I know it's an insular place, and it's hard to keep a good handle on just how much of the world is outside it. But try to remember, please, that 99.9 % of people do not live in New York City.
Really. 99.9 % of people. Check my math if you care to.
In that case, it is all the more impressive just how much more coherent APT repositories (Debian, Ubuntu) are compared to the stinky mess one finds in Fedora and CentOS Yum repositories.
It would help if SOMEONE SOMEWHERE had noted that Dell has disabled recording of the stereo mix; obviously it has not disabled the stereo mix itself; they might as well just rip the sound card out and throw it away. The way this article and everything it links to are written, it is as though Dell has disabled the stereo output on its sound cards.
Ebay already has the VERO program, which gives
"verified rights owners" incredible privileges over Ebay auctions, permitting them to essentially end any auction for any reason. The discouraging thing about this court decision is that it gives Ebay an incentive to permit not less, but more abuse of this program.
VERO is also the program through which Ebay has given Scientology carte blanche to illegally infringe on first-sale rights of people with used RTC gear. Until Ebay takes a modicum of responsibility for the rampant and obvious illegal abuse of VERO (or cancels it altogether) I want nothing to do with Ebay.
Unfortunately, everything Ebay's help pages say about canceling your account is a falsehood. I've been asking them to close my account since February and I am still able to log in and I still get their weekly spam messages about my favorite sellers.
Ebay was cool back when it had something resembling competition. Now it's just another bloated, useless pig doing the bare minimum it must to continue collecting monopoly rents.
ubuntu's APT repositories are separate from debian's, and many packages are at different versions due to the way in which ubuntu is periodically synchronized with sid and then bugfixed by ubuntu people. ubuntu's metapackages also differ from those found in debian.
There is a limit to the degree this is possible, of course. Aqua relies on more than just a proprietary widget toolkit; its components are also tailored to the proprietary configuration backends of the OS for which it was designed. The popular Linux desktop environments tend to be easily adapted to other more similar Unixes like Solaris or BSDs, but would not work well on Windows, which features a fundamentally different design.
Yeah, sure, just watch it on nbc.com as a sluggish, degraded flash movie, with a deliberately broken full-screen button and half the bandwidth it needs to keep the stream running? NBC can't empty that magazine into their feet fast enough.
My motherboard manufacturer gave me the drivers on a CD. Which was smart, because they didn't include a floppy controller on the motherboard. The Windows installer runs from a CD. The only thing wrong with this picture is "Insert disk into drive A:".
Microsoft doesn't update their installers until they become absolutely untenable. And a bunch of nerds who aren't even being paid for the most part are running circles around them.
Well, the hardware is all fine. Linux runs on it as solid as a rock. The XP installer apparently doesn't crash as long as I disable AHCI. Of course, it wouldn't install at all until my Windows-using friend helpfully reassembled my installer, being sure to include the SATA drivers that Microsoft apparently never cared to add when they updated their installation media. I guess you need a floppy disk drive if you want to do that at install time and don't care to remaster the damned installation media before you even have a system to work on.
Well, then there's the Vista installation problem. The hardware's all definitely fine, with I guess the possible exception of the optical drive. Then again I would dispute that a chock-full DVD-ROM that must be read flawlessly from end to end in a single pass without any chance to retry a missed block is any kind of way to install an OS. I guess I'm just used to the Debian network installer.
I'm not sure what rock he's been living under, but Linux has been a lot easier to install than windows for ages. Ubiquity, Anaconda, Debian-Installer... sure, the old Debian boot-floppies installer was kind of a pain, but when you want to get your OS installed quickly and easily you don't exactly reach for silvers from Microsoft.
Lately I got a bit tired of Wine's partial support for Steam so I've been trying to get some kind of Windows installed on my system to run some games. It's been a comic horror show of 0000007B this, 80070241 that, swapping out different optical drives and dumbing down BIOS settings to try to get either the XP or Vista installer to not bluescreen or otherwise give up on life trying to copy data from the installation media.
Thankfully, when I need a sane, easy OS to regroup and try to find out what the cryptic hex codes barfed out by Microsoft's fragile-as-glass, no-system-logs-provided installers, I only have to reach for one of my Linux discs to get things up straight away.
And let's face it... if your goal is to quickly get a quality browser, IM client, office suite, and some basic development tools installed, you're going to have an easier time popping in an Ubuntu disc to get there even if Windows is preinstalled on the box!
It is a gross oversimplification to say that once in public, one should have no expectation of privacy.
