Then, in 2007, came Longhorn, with integrated web search using not Google, but MSN. Joe Sixpack didn't care, but MSN was so damn convinient he forgot about Google - effectively forcing Google Inc. with its costly development department out of business.
Later - oh surprise - all results you got for "Linux" on MSN were advisories to ditch it for Windows. He who controlled the search result, controlled the industry.
(Maybe I should put some fake Frontpage-Meta-Header to my webpages to increase Rankings on MSN... just to be sure)
So people admit they are too stupid for computers and too ignorant to actually learn to use them properly. That is neither "News" for me, nor "Stuff that matters", it simply summarizes what I have been trought with several of my customers.
I think those guys should not be allowed to actually own a computer or get net access. If I want to learn to drive, I have to read signs, so I have to learn to read them. There is no such need to learn even basic techspeak for Net-Newbies, and this is just plain wrong.
Matter of fact, after having chewed up this period for three times during my school years (they are pretty persistant about this in Germany nowadays, maybe the US should be to...), historic evidence is that the urban "Strassenkampf" between the Communists and the SA had no significant effect on the election of 1932. In this election, the NSDAP got 230 and the Communists 86 out of 680 seats in the Reichstag, who elects the Reichskanzler. Althought the second election of 1932 resulted in a slight decrease of NSDAP seats, this actually was a perfectly legal election. And no, prior to January of 1933, the National Socialists did not hold any right to imprison or kill anyone.
And treathening to kill a elected political leader is simply anti-democratic and dangerous.
Althought it may be controversial, I am sure there is a natural given right to kill a tyrant. People who tried to kill Hitler (remember: he was lawfully elected, as opposed to certain US presidents we have witnessed) are celebrated as heroes in contemporary Germany.
Call me an idiot, but I seriously cannot see the problem here. How can Microsoft issue a licence that forbids me to build DOC-writing support in my application? OOo has done this for years, without any problems.
Patent law does not work, IMHO, because XML has been around for ages.
Actually haveing achived a Masters Degree in Japanese History, I disagree. There were adaptions, yes, but Spain also has had its adaptions from Italy. Nontheless, there are clear variations of Spanish and Italian Cultures.
To make an example to this point: Just look what a mess Usenet Groups targeted to eastern cultures are (soc.culture.japan is no longer about japanese culture, but about chinese hateing japanese, japanese hateing chinese and koreans, americans hateing them all, and of course everyone has to troll around).
Freedom of speech may be one of the integral principles of American heritage, but this certainly is FoS gone wrong.
hmmm... windows only
hmmmmm... source unavailible
hmmmmmmmmm... ADWARE
*peeks over to azureus*
hm, does the thing just as good. And why would I want decentralized bittorent when I'm just downloading distribution ISO files?
These people are the ones with something to hide (like you said, most normal people don't encrypt their communications) and their communications can't be sniffed.
I most certainly hope I misunderstood that sentence... That is what local (german) law enforcement agencies keep telling me... "If you are no criminal, you've got nothing to hide and hence you need no encryption.". So if I used encryption, I'd be suspicious from the spot.
Privacy does not work that way. In "Real Life" communities, privacy works because the feds cannot possibly have enough manpower to control all communications - on the street, in living rooms etc. Virtually noone needs encryption here because it is sufficient just to go to the pub over the street to communicate without bugs and on a sound level that makes surveillance practicably impossible.
However, it is possible to "tap" TCP/IP streams pretty easily, even on a large scale (I'm talking ISP here, not the Net) - Germany even charges the ISPs to create and operate devices to control email servers so law enforcement can get grasp of emails (with court order - for now). Just think what would be possible if someone'd be able to crack one of those "bug boxes".
Given this background, I'd prefer that all communication would be encrypted by the recipients. Mankind is stupid, however, and most of its individuals won't be doing it, using the same "excuse" you gave above... "I don't have anything to hide, so why bother?"
Oh, this is just soooo great. PGP/GPG encryption and stuff. And everyone uses it...
I have had several PGP-Keys over the last decade, to be ready for private communication over email, files etc, and know how often I used it? Not even once. Not because I didn't want to, but because neither my friends, nor my customers even had an public key. And they were not willing to implement them, because little redhead secretary wouldn't want to learn 5 minutes how to encrypt or decrypt a message. Yes, there are large firms in my customer base. No, they regulary send me files whose content is vital for their business in plain file formats (they don't even set those Office passwords for documents).
Browser-based encryption is accepted - because it comes with the product and without any hazzle for John User. PGP, on the other side, is "hard" to install and to use. "Hard" means: does not work right out of the box.
As long as virtually noone actually uses encryption, its value in securing the net is useless.
Well, of course it is BS, and we all know it. But managers may not, and they do not care as long as they have some numbers they can point at (think of the 260 something patent violations of linux.)
