeted for recruitment, and you've got a terrible argument for this being their choice.
Microsoft has gone out of its way to provide file format compatibility from Office 2000 through 2007
Out of its way? That's a really stupid thing to say. If the new version didn't let you open old documents, no company would ever buy a new version and have to live with losing all their documents. And on the other hand, if new documents required the new version, it would make it harder for companies with the new version to share with others. Both demonstrate a clear loss in sales if Microsoft doesn't provide compatibility, so they're hardly doing something they don't want to do.
Besides, if Microsoft actually designed a decent forward-looking file format, the task wouldn't be as difficult as you proclaim (yet provide no proof) it to be.
And as I'm sure many people have already posted hundreds of times, most people have little to no use for subsequent versions of Office. I can't tell the non-cosmetic differences between 97, 2000 and 2003, despite using them all- there's a set number of functions most people use (and I use way more than most). I could use a more stable version (and they have been getting better at not crashing), but that's it. I can use the current version for another ten years and won't miss any of these "new features". This "ribbon" thing sounds like just more eye-candy, just as Vista does in every interview of a Microsoft exec I've read so far. I don't want eye-candy- I want to not need to buy a new computer every few years to do the same work.
I agree on some of the ultra-orthodox Jewish communities - a few of them are self-proclaimed anti-Zionists due to their religious beliefs.
But the atheist? I'm not sure I agree. While your implication that the religious right in the US has a religious attachment to "the holy land" is true (they spend many millions of dollars annually, visiting, donating, advocating, legislating for Israel), atheists share a different kind of attachment.
To those Americans who are not zealously Christian, there is still plenty of reason to desire the continued existence of Israel. It is not only a rather friendly ally, but a strategic resource in middle-eastern geopolitics. Their presence is a boon to democratization of the region and the stability of oil-rich Arab countries (if they all hate Israel, they won't attack each other very often, Iraq-Kuwait being the only recent notable, unless the US causes it as in the Iran-Iraq war). And when the US decides oil is too expensive, Israel would make a willing coalition member, not to mention a superb staging ground for the oil wars.
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They stole from me because I have the actual loss of the not-going-to-happen price drop that would happen if they subscribed. I also lose if SD closes up shop due to these thieves.
He's also stealing from us if you consider that he's creating goodwill or "street cred" by distributing the data illegally (he signed the contract I did). There's no free lunch here. By that logic, all slander and libel are also stealing. Depending on your definition of stealing, perhaps. I don't really care what you want to call it- I just argued that it's socially wrong.
The nature of theft is that it is counter-productive. The reason thieves are shunned by society, is that they consume without producing. No. You're thinking too hard. The nature of theft is that thieves take something away from someone else. Victim had a thing; thief takes that thing; victim no longer has that thing. Anything beyond that is using the word "theft" as a metaphor, and should be recognized as such. The way I see it, many things can be stolen, and possibly not delivered to the gainer in the same form. Your argument is that of one focused on money and possessions. The loss here is reputation, which to those who care about slander is often priceless. It may be that a legal system with a monetary focus leads to shoddy laws and their breaking in the first place.
The classic, observable case that really kills me is traffic. Every morning I run into traffic caused in no small part by a few selfish lane-shifting drivers, who in their efforts to get three cars ahead of others make merges turn into huge jams. I'm not sure if it's because they either don't care or don't understand what their actions are doing, but the sad truth is that they'll get stuck in the traffic the next day with me. Agreed. But that's not theft. Again, you're not thinking hard enough, and you're being argumentative for the sake of it, rather than being productive and actually contributing to the subject. Just as above but with a different kind of priceless. Time is money, as the saying goes. And mine's too valuable to school you further.
I pay the membership cost. If his three friends paid as well, I would be able to pay less than I do. The end result is that his buddies are stealing from me and every other subscriber. He's also stealing from us if you consider that he's creating goodwill or "street cred" by distributing the data illegally (he signed the contract I did). There's no free lunch here.
The nature of theft is that it is counter-productive. The reason thieves are shunned by society, is that they consume without producing. We pay dearly for the large amount of theft and corruption, and we're all responsible. As in many things, little infractions such as this which we allow with the excuse that "it's not hurting anyone", multiplied throughout society and become real problems.
The classic, observable case that really kills me is traffic. Every morning I run into traffic caused in no small part by a few selfish lane-shifting drivers, who in their efforts to get three cars ahead of others make merges turn into huge jams. I'm not sure if it's because they either don't care or don't understand what their actions are doing, but the sad truth is that they'll get stuck in the traffic the next day with me.
