You're right, I meant the major labels. IMHO (setting myself up for another flame here) a lot of the Indy stuff is less protected because it's crap and nobody would want to steal it. Looking at it from another angle, many of the Indy bands WANT people to share (i.e. steal) their music so they get more people listening and can sign to a major label. Before you slam me with a bunch of contradiction, yes, I have tried Indy music here and there. I listen to country, and by and large, I haven't found anything that sounded nearly as polished (or interesting) as many of the acts on major labels right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's a lot of great stuff out there; I just haven't run across that one percent in my browsing. I hope there's more of it in other genres.:)
Oh, please. MP3? No record label is going to approve sales of high-quality audio files with no copyright protection. I sincerely hope that was a troll.
Give me a break. Next you'll be talking about us whining about wanting more than 128 MB RAM because swap space does the job. Just because you're not utilizing the capabilities of your technology doesn't mean other people shouldn't.
I'm not a fan of the word myself, but I did do a Google search. Look at the tenth link on the search link you posted in your comment above. If you're going to scold someone for scolding you... *grin* I just didn't go to the blue bar; I looked at the results. That's actually pretty interesting, though. I've never actually clicked on the link in the blue bar to see that it jumps to a definition because I usually just go straight to dictionary.reference.com.
Yes it is. It's commonly used in business and corporate environments. If you're going to try to correct someone, at least do a Google search before posting. Sigh...
Sorry, just one more link! This one is the official history of UNIX, which includes a number of the BSD releases in the timeline. Same site as you mentioned, and they do mention major Linux kernel releases there. I still don't consider Linux a UN*X; I categorize it as UNIX-like.:)
I don't know that it necessarily matters a lot, and I'm probably splitting hairs, but I personally don't refer to Linux as a UN*X OS, where I do refer to BSD/BSDi as one because of historical source. It doesn't make one better than the other, just refers more to how they came about and probably the underlying architecture of the OS.
Mac OS X has its roots in NeXTSTEP/OpenSTEP, products of NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs after he left Apple, then sold to Apple before he came back. How's that for convoluted?;) NeXT was also based on an earlier Mach microkernel and BSD 4.3.
This article actually describes a pretty heated battle between AT&T and Berkeley/BSD, so I probably didn't have that clear in my head, but I really recall reading somewhere that it was a partnership early on with students working on the AT&T code. When it comes down to it, though, BSD and AT&T's System 5 UNIX had a great deal of common code - in particular look at the discussion of the TCP/IP code, which was a part of BSD UNIX used in System 5.
I personally would never call Linux a UN*X OS because Linux was originally built (mostly) from the ground up to emulate UNIX, where most OSes that bear the UN*X tag originated from much of the same original source. Check out this cool UNIX history chart. Granted, the author definitely takes some liberties with the term UNIX, since the Linux tree and other UNIX-like OSes are included, but it's a pretty incredible timeline nonetheless. My understanding is that Linux and UNIX have very different takes on the kernel, and that to me differentiates the two trees enough that they should not both be called by the same term. That said, there's a great deal of code that's fairly portable between the two.
BSDis UNIX. Not only that, it's one of the first UNIX certified operating systems. I can't tell you a great deal about the early days of UNIX, but University of California at Berkeley's computer science department did a lot of work with Bell Labs to create the original UNIX. UNIX is a certification and registered trademark, not a single operating system. There are different versions of UNIX, of course, and I understand the OS certification is a time-consuming and expensive process. Part of the advantage of the certification is that UNIX operating systems comply with a set of standard commands (and I think POSIX compliance is part of the whole process). Linux is not UNIX; you were correct in that statement.
Though I don't think it's big news, it's not an HP-branded iPod, as they had originally stated when they showed the blue/gray iPod at an Apple press release. It's an Apple iPod. HP's shopping web site lists it as an "Apple iPod from HP." I'm not sure what the big deal is; every computer manufacturer offers complementary products from different vendors. That way they're getting the margin off the product instead of someone else getting it when they by the accessory later anyway. I guess the one significant thing about this is that it doesn't appear that Apple's likely to open up the iPod architecture any time soon, hardware or software.
I don't know how I feel about terraforming and destroying microbial species, personally. On the one hand, there may be some ethical issues, but on the other, it may come down to survival of our own species. There's something to be said for survival of the fittest, and humanity has destroyed thousands of species throughout its expansion. When a new housing development goes up, a certain type of mosquito may be exterminated. Species become extinct every day. Is it really preferable to have people living on the streets (realizing we're not there yet) in favor of a mosquito that may have become extinct on its own anyway? I'm not really advocating either course and think more research is necessary, obviously, but if terraforming Mars (or another planet) provides humanity with a second lease on life, I hope that we can use resources more responsibly with a second lease on life.
One question I have used that really has had some interesting results is "[h]ow would you rate your fit for this job on a scale from 1 to 10?" As a follow-up, ask "[w]hat would it take for you to move up one point?"
If they answer this question '10,' it makes the follow-up pretty uncomfortable, but you can always not ask it. If we've had a person who answers '10' and couldn't answer some of the questions we asked or were way off, it really seems to show that they don't have much self-awareness or are very overconfident. It could be that they're jut overselling, but in our organization, that's bad.
If they answer the second question, it's a good idea to see if they recognize the same limitations you see with your other interview questions. This can also spur some other interview questions, if some of the answers are enlightening. If there are some gaps between what you see and what they mention, it could spell trouble for professional growth.
