I use Linux with a KDE desktop on my PC for work and I have a partition with Windows on the same PC for playing games on. Whenever I upgrade KDE, it seems that there are performance enhancements involved, and my desktop is snappier with every new version. However, with Windows, when I upgrade it seems that it becomes a bit slower every time. Sure, certain bugs are fixed and certain features are added, but that goes for KDE as much as it does Windows, so why does Windows have to get slower when KDE appears to do the opposite?
Surely the whole point in making the desktop rendered with the power of modern 3D accelerated graphics hardware is to be able to do more visuals with the same computer without experiencing any slowdown. I don't think that new software should scale up its consumption of resources so that it runs at the same sluggish speed on modern systems as it did on the old hardware, because that's stagnation. True improvement would mean that the desktop would take advantage of the graphics capability that already exists on most computers these days and used it to create a really impressive desktop without the need to upgrade.
Now, I don't like Apple too much, but I am willing to respect them for having done this already with OSX. Linux desktop developers seem to be wanting to improve things this way too, and there doesn't seem to be much talk of vastly increased system requirements from that camp. Why does Microsoft need such insanely powerful hardware to accomplish what already seems to be possible with today's hardware? Windows Vista seems to offer transparent window bars, a few other eye-candy things, and a buch of add-ons that will also be available for Windows XP. So what exactly warrants the need for all of this extra computing power just to run it? That's all I want to know, and if anyone can tell me why, then I would be genuinely interested to know, because it must be pretty revolutionary.
I've been using Linux for the last three years, I've gone through Mandrake, SUSE, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware and Arch Linux and I have never ever had to manually go around and resolve package dependencies (except possibly on Slackware, but even then you can download swaret or slapt-get to solve that, and Slackware is meant to be a pretty hardcore nerd distro anyway). When exactly did you encounter this problem, and with which distro? I'm genuinely interested to know, so I can stay the hell away from it.
You might have a point if you're talking about downloading Mandrake RPMs and trying to install them on SuSE or something like that, but that's not meant to work anyway, and I don't know why you'd think it would. It's not as if you'd buy Toyota engine parts for your Ford now, is it?
Is this really making the light waves go faster, or is it just anomalous dispersion? I heard in one of my Physics lectures that you can make something happen that looks like superluminal motion, and it caused a bit of controversy when someone did it, but it's not actually the wave that's moving faster than c - it's actually the wave envelope, which is related to the amplitude of the wave. I could try and explain, but I'd only make things confusing (if I haven't already!), so I have found some animations you can look at, see here and here.
On the other hand, if the light really is going faster than c, then I am thoroughly impressed!
I used to play EQ a lot, I was pretty hooked on it for about a year. I don't regret it, since I had a lot of fun times, but looking back, I certainly burnt a lot of hours in Norrath. My brother got really hooked on it too, and he's not even the complete nerd that I am. There were certain people there who were pretty terrifying though. For example, I often heard people talking about how they were skipping school in order to spend the day playing the game, and my brother once even got paid (EQ money, but still) to guard someone's character while he took a nap at the keyboard. This guy was so thoroughly obsessed with the game that he wouldn't leave the computer - not even to sleep.
Take these stories as warnings. You might not think yourself capable of such things, and okay, I doubt you'll end up killing anyone, but even a stupid little game can become a major feature in your life if you're not careful. Especially when you have to pay per month, since it's so easily justifiable - you're only getting your money's worth, after all!
I cannot believe this, it really makes my blood boil. Apparently I'm a "thief" for downloading mp3s because I want to know what music sounds like before I buy the CD, or because I lend a CD or two to my friends. All I'm doing is fairly reasonable, yet if you listen to what the record companies say, I am a villain.
However, if you stop and think for a second, who is depriving whom? I'm depriving them of nothing, if I couldn't download mp3s, I'd never buy CDs, full stop. If the record companies can bribe governments to extend copyright to such a ridiculous degree, then they are preventing the public from having the access they are entitled to without forking out. They are depriving the public of something that should be theirs, and I think that's a whole lot closer to theft than anything any p2p-user can do.