I know comments like this result in people calling me unrealistic and I don't care. It's idiots like that who let society fall into such a state. In "Imagine" John Lennon wasn't telling people to change overnight. He wanted people to become aware that they were causing their own misfortunes, and that only they had the power to change it. Work hard, be nice to strangers and raise your kids properly.
On the whole, this is a decent list of valid questions I wish consumers could get straight answers on. I think if students were given time to ponder these and other issues and then bring them up in an open forum, you'd have a good event.
But here's the point I have:
Be respectful.
I hate the RIAA/MPAA as much as any faithful Slashdotter, but by attacking a speaker (as many other posts have humorously suggested) you're not going to convince Microsoft to play fair, Cheney to allow accountability, or the MPAA to close up shop.
If at all possible, I think the best way to educate the students would be a fair debate of the issues. If your premise to the student is "this guy coming to campus has it all wrong- let's tell him why," you're not helping them think. Had the time been available, I'd try to get the "English 101" and other related classes to study these and other issues of interest. I wish I was allowed to choose interesting topics to write about, and I'm sure your students would be excited about the topic as well. Given that this sort of activity requires much more time, I'd promote self-study among the student body (and to be realistic- put an emphasis on reaching out to freshmen and honors students).
I don't think you understand the idea behind WalMart very well. Here's how it works:
Step 1: Buy cheap crap from China well below the cost of quality American/European-made goods. The cheaper the better, meaning don't expect (or even discourage) quality control on part of the manufacturer.
Step 2: Make sure you spend enough on packaging, so that said crap looks good enough to sell.
Step 3a: Sell crap for dirt cheap, causing customers to think they're getting a great deal, when in fact they are simply buying the cheapest (and thus lowest-quality) product on the market.
Step 3b: Sell other standard goods (food, cosmetics) cheaper than other stores to reinforce the "good buy" image. Don't expect to make a profit on these, or even break even- that's not the point of these.
Step 4: Allow returns, but don't provide quick service, so customers don't get into the habit of demanding either quality goods or decent service. Most people these days have been conditioned to think short-term, and will use the excuse "it only cost me $10, so it's not worth complaining about," causing them to buy that $10 kitchen appliance over and over instead of purchasing a $30 appliance, which would have lasted throughout (and not burnt so much toast).
Step 5: Cut costs at all costs. Hire a minimal, untrained* staff of desperate people who will work for minimum wage. Build a PR machine dedicated to telling the public you're helping them, when in fact you're flooding the market with low-paying jobs. Guess what that all that supply does to the job market...
* Have you ever tried getting help from a blueshirt? It's a waste of time. They're very hard to locate, don't know product placement, and often lack even a basic grasp of English; and I live in New England. And compared to most other stores I use, I find they're totally unmotivated to assist customers. I worked at Staples during college, and my experience was as different as can be.
In short, because desktop is the key to truly getting acceptance of Free Software.
The long answer is this:
Because my grandmother couldn't really care less (or tell) whether her webmail gets served via Samba or IIS.
Because Mono is a project designed to allow running commercial software on Linux (I know that's a generalization, but let's be honest), and assuming wide acceptance of Linux kind of defeats the point of using Mono as a metric.
Because there are only a handful of people who actually make decisions about which groupware package to use.
Because until your average computer purchaser knows that there is such a thing as Free Software, they will keep using the junk from Microsoft they see on store shelves.
I wish OpenOffice would be a significant catalyst to Free Software emergence. But even as wonderful a suite as it is on top of Windows, it's not getting adopted since people use the false logic that if they use Microsoft Windows, they should use Microsoft Word. I expect wider consumer awareness following an increasing number of government bodies adopting it, but the rate seems very slow, and recent news of document standards has not been encouraging. OpenOffice is a wonderful technical success story, but rather mediocre when it comes to marketing and evangelism. I don't know the numbers, but I assume Firefox is beating it by far, despite competing in a wider market. I'd give Pidgin (once Gaim) its own paragraph, but it similarly failed in marketing in the U.S. (why does my Alma Mater still install Trillian on its lab computers?).
Firefox (why wasn't that one mentioned) is another example that doesn't really help very much. Sure, it's Free Software, but Internet Explorer is free (as in beer), so it's not a major decision on part of the consumer. Also, it's not as complicated or critical as an office suite or and operating system. People who try Firefox don't have to worry about it sucking a year down the road, since they can switch back. Not so with the bigger systems. It's a great way to demonstrate that Free Software is innovative and secure, but I don't think it's going to alleviate the fear people have of (Free Software == free software) fallacy.
