You got informative on this incorrect crock of BS because you used some equations? Maybe I can get modded up informative for making up a theory about what determines stock prices. The official Wall St. groundhog, Punkasstowny Phil, pops his head out of Darl McBride's ass, and the number of times he sees his shadow is how they set the stock price. Oh yeah, and uh, E=MC^2.
Let's discuss some reality here. Stock price is based on perception and speculation. That is why a company's stock can move up and down from press releases. It is not at all directly tied to actual profit or revenue or assets of the company. (On an indirect level it looks like it because that is usually discussed by analysts, which influences perceptions.) The price is the meeting point of buyers and sellers. If there are people with shares who want to sell but no one wants to buy, the stock will go down because they are lowering the selling price until they can get someone to buy. Rising is the opposite--buyers are offering more until they can get someone to sell shares. If the company is not issuing new shares or doing a buy-back, they are not involved in the trading of their stock. It is just stockholders like you and me and brokerages shuffling it around, and the price is based on how much the shares are wanted or not wanted.
How do you think those dot-bomb companies were able to have stock prices that went up when all they ever did was lose investor capital instead of making a profit, or product, or anything?
Oh yeah, I'm sure times are tough for them. They've been pouring millions down the drain by suing everyone they can think of, but they're going to recover from the losses by cutting the salaries of twenty-some people. That's going to send them shooting up to profitability right there, folks.
He makes an innacurate statement in his interpretation of Section 2 of the GPL. Here is his quote:
Section 2 specifies that any changes that are made to the source code of the program covered
must be given back to the community and proper copyright notice must be preserved throughout the source code and program.
The GPL Section 2 says:
2. You
may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
parties under the terms of this License.
The GPL says that you may modify, copy, and distribute. Article b) says that any modified work you distribute or publish must be done so under the same GPL license. It does NOT in any way say that if you modify the program for your own use, you must redistribute it.
It may sound like I'm picking nits here, but that is one of many fears and objections companies have (thanks to MS lying FUD) about the GPL. They think that if they use GPL software and make some changes to the program that cause it to work a certain way in their own particular situation, that they will have to publish that, even if it contains details about their processes that they would like to keep secret.
Here is where I see a gray area to be clarified. Let's say Joe Hacker jr. decides to make a change for himself at home to a GPL program--tweaks his kernel or something. That's OK, and he's not required to publish that change. Well, being a good card-carrying computer geek, he doesn't just have one computer. Let's say he burns the changed file onto a CD and loads the changed version on a couple of other computers at his house. Is that "distribution"? If that is not "distribution", then what if it is three computers in a small business?...50 computers in a larger business? That leads to my ultimate question of are you allowed to make copies of your changed version to use on multiple computers within your own company? You are not intending to "distribute" the modified program outside of the entity that made the change--personal or corporate shouldn't matter.
Think carefully about this because I think it is a real issue. If you make another personal copy of a modified program, is that "distribution"? If any FSF people are reading this, maybe you could shed some light on this, or forward it to Stallman & Co. for some clarification.
If you would think instead of flame for a second, you would realize what he means by "slow loads". He isn't referring to page loads. He's talking about the program starting. That is also because of MS having most of the program included in the kernel. They have more than half of IE loaded all the time just because you're in Windows.
I don't see why this has become so famous if one thinks about it as a quote for the time. He did not say it should always be enough for everyone. In this current state of personal computing, someone could say, "A 3GHz processor ought to be enough for anyone." That means that a processor like that should handle whatever people need to do right now. In the future it's obvious that'll change, but why is that such a big deal?
In short there are some tracks which I'd say are easily worth the $1 each, but there's plenty of grey area too. At least with the current stores we can pick and choose which ones we think are worth it.
And BINGO was his name-O! And there's the point. If you hear something on the radio, and you like it, you can get just that song for a buck. No monthly $20 subscription fee like other streaming music sites, no need to pay $12-16 for the whole album. I think the soda argument was a really great analogy. Why don't you have a problem with the Coke you get at McDonalds for $1.29 or whatever? That only cost them less than a quarter for cup and all. I WANT MY BIGGIE DRINK FOR A QUARTER! THEY ARE SO RIPPING ME OFF! You know why it's not like that? Because a dollar isn't worth that much to most people. There's no law that says places can't sell stuff at a 100% or 200% markup if people are willing to pay it. That especially applies if the individual cost of some things breaks down to pennies.
