Couple of observations:
I haven't reinstalled windows 2000 since 2000.
I keep 2000 up-to-date.
I haven't reinstalled redhat 7.0 in my old
laptop since it came out. I keep it up-to-date.
For some reasons (viruses, installation of new
software, whatever) the quality of win 2000
is degrading over time. If i use the modem,
I need to reboot because the modem simply
won't allow me to close the connection and
there is no process i can kill. So, yes, I had
to go through more pains to install linux (I
was a newbie at the time) but over time, the
time i invested in learning paid off in terms
of down-time and frustration.
Having said that, I think that with the new
Linux distributions, if you could buy a
computer with linux installed, the difference
would not be great and it would come down to
the fact that like it or not windows is a
more supported platform.
Also, windows is targeted to the dumbest user
and it is trying to make inroads in the market
of sophisitcated users, while linux original
target is the sophisticated user and it is trying
to make inroads in the unsophisticated users
market.
Until linux has rock bottom ease of installation, all we can hope to win is the server market. Example: I am trying to install a wireless card. For some reasons, although the modules are alrady compiled and ready for use in the distribution, the card won't start. I tried to fix the driver (the beauty of open source!!!!) and I am almost there, but the damn driver in windows works with no sweat. Clearly, this is a problem with the vendor drivers, but the average user will not care and stay with windows.
All in all we are almost there, but until linux is superior in what matters for the average user, windows will be the operating system of choice.
I am not keen to MS at all, nor to their programmers. I have seen plenty of programmers not use the most elementary precautions simply because they had to deliver something that takes 6 months in 2 months. How do you do it? You drop everything else. I am not necessarily saying that this is what happened, however, I have seen this happening over and over...
well, in this case there is not much difference between posting an exploit and just telling where the hole is. Just check this article:
- somebody has told us how the code works
- somebody else has posted a link to a site that explains how to make a buffer overflow exploit
- yet another person has told us how bitmaps are organized
The most important part is still missing: write the code that has to be executed.
If you want to exploit the bug, all you need to do is to figure out the bitmap and read this article, no matter if the exploit has been posted or not.
He (possibly) broke the law because some corrupted politicians have given in to lobbies and declared that saying the truth (about security) may be a crime. On that point, he depends in which country he is in whether he has broken the law or not (although I would guess he is in the US)
I am definitely not endorsing the comment, but politically correctness is just a way of hiding the guilty feeling of being racist/sexist/etc.etc. by describing your feelings in a nicer way.
I am surprised that the CEO signed it.
Your boss is responsible for what you do
during the time you are employed and, possibly,
selecting you. He is not responsible for your
contract.
The reason is that your boss, even if he is
the CEO does not know the law and if you are
changing a provision of the contract, you
might open a can of worms for the company
(and close another one for you).
Remember that the US is a country based
upon lawsuits.
Of course the real reason is that HR people are control freaks, but I can say this only if it looks like I am joking:)
I'll give you one reason: the average (window$) users will give up if the installation is not better than smooth and will never see all the great things mozilla has to offer. Sadly, the average user is used to bearing with slow stuff more than he is to thinking.
Remember: perception is more important than reality.
Something that people never notice when talking about open source is that the average open source contributor is better than the average commercial developer (self-flattery?): 1) you contribute only if you know you are good because if you are not your part will be thrown away with no benefit for you and for the community (self selection) 2) in general open source contributors are more proactive than average developers and more open minded 3) motivation, motivation, motivation: your pride is involved
Also, more people will read your code, because in a commercial environment, there will be at most a code review with bored people in the room
with the exception that I run out of quota every time I have to release.
But, I have to say that in 10 years, I have never had too many problems and my sysadmins (from universities and companies, both big and small) have always been very helpful. You can find good ones and bad ones, like in every line of business, but they still try hard to help. I am the only user with a linux laptop in the entire organization but they don't complain, they help.