Copyrights expire for a reason. When millions of people have grown up with and grown to love the music of artists as innovative and inspirational as The Beatles, then that music is a deeply ingrained part of our culture. It is morally reprehensible to charge a fee to experience important aspects of our history and social identity.
I've had enough of this bullshit. I could just about stand the debasement of music into some kind of fashion show, some kind of advert for clothing and lifestyle, with near-pornographic videos. I could just about handle the marginalisation of anything even vaguely interesting by the brain-dead pop music of today (and yes, it is worse than it used to be). I hate the sickening marketing focus-group taint that covers all of these "artists", I hate this state of affairs, but it seems to be what people want, so I can live with it... if people genuinely enjoy this kind of music, then fine, I don't have to listen to it. What I cannot take is this theft. Major labels haven't done anything exciting for years, and now they are actually becoming detrimental to society.
Declare war on these companies. Do not do business with them. What they're doing is akin to setting up a toll booth on a public road. Would you stand for that? No? Then don't stand for this. These organisations are criminal, pure and simple.
Yeah, I can imagine! Although IMO this story smells a bit fishy, if it is true, then now WINE is approaching its first major release, then Apple could use it to run Windows apps on top of OSX, thereby acquiring almost ALL of MS' market! What an incredible thought, being able to run programs written for Linux, BSD, Windows and Mac OS all on one platform! Microsoft would certainly be in a tough position to escape from that one! Unfortunately, the cynic in me says that if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is...
I'm from the UK, and although I'm not following computing-based subjects academically (studying Physics instead), I have a great interest in computers and OSS, I use Linux on my desktop, and I am trying to teach myself to write software. What that means is, I end up hanging around CompSci students in University, and I used to hang around with the computer geeks at school, so I feel I have a pretty good idea of what's going on with the culture there.
OSS, Linux in particular but also BSD, is very much the big thing. Everybody's into it who's serious about computers, experienced young Windows users always say that they really want to learn it and give it a go, it just seems to be cool (believe it or not). I would go so far as to say that it is very rare that I meet a single serious computer enthusiast (i.e. somebody who I'd say is likely to end up in the industry) who is also a Windows fanboy.
So what are the implications of all this? Well basically, it means that there is going to be an abundance of IT professionals who prefer Linux, who advocate Linux, who are more experienced with Linux than with Windows. If this isn't going to be a really big incentive for the uptake of OSS by European businesses, then I don't know what will be. By choosing OSS, they'll open themselves up to a vast pool of enthusiastic, talented individuals, whereas if they stick with Windows, they'll have under-motivated people grudgingly working with what they have, with less experience on that platform.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot: the Computer Science course at my uni (University of Exeter) has mandatory lessons on using OSS-based systems (according to my flatmate who studies CS), so I can imagine that too would definitely contribute to the value of OSS within businesses.
Are you really surprised? Intel and all large corporations exist to make their organisation more valuable. They all push the law just as far as they think they can get away with... but this time, they judged wrong. I'd love to know about all of the dodgy shit that even fairly reputable organisations get up to, because I suspect there's an awful lot more of this stuff going on than your average person knows about.
I always think of it like this: they're not immoral, they're amoral. They just don't care about right or wrong, they can't afford to, because that's how the system works. I'm glad that they got caught, and I think we need much more government constraints put in place and have them actively enforced to prevent things like this from happening.
Of course, for that to happen, I'd need to buy myself a politician or two... and I'm only a poor student... care to give me a donation anyone?;)
Yeah, it's just a shame ATI and NVIDIA feel such a need to keep their card specs secret from everybody... there are some people working on these things though. One project I have been keeping an eye on for a little while is this one, they seem to be making some progress on R300 drivers (R300 cards are the ones after 9200, I think). Check out their current status:
# 01/31/05
* Tagged a new snapshot "jump_and_click" of r300_driver. Quake3 demo should now be playable, albeit with some artifacts.
Now I don't want to hype this up too much, I guess they probably still have a lot of work to do, but I think a playable Quake 3 is fairly promising... okay, it's taken a little while to get to this stage from the release of the R300, but it still goes to show that it can be done!
