For the record, this is similar to issues Gore brought up in FL in '00. Democrats jumped all over it then. I'm betting they are just as quick to dismiss it in this case.
"On the touchy issue of security, Ballmer also dismissed the notion that Linux is more secure than Windows, saying that Linux would be attacked just as frequently as Windows if the open source operating system had as large a share of the operating system market as Windows."
What a load of crap. The logic here is that Windows is more vulnerable due entirely to its popularity over Linux. I'd like to see Steve FUDFace explain this away:
According to Netcraft, Apache has a market share of 67.7%, while Microsoft servers (IIS) have a grand total of 21.21% of the market. Assuming some sort of proportionality relationship between market share and vulnerabilities/attacks, one would then expect Apache to be significantly more vulnerable/more often attacked than IIS. Right?
I don't know where to get the figures on number of exploits. Anyone? If Apache has been subject to more exploits than IIS, I'll eat my socks.
I wonder why tech reporters never bust out this counterexample. I'd love to see Ballmer's face if, in the middle of a press conference and upon making such a ridiculous assertion, a reporter were to stand up and exclaim, "I call bull****! Apache is over 3 times more popular than IIS, but has experienced only (some small percentage) of the number of attacks/exploits IIS has. Now what's your excuse?"
1) Corrupted download--do the md5sum's match up? 2) CD burn errors/defective CD media
I once had a CD for Mandrake Move that didn't want to load up. It would always hang in the same place. I burned another CD and viola! No problems.
Before you go blaming them for having "such a lousy installer", perhaps you might do some basic troubleshooting. Who knows? The problem could really be "lousy CD media", or a "lousy corrupted ISO", or a "lousy CD burner", or "lousy burning software". In my case, I was using Easy CD Creator 5.something and have had TONS of problems with bad burns on various brands of CD's and files that checked out okay. But who knows. Maybe the burner is broken. *SHRUG*
Maybe I'm incorrect in assuming that you haven't isolated the problem as definitely being a software bug, but you didn't mention doing any troubleshooting. Am I wrong? I hope so.
Nice. You read what isn't there. Nowhere did I say, nor did I insinuate that you have to be knowledgeable about all facets of computers and semantics of specific operating systems in an "Intro to C++ course. Would you recommend a friend go to auto mechanic school if he had never changed his own oil or ever tried to tinker with something on his car? Of course not. He has shown no real interest in the subject. It's clearly not in his blood and he therefore wouldn't be a good mechanic.
Likewise, if I had a friend who had never done anything but surf the net and play games on his Windozzze box, and had never dropped to a command prompt for anything, I would tell him NOT to bother with programming.
You were going to mod me down and decided not to? How benevolent of you. Instead you pass judgement and call me names. Thanks for taking the high road.
And let me get this straight, you can vent, but when I vented (in only PART of my post) that invalidated all the other valid points I brought up? And I need the attitude adjustment? Did you ever stop to wonder what volumes you speak about your own character by calling me an "immature punk" and a "fucking hotshot". You earned your Flamebait mod.
They have a saying where I'm from. "If you can back it up, it ain't braggin'."
Actually, the character looked more like a pipe character with a little space between it. It looked kind of like a ":", kind of like an "i", but without being able to draw it, you'd not know what it really was.
In response to your question, "Are you supposed to go to school if you already know all the material?" Well, I think you missed the entire point of my post. My point was that if you think that just because you can surf the net and play games, that you know computers and should try to be a programmer because there's money to be made doing it. It's like thinking you should be telephone engineer because you like to call your friends and are good at dialing their numbers. Personally, I think it's a bad call to go into a field unless it's in your blood. If you've never tinkered with a car, or even changed your own oil, I don't recommend you go to auto mechanic school. Along those lines, if you've never done enough with your OS to drop to a command line, programming isn't for you.
Did I just go for the paper? Nope. If I didn't truly enjoy what I'm studying, I would have never gone back to finish my degrees.
BTW, thanks for passing judgement. You don't know me. You don't really know anything about me. Yet you were so quick to come to the conclusion that I'm an elitist. What does that tell the rest of us about you?
And I'll never amount to much because I'm an elitist? Brilliant logic. Not that I'm as good as he is, but Cassius Clay/Mohammad Ali claimed to be the best there ever was, and that no one was at nearly his level. Elitist? By your definition. He never amounted to anything, did he?.
For future reference, they have a saying where I come from. "If you can back it up, it ain't braggin'."
I should have specified that it was based on MS Visual C++ 6.0 and that the guy probably had Visual Basic before taking the class. And he failed the class, so I stand by my claim that he wasn't very bright.
Agreed that DOS/Windozzzze is "severly retarded" for having drive letters.
As far as the obscure file system goes...the class is based on M$ Visual C++ 6.0. And no, the guy failed the class, so I don't think he was trying to correct the professor. The way it was written you couldn't tell for sure if it was an "i" or a ":". Had he ever seen a command prompt or had ever seen a path, he wouldn't have had to ask. And trust me, this professor isn't one you really want to ask a lot of questions. As far as that guy goes, he had no business taking the class.
That's a command prompt. Notice that it includes the path. Notice that the character immediately following the "c" will always be a ":". Not to put too fine a line on it, if you've ever seen a command prompt, you know that it includes the path (unless you specifically tell it not to). Therefore, if my classmate had ever seen a command prompt, he would have realized there was no way it could be an "i". c:\> d:\> Always of the form driveletter colon backslash.
Well, the course has a prerequisite. Either you have taken VB or you have permission from the instructor. Therefore, I think it's only fair to expect a student to know something about programming.
In fact, we have one professor who will kick you out of his Intro to C++ class if you haven't taken VB or have a high enough score on your Math ACT. But this ignores my point. There are too many people "getting into computers" just because they heard there's money in it. IMHO, if you've never seen a command prompt, you aren't ready to take an intro to C++ class. And if you can't tell by the declaration that a function expects an int to be returned and isn't a void, then you're too stupid to be a programmer. Drop the class.
You're not freakin' kidding. Far too many people "get into computers" because they heard you can supposedly make a ton of money in it. A couple of examples for you--
I had a Intro to C++ professor who had horrendous handwriting, so what he wrote kinda looked like the following:
ofstream din;
din.open("ci\\data\\datafile.dat");
So of course, someone who shouldn't have been in the class raised his hand and asked, "Is that an "i" after the "c"?