People have to go into public to do normal things. This does not mean that any level whatsoever of data gathering on your public activities is acceptable. Certainly would you see the privacy implications if Google were to attach a GPS unit to your car and record where you drive -- sure, you're driving in public, but that does not mean it would be okay for Google to record detailed records of your trips. Likewise it would be inappropriate for Google to follow you with a video camera. Perhaps you don't, but a lot of folks feel that intermittent still images taken by Google's drive-by surveillance crews are also too invasive.
The advancement of photographic and image processing technology has introduced privacy concerns that existing laws could not foresee. The ease with which massive amounts of personally invasive information can be gathered, analyzed, and then distributed in bulk has changed the way we should think about privacy -- even privacy in public.
Yes, making the cap known and providing warning emails when you hit, for example, 75%, 90%, and 95% of the limit would be a welcome change from their current tactic of keeping everything secret until you cross the invisible line in the ether and they shut your line off. 250 GB of traffic a month seems reasonable to me. Of course, as someone who has opted for their "Speed Tier" I can only assume that will be 500 GB for me.
The only thing I really think they should try to Absolutely Get Right is that if I cross the limit while I'm at work or I'm asleep, there should be a *zero* probability that I will rack up more than $5-$7 of overage charges before I turn off whatever is saturating the line. Whether this is accomplished by setting reasonable overage rates, throughput reductions, or a combination, I don't really care. But if it only takes 8 hours to rack up, say, $20 in overage charges, they'll be lucky to collect that from me even once as I flee out the door to Bellsouth.
A book does not have source code. A binary executable does. Public domain source code can be modified and compiled into an impenetrable, opaque binary. Free software licenses attempt to resolve this problem by using the weapon of copyright to ensure that the source code is available to all subsequent recipients of the binaries. Simply being legally in the public domain is not enough for software to be available to the developing public.
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I know it's an insular place, and it's hard to keep a good handle on just how much of the world is outside it. But try to remember, please, that 99.9 % of people do not live in New York City.
Really. 99.9 % of people. Check my math if you care to.
By no stretch of the imagination is the Ipod a thin client. It is a portable computer.
In that case, it is all the more impressive just how much more coherent APT repositories (Debian, Ubuntu) are compared to the stinky mess one finds in Fedora and CentOS Yum repositories.
More importantly, I want to know why he's not allowed to answer that question.
All that is nice, but what we need is a vector graphics kit that's not shipped by yet another fucking vendor. Something that's a spec, not a binary.
It would help if SOMEONE SOMEWHERE had noted that Dell has disabled recording of the stereo mix; obviously it has not disabled the stereo mix itself; they might as well just rip the sound card out and throw it away. The way this article and everything it links to are written, it is as though Dell has disabled the stereo output on its sound cards.
Ebay already has the VERO program, which gives "verified rights owners" incredible privileges over Ebay auctions, permitting them to essentially end any auction for any reason. The discouraging thing about this court decision is that it gives Ebay an incentive to permit not less, but more abuse of this program.
VERO is also the program through which Ebay has given Scientology carte blanche to illegally infringe on first-sale rights of people with used RTC gear. Until Ebay takes a modicum of responsibility for the rampant and obvious illegal abuse of VERO (or cancels it altogether) I want nothing to do with Ebay.
Unfortunately, everything Ebay's help pages say about canceling your account is a falsehood. I've been asking them to close my account since February and I am still able to log in and I still get their weekly spam messages about my favorite sellers.
Ebay was cool back when it had something resembling competition. Now it's just another bloated, useless pig doing the bare minimum it must to continue collecting monopoly rents.
...don't ask from me what you can find in /proc.
Sounds like you might like driving with the Wii wheel.
(I mean, analog stick users will still drive circles around you, but at least you'll feel genuinely immersed in your defeat.)
ubuntu's APT repositories are separate from debian's, and many packages are at different versions due to the way in which ubuntu is periodically synchronized with sid and then bugfixed by ubuntu people. ubuntu's metapackages also differ from those found in debian.
Linux is unlike Windows... because, of course, Linux is Not Windows.
There is a limit to the degree this is possible, of course. Aqua relies on more than just a proprietary widget toolkit; its components are also tailored to the proprietary configuration backends of the OS for which it was designed. The popular Linux desktop environments tend to be easily adapted to other more similar Unixes like Solaris or BSDs, but would not work well on Windows, which features a fundamentally different design.
Which one do you use, out of curiosity?