Consider this, if you will: Joe User, sick of cleaning the spyware and virii off his Windows box for the bazillionth time reads about "Linux" in the Times/on Cnet/wherever. Naturally, he googles it, and ends up with all 18 of these live distros, a ton of kernel related stuff that he doesn't understand, and a gazillion news articles reviewing things he knows nothing about.
Did you actually TRY what you said there? Let's have a go, shall we? OK, I am Mr. J. User. I type "Linux" into google, and press enter. For the FIRST RESULT, I get:
The Linux Home Page at Linux Online
Linux Online,... Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world....
The Linux Home Page! Alright, this sounds like a good place to learn more about Linux... Then, by clicking on that link, I would be taken to linux.org, which has on the front page articles explaining what Linux is, how to get started with Linux, etc, etc.
I guess you kind of have a point, but I think it's less of a problem than you make it out to be. After all, when browsing the Internet, how often do you come across something mentioning Windows XP or Windows 98 or another specific version of Windows, for example when downloading some software? A large number of the non PC-savvy people I know don't even know what version of Windows they're running, but they still seem to get along somehow.
At the end of the day, if someone really wants to switch to Linux, and go through the work that it entails, they're not really going to be put off by the small amount of research they might have to do to achieve that end. Hell, the problem could be solved instantly just by talking to a neighbourhood nerd.
Hmm, I think you're probably right. I guess it must have happened quicker than they thought, right? Else why make the statement in the first place... I mean July -> November, it's not quite an aeon, is it... but then again, I'm far from being a kernel hacker, maybe those guys just reckon time differently to the rest of us;)
Perhaps we can just call it a testament to the rapid progress of the Linux kernel!
Hey, but didn't the kernel developers say a while ago that there would not be stable and development branches of the kernel, and that it would be up to the distributions to look after final stability, or something like that?
In fact, I have just looked up the article, and it pretty much says just that. No 2.7 development branch plans! Did they just change their minds or what? Or are they genuinely doing a proper fork of the kernel? I am confused!
Jesus Christ! You guys have an absolutely shocking outlook on things. Maybe these people have a shit life somewhere and they want to move somewhere else so their children can have at least a chance of a half-decent life.
Try and say you wouldn't do the same thing in their situation. You can't, without lying.
That's just the way the Global Economy works, baby. It's not as if the US hasn't profited enough from it already, if things take a bit of a turn, well I don't think I'll be bearing too much sympathy. Hey, you can always emigrate I guess.
Hey, what about equal and opposite forces? If the beam generator was mounted on a space station like they say it could be, wouldn't the space station need to be much more massive than the object it is propelling?
I am only asking because I would think that if the beam is as powerful as they say it is, then I think it would push the two bodies apart, which is fair enough for the spacecraft, but you really don't want your space station being pushed out of orbit. Is there any chance of this technology being used for anything other than the propulsion of tiny spacecraft?
Everyone knows that there is a perfectly simple way of representing the relationships and positions of the political views of different people. Let me explain:
To start with, you need a three-dimensional model of John Lennon's face. Then, you need a set of pins with different shaped heads; square, circular, spherical and 7-pointed star. The heads should be available in black or white, depending on whether or not the person is pro-life or pro-choice. Now I have explained these things, where to place the pins should be obvious, but just to clarify, in the case of a pro-life libertarian post-modernist Christian straight-edge monochrome 3rd-wave ska-punk/pop/metal cygnet of age 5.7 days, you would use the circular pin with the black head and place it in John's left earlobe, slightly above the centre.
Of course, as the most intellectual and obscure method, I fully hope that you will immediately appreciate it. If you do not, well I don't want to call you an ignoramus, but basically you are an ignoramus who hates Linux as well, so get lost you GPL-bashing FRAUD.
I've used quite a lot of browsers in my time, including Firefox, and I have to say that Opera impressed me so much I bought a license. It's not just about the features, it's how they're implemented and put together that matters. Sure, Firefox can have extensions added to give it an Opera-ish feel, like mouse gestures and the superior (IMHO) implementation of tabbed browsing, and it's free software, which is great, I am writing this on Linux and if ever I made software I'd be sure to GPL it, so Firefox is definitely a good, flexible browser that one can use with a clear conscience.