It was all I could do not to turn around and scream "Hello!!! Have you never seen a command prompt before in your life? Is there any way it be an "i"? It's a colon. There's no way it could be anything but a colon. You need to drop the class."
Later, when we learned about user defined functions, here's what was on the board(more or less):
int myFunction(int x){
x +=5;
return x;
}
So (I'm pretty sure it was the same guy) raised his hand and asked, "Is this a void?" Hello!!! Is "void" spelled "int"? Do void functions return a value? AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!
It's kind of embarassing to confess to this, but I attended one of those technical colleges for a few weeks before I got sick with mononucleosis and had to drop after the first class finished. Sure, it set me back financially when I had to repay part of the student loans I had gotten (thankfully they were federal loans because the school was accredited), but I'm glad it happened. That, of course, was back before the whole dot com bubble burst, and had I stayed there, I most likely would have trouble finding a job today.
Instead, I'm about to graduate from a real college with two non-related degrees. I recently landed a job doing web design and system administration precisely because I have some real world experience with PHP and MYSQL. That, and I've been practically living on the computer since my family got a PC Jr. many years ago. Oh, the days of hacking my Bard's Tale character stats with a hex editor!
Anyway, the point I want to bring up here is this: I was up against graduates of that same technical school and my employer isn't impressed with them. Why? All their resumes look the same, they have no real-world experience, and almost without exception, the reason why they went to that school to get a computer "degree" was because they heard you could make a good living doing it.
Bottom line, there are decent-paying tech jobs for those who have it in their blood and know what they are doing. Also, because the stupid US government projected such unrealistic salary and job growth in the field that the market is saturated with idiots (and "schools" for them) whose credentials suck and are only in it for the money.
Sure, IBM hasn't always worn a white hat, but there will always remain one huge difference between M$ and IBM. IBM didn't get to where they are by making and selling crap.
I shouldn't have to go into too much detail about IBM's technical superiority over the rest of the industry. We all know that OS2 kicked the snot out of Windozzzzzzzze. Microchannel architecture was superior to ISA, etc.
IBM continues to advance current technology. I will never forget seeing in the newspaper a photo of (I believe this is right) mercury atoms on a nickel plate arranged to spell "IBM". Or how IBM was the first to store 1GB of data in 1 square inch of hard drive space. Or how IBM discovered how to store 7 layers of data on one CD by changing the angle of the laser.
Sure, IBM may have charged a lot for their stuff, but I think that for the most part, you got what you paid for. If I'm not mistaken, IBM used more precious metals in their PC's than their competitors did. Better components == higher cost. Worth it? Apparently the public didn't think so.
Finally, we have IBM backing Linux BIG TIME. Given IBM's track record of backing technologically superior products, I think that speaks volumes about where Linux is, as well as where Linux is headed in the future. And for what it's worth, given the fact that IBM has, over many decades, earned (IMHO) their industry position, I'm inclined to believe their Linux TCO studies are less FUD than Micro$haft's. After all, didn't IBM only resort to FUD to keep from losing their market share, not when trying to create one?
Just my $.02.
Disclaimer: IDNWFANHWFIBM (I Do Not Work For And Never Have Worked For IBM)
True, that giving out antibiotics like candy to those with a viral infection is a bad idea, it's not even the tip of the iceberg. How many people are aware that there are millions, if not billions of cattle, chickens, turkeys, pigs, and sheep that are fed antibiotics on a daily basis? This is because factory farming methods keep them in such unsanitary, cramped, inhumane conditions, that if any one of them gets sick, it threatens to wipe the whole herd/flock out.
Heck, they even mentioned on ABC that Cypro(sp?), the drug of last resort for Anthrax, is getting less and less effective because of all the poultry on a drug very similar to it. BTW, a friend of mine is dead because a strain of bacteria that's common in cattle developed resistance to antibiotics and she got it.
Not entirely correct. You cannot be tried for the same crime twice in the same court. That is, you cannot be tried for the same murder twice in state court, and you cannot be tried for the same murder twice in federal court. However, you can be tried for the same murder: once in state court, and once in federal court. This doesn't usually happen unless the criminal doesn't quite get the penalty he/she deserves. IANAL, but that's what a lawyer told me.
My brother recently gave me a copy of the old ISO's. You can imagine my surprise when the following happened: I tried to compile something and found that the kernel source isn't installed by default. So I went to install it. Guess what--the kernel source wasn't on any of the CD's! What's up with that?!! Isn't that a violation of the GPL? Is the kernel source on the new ISO's? If not, why? Someone please enlighten me.
Here's an article that talks about the unintended negative effects of modern conveniences that have caused/are causing/could cause some serious problems. Can we assume that GMO-ing won't similarly cause unintended major problems?
Let's suppose the following. You are given a new computer that runs an OS that doesn't resemble anything you've ever seen. But it's OS, so it comes with the source code, but it's all written in machine code. BTW, there is no documentation. Assuming that after many years of intense study, you are able to decipher a few hundred lines (out of millions) of code.
Now, let me ask you, how smart would it be to tinker with the source code under these circumstances? While you might eventually figure out a way to add a customization or 2, would you know if or exactly how these changes would affect the operation of every other function? Of course not.
We're doing the same thing with genetic "improvements". Truth be told, by taking out the gene in tomatoes that cause them to ripen naturally, we have substituted a gene from another species to keep them firmer longer. Are we 100% positive that the gene we removed ONLY affected ripening speed? Do we know what other effects the newly-introduced gene will have on tomatoes? What about the animals (humans included) that eat the tomatoes? Did that gene cause certain nutrients to be present that will now be absent? If so, how will that affect us in the long run? What do we really know about the source code we're modifying?
Seriously, folks, to think that we know enough to "improve" what we barely understand is the epitome of arrogance and the height of stupidity. Shoot, we can hardly make software that is bug-free and totally secure. And computers aren't nearly as complicated as human beings, or even tomatoes for that matter. Genitically modifying life forms to give them "desirable" traits is just begging to cause an environmental kernel panic.
