"Linux is hard to update". (apt-get upgrade -- 10 times simpler than windows bullshit update system)
apt-get upgrade? I thought it was emerge -uDv world? No, wait, it's up2date --upgrade-to-release xx, isn't it? Crap, I'm wrong again, it's yum upgrade... or yum update, I forget which. I'll try the last one--dammit, now I'm getting some kind of GPG error, let me check the man page.
Note, I am a linux user in addition to a windows user (I love my CentOS boxes, they serve in roles I'd never trust to a Windows box) but the above comment "10 times simpler than windows" is just plain bullshit. If anything, on a stable system without any problems, windows update and the standard linux update mechanisms work equally well. If anything is wrong, all of them suck ass.
The M16s? The grenades? Those aren't being smuggled across the border unless the government is doing it -- actually the mexican goverment doesn't have that kind of firepower it is the u.s. flooding mexico with firearms and not doing anything to help.
You're seriously going to sit there and suggest that the Mexican army doesn't have automatic rifles and hand grenades? Really?
I dont see that happening on NPR or other reputable new sources.
NPR doesn't show video clips at all.:)
All kidding aside, I think you have your blinders on. I listen to NPR for, on average, an hour a day (most of my morning and evening commutes) and while I find them to be superior to most other news outlets other than the BBC, there have been plenty of times that I've noticed them talking about something at length, before playing the source material (and sometimes they don't play the source material at all), which is the exact behavior that the GP described. I also listen to right wing talk radio, and while the entire reason that they seem to exist is to program responses into people, their methods of doing so are a bit different. Someone like Limbaugh or Hannity absolutely loves playing soundbites (original source material in this case) over, and over, and over, but they're often taken out of context or referencing a slightly (in some cases completely) different subject.
For many years, Microsoft has had the nasty habit of breaking their own software and data formats to force customers to upgrade.
Citation needed.
The standard office file formats (i.e. doc, xls, etc) were the same from Office 97 to Office 2003. The Office 2007 file formats (docx, xlsx, etc) are readable and writable by Office 2000 or later. Contrast this with a company like Autodesk, where the file formats change every three years (in a thinly disguised attempt to sell upgrades) and I find it hard to agree with the statement you make above.
Probably making a shitload of money working for Westinghouse, GE, Hitachi, or Mitsubishi, Areva on the design side, or maybe Bechtel, Shaw Stone & Webster, Black & Veatch, etc. on the construction side. All of the old nuke guys are hitting retirement age, and new nuke plants are coming. There's a significant talent shortage out there right now.
It's been a loophole in the past for shipping weapons around - ship the parts (which is legal) and the recipient assembles them.
Assuming we're talking about US law here, the above is untrue. There is always one part of a firearm (usually the receiver) that legally constitutes the firearm itself. The part is subject to all of the same controls as the entire weapon (restrictions on mailing, background checks (as appropriate), restrictions against possession, etc.)
Admittedly, the rest of the weapon is (with some exceptions--certain parts are illegal in some states) "just parts" and can be treated as such.
hus, my idea for a solution: If he'll run a virtual installation of XP on Linux, once set up it can be cloned.... He could also use Ghost or some other cloning app, of course. After he gets the OS set up - but that is what is giving him a hard time.
As you note, something like Ghost, Acronis, hell, the low end imaging tools built into Microsoft's server products (RIS or WDS) already solve the problem--so why complicate things by running Windows as a guest OS? You note that he can't image the machine until he actually gets it built out, but assuming he moves to a VM, he still has to build out the image. You keep talking about people being resistant to change, thus not moving away from Microsoft, but your proposed solution is still Microsoft centric--sure, you've abstracted it a layer, but it's still there, and it's still the host for the applications that the user is actually going to use. You've added cost, complexity, and a performance penalty, but actually accomplished nothing of value.
Now, if you were going to suggest WINE as a solution (and his apps would work under it) then yes, you're introducing what might be a positive change. But all you're really suggesting right now is change for change's sake... and frankly, that's a fail.