That analogy beaks down in a way that proves the point even more. McDonalds is making their own soda syrup to sell, so they get to keep the profit. In Apple's case, they are a reseller, so they can't even use all of that $.99 to pay for their costs; the majority of it goes to the ones providing them with the material to sell.
Instead of reviews of each, I would like to see a comparison article. That would be more useful to compare an aspect such as install, and +/- points about each distro. hardware detection, config utilities, etc.
You want to know why? Every new game tries to push the graphics harder. Every game is trying so hard to have the best graphics ever, that for every new game release, you'll need to reinvest in new hardware if you want smooth playing. To be fair, these upgrades is maybe just needed on a annual basis, but you get my point.
I know what you mean, but it's a thing called patience. My computer specs just lag a few years behind the cutting edge and then my upgrades are tons cheaper, and I don't have to shell out a bunch of money for those expensive graphics cards. The games are far cheaper, too, because they're a few years old. I have enjoyed playing Starcraft for the last several years, which ran slowly on the P-100 I had at first. I've done a few upgrades in the last few years so now I just tried Unreal Tournament (original version--not 2004), which you can get for under $10 now, and it runs really smoothly on my K6-2 300MHz and 16MB video card. In a couple of years and another cheap upgrade or two I'll probably be able to go to UT2K4 and Counter Strike.
Thanks for the help. I found some good resources yesterday about what the configure/make/make install thing is about and what it's doing, so I know that process now. I learn better that way than just being told to memorize three commands to run in a particular order without an understanding of what they do. Now that I read about what they are for, I don't think I'll have trouble with using source files. (Also, I saved a copy of the instructions so I'll have a reference. Those 4 letters of tar options are ones I'll probably forget.)
As for the offer of the RPM, thanks, but I don't know that RPMs would be very good because I'm still figuring out what distro I want to try to use. Right now I'm on SuSE because of one thing. I have a 15 inch monitor and every distro automatically sets the display resolution to as high as your hardware will support. I want to set it back to 800x600 so the text isn't microscopic on my screen, and YaST is the only decent utility for doing that. Maybe now that they've opened the source, other distros will package it with their systems.
I still use Win98SE on our secondary computer at home. It's mainly a Starcraft computer, networked at home. There are two main reasons I prefer Win98SE instead of XP for it. #1 1GB hard drive. That is still the original(replaced under warranty) drive from my P-100 I bought from Gateway in 1995. Win98 takes up only a few hundred meg, so there's plenty of room left. #2 extra license $$ for XP. I have XP on our main computer, and in the past, if I had an official CD of 98SE, I would install it on both our computers, but that doesn't work with the manditory licensing of XP per PC.
It's a K6-2 300MHz with 192MB of RAM. I did recently get a little bigger hard drive so I can start learning Linux in a dual-boot config, but I don't see any reason to change it from 98.
Yeah, if they're so concerned about this, stop doing the DVD screeners. For the critic reviews they want, they should be able to rent a theater and hold a private showing for the critics, and then there's no issue anymore. That's just freakin' denial when they are part of the problem, but they won't change their behavior because they want to blame it all on other people.
What is really sad is how obviously our lawmakers are selling out. They cry out that it's all about law and order and then happily make criminals out of all our kids.
Huh??? "our kids" were the ones downloading the songs, not "our lawmakers". The kids are incriminating themselves. People on/. always yell "It's not theft; it's copyright infringement!" OK, sure, but do you not realize, or just conveniently forget, that it's still wrong and against the law. I don't think it should be the responsibility of the government to pursue this, though. RIAA should have to bring their own lawsuits, like they have been doing. Don't take the weight off them, because the government sure doesn't file lawsuits on behalf of any other holders of patents or copyrights.
I think this comes because they need someone else to pursue downloaders. So far they have only been suing those who have been sharing copyrighted music, which is never fair use. They are hanging back from suing downloaders because they'll get someone who has the CDs of all the songs they downloaded (or went out and bought them really quickly after being notified of the suit) and then the PR will be against them, when it's shown that they're stifling fair-use rights.
if you can name three programs on Linux that you -need- to compile from source (don't have packages for) that a new user would even want to use, list them... and I'll be glad to admit that everything I just said was wrong.:)
OK, I can't think of three right now, but I can think of one. I would like to use YahooPops! from sourceforge. I use a Yahoo mail account, so that would be really useful for me. There's some other great stuff that I've found from Sourceforge, but I haven't been able to try it out until I could find out how to compile it.