Yeah, sure, just watch it on nbc.com as a sluggish, degraded flash movie, with a deliberately broken full-screen button and half the bandwidth it needs to keep the stream running? NBC can't empty that magazine into their feet fast enough.
My motherboard manufacturer gave me the drivers on a CD. Which was smart, because they didn't include a floppy controller on the motherboard. The Windows installer runs from a CD. The only thing wrong with this picture is "Insert disk into drive A:".
Microsoft doesn't update their installers until they become absolutely untenable. And a bunch of nerds who aren't even being paid for the most part are running circles around them.
Are you kidding? We're definitely still allowed to bash Linspire!
Well, the hardware is all fine. Linux runs on it as solid as a rock. The XP installer apparently doesn't crash as long as I disable AHCI. Of course, it wouldn't install at all until my Windows-using friend helpfully reassembled my installer, being sure to include the SATA drivers that Microsoft apparently never cared to add when they updated their installation media. I guess you need a floppy disk drive if you want to do that at install time and don't care to remaster the damned installation media before you even have a system to work on.
Well, then there's the Vista installation problem. The hardware's all definitely fine, with I guess the possible exception of the optical drive. Then again I would dispute that a chock-full DVD-ROM that must be read flawlessly from end to end in a single pass without any chance to retry a missed block is any kind of way to install an OS. I guess I'm just used to the Debian network installer.
"actually easier to install than Windows" (!!)
I'm not sure what rock he's been living under, but Linux has been a lot easier to install than windows for ages. Ubiquity, Anaconda, Debian-Installer... sure, the old Debian boot-floppies installer was kind of a pain, but when you want to get your OS installed quickly and easily you don't exactly reach for silvers from Microsoft.
Lately I got a bit tired of Wine's partial support for Steam so I've been trying to get some kind of Windows installed on my system to run some games. It's been a comic horror show of 0000007B this, 80070241 that, swapping out different optical drives and dumbing down BIOS settings to try to get either the XP or Vista installer to not bluescreen or otherwise give up on life trying to copy data from the installation media.
Thankfully, when I need a sane, easy OS to regroup and try to find out what the cryptic hex codes barfed out by Microsoft's fragile-as-glass, no-system-logs-provided installers, I only have to reach for one of my Linux discs to get things up straight away.
And let's face it... if your goal is to quickly get a quality browser, IM client, office suite, and some basic development tools installed, you're going to have an easier time popping in an Ubuntu disc to get there even if Windows is preinstalled on the box!
It is a gross oversimplification to say that once in public, one should have no expectation of privacy.
People have to go into public to do normal things. This does not mean that any level whatsoever of data gathering on your public activities is acceptable. Certainly would you see the privacy implications if Google were to attach a GPS unit to your car and record where you drive -- sure, you're driving in public, but that does not mean it would be okay for Google to record detailed records of your trips. Likewise it would be inappropriate for Google to follow you with a video camera. Perhaps you don't, but a lot of folks feel that intermittent still images taken by Google's drive-by surveillance crews are also too invasive.
The advancement of photographic and image processing technology has introduced privacy concerns that existing laws could not foresee. The ease with which massive amounts of personally invasive information can be gathered, analyzed, and then distributed in bulk has changed the way we should think about privacy -- even privacy in public.
True, for certain extremely narrow values of "emulate".
Yes, making the cap known and providing warning emails when you hit, for example, 75%, 90%, and 95% of the limit would be a welcome change from their current tactic of keeping everything secret until you cross the invisible line in the ether and they shut your line off. 250 GB of traffic a month seems reasonable to me. Of course, as someone who has opted for their "Speed Tier" I can only assume that will be 500 GB for me.
The only thing I really think they should try to Absolutely Get Right is that if I cross the limit while I'm at work or I'm asleep, there should be a *zero* probability that I will rack up more than $5-$7 of overage charges before I turn off whatever is saturating the line. Whether this is accomplished by setting reasonable overage rates, throughput reductions, or a combination, I don't really care. But if it only takes 8 hours to rack up, say, $20 in overage charges, they'll be lucky to collect that from me even once as I flee out the door to Bellsouth.
A book does not have source code. A binary executable does. Public domain source code can be modified and compiled into an impenetrable, opaque binary. Free software licenses attempt to resolve this problem by using the weapon of copyright to ensure that the source code is available to all subsequent recipients of the binaries. Simply being legally in the public domain is not enough for software to be available to the developing public.
Handwritten messages? You have GOT to be shitting me. That exists? Why on earth would anyone want to hand-write an IM?
... and another 308247 on ubuntu, and 79049 on debian, and ...