"...But I can't run my business-related Win apps on it". Of course, and only after I pointed out to him that he could easily do so via virtualization
So the solution to problems with Windows is to virtualize Windows? Exactly how does that solve anything? You're still left with whatever bug is biting you, but now you have performance overhead from the virtualization layer, have to maintain whatever you're using as the host OS, and you still get to pay the Microsoft tax.
Well done for completely glossing over that the images themselves are British, located in Britain.
That seems immaterial here. The website makes the images available for download (how else could you possibly view one?) so the copy in the user's possession is most certainly a legal one. Whatever he does with it from that point is a matter for whatever jurisdiction he is in. In this case, he's in the US which doesn't give copyright protection to reproductions of another work--essentially, the image is in the public domain.
It's not some US-centric viewpoint--if it was an American image being used in the UK under the same circumstances, I'd say the exact same thing.
I would argue that these are not attacks but free speech (as in freedom of expression). Sure, some security sites will be down, that's just the way it is.
I'll be by your house later with some spray paint--I, too, have a message to share with the world, and your attitude toward defacement of private property is refreshing.
No SSD? No blu ray? No multiple core processors? No high clocked graphics cards? No ram with heat-spreaders attached? And worst of all no big case with lights inside?!
Similarly, China's purchase of massive amounts of US debt just doesn't make that much sense. Even if one is correct in the assumption that the US will pay off its debts, it's still pretty obvious that the US government is engaging in near-suicidal levels of spending and entitlement. My view is that China does so only to support its export industries. I believe that to be a inferior strategy in the long run as well since they lose the benefit of imports from even cheaper places.
I think it's 1) to support the export market, as you note, 2) what else are they going to do with all of those dollars? They could spend them, but on what? and 3) it's probably worth it to them to have the US by the balls, because they have the ability to effectively destroy the dollar, and by extension, the US economy.
how do you know they were looking for support contracts? If you have trained IT staff, you won't really need to pay extra for support. So that would just leave the cost to license the software.
I think it's a foregone conclusion that support is included in the MS offering. Based on the terms presented in the story, it looks like an Enterprise Agreement, and these typically involve some level of support (not "we'll be your helpdesk" support, but rather somewhere for your IT people to turn... to be fair, this is what RedHat would probably offer, too.)
Quite right, I absolutely agree it is totally unacceptable. Which is why X developers invented xmove many years ago.
Like you, I don't really have any problems with X (I've been using it for a very long time) and think it even has some advantages over RDP (for example, RDP requires you set a desktop resolution, then fit your session into that window. X, on the other hand, could care less and lets you just fit the application windows into your existing display.)
However, what I quoted above is an example of one of the reasons Windows continues to do so well, even when the competition is literally giving their product away for free. Say what you want about Microsoft, but (unless something breaks) their integrated solutions are FAR more user friendly than typical FOSS alternatives. The typical user neither knows, cares, nor WANTS to know or care about something like xmove--they just want the connect to the remote machine, not set up proxies so they can connect to the remote machine without worrying about losing their work.
While your other points are good ones, the above is easily achievable using commodity x86 hardware, running Linux or even Windows. We're not in the early 90s anymore.
The equivelent would be: FORD giving everyone a discount on a new vehicle if they traded in a GM. The guy who owned a DODGE would be out of luck.
The auto industry calls those "conquest rebates" and they do indeed use them. Beyond that, anti-trust (generally) involves the abuse of a monopoly position to stifle competition, and it's absurd to suggest that is the case here.
It's pretty clear here that IBM is trying to scoop SUN's customer base. This could have been the reason they wanted to aquire SUN in the first place.
What's your point? Business A growing market share by taking it from Business B happens everyday--it's how the market works.
In the end, we might see all browsers running completely sandboxed on demand, that is: no interaction with the rest of the system; a 'browse-only' kiosk.