To the student who is complaining about his sysadmin: good sysadmins, at least in the US, cost way more than what high schools can afford. If you read shlashdot chances are that you are interested in what he does. Offer to help and learn something that you can put in your resume...
Although you make some valid points, I have troubles accepting your reasoning. It sounds to me something like "Eat everything on your plate because some people are starving".
Honestly, even in hard times, I perceive that my work is worth a certain amount of money, and I will not work for a compensation that I do not perceive as fair for a long amount of time. The fact that my company that benefits from my work and that of other skilled people like me is not capable of turning our work into profit should not prevent me from being paid what I am worth (at least not for long time). It is a lame excuse that is often used to not pay people as much as they deserve.
Of course, you can question whether the self-perceived value of one's work is actually a fair one or not, but I will argue that companies very rarely disclose how much people in a certain position make (average, standard deviation, maximum and minimum). The reasons are simple:
not be overwhelmed by complains
prevent those complaints from having a basis
I manage a certain number of people, and I have access to that kind of information. There is a lot of disparity, even within the same type of job
Just to complement what Takahashi has said,
I would like to point out that:
even if you could put them into a computer
(that would consume more than the rest of the building) it wouldn't go that fast, because you need to build gates with those transistors and put some of those gates together to form a path between registries. The frequency of the computer is the inverse of the time that a signal needs to go from one register to another in the slowest path in the worst case conditions
The modern FETs actually have current flowing through the gate and the leakage is actually on its way to become the primary source for power consumption. This is due to the fact that the oxide is getting thinner and thinner and it can't make it to insulate anymore
Because of the leakage problem, we will have a change in the devices, sooner or later, although we have been saying the same thing for 20 years:)
I would like to correct few misconceptions that you seem to have:
1) the phone has not been invented by Bell. In the US, the Italian Meucci demonstrated it in 1860. He did not have the money to renew the patent. Meucci showed it to western union which then gave it to Bell. Western Union later claimed that they had lost the design. In 1887, Bell's patent was voided because of fraud and declaration of false. The sentence was later confirmed by the Supreme Court.Also, the US Congress passed a resolution on 6/11/2000 that was finally acknowledging Meucci for the invention of the telephone. Meucci started working on it in 1849 when Bell was 2 years old. Ironically, some other sources claim that another italian invented it. I don't remember his name. Also, a russian friend of mine claims that the telephone was invented by a russian. Who knows.Anyhow, time to correct those history books:)
2) In order to run a cell phone network you need plenty of cables.Unless you think that there are enough satellites to carry and route the traffic of the several hundred milions or more cell phone users.
The poll is not scientific because it is addressed to the readers of a certain internet publication.
Since the readers of that publication are not representative of all the computer users, the poll is skewed.
I think I can safely suppose that those readers are more computer savy than the average M$ user, hence these numbers are not reliable. However, in many enterprises, there is a small number of decision makers, whose opinion weights much more than Joe User's. Hopefully (and I say hopefully), they are more computer savy. So, it is hard to figure out the impact of these numbers on OS choices. It would be much more interesting to see the trend over time. This should provide a more reliable information.
Also, it is important to see the cost of switching, as I feel it is still too high. Linux is still too unsupported at device driver level. E.g. somebody gave me a wireless card as a gift. The drivers don't work and I have to modify them to make my laptop work with them. I don't think that Joe Users would start modifying the drivers because they dont' work. He'll just give up.
PS: when i get the drivers working i will publish them:)
So, the US has stopped the part of the project that has to do with people who are more likely to vote. Why not on Americans abroad? Are they more likely to be terrorists? And foreigners who live in the US?
What are american companies supposed to do? Suppose I am Visa. Should I give out information on my foreign customers who do not live in the US? Example: in many European countries, credit reporting agencies can not be established because they would be in violation of privacy laws. How would the information be gathered? If we stick to publicly available sources, you can't get very far in Europe, and I don't see foreign companies giving out data to the american government. So, my take is that they are publicly saying the they closing it (elections are getting closer) and they will do it in another way. Or... they have completed it and they do not need new funds.