So, the next time we want to point out that linux is more stable than WinXP (which we know is true), we can point to these (bogus) numbers to make our point. May be evil, but it will help.
I don't think you understood what I tried to say... The Seasons greetings on invoices was a mere example.
While it is right that MSO has some interoperation features, it might not have the ones I have to use. My Accounting Suite uses Postgres. So great - there seems to be no way to make an invoice with Word or Excel from one single database entry. With OOo, I write my Interoperation features by myself, in any language I am willing to, using any input format I want to.
And try to trigger MSOs interoperation features with a cron job (The first day of any month, print the Finanzamts [german IRS] paperwork).
That are the reasons I like my Linux, and that are the reasons I like open file formats.
Funnily, I'm currently working on a bunch of projects to incorperate external Data Sources using Perl and OOo "template" files. E.g. it should be possible to write invoices from a database, copy a template, opening it, entering the data (address and billing information) to the right fields within the OOo file and saving it to disk. The user then should be able to review/print/PDF it and send the results to the customer. Modern accounting software already does this automagically, but my approach allows using the powerful OOo WYSIWYG for formular design - for example, any secretary would be able to write a seasons greetings on the template of december in no time.
In another procect, I use a similar technique to visualize raw data given by CSV (e.g. Adsense data). It saves me a bunch of work I'd had to do manually in Excel.
Magic like this would not be able utilizing proprietary file formats. OOo's XML file format has made my life easier. And I love OOo for it:)
Splash screens suck. No, they really suck. They use ressources and are pulling down usability of the system in general when an application is loading. Some splashscreens are even always on top, rendering the system useless until the application is loaded (OpenOffice.org is my scapegoat here:). Where is multitasking here?
Personally, I really would prefer some status indicator in the users menu or in some kind of applet (KDE already does that, blinking mouse cursors and similar), but please, PLEASE do not use splash screens.
Thats a noble attitude, and I wish more younger people would try to achieve more time with their aging parents.
However, and I really miss this information in the discussion so far - Japan is not America nor Europe. This is none of the usual "Japanese attitude" gibberish.
Japan - for an instance - has a far better social healthcare and care for elders than the States and most of Europe. In fact, the idea of improving old Westerners life is often just grotesque (In Germany, for an instance, the average time a warden can "take care" of feeding an Alzheimer patient is about 3 minutes - thats but 120 seconds for feeding a whole meal!). The Japanese try to make better, and Id really prefer a teddy-robot with an ELIZA-Syndrome than being forced to an elders asylum by my children where I should die early because the care costs eat up their heritage.
Slashdot Mirror
Then, in 2007, came Longhorn, with integrated web search using not Google, but MSN. Joe Sixpack didn't care, but MSN was so damn convinient he forgot about Google - effectively forcing Google Inc. with its costly development department out of business. Later - oh surprise - all results you got for "Linux" on MSN were advisories to ditch it for Windows. He who controlled the search result, controlled the industry. (Maybe I should put some fake Frontpage-Meta-Header to my webpages to increase Rankings on MSN ... just to be sure)
So people admit they are too stupid for computers and too ignorant to actually learn to use them properly. That is neither "News" for me, nor "Stuff that matters", it simply summarizes what I have been trought with several of my customers.
I think those guys should not be allowed to actually own a computer or get net access. If I want to learn to drive, I have to read signs, so I have to learn to read them. There is no such need to learn even basic techspeak for Net-Newbies, and this is just plain wrong.
Matter of fact, after having chewed up this period for three times during my school years (they are pretty persistant about this in Germany nowadays, maybe the US should be to...), historic evidence is that the urban "Strassenkampf" between the Communists and the SA had no significant effect on the election of 1932. In this election, the NSDAP got 230 and the Communists 86 out of 680 seats in the Reichstag, who elects the Reichskanzler. Althought the second election of 1932 resulted in a slight decrease of NSDAP seats, this actually was a perfectly legal election. And no, prior to January of 1933, the National Socialists did not hold any right to imprison or kill anyone.
Althought it may be controversial, I am sure there is a natural given right to kill a tyrant. People who tried to kill Hitler (remember: he was lawfully elected, as opposed to certain US presidents we have witnessed) are celebrated as heroes in contemporary Germany.
How are they supposed to prove that I did not reverse engineer their format in front of a judge?
... they would not have a case in Europe.
Sounds fishy
[sarcastically] I am *so* glad that we over here in old Europe do not have this issues ...
Call me an idiot, but I seriously cannot see the problem here. How can Microsoft issue a licence that forbids me to build DOC-writing support in my application? OOo has done this for years, without any problems.
Patent law does not work, IMHO, because XML has been around for ages.
And ELIZA makes me a psychiatric case...
Makes more sense if the Ferenghi were a Klingon, njet?
Actually haveing achived a Masters Degree in Japanese History, I disagree. There were adaptions, yes, but Spain also has had its adaptions from Italy. Nontheless, there are clear variations of Spanish and Italian Cultures.