Another important item for your list could have been Wikipedia, which while not important from a Free Software standpoint (though MediaWiki is widely adopted) has been very helpful in exposing the advantages of the Bazaar over the Cathedral (required reading). It may prove a significant player in the adoption of Free Software.
To me it seems that a Linux-based Desktop operating system is the only way wide adoption and recognition of Free Software will happen. My girlfriend loved that I could install a free office suite on her aging Windows machine, as well as a browser that didn't crash. But to her these were simply anomalies- she didn't grasp the idea that there is a LOT of software that was both freely available and of high quality. This was until her Windows installation finally expired and she started using our MythTV station as a desktop. She still fears having Linux installed on her next computer, fearing a lack of geekiness. It still *seems* hard to use, and that perception must be changed.
I see three sub-goals in accomplishing this:
* We really need the media to stop calling Linux a piece of software built by hobbyists- it hasn't been that for a very long time, as well as not referring to it as simply being free (as in beer), which is a very bad word. A counter to Microsoft FUD would probably help too.
* We need ((non-enterprise)-consumer)-quality distributions and corporations who back them with financial and technical support. My grandmother couldn't care less about the new RHEL- it sounds like overkill and she's not paying for that.
* Following the above two, decision makers may be able allow these to be installed so the public becomes aware that Linux is capable of being a mainstream operating sy
How do you see that working? Do you think there's any kind of "personal identification detail" that Wikipedia would use that MI5 couldn't forge for such an operation?
>> What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?
The answer to the question is very simple: Infiltrate MI5.
I'm sorry to bring up the old fighting fire cliche, but that's how counter-intelligence works. Well, using that and disinformation. Which do you think is more in line with Wikipedia's goal?
> The point is that Microsoft can buy it and then fix it, thus elliminating the market value of the exploit.
Even after Microsoft "fixes" a security hole, the security problem isn't gone. It's only removed from patched computers. I don't recall what kind of numbers are involved, but there's still plenty of value in an "old" exploit, especially for thugs targeting home users' computers.
> Its still in Microsoft's best interest to buy it as early as possible and fix it as early as possible.
If it is so clearly in their interest, as your proof-less assertion claims, why don't they? Why haven't they spent some of the widely press-released security efforts for Vista in creating an exploit bounty program? Why don't they blow Linux away every time we see a new stupid apples-to-oranges comparison of which is the more secure? Or are you suggesting that the endless resources of Microsoft, enjoyed by corrupt researchers and politicians, can't find their way into the black market?
You should have done a better job background reading- I'm not a 21 year-old senior, or new to technology.
I work for the US government, currently on a semantic web research project. For the last ten years I've consistently worked on the kind of hard problems most people rarely encounter, and worked on systems you couldn't imagine. Yeah, I'm not an old fart who worked with punch cards, but a look back at the last decade provides nothing for which to be ashamed.
Your turn, coward.
I'm no fan of Dell, but this and many other posts are not fair.
Do your "price lists" include labor, or just the parts? Are they identical to Dell's parts? You also ignore that Dell buys in bulk, and likely pays even less than wholesale.
Each upgrade requires that they create a non-standard computer, meaning it's going to cost them extra to build.
Besides, they're doing just what Alienware does. Want a premium computer? Pay for it. Remember how little Dell makes on hardware, and you'll understand why they need to do this.
I'd give Dell the benefit of the doubt first. Contact them to question the matter and see if they'll call this a mistake and correct it. If they don't, you can not only keep calling them rotten bastards, but have some proof.
Not really.
You're talking about OLE, where Microsoft only allowed the combination and transfer of data objects (and otherwise reusing application code) from one application to another. You could take an Excel worksheet and paste it into a Word document. That's pretty cool, and at useful once in a long while, but it's hardly smart enough to be compared to Semantic Web. The web equivalent is simply embedding images and Flash games- i.e. Web 1.0.
At work I get many emails about upcoming internal conferences, tech talks, vendor presentations and such. They all come in the form of an Outlook email, but contain data including event title, date/time, location, and more recognizable bits of information. But when I drag the email onto a calendar folder to create a "Meeting" object, none of the data is put in the appropriate fields. That's the kind of thing Semantic Web is supposed do.
The stuff Microsoft had was useful, but it's obsolete today. It only provided the ability to share data between one application and another application. Today we need to share data between any of millions of applications (web sites), and we can't afford to write dedicated code for each one of those. We need the Semantic Web.