Instead of taking our time and using EXTREME caution, we have companies cranking out modification after modification, solely for money. They, like Micro$oft, don't care if what they produce is buggy and vulnerable. It's all about the Benjamins...
McBride: System V is the basis for all operating systems outside of Redmond, AIX, HP UX, Solaris, Apple and Linux. Linux is the only one not rationalized [from a licensing perspective].
I didn't know BSD wasn't "outside of Redmond". It looks like McBride has a firm handle on things. No wonder he thinks they have a case!
I'm sorry, but I must agree that the article was rather ambiguous on this point. It does not clearly state that the women's performance on a larger display was equal to that of men's on the same display. Had the sentence read "they each" instead of simply "they" it would be clearer. As it stands, without clarification, "they" could be refering to the researchers, women, men, or women and men. For all we know without reading the study ourselves, they could be comparing women's performance on the large display to that of men on the smaller display. Since the article doesn't specifically mention men's performance being tested on large displays, the issue is as clear as mud. Chalk it up to poor writing skills/reporting ability.
If you take the view that "worth" is merely a function of perception (for instance, paper money is only worth as much as people percieve it to be worth), then their opinion does matter more than anyone else because people give them that seat. They don't simply take it and abscond with it. Frankly, most Americans would rather listen to what an actor has to say about, say, the environment over an environmental scientist who had devoted a decade of their life to becoming fluent with how it works.
It is sort of like blaming the drug lords. They didn't create the craving. They just feed it.
I'm not saying this doesn't suck. I just think you're blaming the wrong group. Actors have no power that isn't handed to them.
I totally agree that it's the public who gives them their power. People, for the most part, are dumber than rats. Why rats? Because when the Pied Piper lured them to their deaths, they had no choice. Here they are picking their own Pied Piper and carrying him on their shoulders so they can all jump into the river of their own free will.
I disagree somewhat about blaming the wrong group. I agree wholeheartedly that the public bears responsibility for creating the demand, but those who rush to fill it for the fame, glory, money, and to fuel their egos are every bit as bad, perhaps worse. People worship celebrities because they're stupid. People become big-time actors for selfish reasons, because they want to be worshipped. It's a symbiotic relationship in the cesspool of society.
It's funny you should use this example. It is the same one I employ vs. all of the pro-war people when they tell me to "love it or leave it."
Perhaps we see the same way on the issue of war. Sometimes it is justified. Most of the time it isn't. I just can't see how some people can think that avoiding war at the cost of liberty, or a holocaust, or some other greater loss of human life and greater suffering, is a good alternative. If one thinks that simply choosing peace will result in peace, they are sadly mistaken.
For example, what if Canada and Mexico decided to invade and conquor the United States killing men, women,and children without regard. What if we didn't want war, so we decide to boycott it? What would happen if we simply said "No. We will not engage in war with you. We choose peace." I think a lot of people would have fun enjoying the peace that would come about simply because we allowed ourselves to get slaughtered. But if we're getting massacred...that's peace, right? As long as we're not fighting back there's no war, right? Maybe those actors are smarter than I give them credit for. Maybe real life is as simple as following a script. Is it just me, or do you find it a little ironic that the same people shooting up others on the big screen, waging pretend wars for millions of dollars are the ones decrying violence. I guess it's okay as long as it's not real and you're getting paid millions of dollars to do it.
Here's my take. Actors are overpaid. They think their profession is more important than everyone else's. They think they are so important that a terrorist attack on them is emminent. They think their opinions are more important than anyone else's. They think it's okay to demand millions of dollars to make a film, spend all their money on opulent living, and then preach to us about the homeless. They think that by putting together a celibrity phone-a-thon after 9-11, they have done their part. It's one thing to hit up regular Americans for donations, when what they could afford to donate collectively would dwarf what the rest of us could afford to donate.
So what is the end result? They make movies--most of which suck. Then because it costs so darned much to make a movie, we pay out the nose to go to the theater. They hype up crappy movies, pay other actors to pretend to be people coming out of the theater after seeing the movie to tell us how awesome it was, falsify rave critical reviews in some cases, and trick us into helping support their version of American royalty. The worst part is that after paying too much to see a lame movie, is not only are you screwed out of your hard-earned money, but you've just wasted a couple of hours of your life. You can't get either one back.
Maybe that's the real problem. Maybe people are tired of it and are willing to watch a crappy bootleg in order to decide whether it's worth their money before shelling out for the real goods. With only a few, notable exceptions, most stuff coming out of Hollywood these days sucks.
I'm a student with a wife and 2 kids. For what it would cost for me to take us all to the movies and buy concessions, I could pay for Dish Network for a month or get a month's worth of DSL or cable internet connection (my current ISP is a dialup and it's going as soon as we can afford to upgrade). You tell me, which option is a better value for my money? Hollywood can rot in hell for all I care.
And they can just shut their yaps while they're at it. I don't want to hear them telling me stupid crap like, "War should be avoided at all costs." --Nicholas Cage. I thank God that Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington weren't that utterly freakin' stupid. Some things are worth dying for. But he's an actor. Poparazzi follow him around and people with no lives fall at his feet and scream and weep because they got an autograph or simply close enough to touch him. And thay pay him millions of dollars to make sucky movies. Therefore he MUST know what he's talking about, right?
Anyway, I'm done. I hope that by trying to shut down piracy that they wind up shooting themselves in the head like the RIAA is doing with their not really CD's. Treat the symptoms, not the root cause. I wish I could be that smart...