"Sorry, Rip Van Winkle, you lost out years ago. Yeah, I remember back when you had to go through some pain to get sound working in Slackware..." I tried several current distros, none of which could get sound going on my card, which is listed as supported by ALSA.
"as did simple X setup programs that worked automagically during the install." Yep, and too bad if you don't like the settings it picked because it doesn't ask you which you want to use, and it is a pain to try to change it later.
When people say software installation is not easy, don't spit back the trite, unhelpful answer, "Just type [apt/emerge/urpmi/...] package_name" That's generally not what they're talking about.
I've been looking at and reading about Linux for a while and recently begun using it, and I've already found several programs I want to use that are not in any packages. They just come in source, and I don't know how to compile/install source code yet. I have asked on Slashdot before if there is a graphical front-end for compiling programs from source, but haven't seen any answers yet. It would be nice to have a program where I can select the.tar.bz2 file and tell it to install.
If I have to run gcc manually or something to compile it, how do you know which compile options to use?
I've found no problems with packages--they do install and uninstall easier than Windows programs, but there needs to be an easier way to install non-packaged stuff. I don't think package dependencies are much of an issue on any of the several distros I have tried now.
I have played a few LucasArts games, but not many of the ones you mention. Of the adventure ones, I have only played Full Throttle. I did like that one a lot and am a bit disappointed in the cancellation of FT2.
Of the others I've played: Jedi Starfighter on X-Box - I thought it was OK, but it seemed like they added way too many "features" that it was hard to keep track of, much less actually use. Rogue Squadron on PC - I really loved this one. The game control with a joystick is excellent, and it had some great hidden extra ships that made it a lot of fun (Naboo fighter, TIE Interceptor, Milennium Falcon). It also let you play some of the classic missions, like Death Star Trench run and the Battle of Hoth.
How can you people forget Pod Racer??? I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but that is one of the best multi-player racing games I've ever played. There is good variety in the pods to choose from, so it can cater to different people's racing styles or to the particular track you're on.
I never got to play Grim Fandango or Sam and Max, but I would like to check them out.
Those were my first experiences feeling like a hacker. I searched through those and found all the lines where they made any sound and commented them out so that I would have silent versions to play in my programming class in high school.
Whoa, I used to live in Toledo (moved to Idaho in 2000). I had read about this back when the uncapping story hit Slashdot. It's interesting to hear from you. I just read your interview with BBR. That is just one example of the FBI abusing their powers, which I think the PATRIOT Act makes too easy.
I'm really torn about this ACLU thing because I hate them and what they normally do. In this case, though, they seem to be doing the right thing. I did a paper about reverse discrimination my senior year in high school, and found lots of examples in my research of the ACLU suing companies out of existence for not hiring the right kinds of minorities, even when they are in an ethnic neighborhood, 100% of the workers are minorities, just not the right ones, according to some.
I think perhaps he does "get it", but it wouldn't make sense to tell it like it is to his own employees, now would it? They might think it's a good idea and start to like it. He has to spread propaganda within his company that marginalizes OS software and makes it look weak, so that his people will "understand" that it's not the way to go.
Slashdot Mirror
You got informative on this incorrect crock of BS because you used some equations? Maybe I can get modded up informative for making up a theory about what determines stock prices.
The official Wall St. groundhog, Punkasstowny Phil, pops his head out of Darl McBride's ass, and the number of times he sees his shadow is how they set the stock price. Oh yeah, and uh, E=MC^2.
Let's discuss some reality here. Stock price is based on perception and speculation. That is why a company's stock can move up and down from press releases. It is not at all directly tied to actual profit or revenue or assets of the company. (On an indirect level it looks like it because that is usually discussed by analysts, which influences perceptions.) The price is the meeting point of buyers and sellers. If there are people with shares who want to sell but no one wants to buy, the stock will go down because they are lowering the selling price until they can get someone to buy. Rising is the opposite--buyers are offering more until they can get someone to sell shares. If the company is not issuing new shares or doing a buy-back, they are not involved in the trading of their stock. It is just stockholders like you and me and brokerages shuffling it around, and the price is based on how much the shares are wanted or not wanted.