Still, I prefer to use Opera. Firefox's extensions, plugins, whatever you call them feel just like what they are, additional features glued on afterwards. That's not to say they're not useful, but using Firefox is simply not as smooth and effortless as using Opera. I wanted to move away from Opera to Firefox, for the sake of free software, but I am afraid I just couldn't forget it. It is such a beautifully crafted piece of software that I can't just not use it. Even if you don't like the default appearence, interface, whatever, it is so configurable, moreso than Firefox I think, that you can make it behave just how you want it to. With any other browser I just don't feel like I have that level of control. Maybe it is true that it is not a strong contender in the "Browser Wars"... but that's just bad luck, because it damn well should be!
Aha ha ha! How did you manage to spell "The Inquirer" with an E at the beginning like that when you actually had to put the URL (which contains the correct spelling, of course) in there anyway? Went out last night? Had an early start? All out of coffee? Happens to the best of us I suppose;)
Haha, too damn right! I mean 6 figures may not be much for a major business, or even a minor one, I dunno, but jeez, think of what generated those 6 figures. Nothing but lies. SCO didn't even do anything except spread a load of bullshit and they rake in 6 figures! Not a lottery ticket in sight!
I guess it's the same kind of thing as those guys who sell the $100 beauty face cream that actually does nothing. The mind boggles.
Well... no, I don't really think so, if everyone started running Solaris on their IBM machines instead of AIX, I think that would piss IBM off a bit. They want IBM customers to run IBM software on IBM machines, so they'd put money into R&D to make AIX better, so that there would be no reason to switch over to Solaris at all.
Sorry if I seem a little pedantic here, but the summary is quite confusing. I know you can just RTFA to straighten it out, but I don't really think there's much excuse for having to. 2004 + 20 = 2024. Not 2020! That is a difference of 4 years. While 4 years might not seem like that much at first, think about it in terms of, say, your own life. If I die at the age of 80 (I figure that's a reasonable guess, right?), 4 years is 5 percent of my entire life!
It seems like I hear about these "breakthroughs" all the time. I hear all about carbon nanotubes, being able to store a terabyte in a 1cm^3 glass block, and now bits of dead cow, electrons stored in molecules, and liquid silicon.
I think it's very impressive that so much research is going into all this, but I still have the same old kind of hard disk and the same old kind of optical disc that I've had for years. Solid state storage seems to be pretty similar too, the only thing that seems to change is the size and speed, but not so much the basic underlying technology. I'm starting to wonder just how many ways there are of storing data, but more importantly, how many of those ways are actually practical. I am concerned that maybe there are a few people who are just making a lot of fuss about nothing much in order to make themselves sound more important. I just want to see the research dollars going to good use. I mean really, really honestly, is a cow truly going to provide the ultimate storage solution?
Can anyone actually give me a good example of one of these recent breakthroughs that is actually going to come to market anytime soon? I want my USB toothpick data storage!
Jeez, if I were Microsoft I'd really be careful about how I play things right now. They're not fighting a case against Sun or IBM or something here, or against the government of their home country even, they're fighting a foreign government who really don't like them very much at the moment. They need to be careful about their actions throughout this appeal, because if it looks like they are trying to get out of it by using delaying tactics until Longhorn is released or something like that then they could definitely get bitten on the arse.
I mean think about it for a minute, what government is going to tolerate Microsoft taking the piss out of them and trying to worm out of punishment in this way? Okay, the US government (no flamebait intended), but at least you can see their point of view... MS is a large, profitable US company, and hurting MS could also hurt the power of the US. However, this time we're talking about the EU, and although MS may employ many people in Europe or whatever, they are essentially a foreign company, and I do not think the EC really gives as much of a shit if it hurts MS or not.
Anyway, I am no expert on international politics or legal proceedings or anything, but I am just imagining myself as a politician who is looking at Microsoft defying the legal judgement of my government and having a big old hearty laugh about it. I'd be pretty pissed off, and I'd be wanting to do something about it.