Think about this in a software sense. Genes are like the individual files in a program (let's call it Corn) that each perform a specific task. Suppose I, who am not fluent in any programming languages, fooled around for a bit and discovered that file.x is responsible for feature "whatever" in Corn. This other file, file.z causes program Some Other Life Form to kill insects. If I just overwrite file.x with file.z, now I have added the feature "killInsects" to Corn. Do I even have to tell anyone why this is a bad idea? The point I want to make is this: If you don't have a thorough understanding of how every gene operates, not just in one particular aspect, but how each gene interrelates within that organism and the ecosystem, it's BEYOND STUPID to make a change and then introduce it into nature. Every action has at least 3 consequences--1 intended and 2 unintended. By making corn kill insects, we could be eliminating some very important, as of yet unknown trait from corn, that will in turn have some other effect on something else. Even as it is, if it will kill an undesirable insect, it will also kill ladybugs and bees. Already the use of pesticides in modern farming methods is killing useful insects as well as EARTHWORMS. Did anyone count on that? Is it worth it to wipe out earthworms just so none of our produce looks ugly? I honestly think we're playing with fire here. We simply don't know enough of how things work or how they are interrelated to go and make low-level changes to them. We're going to crash our ecosystem, cause a kernel panic, and unfortunately there is no rescue disk for this scenario. There is no undelete. There are no recovery utilities to go back and recover data from this hard drive if the boot sector suffers physical damage. I once introduced a security hole in a web site because I made a tiny change (I won't say what it was), thinking that just because I could make the change and got the desired result (Okay, so I capitalized the first letter in a user's name. At the time I was learning and didn't know any better. It was a STUPID mistake). I later found out that what I didn't understand about the interrelations involved could have caused a disaster. Scientists are making similar changes without knowing everything they need to know. By the time they see the unintended consequences, it will be too late to fix anything. Our attempts to "improve" what was already working perfectly will ultimately result in its demise.
This is not only flamebait but "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury". If I were as ignorant as you, I wouldn't let on. Do you actually believe that the political party of the President of the United States determines the peaks and valleys of the business cycle? PUH-LEASE! If a US president actually had that much control over the economy we'd never see a bear market.
Here's a quick history lesson for you:
FDR, a DEMOCRAT was president during the Great Depression. Where were the "plenty of jobs"? Yes, the economy eventually recovered, thanks to increased industrial producion necessitated by the US's entrance into WWII--not because the President was a democrat.
Anyone remember how the economy soared during the Jimmy Carter (DEMOCRAT) years? Gotta love those long gas lines and double digit inflation. It's a good thing we didn't have a Republican in office or else it would have been triple digit inflation and no gas, right?
Enter Ronald Reagan, the REPUBLICAN president who followed Carter. Enter economic recovery and the end of the Cold War. What a crappy time in American history! Maybe he forgot he was a Republican, or maybe he was so inept that he turned the economy the wrong way?
The economic prosperity during the Clinton (DEMOCRAT) years was an illusion. When the whole dotcom craze hit, I figured it wouldn't be long until the bottom dropped out on it. I honestly couldn't see how these companies could be profitable with the services they were offering. But people bought into the hype and invested too much into what really held little promise. Executives and employees were grossly overpaid. Frankly, I never thought web designers and IT people were worth as much as they were making.
As soon as everyone saw through the smoke and mirrors, the artificially inflated market came crashing down. Like a pendulum, after reaching it's peak in one direction the market has swung back the other direction. It'll stabalize somewhere between the 2 extremes, so just chill, everyone. In the meantime, realize that the gravy train has derailed and by the time it's operating again, it'll be more like a freight train instead of a bullet train. In other words, instead of holding out for a job like the one you had that pays about the same, look elsewhere. Get a real degree if you don't already have one. Or get an advanced degree. Make yourself stand out so a potential employer will notice you and forget about the cushy, high-paying job you used to have. It's gone for good.
BTW, It just so happens that this economic downturn began long before Clinton left office and had nothing to do with Bush (or Clinton, for that matter, but if you insist on blaming the man in office, blame Clinton--a DEMOCRAT). No, this garbage started the very day the dotcom craze took off because there's no way it would have ever sustained itself. The business model was flawed from the outset.
The economic crap we're dealing with is due IMHO to the hangover from the dotcom drunken orgy and 9/11. While the economic policies a president persues may have an economic impact (though much smaller than everyone naievely believes), to think that his party affiliation determines the economic healty of the US is the most inane thing I've heard lately.
With that kind of intelligence, it's no wonder these guys can't get a job....
This may have been posted already and I just missed it, but if not, here goes:
The article mentioned that SimDesk was installed on the library's computers as a trial basis and it was extremely popular. Maybe since we're all highly computer literate, we tend to forget that there are many out there who aren't, maybe for the simple fact that they're too poor to own a computer.
Think about it. Suppose you were poor and didn't have a computer and needed to do some kind of word processing, your options would be limited. Not considering typewriters and all-in-one wordprocessors, you could either go over to a friend's and use their computer (assuming you had such a friend who wouldn't mind the inconvenience) or what--go to the library?
Assuming the library had a word processor or spreadsheet or whatever it was you needed to use, you'd still have to get a hold of a floppy disk or a zip disk in order to save your work. By using an office suite that enables you to save your work remotely, you eliminate the need for the user to buy storage media--something that for some could be unattainable.
Additionally, as has already been stated, the average Joe Blow user has no need for most of what M$ Office does. By going with SimDesk in the libraries, the city of Houston has made opened the door for many who were previously shut out. Heck, the article stated that it was their aim to make SimOffice available for every poor person.
"What began as Brown's goal to use SimDesk as an affordable way to give poor residents access to basic computer functions broadened into a plan to use SimDesk as a cheaper alternative on some city PCs, too."
And the results:
"... during nine months of the pilot program, more than 30,000 users had written and stored resumes, school papers, legal statements, poetry and other files on the SimDesk server. They couldn't do complex data sorting or many other chores Office does well. Even so, lines formed at the library's SimDesk terminals. Civic leaders rallied behind it. "SimDesk lowers the barriers for the low-income community," says Brian Stevens, executive director of The Telecom Opportunity Institute, a non-profit that guides at-risk youth."
Like many of you, my first reaction was, "Huh?!" Why didn't they go with Open Office?" Maybe because you have to save your files locally and SimOffice eliminates that need? There's no risk of losing or damaging your floppy. However, to be fair, if SimDesk's network or hard drives fail, where are you? It's a tradeoff, I guess.
Anyway, I think the fact that Mayor Brown was concerned about bringing basic computer functioning to the masses, succeeded, saved money, didn't have to upgrade hardware, and did it all in spite of Micro$oft's corporate extortion is quite a feat. So what if it's not open source? Do you really think that any of the new beneficiaries of the free access to the previously unavailable technology give a rip about that?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, here's food for thought.
p osts/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1255391/
For the record, this is similar to issues Gore brought up in FL in '00. Democrats jumped all over it then. I'm betting they are just as quick to dismiss it in this case.