Given the story a few posts down the main page about an exploit that can jailbreak out of a VM to attack other VMs and the host itself, or the one from a few months back that infected the BIOS to the point where the only possible repair was to pull and replace the the chip itself, I don't think that even a fully sandboxed browser will be good enough in the future.
It would both amuse and sadden me if something like "trusted computing" were the only result that ended up with a secure system (though my money's on THAT being broken/exploited, too, which leads to my next thought: the future is a world of hardened, single purpose, completely locked down devices, and won't that just be a "wonderful" future to live in.)
You'd never notice a launch, because they're launching aircraft of all sizes out of there night and day with constant training flights and U2 overflight.
Sorry, but this is just bullshit. An SR-71 takes off, and half the damn state knows about it (and half of them probably call someone to complain about the noise.) Air Traffic Control tends to notice the whole "aircraft moving at mach 3+ at 60,000ft" bit, too.
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apt-get upgrade? I thought it was emerge -uDv world? No, wait, it's up2date --upgrade-to-release xx, isn't it? Crap, I'm wrong again, it's yum upgrade... or yum update, I forget which. I'll try the last one--dammit, now I'm getting some kind of GPG error, let me check the man page.
Note, I am a linux user in addition to a windows user (I love my CentOS boxes, they serve in roles I'd never trust to a Windows box) but the above comment "10 times simpler than windows" is just plain bullshit. If anything, on a stable system without any problems, windows update and the standard linux update mechanisms work equally well. If anything is wrong, all of them suck ass.
You're not helping the pro-government case with that particular example.
It wasn't his disk array that became self aware... it was his disk array's evil twin !!!!
You're seriously going to sit there and suggest that the Mexican army doesn't have automatic rifles and hand grenades? Really?
NPR doesn't show video clips at all. :)
All kidding aside, I think you have your blinders on. I listen to NPR for, on average, an hour a day (most of my morning and evening commutes) and while I find them to be superior to most other news outlets other than the BBC, there have been plenty of times that I've noticed them talking about something at length, before playing the source material (and sometimes they don't play the source material at all), which is the exact behavior that the GP described. I also listen to right wing talk radio, and while the entire reason that they seem to exist is to program responses into people, their methods of doing so are a bit different. Someone like Limbaugh or Hannity absolutely loves playing soundbites (original source material in this case) over, and over, and over, but they're often taken out of context or referencing a slightly (in some cases completely) different subject.
Citation needed.
The standard office file formats (i.e. doc, xls, etc) were the same from Office 97 to Office 2003. The Office 2007 file formats (docx, xlsx, etc) are readable and writable by Office 2000 or later. Contrast this with a company like Autodesk, where the file formats change every three years (in a thinly disguised attempt to sell upgrades) and I find it hard to agree with the statement you make above.
Probably making a shitload of money working for Westinghouse, GE, Hitachi, or Mitsubishi, Areva on the design side, or maybe Bechtel, Shaw Stone & Webster, Black & Veatch, etc. on the construction side. All of the old nuke guys are hitting retirement age, and new nuke plants are coming. There's a significant talent shortage out there right now.
While it's still a monstrosity, it's interesting to note that the Zune box looks nothing like the parody video suggests it should.
Assuming we're talking about US law here, the above is untrue. There is always one part of a firearm (usually the receiver) that legally constitutes the firearm itself. The part is subject to all of the same controls as the entire weapon (restrictions on mailing, background checks (as appropriate), restrictions against possession, etc.)
Admittedly, the rest of the weapon is (with some exceptions--certain parts are illegal in some states) "just parts" and can be treated as such.
As you note, something like Ghost, Acronis, hell, the low end imaging tools built into Microsoft's server products (RIS or WDS) already solve the problem--so why complicate things by running Windows as a guest OS? You note that he can't image the machine until he actually gets it built out, but assuming he moves to a VM, he still has to build out the image. You keep talking about people being resistant to change, thus not moving away from Microsoft, but your proposed solution is still Microsoft centric--sure, you've abstracted it a layer, but it's still there, and it's still the host for the applications that the user is actually going to use. You've added cost, complexity, and a performance penalty, but actually accomplished nothing of value.