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I use Linux with a KDE desktop on my PC for work and I have a partition with Windows on the same PC for playing games on. Whenever I upgrade KDE, it seems that there are performance enhancements involved, and my desktop is snappier with every new version. However, with Windows, when I upgrade it seems that it becomes a bit slower every time. Sure, certain bugs are fixed and certain features are added, but that goes for KDE as much as it does Windows, so why does Windows have to get slower when KDE appears to do the opposite?
Surely the whole point in making the desktop rendered with the power of modern 3D accelerated graphics hardware is to be able to do more visuals with the same computer without experiencing any slowdown. I don't think that new software should scale up its consumption of resources so that it runs at the same sluggish speed on modern systems as it did on the old hardware, because that's stagnation. True improvement would mean that the desktop would take advantage of the graphics capability that already exists on most computers these days and used it to create a really impressive desktop without the need to upgrade.
Now, I don't like Apple too much, but I am willing to respect them for having done this already with OSX. Linux desktop developers seem to be wanting to improve things this way too, and there doesn't seem to be much talk of vastly increased system requirements from that camp. Why does Microsoft need such insanely powerful hardware to accomplish what already seems to be possible with today's hardware? Windows Vista seems to offer transparent window bars, a few other eye-candy things, and a buch of add-ons that will also be available for Windows XP. So what exactly warrants the need for all of this extra computing power just to run it? That's all I want to know, and if anyone can tell me why, then I would be genuinely interested to know, because it must be pretty revolutionary.
What the hell are you talking about?
I've been using Linux for the last three years, I've gone through Mandrake, SUSE, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware and Arch Linux and I have never ever had to manually go around and resolve package dependencies (except possibly on Slackware, but even then you can download swaret or slapt-get to solve that, and Slackware is meant to be a pretty hardcore nerd distro anyway). When exactly did you encounter this problem, and with which distro? I'm genuinely interested to know, so I can stay the hell away from it.
You might have a point if you're talking about downloading Mandrake RPMs and trying to install them on SuSE or something like that, but that's not meant to work anyway, and I don't know why you'd think it would. It's not as if you'd buy Toyota engine parts for your Ford now, is it?
Is this really making the light waves go faster, or is it just anomalous dispersion? I heard in one of my Physics lectures that you can make something happen that looks like superluminal motion, and it caused a bit of controversy when someone did it, but it's not actually the wave that's moving faster than c - it's actually the wave envelope, which is related to the amplitude of the wave. I could try and explain, but I'd only make things confusing (if I haven't already!), so I have found some animations you can look at, see here and here.
On the other hand, if the light really is going faster than c, then I am thoroughly impressed!
I used to play EQ a lot, I was pretty hooked on it for about a year. I don't regret it, since I had a lot of fun times, but looking back, I certainly burnt a lot of hours in Norrath. My brother got really hooked on it too, and he's not even the complete nerd that I am. There were certain people there who were pretty terrifying though. For example, I often heard people talking about how they were skipping school in order to spend the day playing the game, and my brother once even got paid (EQ money, but still) to guard someone's character while he took a nap at the keyboard. This guy was so thoroughly obsessed with the game that he wouldn't leave the computer - not even to sleep.
Take these stories as warnings. You might not think yourself capable of such things, and okay, I doubt you'll end up killing anyone, but even a stupid little game can become a major feature in your life if you're not careful. Especially when you have to pay per month, since it's so easily justifiable - you're only getting your money's worth, after all!
I cannot believe this, it really makes my blood boil. Apparently I'm a "thief" for downloading mp3s because I want to know what music sounds like before I buy the CD, or because I lend a CD or two to my friends. All I'm doing is fairly reasonable, yet if you listen to what the record companies say, I am a villain.
However, if you stop and think for a second, who is depriving whom? I'm depriving them of nothing, if I couldn't download mp3s, I'd never buy CDs, full stop. If the record companies can bribe governments to extend copyright to such a ridiculous degree, then they are preventing the public from having the access they are entitled to without forking out. They are depriving the public of something that should be theirs, and I think that's a whole lot closer to theft than anything any p2p-user can do.