FTA:
"On the touchy issue of security, Ballmer also dismissed the notion that Linux is more secure than Windows, saying that Linux would be attacked just as frequently as Windows if the open source operating system had as large a share of the operating system market as Windows."
What a load of crap. The logic here is that Windows is more vulnerable due entirely to its popularity over Linux. I'd like to see Steve FUDFace explain this away:
According to Netcraft, Apache has a market share of 67.7%, while Microsoft servers (IIS) have a grand total of 21.21% of the market. Assuming some sort of proportionality relationship between market share and vulnerabilities/attacks, one would then expect Apache to be significantly more vulnerable/more often attacked than IIS. Right?
I don't know where to get the figures on number of exploits. Anyone? If Apache has been subject to more exploits than IIS, I'll eat my socks.
I wonder why tech reporters never bust out this counterexample. I'd love to see Ballmer's face if, in the middle of a press conference and upon making such a ridiculous assertion, a reporter were to stand up and exclaim, "I call bull****! Apache is over 3 times more popular than IIS, but has experienced only (some small percentage) of the number of attacks/exploits IIS has. Now what's your excuse?"
Hmm. Have you ruled out the following?:
1) Corrupted download--do the md5sum's match up?
2) CD burn errors/defective CD media
I once had a CD for Mandrake Move that didn't want to load up. It would always hang in the same place. I burned another CD and viola! No problems.
Before you go blaming them for having "such a lousy installer", perhaps you might do some basic troubleshooting. Who knows? The problem could really be "lousy CD media", or a "lousy corrupted ISO", or a "lousy CD burner", or "lousy burning software". In my case, I was using Easy CD Creator 5.something and have had TONS of problems with bad burns on various brands of CD's and files that checked out okay. But who knows. Maybe the burner is broken. *SHRUG*
Maybe I'm incorrect in assuming that you haven't isolated the problem as definitely being a software bug, but you didn't mention doing any troubleshooting. Am I wrong? I hope so.
Nice. You read what isn't there. Nowhere did I say, nor did I insinuate that you have to be knowledgeable about all facets of computers and semantics of specific operating systems in an "Intro to C++ course. Would you recommend a friend go to auto mechanic school if he had never changed his own oil or ever tried to tinker with something on his car? Of course not. He has shown no real interest in the subject. It's clearly not in his blood and he therefore wouldn't be a good mechanic.
Likewise, if I had a friend who had never done anything but surf the net and play games on his Windozzze box, and had never dropped to a command prompt for anything, I would tell him NOT to bother with programming.
You were going to mod me down and decided not to? How benevolent of you. Instead you pass judgement and call me names. Thanks for taking the high road.
And let me get this straight, you can vent, but when I vented (in only PART of my post) that invalidated all the other valid points I brought up? And I need the attitude adjustment? Did you ever stop to wonder what volumes you speak about your own character by calling me an "immature punk" and a "fucking hotshot". You earned your Flamebait mod.
They have a saying where I'm from. "If you can back it up, it ain't braggin'."
Actually, the character looked more like a pipe character with a little space between it. It looked kind of like a ":", kind of like an "i", but without being able to draw it, you'd not know what it really was.
In response to your question, "Are you supposed to go to school if you already know all the material?" Well, I think you missed the entire point of my post. My point was that if you think that just because you can surf the net and play games, that you know computers and should try to be a programmer because there's money to be made doing it. It's like thinking you should be telephone engineer because you like to call your friends and are good at dialing their numbers. Personally, I think it's a bad call to go into a field unless it's in your blood. If you've never tinkered with a car, or even changed your own oil, I don't recommend you go to auto mechanic school. Along those lines, if you've never done enough with your OS to drop to a command line, programming isn't for you.
Did I just go for the paper? Nope. If I didn't truly enjoy what I'm studying, I would have never gone back to finish my degrees.
BTW, thanks for passing judgement. You don't know me. You don't really know anything about me. Yet you were so quick to come to the conclusion that I'm an elitist. What does that tell the rest of us about you?
And I'll never amount to much because I'm an elitist? Brilliant logic. Not that I'm as good as he is, but Cassius Clay/Mohammad Ali claimed to be the best there ever was, and that no one was at nearly his level. Elitist? By your definition. He never amounted to anything, did he?.
For future reference, they have a saying where I come from. "If you can back it up, it ain't braggin'."
I should have specified that it was based on MS Visual C++ 6.0 and that the guy probably had Visual Basic before taking the class. And he failed the class, so I stand by my claim that he wasn't very bright.
Agreed that DOS/Windozzzze is "severly retarded" for having drive letters.
As far as the obscure file system goes...the class is based on M$ Visual C++ 6.0. And no, the guy failed the class, so I don't think he was trying to correct the professor. The way it was written you couldn't tell for sure if it was an "i" or a ":". Had he ever seen a command prompt or had ever seen a path, he wouldn't have had to ask. And trust me, this professor isn't one you really want to ask a lot of questions. As far as that guy goes, he had no business taking the class.
c:\somedirectory\subdirectory>
That's a command prompt. Notice that it includes the path. Notice that the character immediately following the "c" will always be a ":". Not to put too fine a line on it, if you've ever seen a command prompt, you know that it includes the path (unless you specifically tell it not to). Therefore, if my classmate had ever seen a command prompt, he would have realized there was no way it could be an "i". c:\> d:\> Always of the form driveletter colon backslash.
Well, the course has a prerequisite. Either you have taken VB or you have permission from the instructor. Therefore, I think it's only fair to expect a student to know something about programming.
In fact, we have one professor who will kick you out of his Intro to C++ class if you haven't taken VB or have a high enough score on your Math ACT. But this ignores my point. There are too many people "getting into computers" just because they heard there's money in it. IMHO, if you've never seen a command prompt, you aren't ready to take an intro to C++ class. And if you can't tell by the declaration that a function expects an int to be returned and isn't a void, then you're too stupid to be a programmer. Drop the class.