I see that the US institutions are increasingly becoming xenophobic, which seems to pay off. Nothing unites more than a common enemy. Now, if you are a foreigner you can be detained indefinitely with no charge as long as somebody suspects that you are a terrorist. Now you can be spied upon at will, and I am already excited by the Patriot Act II which will restrict some more freedoms.
So, let's take a closer look at the facts:
M$ keeps open its bigger markets, the ones the actually had more problems with pedophyles;
I assume that subscribers means paying subscribers, as getting a credit card information is the best way of identifying somebody: so they will make money;
Yesterday Yahoo launched a revamped service and msn is less popular than Yahoo;
Sounds to me that they are closing unprofitable markets and raising the price in their biggest markets with the excuse of a noble cause.
I despise the quality of their software, but I envy their marketing.
I would like to point out that one of the best ways of speeding up grading is the multiple choice. Multiple choice has changed the way people study, making them test-cracking machines, who forgot how to think about what they are studying, because it is not necessary.
Have you noticed that the generation of multiple choice can not come up with an original thought.
In general, when you try to transform an activity into a process you make the output more uniform. Now, the output can be perceived as the scoring system, but the real output is the composition, which will become more and more standard because it has to statisfy to a set of rules. So, doing this will further reduce the amount of creativity of the compositions. For example, the TOEFL (test of english as a foreign language, mandatory for every foreign student in american universities) has an essay that i s already graded by a program. You need to throw in some "however" and your score goes up...
The only reason for which you want efficiency is saving money.
Slashdot Mirror
which are far right, further right and KKK
The Metric Act of 1975 and the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 actually mandate the usage of the metric system for business activities in the US. Which is why you sometimes see road signs with Km in them
why can't people get that the lowest common denominator is 1?
run the same daemon in 20 machines, so it will crash 3 times a day, or run 20 instances on the same machine if you can
Never had problems fitting my games in less than 4K on my VIC 20 in the '80s
where is the problem? I speak french :) as long as he knows where the food is....
maybe they've applied a M$ patch to their servers :)
Couple of observations:
I haven't reinstalled windows 2000 since 2000. I keep 2000 up-to-date.
I haven't reinstalled redhat 7.0 in my old laptop since it came out. I keep it up-to-date.
For some reasons (viruses, installation of new software, whatever) the quality of win 2000 is degrading over time. If i use the modem, I need to reboot because the modem simply won't allow me to close the connection and there is no process i can kill. So, yes, I had to go through more pains to install linux (I was a newbie at the time) but over time, the time i invested in learning paid off in terms of down-time and frustration.
Having said that, I think that with the new Linux distributions, if you could buy a computer with linux installed, the difference would not be great and it would come down to the fact that like it or not windows is a more supported platform.
Also, windows is targeted to the dumbest user and it is trying to make inroads in the market of sophisitcated users, while linux original target is the sophisticated user and it is trying to make inroads in the unsophisticated users market.
Until linux has rock bottom ease of installation, all we can hope to win is the server market. Example: I am trying to install a wireless card. For some reasons, although the modules are alrady compiled and ready for use in the distribution, the card won't start. I tried to fix the driver (the beauty of open source!!!!) and I am almost there, but the damn driver in windows works with no sweat. Clearly, this is a problem with the vendor drivers, but the average user will not care and stay with windows.
All in all we are almost there, but until linux is superior in what matters for the average user, windows will be the operating system of choice.
I am not keen to MS at all, nor to their programmers. I have seen plenty of programmers not use the most elementary precautions simply because they had to deliver something that takes 6 months in 2 months. How do you do it? You drop everything else. I am not necessarily saying that this is what happened, however, I have seen this happening over and over...
well, in this case there is not much difference between posting an exploit and just telling where the hole is. Just check this article:
- somebody has told us how the code works
- somebody else has posted a link to a site that explains how to make a buffer overflow exploit
- yet another person has told us how bitmaps are organized
The most important part is still missing: write the code that has to be executed.