To make an example to this point: Just look what a mess Usenet Groups targeted to eastern cultures are (soc.culture.japan is no longer about japanese culture, but about chinese hateing japanese, japanese hateing chinese and koreans, americans hateing them all, and of course everyone has to troll around).
Freedom of speech may be one of the integral principles of American heritage, but this certainly is FoS gone wrong.
- 70 Euro for people I rather avoid
- 40 Euro for people I do not know
- 30 Euro for people I know
- a good bottle of wine for people I like
per hour. Never had problems with this system.I did not RTFA, but if not, I cannot tell my customers to use it no matter how easy to use it is - simply because I am not going to switch.
hmmm ... windows only
hmmmmm ... source unavailible
hmmmmmmmmm ... ADWARE
*peeks over to azureus*
hm, does the thing just as good. And why would I want decentralized bittorent when I'm just downloading distribution ISO files?
if the US dollar rises over the Euro
Seriously, is it ethically correct that 100ml ink is more expensive than 100ml insulin?
Just look at my bank account anytime my wife was "shopping".
I most certainly hope I misunderstood that sentence... That is what local (german) law enforcement agencies keep telling me ... "If you are no criminal, you've got nothing to hide and hence you need no encryption.". So if I used encryption, I'd be suspicious from the spot.
Privacy does not work that way. In "Real Life" communities, privacy works because the feds cannot possibly have enough manpower to control all communications - on the street, in living rooms etc. Virtually noone needs encryption here because it is sufficient just to go to the pub over the street to communicate without bugs and on a sound level that makes surveillance practicably impossible.
However, it is possible to "tap" TCP/IP streams pretty easily, even on a large scale (I'm talking ISP here, not the Net) - Germany even charges the ISPs to create and operate devices to control email servers so law enforcement can get grasp of emails (with court order - for now). Just think what would be possible if someone'd be able to crack one of those "bug boxes".
Given this background, I'd prefer that all communication would be encrypted by the recipients. Mankind is stupid, however, and most of its individuals won't be doing it, using the same "excuse" you gave above... "I don't have anything to hide, so why bother?"
Oh, this is just soooo great. PGP/GPG encryption and stuff. And everyone uses it...
I have had several PGP-Keys over the last decade, to be ready for private communication over email, files etc, and know how often I used it? Not even once. Not because I didn't want to, but because neither my friends, nor my customers even had an public key. And they were not willing to implement them, because little redhead secretary wouldn't want to learn 5 minutes how to encrypt or decrypt a message. Yes, there are large firms in my customer base. No, they regulary send me files whose content is vital for their business in plain file formats (they don't even set those Office passwords for documents).
Browser-based encryption is accepted - because it comes with the product and without any hazzle for John User. PGP, on the other side, is "hard" to install and to use. "Hard" means: does not work right out of the box.
As long as virtually noone actually uses encryption, its value in securing the net is useless.
So, the next time we want to point out that linux is more stable than WinXP (which we know is true), we can point to these (bogus) numbers to make our point. May be evil, but it will help.
While it is right that MSO has some interoperation features, it might not have the ones I have to use. My Accounting Suite uses Postgres. So great - there seems to be no way to make an invoice with Word or Excel from one single database entry. With OOo, I write my Interoperation features by myself, in any language I am willing to, using any input format I want to.
And try to trigger MSOs interoperation features with a cron job (The first day of any month, print the Finanzamts [german IRS] paperwork).
That are the reasons I like my Linux, and that are the reasons I like open file formats.
In another procect, I use a similar technique to visualize raw data given by CSV (e.g. Adsense data). It saves me a bunch of work I'd had to do manually in Excel.
Magic like this would not be able utilizing proprietary file formats. OOo's XML file format has made my life easier. And I love OOo for it :)
Only accept patents that have an chemical or physical background - do not accept patents on business methods or software.
Personally, I really would prefer some status indicator in the users menu or in some kind of applet (KDE already does that, blinking mouse cursors and similar), but please, PLEASE do not use splash screens.
Ever tried to add some Redhat servers to a windows domain with user-account given automagically by Active Directory? Tried for 2 days, gave up...
I certainly hope the configuration is more userfriendly now.
Thats a noble attitude, and I wish more younger people would try to achieve more time with their aging parents.
However, and I really miss this information in the discussion so far - Japan is not America nor Europe. This is none of the usual "Japanese attitude" gibberish.
Japan - for an instance - has a far better social healthcare and care for elders than the States and most of Europe. In fact, the idea of improving old Westerners life is often just grotesque (In Germany, for an instance, the average time a warden can "take care" of feeding an Alzheimer patient is about 3 minutes - thats but 120 seconds for feeding a whole meal!). The Japanese try to make better, and Id really prefer a teddy-robot with an ELIZA-Syndrome than being forced to an elders asylum by my children where I should die early because the care costs eat up their heritage.