Copyrights expire for a reason. When millions of people have grown up with and grown to love the music of artists as innovative and inspirational as The Beatles, then that music is a deeply ingrained part of our culture. It is morally reprehensible to charge a fee to experience important aspects of our history and social identity.
I've had enough of this bullshit. I could just about stand the debasement of music into some kind of fashion show, some kind of advert for clothing and lifestyle, with near-pornographic videos. I could just about handle the marginalisation of anything even vaguely interesting by the brain-dead pop music of today (and yes, it is worse than it used to be). I hate the sickening marketing focus-group taint that covers all of these "artists", I hate this state of affairs, but it seems to be what people want, so I can live with it... if people genuinely enjoy this kind of music, then fine, I don't have to listen to it. What I cannot take is this theft. Major labels haven't done anything exciting for years, and now they are actually becoming detrimental to society.
Declare war on these companies. Do not do business with them. What they're doing is akin to setting up a toll booth on a public road. Would you stand for that? No? Then don't stand for this. These organisations are criminal, pure and simple.
Yeah, I can imagine! Although IMO this story smells a bit fishy, if it is true, then now WINE is approaching its first major release, then Apple could use it to run Windows apps on top of OSX, thereby acquiring almost ALL of MS' market! What an incredible thought, being able to run programs written for Linux, BSD, Windows and Mac OS all on one platform! Microsoft would certainly be in a tough position to escape from that one! Unfortunately, the cynic in me says that if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is...
I'm from the UK, and although I'm not following computing-based subjects academically (studying Physics instead), I have a great interest in computers and OSS, I use Linux on my desktop, and I am trying to teach myself to write software. What that means is, I end up hanging around CompSci students in University, and I used to hang around with the computer geeks at school, so I feel I have a pretty good idea of what's going on with the culture there.
OSS, Linux in particular but also BSD, is very much the big thing. Everybody's into it who's serious about computers, experienced young Windows users always say that they really want to learn it and give it a go, it just seems to be cool (believe it or not). I would go so far as to say that it is very rare that I meet a single serious computer enthusiast (i.e. somebody who I'd say is likely to end up in the industry) who is also a Windows fanboy.
So what are the implications of all this? Well basically, it means that there is going to be an abundance of IT professionals who prefer Linux, who advocate Linux, who are more experienced with Linux than with Windows. If this isn't going to be a really big incentive for the uptake of OSS by European businesses, then I don't know what will be. By choosing OSS, they'll open themselves up to a vast pool of enthusiastic, talented individuals, whereas if they stick with Windows, they'll have under-motivated people grudgingly working with what they have, with less experience on that platform.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot: the Computer Science course at my uni (University of Exeter) has mandatory lessons on using OSS-based systems (according to my flatmate who studies CS), so I can imagine that too would definitely contribute to the value of OSS within businesses.
Are you really surprised? Intel and all large corporations exist to make their organisation more valuable. They all push the law just as far as they think they can get away with... but this time, they judged wrong. I'd love to know about all of the dodgy shit that even fairly reputable organisations get up to, because I suspect there's an awful lot more of this stuff going on than your average person knows about.
;)
I always think of it like this: they're not immoral, they're amoral. They just don't care about right or wrong, they can't afford to, because that's how the system works. I'm glad that they got caught, and I think we need much more government constraints put in place and have them actively enforced to prevent things like this from happening.
Of course, for that to happen, I'd need to buy myself a politician or two... and I'm only a poor student... care to give me a donation anyone?
Yeah, it's just a shame ATI and NVIDIA feel such a need to keep their card specs secret from everybody... there are some people working on these things though. One project I have been keeping an eye on for a little while is this one, they seem to be making some progress on R300 drivers (R300 cards are the ones after 9200, I think). Check out their current status:
# 01/31/05
* Tagged a new snapshot "jump_and_click" of r300_driver. Quake3 demo should now be playable, albeit with some artifacts.
Now I don't want to hype this up too much, I guess they probably still have a lot of work to do, but I think a playable Quake 3 is fairly promising... okay, it's taken a little while to get to this stage from the release of the R300, but it still goes to show that it can be done!