> Achieving it for 'stuff' in general, which seems to be the aim of the Semantic Web, is probably flat-out impossible.
"Ingenuity and resourcefulness" my foot. You don't even make an argument against it, not to mention any attempt at proof. Since don't even understand what the Semantic Web is about, how could you possibly dismiss it so casually?
But I must stop and thank you. Pessimists like you make us real technologists so much cooler. It's great to hear people say "it can't be done," because it makes solving those problems so much sweeter. My prediction: expect some serious in-your-face fist-pumping.
I don't understand this mention about being certified by ECMA. Granted, I'm not well versed in the document format wars, but I've never heard of this outfit. A brief glance at their "standards list" looks to me they simply allow corporations to take their existing technology and call them a "standard". So guess how surprised I was, when I took a look at the page on "Office Open XML Formats"
Is it me, or is that "certification" highly suspect?
As a consumer, I expect standards to come before commercial implementations, such as we've seen here regarding the many 802.11n progress updates. I want standards to be smart, not just come from a de facto implementation. I want many interested parties working together to hammer out an acceptable standard, so that I won't be told that I need Internet Explorer to view some lazy slob's web page. I think the free market would benefit if competition would not be between so-called "standards", but between implementations.
It looks like it's also about money to me. And when it comes to money, Microsoft is the last entity I would trust.
Good point regarding the initial and continuing financial investment aspect of farming.
I'm no MMO expert, but my experience playing the 2-week WOW trial suggests that the action of farming directly leads to leveling.
I also figure any decently-run Chinese Gold Farm would reduce the investment time in character building by doing at these two things:
* Have one (English speaking) employee study which quests provide a good (experience+gold)/time ratio and document how to most efficiently complete them.
* Figure a good way to store and transfer items which assist budding characters to level at an increased rate (by fighting higher-level monsters etc.)
I agree that spam is a terrible thing. I'd love to see spammers drawn and quartered for what they do.
But you forget something important- this is the US legal system we're talking about. This one guy may have sent out a LOT of spam, but not all of it. He didn't cause the situation today, only contributed to it. By our justice system, he must pay for what he did, not be a scape-goat which pays for the sins of all spammers. The rest must be hunted down as well, or we'll have accomplished nothing by jailing this one.
This is the point I was going to make.
TFA specifically mentions Cisco as a "leader" which, according to his bullshit, should reject Open Source, but it's one of the biggest corporations releasing open source stuff. Screw Oracle and their so-called "support" of Open Source- Cisco actually releases its own software open sourced! A friend of mine built a business around their open Linksys routers. Sounds pretty American to me.
Further all the "anti-marxist" bullshit in TFA ignores the fact that Open Source is not communist in the least. Nobody works to provide for "those who can't". In fact, it's very much based on self-interest, just not the cut-throat competitive self-interest that proprietary development firms utilize. Few and far between are developers who will code something they don't think is a good idea.
I agree that this isn't a fool-proof (or even decent) method of obtaining a psychological profile on someone.
But if nothing else, they can monitor what kind of shopper you are. Do you hoard your money like I do, trying to accumulate everything for that one large purchase; or are you a spender, expending your on-hand cash every time you see something you want then and there. To know this is to know what kind of ads to show you.
Another great (though only dating back to 1990) design-your-own game was a racing simulation called Stunts:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/stunts
And you back that up with what? Why do people like you even bother posting when you know you'll get rated a 1 at best?
Oh, let me guess. You dropped out a few semesters after starting college to start an evil empire that sells second-rate operating systems and bloated word-processors.
Look kids- it's a paranoid Republican!
Anybody with half an IQ point would realize that Gore's political career was over when he quit his bid for the White House and has about as much of a chance as Bill Clinton does of running in 2008. I haven't seen the movie (yet) and I'm sure my right-wing nutjob parent hasn't either, but reviews don't mention anything about a political platform, but a serious look at the global warning issue (whether it is right or not is another matter, which is actually worth questioning).
Parent: please post more stupidity including the terms "MSM" and Holywood - this is fun. Oh, and please do tell us a Hillary joke. We love watching you squim knowing she'll be our COMMANDER IN CHIEF soon...
Don't blame three-letter acronyms for the demise of computer games- blame the corporate need to "build" games faster and cheaper, stifling the creativity of potentially brilliant designers. Same goes for lots of products- everything today is about advertising, which means it looks nice* but doesn't necessarily work well.