How do you think those dot-bomb companies were able to have stock prices that went up when all they ever did was lose investor capital instead of making a profit, or product, or anything?
Oh yeah, I'm sure times are tough for them. They've been pouring millions down the drain by suing everyone they can think of, but they're going to recover from the losses by cutting the salaries of twenty-some people. That's going to send them shooting up to profitability right there, folks.
You didn't read the article too? Microsoft isn't getting any of this bond money. No one is paying the bond to Microsoft. It goes to IronPort.
The GPL Section 2 says:
The GPL says that you may modify, copy, and distribute. Article b) says that any modified work you distribute or publish must be done so under the same GPL license. It does NOT in any way say that if you modify the program for your own use, you must redistribute it.
It may sound like I'm picking nits here, but that is one of many fears and objections companies have (thanks to MS lying FUD) about the GPL. They think that if they use GPL software and make some changes to the program that cause it to work a certain way in their own particular situation, that they will have to publish that, even if it contains details about their processes that they would like to keep secret.
Here is where I see a gray area to be clarified. Let's say Joe Hacker jr. decides to make a change for himself at home to a GPL program--tweaks his kernel or something. That's OK, and he's not required to publish that change. Well, being a good card-carrying computer geek, he doesn't just have one computer. Let's say he burns the changed file onto a CD and loads the changed version on a couple of other computers at his house. Is that "distribution"? If that is not "distribution", then what if it is three computers in a small business?
Think carefully about this because I think it is a real issue. If you make another personal copy of a modified program, is that "distribution"? If any FSF people are reading this, maybe you could shed some light on this, or forward it to Stallman & Co. for some clarification.
Oh yeah? Well I've got, um, 6 computers with, uh, 12 windows each, with...100, yeah 100 tabs in each of those! and a partidge in a pear tree.
If you would think instead of flame for a second, you would realize what he means by "slow loads". He isn't referring to page loads. He's talking about the program starting. That is also because of MS having most of the program included in the kernel. They have more than half of IE loaded all the time just because you're in Windows.
I don't see why this has become so famous if one thinks about it as a quote for the time. He did not say it should always be enough for everyone. In this current state of personal computing, someone could say, "A 3GHz processor ought to be enough for anyone." That means that a processor like that should handle whatever people need to do right now. In the future it's obvious that'll change, but why is that such a big deal?
That analogy beaks down in a way that proves the point even more. McDonalds is making their own soda syrup to sell, so they get to keep the profit. In Apple's case, they are a reseller, so they can't even use all of that $.99 to pay for their costs; the majority of it goes to the ones providing them with the material to sell.
Instead of reviews of each, I would like to see a comparison article. That would be more useful to compare an aspect such as install, and +/- points about each distro. hardware detection, config utilities, etc.
Thanks for the help. I found some good resources yesterday about what the configure/make/make install thing is about and what it's doing, so I know that process now. I learn better that way than just being told to memorize three commands to run in a particular order without an understanding of what they do. Now that I read about what they are for, I don't think I'll have trouble with using source files. (Also, I saved a copy of the instructions so I'll have a reference. Those 4 letters of tar options are ones I'll probably forget.)
As for the offer of the RPM, thanks, but I don't know that RPMs would be very good because I'm still figuring out what distro I want to try to use. Right now I'm on SuSE because of one thing. I have a 15 inch monitor and every distro automatically sets the display resolution to as high as your hardware will support. I want to set it back to 800x600 so the text isn't microscopic on my screen, and YaST is the only decent utility for doing that. Maybe now that they've opened the source, other distros will package it with their systems.
I especially like the name of the upcoming installment of the Ratchet & Clank game mentioned in the article "Up Your Arsenal". Funny stuff.
I still use Win98SE on our secondary computer at home. It's mainly a Starcraft computer, networked at home. There are two main reasons I prefer Win98SE instead of XP for it.
#1 1GB hard drive. That is still the original(replaced under warranty) drive from my P-100 I bought from Gateway in 1995. Win98 takes up only a few hundred meg, so there's plenty of room left.