Consider this, if you will: Joe User, sick of cleaning the spyware and virii off his Windows box for the bazillionth time reads about "Linux" in the Times/on Cnet/wherever. Naturally, he googles it, and ends up with all 18 of these live distros, a ton of kernel related stuff that he doesn't understand, and a gazillion news articles reviewing things he knows nothing about.
... Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world. ...
Did you actually TRY what you said there? Let's have a go, shall we? OK, I am Mr. J. User. I type "Linux" into google, and press enter. For the FIRST RESULT, I get:
The Linux Home Page at Linux Online Linux Online,
The Linux Home Page! Alright, this sounds like a good place to learn more about Linux... Then, by clicking on that link, I would be taken to linux.org, which has on the front page articles explaining what Linux is, how to get started with Linux, etc, etc.
I guess you kind of have a point, but I think it's less of a problem than you make it out to be. After all, when browsing the Internet, how often do you come across something mentioning Windows XP or Windows 98 or another specific version of Windows, for example when downloading some software? A large number of the non PC-savvy people I know don't even know what version of Windows they're running, but they still seem to get along somehow.
At the end of the day, if someone really wants to switch to Linux, and go through the work that it entails, they're not really going to be put off by the small amount of research they might have to do to achieve that end. Hell, the problem could be solved instantly just by talking to a neighbourhood nerd.
Hmm, I think you're probably right. I guess it must have happened quicker than they thought, right? Else why make the statement in the first place... I mean July -> November, it's not quite an aeon, is it... but then again, I'm far from being a kernel hacker, maybe those guys just reckon time differently to the rest of us ;)
Perhaps we can just call it a testament to the rapid progress of the Linux kernel!
Hey, but didn't the kernel developers say a while ago that there would not be stable and development branches of the kernel, and that it would be up to the distributions to look after final stability, or something like that?
In fact, I have just looked up the article, and it pretty much says just that. No 2.7 development branch plans! Did they just change their minds or what? Or are they genuinely doing a proper fork of the kernel? I am confused!
Jesus Christ! You guys have an absolutely shocking outlook on things. Maybe these people have a shit life somewhere and they want to move somewhere else so their children can have at least a chance of a half-decent life.
Try and say you wouldn't do the same thing in their situation. You can't, without lying.
That's just the way the Global Economy works, baby. It's not as if the US hasn't profited enough from it already, if things take a bit of a turn, well I don't think I'll be bearing too much sympathy. Hey, you can always emigrate I guess.
Hey, what about equal and opposite forces? If the beam generator was mounted on a space station like they say it could be, wouldn't the space station need to be much more massive than the object it is propelling?
I am only asking because I would think that if the beam is as powerful as they say it is, then I think it would push the two bodies apart, which is fair enough for the spacecraft, but you really don't want your space station being pushed out of orbit. Is there any chance of this technology being used for anything other than the propulsion of tiny spacecraft?
God damnit, you're ALL WRONG!
Everyone knows that there is a perfectly simple way of representing the relationships and positions of the political views of different people. Let me explain:
To start with, you need a three-dimensional model of John Lennon's face. Then, you need a set of pins with different shaped heads; square, circular, spherical and 7-pointed star. The heads should be available in black or white, depending on whether or not the person is pro-life or pro-choice. Now I have explained these things, where to place the pins should be obvious, but just to clarify, in the case of a pro-life libertarian post-modernist Christian straight-edge monochrome 3rd-wave ska-punk/pop/metal cygnet of age 5.7 days, you would use the circular pin with the black head and place it in John's left earlobe, slightly above the centre.
Of course, as the most intellectual and obscure method, I fully hope that you will immediately appreciate it. If you do not, well I don't want to call you an ignoramus, but basically you are an ignoramus who hates Linux as well, so get lost you GPL-bashing FRAUD.
and... and... Warcraft 3!
I've used quite a lot of browsers in my time, including Firefox, and I have to say that Opera impressed me so much I bought a license. It's not just about the features, it's how they're implemented and put together that matters. Sure, Firefox can have extensions added to give it an Opera-ish feel, like mouse gestures and the superior (IMHO) implementation of tabbed browsing, and it's free software, which is great, I am writing this on Linux and if ever I made software I'd be sure to GPL it, so Firefox is definitely a good, flexible browser that one can use with a clear conscience.