If you want to exploit the bug, all you need to do is to figure out the bitmap and read this article, no matter if the exploit has been posted or not.
He (possibly) broke the law because some corrupted politicians have given in to lobbies and declared that saying the truth (about security) may be a crime. On that point, he depends in which country he is in whether he has broken the law or not (although I would guess he is in the US)
I am definitely not endorsing the comment, but politically correctness is just a way of hiding the guilty feeling of being racist/sexist/etc.etc. by describing your feelings in a nicer way.
I am surprised that the CEO signed it. :)
Your boss is responsible for what you do during the time you are employed and, possibly, selecting you. He is not responsible for your contract.
The reason is that your boss, even if he is the CEO does not know the law and if you are changing a provision of the contract, you might open a can of worms for the company (and close another one for you).
Remember that the US is a country based upon lawsuits.
Of course the real reason is that HR people are control freaks, but I can say this only if it looks like I am joking
I'll give you one reason: the average (window$) users will give up if the installation is not better than smooth and will never see all the great things mozilla has to offer. Sadly, the average user is used to bearing with slow stuff more than he is to thinking.
Remember: perception is more important than reality.
Something that people never notice when talking about open source is that the average open source contributor is better than the average commercial developer (self-flattery?):
1) you contribute only if you know you are good because if you are not your part will be thrown away with no benefit for you and for the community (self selection)
2) in general open source contributors are more proactive than average developers and more open minded
3) motivation, motivation, motivation: your pride is involved
Also, more people will read your code, because in a commercial environment, there will be at most a code review with bored people in the room
with the exception that I run out of quota every time I have to release.
But, I have to say that in 10 years, I have never had too many problems and my sysadmins (from universities and companies, both big and small) have always been very helpful. You can find good ones and bad ones, like in every line of business, but they still try hard to help. I am the only user with a linux laptop in the entire organization but they don't complain, they help.
To the student who is complaining about his sysadmin: good sysadmins, at least in the US, cost way more than what high schools can afford. If you read shlashdot chances are that you are interested in what he does. Offer to help and learn something that you can put in your resume...
I'd rather go through a lawsuit then pretending to use windows.
I'll just run a cron job
Honestly, even in hard times, I perceive that my work is worth a certain amount of money, and I will not work for a compensation that I do not perceive as fair for a long amount of time. The fact that my company that benefits from my work and that of other skilled people like me is not capable of turning our work into profit should not prevent me from being paid what I am worth (at least not for long time). It is a lame excuse that is often used to not pay people as much as they deserve.
Of course, you can question whether the self-perceived value of one's work is actually a fair one or not, but I will argue that companies very rarely disclose how much people in a certain position make (average, standard deviation, maximum and minimum). The reasons are simple:
not be overwhelmed by complains
prevent those complaints from having a basis I manage a certain number of people, and I have access to that kind of information. There is a lot of disparity, even within the same type of job
even if you could put them into a computer (that would consume more than the rest of the building) it wouldn't go that fast, because you need to build gates with those transistors and put some of those gates together to form a path between registries. The frequency of the computer is the inverse of the time that a signal needs to go from one register to another in the slowest path in the worst case conditions
The modern FETs actually have current flowing through the gate and the leakage is actually on its way to become the primary source for power consumption. This is due to the fact that the oxide is getting thinner and thinner and it can't make it to insulate anymore
Because of the leakage problem, we will have a change in the devices, sooner or later, although we have been saying the same thing for 20 years :)
I would like to correct few misconceptions that you seem to have:
:)
1) the phone has not been invented by Bell. In the US, the Italian Meucci demonstrated it in 1860. He did not have the money to renew the patent. Meucci showed it to western union which then gave it to Bell. Western Union later claimed that they had lost the design. In 1887, Bell's patent was voided because of fraud and declaration of false. The sentence was later confirmed by the Supreme Court.Also, the US Congress passed a resolution on 6/11/2000 that was finally acknowledging Meucci for the invention of the telephone. Meucci started working on it in 1849 when Bell was 2 years old. Ironically, some other sources claim that another italian invented it. I don't remember his name. Also, a russian friend of mine claims that the telephone was invented by a russian. Who knows.Anyhow, time to correct those history books
2) In order to run a cell phone network you need plenty of cables.Unless you think that there are enough satellites to carry and route the traffic of the several hundred milions or more cell phone users.