#2 extra license $$ for XP. I have XP on our main computer, and in the past, if I had an official CD of 98SE, I would install it on both our computers, but that doesn't work with the manditory licensing of XP per PC.
It's a K6-2 300MHz with 192MB of RAM. I did recently get a little bigger hard drive so I can start learning Linux in a dual-boot config, but I don't see any reason to change it from 98.
Yeah, if they're so concerned about this, stop doing the DVD screeners. For the critic reviews they want, they should be able to rent a theater and hold a private showing for the critics, and then there's no issue anymore. That's just freakin' denial when they are part of the problem, but they won't change their behavior because they want to blame it all on other people.
I think this comes because they need someone else to pursue downloaders. So far they have only been suing those who have been sharing copyrighted music, which is never fair use. They are hanging back from suing downloaders because they'll get someone who has the CDs of all the songs they downloaded (or went out and bought them really quickly after being notified of the suit) and then the PR will be against them, when it's shown that they're stifling fair-use rights.
I think I'll refrain from clicking the link you posted to the domain [chickenboner.com]. I have read /. for a while.
"Sorry, Rip Van Winkle, you lost out years ago. Yeah, I remember back when you had to go through some pain to get sound working in Slackware..."
I tried several current distros, none of which could get sound going on my card, which is listed as supported by ALSA.
"as did simple X setup programs that worked automagically during the install."
Yep, and too bad if you don't like the settings it picked because it doesn't ask you which you want to use, and it is a pain to try to change it later.
"I wonder what Suse does differently."
Well, let you change hardware settings, including X colors and resolutions, from within KDE for one thing.
When people say software installation is not easy, don't spit back the trite, unhelpful answer, "Just type [apt/emerge/urpmi/...] package_name" That's generally not what they're talking about.
.tar.bz2 file and tell it to install.
I've been looking at and reading about Linux for a while and recently begun using it, and I've already found several programs I want to use that are not in any packages. They just come in source, and I don't know how to compile/install source code yet. I have asked on Slashdot before if there is a graphical front-end for compiling programs from source, but haven't seen any answers yet. It would be nice to have a program where I can select the
If I have to run gcc manually or something to compile it, how do you know which compile options to use?
I've found no problems with packages--they do install and uninstall easier than Windows programs, but there needs to be an easier way to install non-packaged stuff. I don't think package dependencies are much of an issue on any of the several distros I have tried now.
I have played a few LucasArts games, but not many of the ones you mention. Of the adventure ones, I have only played Full Throttle. I did like that one a lot and am a bit disappointed in the cancellation of FT2.
Of the others I've played:
Jedi Starfighter on X-Box - I thought it was OK, but it seemed like they added way too many "features" that it was hard to keep track of, much less actually use.
Rogue Squadron on PC - I really loved this one. The game control with a joystick is excellent, and it had some great hidden extra ships that made it a lot of fun (Naboo fighter, TIE Interceptor, Milennium Falcon). It also let you play some of the classic missions, like Death Star Trench run and the Battle of Hoth.
How can you people forget Pod Racer??? I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but that is one of the best multi-player racing games I've ever played. There is good variety in the pods to choose from, so it can cater to different people's racing styles or to the particular track you're on.
I never got to play Grim Fandango or Sam and Max, but I would like to check them out.
Those were my first experiences feeling like a hacker. I searched through those and found all the lines where they made any sound and commented them out so that I would have silent versions to play in my programming class in high school.
Whoa, I used to live in Toledo (moved to Idaho in 2000). I had read about this back when the uncapping story hit Slashdot. It's interesting to hear from you. I just read your interview with BBR. That is just one example of the FBI abusing their powers, which I think the PATRIOT Act makes too easy.
I'm really torn about this ACLU thing because I hate them and what they normally do. In this case, though, they seem to be doing the right thing. I did a paper about reverse discrimination my senior year in high school, and found lots of examples in my research of the ACLU suing companies out of existence for not hiring the right kinds of minorities, even when they are in an ethnic neighborhood, 100% of the workers are minorities, just not the right ones, according to some.
I think perhaps he does "get it", but it wouldn't make sense to tell it like it is to his own employees, now would it? They might think it's a good idea and start to like it. He has to spread propaganda within his company that marginalizes OS software and makes it look weak, so that his people will "understand" that it's not the way to go.