You're not freakin' kidding. Far too many people "get into computers" because they heard you can supposedly make a ton of money in it. A couple of examples for you--
I had a Intro to C++ professor who had horrendous handwriting, so what he wrote kinda looked like the following:
ofstream din;
din.open("ci\\data\\datafile.dat");
So of course, someone who shouldn't have been in the class raised his hand and asked, "Is that an "i" after the "c"?
It was all I could do not to turn around and scream "Hello!!! Have you never seen a command prompt before in your life? Is there any way it be an "i"? It's a colon . There's no way it could be anything but a colon. You need to drop the class."
Later, when we learned about user defined functions, here's what was on the board(more or less):
int myFunction(int x){
x +=5;
return x;
}
So (I'm pretty sure it was the same guy) raised his hand and asked, "Is this a void?" Hello!!! Is "void" spelled "int"? Do void functions return a value? AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!
It's kind of embarassing to confess to this, but I attended one of those technical colleges for a few weeks before I got sick with mononucleosis and had to drop after the first class finished. Sure, it set me back financially when I had to repay part of the student loans I had gotten (thankfully they were federal loans because the school was accredited), but I'm glad it happened. That, of course, was back before the whole dot com bubble burst, and had I stayed there, I most likely would have trouble finding a job today.
Instead, I'm about to graduate from a real college with two non-related degrees. I recently landed a job doing web design and system administration precisely because I have some real world experience with PHP and MYSQL. That, and I've been practically living on the computer since my family got a PC Jr. many years ago. Oh, the days of hacking my Bard's Tale character stats with a hex editor!
Anyway, the point I want to bring up here is this: I was up against graduates of that same technical school and my employer isn't impressed with them. Why? All their resumes look the same, they have no real-world experience, and almost without exception, the reason why they went to that school to get a computer "degree" was because they heard you could make a good living doing it.
Bottom line, there are decent-paying tech jobs for those who have it in their blood and know what they are doing. Also, because the stupid US government projected such unrealistic salary and job growth in the field that the market is saturated with idiots (and "schools" for them) whose credentials suck and are only in it for the money.
Sure, IBM hasn't always worn a white hat, but there will always remain one huge difference between M$ and IBM. IBM didn't get to where they are by making and selling crap.
I shouldn't have to go into too much detail about IBM's technical superiority over the rest of the industry. We all know that OS2 kicked the snot out of Windozzzzzzzze. Microchannel architecture was superior to ISA, etc.
IBM continues to advance current technology. I will never forget seeing in the newspaper a photo of (I believe this is right) mercury atoms on a nickel plate arranged to spell "IBM". Or how IBM was the first to store 1GB of data in 1 square inch of hard drive space. Or how IBM discovered how to store 7 layers of data on one CD by changing the angle of the laser.
Sure, IBM may have charged a lot for their stuff, but I think that for the most part, you got what you paid for. If I'm not mistaken, IBM used more precious metals in their PC's than their competitors did. Better components == higher cost. Worth it? Apparently the public didn't think so.
Finally, we have IBM backing Linux BIG TIME. Given IBM's track record of backing technologically superior products, I think that speaks volumes about where Linux is, as well as where Linux is headed in the future. And for what it's worth, given the fact that IBM has, over many decades, earned (IMHO) their industry position, I'm inclined to believe their Linux TCO studies are less FUD than Micro$haft's. After all, didn't IBM only resort to FUD to keep from losing their market share, not when trying to create one?
Just my $.02.
Disclaimer: IDNWFANHWFIBM (I Do Not Work For And Never Have Worked For IBM)
True, that giving out antibiotics like candy to those with a viral infection is a bad idea, it's not even the tip of the iceberg. How many people are aware that there are millions , if not billions of cattle, chickens, turkeys, pigs, and sheep that are fed antibiotics on a daily basis? This is because factory farming methods keep them in such unsanitary, cramped, inhumane conditions, that if any one of them gets sick, it threatens to wipe the whole herd/flock out.
Heck, they even mentioned on ABC that Cypro(sp?), the drug of last resort for Anthrax, is getting less and less effective because of all the poultry on a drug very similar to it. BTW, a friend of mine is dead because a strain of bacteria that's common in cattle developed resistance to antibiotics and she got it.
Not entirely correct. You cannot be tried for the same crime twice in the same court. That is, you cannot be tried for the same murder twice in state court, and you cannot be tried for the same murder twice in federal court. However, you can be tried for the same murder: once in state court, and once in federal court. This doesn't usually happen unless the criminal doesn't quite get the penalty he/she deserves. IANAL, but that's what a lawyer told me.
My brother recently gave me a copy of the old ISO's. You can imagine my surprise when the following happened: I tried to compile something and found that the kernel source isn't installed by default. So I went to install it. Guess what--the kernel source wasn't on any of the CD's! What's up with that?!! Isn't that a violation of the GPL? Is the kernel source on the new ISO's? If not, why? Someone please enlighten me.
Here's an article that talks about the unintended negative effects of modern conveniences that have caused/are causing/could cause some serious problems. Can we assume that GMO-ing won't similarly cause unintended major problems?
f lon-usat_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-04-23-te
Let's suppose the following. You are given a new computer that runs an OS that doesn't resemble anything you've ever seen. But it's OS, so it comes with the source code, but it's all written in machine code. BTW, there is no documentation. Assuming that after many years of intense study, you are able to decipher a few hundred lines (out of millions) of code.
Now, let me ask you, how smart would it be to tinker with the source code under these circumstances? While you might eventually figure out a way to add a customization or 2, would you know if or exactly how these changes would affect the operation of every other function? Of course not.
We're doing the same thing with genetic "improvements". Truth be told, by taking out the gene in tomatoes that cause them to ripen naturally, we have substituted a gene from another species to keep them firmer longer. Are we 100% positive that the gene we removed ONLY affected ripening speed? Do we know what other effects the newly-introduced gene will have on tomatoes? What about the animals (humans included) that eat the tomatoes? Did that gene cause certain nutrients to be present that will now be absent? If so, how will that affect us in the long run? What do we really know about the source code we're modifying?
Seriously, folks, to think that we know enough to "improve" what we barely understand is the epitome of arrogance and the height of stupidity. Shoot, we can hardly make software that is bug-free and totally secure. And computers aren't nearly as complicated as human beings, or even tomatoes for that matter. Genitically modifying life forms to give them "desirable" traits is just begging to cause an environmental kernel panic.