PS: i like your Isaac Newton citation
Like our boss of IT did. I am not kidding. This is how blaster got into my company's network. Thankfully I run good old linux on my laptop :)
The poll is not scientific because it is addressed to the readers of a certain internet publication. :)
Since the readers of that publication are not representative of all the computer users, the poll is skewed.
I think I can safely suppose that those readers are more computer savy than the average M$ user, hence these numbers are not reliable. However, in many enterprises, there is a small number of decision makers, whose opinion weights much more than Joe User's. Hopefully (and I say hopefully), they are more computer savy. So, it is hard to figure out the impact of these numbers on OS choices. It would be much more interesting to see the trend over time. This should provide a more reliable information.
Also, it is important to see the cost of switching, as I feel it is still too high. Linux is still too unsupported at device driver level. E.g. somebody gave me a wireless card as a gift. The drivers don't work and I have to modify them to make my laptop work with them. I don't think that Joe Users would start modifying the drivers because they dont' work. He'll just give up.
PS: when i get the drivers working i will publish them
So, the US has stopped the part of the project that has to do with people who are more likely to vote. Why not on Americans abroad? Are they more likely to be terrorists? And foreigners who live in the US?
What are american companies supposed to do? Suppose I am Visa. Should I give out information on my foreign customers who do not live in the US? Example: in many European countries, credit reporting agencies can not be established because they would be in violation of privacy laws. How would the information be gathered? If we stick to publicly available sources, you can't get very far in Europe, and I don't see foreign companies giving out data to the american government. So, my take is that they are publicly saying the they closing it (elections are getting closer) and they will do it in another way. Or... they have completed it and they do not need new funds.
I see that the US institutions are increasingly becoming xenophobic, which seems to pay off. Nothing unites more than a common enemy. Now, if you are a foreigner you can be detained indefinitely with no charge as long as somebody suspects that you are a terrorist. Now you can be spied upon at will, and I am already excited by the Patriot Act II which will restrict some more freedoms.
So, let's take a closer look at the facts:
M$ keeps open its bigger markets, the ones the actually had more problems with pedophyles;
I assume that subscribers means paying subscribers, as getting a credit card information is the best way of identifying somebody: so they will make money;
Yesterday Yahoo launched a revamped service and msn is less popular than Yahoo;
Sounds to me that they are closing unprofitable markets and raising the price in their biggest markets with the excuse of a noble cause.
I despise the quality of their software, but I envy their marketing.
I would like to point out that one of the best ways of speeding up grading is the multiple choice. Multiple choice has changed the way people study, making them test-cracking machines, who forgot how to think about what they are studying, because it is not necessary.
Have you noticed that the generation of multiple choice can not come up with an original thought.
In general, when you try to transform an activity into a process you make the output more uniform. Now, the output can be perceived as the scoring system, but the real output is the composition, which will become more and more standard because it has to statisfy to a set of rules. So, doing this will further reduce the amount of creativity of the compositions. For example, the TOEFL (test of english as a foreign language, mandatory for every foreign student in american universities) has an essay that i s already graded by a program. You need to throw in some "however" and your score goes up...
The only reason for which you want efficiency is saving money.