Still, I prefer to use Opera. Firefox's extensions, plugins, whatever you call them feel just like what they are, additional features glued on afterwards. That's not to say they're not useful, but using Firefox is simply not as smooth and effortless as using Opera. I wanted to move away from Opera to Firefox, for the sake of free software, but I am afraid I just couldn't forget it. It is such a beautifully crafted piece of software that I can't just not use it. Even if you don't like the default appearence, interface, whatever, it is so configurable, moreso than Firefox I think, that you can make it behave just how you want it to. With any other browser I just don't feel like I have that level of control. Maybe it is true that it is not a strong contender in the "Browser Wars"... but that's just bad luck, because it damn well should be!
Aha ha ha! How did you manage to spell "The Inquirer" with an E at the beginning like that when you actually had to put the URL (which contains the correct spelling, of course) in there anyway? Went out last night? Had an early start? All out of coffee? Happens to the best of us I suppose ;)
It can be a female, right? Well I propose the name Susan. Or just Sue, for short. ;)
Haha, too damn right! I mean 6 figures may not be much for a major business, or even a minor one, I dunno, but jeez, think of what generated those 6 figures. Nothing but lies. SCO didn't even do anything except spread a load of bullshit and they rake in 6 figures! Not a lottery ticket in sight!
I guess it's the same kind of thing as those guys who sell the $100 beauty face cream that actually does nothing. The mind boggles.
Well... no, I don't really think so, if everyone started running Solaris on their IBM machines instead of AIX, I think that would piss IBM off a bit. They want IBM customers to run IBM software on IBM machines, so they'd put money into R&D to make AIX better, so that there would be no reason to switch over to Solaris at all.
Sorry if I seem a little pedantic here, but the summary is quite confusing. I know you can just RTFA to straighten it out, but I don't really think there's much excuse for having to. 2004 + 20 = 2024. Not 2020! That is a difference of 4 years. While 4 years might not seem like that much at first, think about it in terms of, say, your own life. If I die at the age of 80 (I figure that's a reasonable guess, right?), 4 years is 5 percent of my entire life!
It seems like I hear about these "breakthroughs" all the time. I hear all about carbon nanotubes, being able to store a terabyte in a 1cm^3 glass block, and now bits of dead cow, electrons stored in molecules, and liquid silicon.
I think it's very impressive that so much research is going into all this, but I still have the same old kind of hard disk and the same old kind of optical disc that I've had for years. Solid state storage seems to be pretty similar too, the only thing that seems to change is the size and speed, but not so much the basic underlying technology. I'm starting to wonder just how many ways there are of storing data, but more importantly, how many of those ways are actually practical. I am concerned that maybe there are a few people who are just making a lot of fuss about nothing much in order to make themselves sound more important. I just want to see the research dollars going to good use. I mean really, really honestly, is a cow truly going to provide the ultimate storage solution?
Can anyone actually give me a good example of one of these recent breakthroughs that is actually going to come to market anytime soon? I want my USB toothpick data storage!
Jeez, if I were Microsoft I'd really be careful about how I play things right now. They're not fighting a case against Sun or IBM or something here, or against the government of their home country even, they're fighting a foreign government who really don't like them very much at the moment. They need to be careful about their actions throughout this appeal, because if it looks like they are trying to get out of it by using delaying tactics until Longhorn is released or something like that then they could definitely get bitten on the arse.
I mean think about it for a minute, what government is going to tolerate Microsoft taking the piss out of them and trying to worm out of punishment in this way? Okay, the US government (no flamebait intended), but at least you can see their point of view... MS is a large, profitable US company, and hurting MS could also hurt the power of the US. However, this time we're talking about the EU, and although MS may employ many people in Europe or whatever, they are essentially a foreign company, and I do not think the EC really gives as much of a shit if it hurts MS or not.
Anyway, I am no expert on international politics or legal proceedings or anything, but I am just imagining myself as a politician who is looking at Microsoft defying the legal judgement of my government and having a big old hearty laugh about it. I'd be pretty pissed off, and I'd be wanting to do something about it.