Instead of taking our time and using EXTREME caution, we have companies cranking out modification after modification, solely for money. They, like Micro$oft, don't care if what they produce is buggy and vulnerable. It's all about the Benjamins...
McBride: System V is the basis for all operating systems outside of Redmond, AIX, HP UX, Solaris, Apple and Linux. Linux is the only one not rationalized [from a licensing perspective].
I didn't know BSD wasn't "outside of Redmond". It looks like McBride has a firm handle on things. No wonder he thinks they have a case!
I'm sorry, but I must agree that the article was rather ambiguous on this point. It does not clearly state that the women's performance on a larger display was equal to that of men's on the same display. Had the sentence read "they each" instead of simply "they" it would be clearer. As it stands, without clarification, "they" could be refering to the researchers, women, men, or women and men. For all we know without reading the study ourselves, they could be comparing women's performance on the large display to that of men on the smaller display. Since the article doesn't specifically mention men's performance being tested on large displays, the issue is as clear as mud. Chalk it up to poor writing skills/reporting ability.
If you take the view that "worth" is merely a function of perception (for instance, paper money is only worth as much as people percieve it to be worth), then their opinion does matter more than anyone else because people give them that seat. They don't simply take it and abscond with it. Frankly, most Americans would rather listen to what an actor has to say about, say, the environment over an environmental scientist who had devoted a decade of their life to becoming fluent with how it works.
,and children without regard. What if we didn't want war, so we decide to boycott it? What would happen if we simply said "No. We will not engage in war with you. We choose peace." I think a lot of people would have fun enjoying the peace that would come about simply because we allowed ourselves to get slaughtered. But if we're getting massacred...that's peace, right? As long as we're not fighting back there's no war, right? Maybe those actors are smarter than I give them credit for. Maybe real life is as simple as following a script. Is it just me, or do you find it a little ironic that the same people shooting up others on the big screen, waging pretend wars for millions of dollars are the ones decrying violence. I guess it's okay as long as it's not real and you're getting paid millions of dollars to do it.
It is sort of like blaming the drug lords. They didn't create the craving. They just feed it.
I'm not saying this doesn't suck. I just think you're blaming the wrong group. Actors have no power that isn't handed to them.
I totally agree that it's the public who gives them their power. People, for the most part, are dumber than rats. Why rats? Because when the Pied Piper lured them to their deaths, they had no choice. Here they are picking their own Pied Piper and carrying him on their shoulders so they can all jump into the river of their own free will.
I disagree somewhat about blaming the wrong group. I agree wholeheartedly that the public bears responsibility for creating the demand, but those who rush to fill it for the fame, glory, money, and to fuel their egos are every bit as bad, perhaps worse. People worship celebrities because they're stupid. People become big-time actors for selfish reasons, because they want to be worshipped. It's a symbiotic relationship in the cesspool of society.
It's funny you should use this example. It is the same one I employ vs. all of the pro-war people when they tell me to "love it or leave it."
Perhaps we see the same way on the issue of war. Sometimes it is justified. Most of the time it isn't. I just can't see how some people can think that avoiding war at the cost of liberty, or a holocaust, or some other greater loss of human life and greater suffering, is a good alternative. If one thinks that simply choosing peace will result in peace, they are sadly mistaken.
For example, what if Canada and Mexico decided to invade and conquor the United States killing men, women
Here's my take. Actors are overpaid. They think their profession is more important than everyone else's. They think they are so important that a terrorist attack on them is emminent. They think their opinions are more important than anyone else's. They think it's okay to demand millions of dollars to make a film, spend all their money on opulent living, and then preach to us about the homeless. They think that by putting together a celibrity phone-a-thon after 9-11, they have done their part. It's one thing to hit up regular Americans for donations, when what they could afford to donate collectively would dwarf what the rest of us could afford to donate.
So what is the end result? They make movies--most of which suck. Then because it costs so darned much to make a movie, we pay out the nose to go to the theater. They hype up crappy movies, pay other actors to pretend to be people coming out of the theater after seeing the movie to tell us how awesome it was, falsify rave critical reviews in some cases, and trick us into helping support their version of American royalty. The worst part is that after paying too much to see a lame movie, is not only are you screwed out of your hard-earned money, but you've just wasted a couple of hours of your life. You can't get either one back.
Maybe that's the real problem. Maybe people are tired of it and are willing to watch a crappy bootleg in order to decide whether it's worth their money before shelling out for the real goods. With only a few, notable exceptions, most stuff coming out of Hollywood these days sucks.
I'm a student with a wife and 2 kids. For what it would cost for me to take us all to the movies and buy concessions, I could pay for Dish Network for a month or get a month's worth of DSL or cable internet connection (my current ISP is a dialup and it's going as soon as we can afford to upgrade). You tell me, which option is a better value for my money? Hollywood can rot in hell for all I care.
And they can just shut their yaps while they're at it. I don't want to hear them telling me stupid crap like, "War should be avoided at all costs." --Nicholas Cage. I thank God that Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington weren't that utterly freakin' stupid. Some things are worth dying for. But he's an actor. Poparazzi follow him around and people with no lives fall at his feet and scream and weep because they got an autograph or simply close enough to touch him. And thay pay him millions of dollars to make sucky movies. Therefore he MUST know what he's talking about, right?
Anyway, I'm done. I hope that by trying to shut down piracy that they wind up shooting themselves in the head like the RIAA is doing with their not really CD's. Treat the symptoms, not the root cause. I wish I could be that smart...