* (have you seen any WOW commercials on TV? They only show the trailer to attract customers- I wish they would show me what playing is like, since the installer crashes on me and I'm not upgrading my hardware just to test it. And no, I don't have any friends who play it.)
You can't get a Slashdot story written about you (albeit anonymously) by being the second confirmed crack.
That, and the adoption is still low due to there not being an available cracked version...
Oh no- an "I think the best distro" thread...
Mandriva does sound like the intuitive choice to make. I would guess that it is likely to be the best translation to French, and has support in the users' native language (see the language selection combobox and at last bullet - looks like they translated from French to English) - that's a huge benefit.
I tried Mandrake a few years ago on my personal machine. I found it a nice looking interface and decent for desktop users. Last year, I tried supporting a colleague who installed the current (at the time) Mandriva and I pretty much gave up on it. Basically, my current beliefs on Mandriva are that it's a nice distro for a home or office user, as long as nothing has a chance of breaking. Support personnel for these boxes would have to be either current Mandriva users, or require some studying/training. Then again, Mandriva may have a high share of the French Linux market, providing plenty of gurus.
In any other language, I would feel a little better about Ubuntu, since it's also easy to maintain for general Linux/Unix admins (I was an AIX guy a decade ago). It also makes it (mostly) easy to upgrade to newer versions, and you really can't beat the repositories they have.
Like parent, I like to store the paper.
Like grandparent, I download statements from my banks, credit cards, etc.
Unlike parent, I'm painfully aware that there is an equal likeliness to my hard drive dying of my files catching fire, eating liquid death (flooding insurance is only so helpful), getting lost during a move, and so on.
I much prefer paper statements since I actually read them, making little marks when necessary ($43.22 at "CHARLIE PATRIOT"- WTF was that?). I'm not going to rely on them lasting, and don't want to keep them forever. I would like to keep the information, so a file will be sufficient in the long run. I wish my bank did that for me, but OTOH, they don't care to, and can they really be trusted to?
The comparison is very valid. Place the following two sets of options on a morality/patriotic/courage/whatever-you-want-to-c
Besides that, there was no calculation of risk for many of them. Nobody expected three years ago that we'd lose thousands of soldiers (and have many many more injured), or have soldiers in hazardous service in multiple tours of duty. Young people are notorious for ignoring their mortality and dismissing the possibility of their dying, and war isn't something you can "calculate" on a personal level. Join that with the huge monetary value promised to recruits (cash, college tuition and career skills). Add that it's known that the poor and those trying to gain citizenship (who are far more desperate for the money) are highly targeted for recruitment, and you've got a terrible argument for this being their choice.
Out of its way? That's a really stupid thing to say. If the new version didn't let you open old documents, no company would ever buy a new version and have to live with losing all their documents. And on the other hand, if new documents required the new version, it would make it harder for companies with the new version to share with others. Both demonstrate a clear loss in sales if Microsoft doesn't provide compatibility, so they're hardly doing something they don't want to do.
Besides, if Microsoft actually designed a decent forward-looking file format, the task wouldn't be as difficult as you proclaim (yet provide no proof) it to be.
And as I'm sure many people have already posted hundreds of times, most people have little to no use for subsequent versions of Office. I can't tell the non-cosmetic differences between 97, 2000 and 2003, despite using them all- there's a set number of functions most people use (and I use way more than most). I could use a more stable version (and they have been getting better at not crashing), but that's it. I can use the current version for another ten years and won't miss any of these "new features". This "ribbon" thing sounds like just more eye-candy, just as Vista does in every interview of a Microsoft exec I've read so far. I don't want eye-candy- I want to not need to buy a new computer every few years to do the same work.
I agree on some of the ultra-orthodox Jewish communities - a few of them are self-proclaimed anti-Zionists due to their religious beliefs.
But the atheist? I'm not sure I agree. While your implication that the religious right in the US has a religious attachment to "the holy land" is true (they spend many millions of dollars annually, visiting, donating, advocating, legislating for Israel), atheists share a different kind of attachment.
To those Americans who are not zealously Christian, there is still plenty of reason to desire the continued existence of Israel. It is not only a rather friendly ally, but a strategic resource in middle-eastern geopolitics. Their presence is a boon to democratization of the region and the stability of oil-rich Arab countries (if they all hate Israel, they won't attack each other very often, Iraq-Kuwait being the only recent notable, unless the US causes it as in the Iran-Iraq war). And when the US decides oil is too expensive, Israel would make a willing coalition member, not to mention a superb staging ground for the oil wars.