Now, if you were going to suggest WINE as a solution (and his apps would work under it) then yes, you're introducing what might be a positive change. But all you're really suggesting right now is change for change's sake... and frankly, that's a fail.
So the solution to problems with Windows is to virtualize Windows? Exactly how does that solve anything? You're still left with whatever bug is biting you, but now you have performance overhead from the virtualization layer, have to maintain whatever you're using as the host OS, and you still get to pay the Microsoft tax.
I'm really not seeing it.
That seems immaterial here. The website makes the images available for download (how else could you possibly view one?) so the copy in the user's possession is most certainly a legal one. Whatever he does with it from that point is a matter for whatever jurisdiction he is in. In this case, he's in the US which doesn't give copyright protection to reproductions of another work--essentially, the image is in the public domain.
It's not some US-centric viewpoint--if it was an American image being used in the UK under the same circumstances, I'd say the exact same thing.
I'll be by your house later with some spray paint--I, too, have a message to share with the world, and your attitude toward defacement of private property is refreshing.
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
Of course, you still have a single point of failure, you've only moved it from the UPS to the transfer switch.
I think it's 1) to support the export market, as you note, 2) what else are they going to do with all of those dollars? They could spend them, but on what? and 3) it's probably worth it to them to have the US by the balls, because they have the ability to effectively destroy the dollar, and by extension, the US economy.
I think it's a foregone conclusion that support is included in the MS offering. Based on the terms presented in the story, it looks like an Enterprise Agreement, and these typically involve some level of support (not "we'll be your helpdesk" support, but rather somewhere for your IT people to turn... to be fair, this is what RedHat would probably offer, too.)
Like you, I don't really have any problems with X (I've been using it for a very long time) and think it even has some advantages over RDP (for example, RDP requires you set a desktop resolution, then fit your session into that window. X, on the other hand, could care less and lets you just fit the application windows into your existing display.)
However, what I quoted above is an example of one of the reasons Windows continues to do so well, even when the competition is literally giving their product away for free. Say what you want about Microsoft, but (unless something breaks) their integrated solutions are FAR more user friendly than typical FOSS alternatives. The typical user neither knows, cares, nor WANTS to know or care about something like xmove--they just want the connect to the remote machine, not set up proxies so they can connect to the remote machine without worrying about losing their work.
While your other points are good ones, the above is easily achievable using commodity x86 hardware, running Linux or even Windows. We're not in the early 90s anymore.
The auto industry calls those "conquest rebates" and they do indeed use them. Beyond that, anti-trust (generally) involves the abuse of a monopoly position to stifle competition, and it's absurd to suggest that is the case here.
What's your point? Business A growing market share by taking it from Business B happens everyday--it's how the market works.
Do you really expect Microsoft to incorporate GPL code into Office?
Given the story a few posts down the main page about an exploit that can jailbreak out of a VM to attack other VMs and the host itself, or the one from a few months back that infected the BIOS to the point where the only possible repair was to pull and replace the the chip itself, I don't think that even a fully sandboxed browser will be good enough in the future.
It would both amuse and sadden me if something like "trusted computing" were the only result that ended up with a secure system (though my money's on THAT being broken/exploited, too, which leads to my next thought: the future is a world of hardened, single purpose, completely locked down devices, and won't that just be a "wonderful" future to live in.)
It'll be funny if this ends up being the most commented /. story ever because it's full of "me, too" posts.
Try reading this as a primer as to why the above should be scored, "-1, poster successfully brainwashed."
Sorry, but this is just bullshit. An SR-71 takes off, and half the damn state knows about it (and half of them probably call someone to complain about the noise.) Air Traffic Control tends to notice the whole "aircraft moving at mach 3+ at 60,000ft" bit, too.