Think about this in a software sense. Genes are like the individual files in a program (let's call it Corn) that each perform a specific task. Suppose I, who am not fluent in any programming languages, fooled around for a bit and discovered that file.x is responsible for feature "whatever" in Corn. This other file, file.z causes program Some Other Life Form to kill insects. If I just overwrite file.x with file.z, now I have added the feature "killInsects" to Corn. Do I even have to tell anyone why this is a bad idea? The point I want to make is this: If you don't have a thorough understanding of how every gene operates, not just in one particular aspect, but how each gene interrelates within that organism and the ecosystem, it's BEYOND STUPID to make a change and then introduce it into nature. Every action has at least 3 consequences--1 intended and 2 unintended. By making corn kill insects, we could be eliminating some very important, as of yet unknown trait from corn, that will in turn have some other effect on something else. Even as it is, if it will kill an undesirable insect, it will also kill ladybugs and bees. Already the use of pesticides in modern farming methods is killing useful insects as well as EARTHWORMS. Did anyone count on that? Is it worth it to wipe out earthworms just so none of our produce looks ugly? I honestly think we're playing with fire here. We simply don't know enough of how things work or how they are interrelated to go and make low-level changes to them. We're going to crash our ecosystem, cause a kernel panic, and unfortunately there is no rescue disk for this scenario. There is no undelete. There are no recovery utilities to go back and recover data from this hard drive if the boot sector suffers physical damage. I once introduced a security hole in a web site because I made a tiny change (I won't say what it was), thinking that just because I could make the change and got the desired result (Okay, so I capitalized the first letter in a user's name. At the time I was learning and didn't know any better. It was a STUPID mistake). I later found out that what I didn't understand about the interrelations involved could have caused a disaster. Scientists are making similar changes without knowing everything they need to know. By the time they see the unintended consequences, it will be too late to fix anything. Our attempts to "improve" what was already working perfectly will ultimately result in its demise.
This is not only flamebait but "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury". If I were as ignorant as you, I wouldn't let on. Do you actually believe that the political party of the President of the United States determines the peaks and valleys of the business cycle? PUH-LEASE! If a US president actually had that much control over the economy we'd never see a bear market.
Here's a quick history lesson for you:
FDR, a DEMOCRAT was president during the Great Depression. Where were the "plenty of jobs"? Yes, the economy eventually recovered, thanks to increased industrial producion necessitated by the US's entrance into WWII--not because the President was a democrat.
Anyone remember how the economy soared during the Jimmy Carter (DEMOCRAT) years? Gotta love those long gas lines and double digit inflation. It's a good thing we didn't have a Republican in office or else it would have been triple digit inflation and no gas, right?
Enter Ronald Reagan, the REPUBLICAN president who followed Carter. Enter economic recovery and the end of the Cold War. What a crappy time in American history! Maybe he forgot he was a Republican, or maybe he was so inept that he turned the economy the wrong way?
The economic prosperity during the Clinton (DEMOCRAT) years was an illusion. When the whole dotcom craze hit, I figured it wouldn't be long until the bottom dropped out on it. I honestly couldn't see how these companies could be profitable with the services they were offering. But people bought into the hype and invested too much into what really held little promise. Executives and employees were grossly overpaid. Frankly, I never thought web designers and IT people were worth as much as they were making.
As soon as everyone saw through the smoke and mirrors, the artificially inflated market came crashing down. Like a pendulum, after reaching it's peak in one direction the market has swung back the other direction. It'll stabalize somewhere between the 2 extremes, so just chill, everyone. In the meantime, realize that the gravy train has derailed and by the time it's operating again, it'll be more like a freight train instead of a bullet train. In other words, instead of holding out for a job like the one you had that pays about the same, look elsewhere. Get a real degree if you don't already have one. Or get an advanced degree. Make yourself stand out so a potential employer will notice you and forget about the cushy, high-paying job you used to have. It's gone for good.
BTW, It just so happens that this economic downturn began long before Clinton left office and had nothing to do with Bush (or Clinton, for that matter, but if you insist on blaming the man in office, blame Clinton--a DEMOCRAT). No, this garbage started the very day the dotcom craze took off because there's no way it would have ever sustained itself. The business model was flawed from the outset.
The economic crap we're dealing with is due IMHO to the hangover from the dotcom drunken orgy and 9/11. While the economic policies a president persues may have an economic impact (though much smaller than everyone naievely believes), to think that his party affiliation determines the economic healty of the US is the most inane thing I've heard lately.
With that kind of intelligence, it's no wonder these guys can't get a job....
This may have been posted already and I just missed it, but if not, here goes:
The article mentioned that SimDesk was installed on the library's computers as a trial basis and it was extremely popular. Maybe since we're all highly computer literate, we tend to forget that there are many out there who aren't, maybe for the simple fact that they're too poor to own a computer.
Think about it. Suppose you were poor and didn't have a computer and needed to do some kind of word processing, your options would be limited. Not considering typewriters and all-in-one wordprocessors, you could either go over to a friend's and use their computer (assuming you had such a friend who wouldn't mind the inconvenience) or what--go to the library?
Assuming the library had a word processor or spreadsheet or whatever it was you needed to use, you'd still have to get a hold of a floppy disk or a zip disk in order to save your work. By using an office suite that enables you to save your work remotely, you eliminate the need for the user to buy storage media--something that for some could be unattainable.
Additionally, as has already been stated, the average Joe Blow user has no need for most of what M$ Office does. By going with SimDesk in the libraries, the city of Houston has made opened the door for many who were previously shut out. Heck, the article stated that it was their aim to make SimOffice available for every poor person.
"What began as Brown's goal to use SimDesk as an affordable way to give poor residents access to basic computer functions broadened into a plan to use SimDesk as a cheaper alternative on some city PCs, too."
And the results:
"... during nine months of the pilot program, more than 30,000 users had written and stored resumes, school papers, legal statements, poetry and other files on the SimDesk server. They couldn't do complex data sorting or many other chores Office does well. Even so, lines formed at the library's SimDesk terminals. Civic leaders rallied behind it. "SimDesk lowers the barriers for the low-income community," says Brian Stevens, executive director of The Telecom Opportunity Institute, a non-profit that guides at-risk youth."
Like many of you, my first reaction was, "Huh?!" Why didn't they go with Open Office?" Maybe because you have to save your files locally and SimOffice eliminates that need? There's no risk of losing or damaging your floppy. However, to be fair, if SimDesk's network or hard drives fail, where are you? It's a tradeoff, I guess.
Anyway, I think the fact that Mayor Brown was concerned about bringing basic computer functioning to the masses, succeeded, saved money, didn't have to upgrade hardware, and did it all in spite of Micro$oft's corporate extortion is quite a feat. So what if it's not open source? Do you really think that any of the new beneficiaries of the free access to the previously unavailable technology give a rip about that?