Our organization has a high percentage of Macintosh computers, and we had a candidate who answered that she was a '10' for the position we were hiring. The problem was that she had no Mac experience and hadn't been able to answer any of the serveral Mac-specific questions we asked. It's one thing to sell yourself, but quite another to oversell to the point that it looks like you're blind to your own flaws. We've used it for three rounds of interviews for three positions (about fifteen interviews total), and it's almost always provided us with very interesting results.
Soon after the Xbox came out, a Microsoft rep told us that they were selling the Xbox well below cost. When they were priced at $299, you still had to buy 8 games before Microsoft broke even! While component prices have certainly come down, the price of the Xbox has also dropped 50%, so I'd be surprised if they're making money ont them even today. I don't think we're far from Microsoft doing "per-month" licensing for online play content.
Qwest was screwing me over for a number of years by bundling services I didn't want into my land line. They would actually charge me $6 a month because I wasn't getting long distance service!! I cut my land line mostly so I wasn't giving money to Qwest, but adding my wife's cell phone on to my plan actually saved us about $40 a month in basic service and long distance charges. I had many more unneeded features forced upon me with my landline than with my cell. I guess I should have said this before, but I use my cell phone for calls, the occasional text message, and voice mail, not for games, pictures and all that other crap. I'm not paying extra for that stuff in my plan though - Verizon actually lets you pay just for the services you'll use.
Y'know, understanding cell phone usage may just not be obvious to you because of your lifestyle. I live in Colorado, and we actually go out and do things (including weekend travel) very frequently. If we're trying to meet family or friends coming in to town, it's much easier to have them contact us this way, and we're not pinned to the house if we need to run errands or something.
Let me give you another example. I'm teaching college classes at night as a second job. The dean called the other day while I was at work to offer me options for courses to teach for summer session. I waited to decide and responded that evening, and I didn't get the class I wanted because another professor had taken it. However, if I had answered him on the spot I would have received the class I wanted. It would not have been feasible to check voice mail at home because I wasn't expecting the call, and I'm not one to waste time calling a voice mail box that's usually empty.
It's fine to not understand why people desire or need cell phones, but it really surprises me that someone with the nickname "ModernGeek" can't see how they would benefit some people with active lifestyles. If they don't fit your lifestyle, that's great, but with my traveling, it's awesome that I can call from wherever I stop for lunch to keep in touch with family or avoid stupid "per call" charges at the occasional hotel. If you pick the right plan for your lifestyle, you can really save yourself money or headaches. I'm well aware that I'm paying close to $1000 per year for two phones, but it's worth it to me to be able to stay in touch with my family, who also get out of their houses frequently.
Yikes! Sorry, misread post 64. Looks like it's potentially Fedora that's messing with the table. Either way, it's just a little bug. I'm not sure this is worth a news header. And look at me - I'm screwy enough that I've posted on this twice!!;)
Just because the bug was submitted on BugZilla doesn't mean that it's necessarily a Fedora problem. I've used every version of Fedora from Core 1 through Core 2 (including intermediate betas), and I've never had a problem with the GRUB loading XP. Without knowing what the bug poster and the other posters have done to their systems, it's hard to even judge if it's a bug at all. Look at posts 63 and 64. They point to a corrupted partition table, potentially with something another vendor has done. <rant>Hate to say it, but just because it's on Slashdot, it's not necessarily a conspiracy. I can't believe how much gets totally blown out of proportion here. It's a bug, they'll probably fix it. It's nice to know to watch out for this, but is this really worthy of a news header on Slashdot? It's obviously documented in bugzilla for anyone who cares to look.</rant>
If this was the case, why wouldn't there be warnings about leaving the radio on or tallking on a CB (citizens' band) radio? Truckers use CBs all the time at gas stations, and they put out much more power than cell phones. I actually looked around with search engines and on news sites, and have not found a single case where a cell phone was conclusively determined to be the cause of a fire, while there were hundreds of cases of static electricity being the cause. To those who were saying that most were women, this was true, but not entirely because they were getting back in their cars. The articles I've read pointed mostly to the ones involved in fires wearing static-causing clothes such as nylons then creating a spark next to the fuel tank as they went to take the nozzle out of the tank.
I'm not arguing that the guy didn't deserve what he got. But you can't say that Jeff isn't guilty of fraud. He misrepresented the transaction by telling the guy he'd send him the PowerBook listed in the auction (and yes, I know it wasn't an ebay transaction, but he represented that he was sending the computer listed in the auction to the crook). Rather than sending the item he said he would, he sent a box of basically useless junk and misrepresented its value on the customs declaration to defraud the guy of a few hundred dollars in duties. Even though he wasn't the recipient of the money, the intent was to defraud, and it sounds like it worked.
Two wrongs don't make a right. That said, I think this situation is hilarious and the guy got his just desserts, but it's still vigilante justice. Take for example a similar situation, though obviously more extreme. Let's say a friend of mine is killed by a carjacker. If I track the murderer down and kill him in cold blood, do you really think I'd get away without being tried for murder? Of course not; I'd be a murderer as well. Breaking the law because someone else did is not an excuse. I don't know what I would have done in this situation, but of course the proper way to handle it would have been to alert the local authorities.
He didn't. I actually read the whole story (the PDF, not the 82-page original thread) before I posted. The declaration said something like "computer equipment," and he included a CD-ROM drive in the package in case anyone actually checked. The fraud was not in the declaration, but in the agreement. It's all moot since the guy was trying to scam him, but he agreed to send the PowerBook (actual computer) prior to the "buyer" sending payment through an escrow company.
That logic doesn't follow in this case, unfortunately. It would be fraud because he didn't send the item described in the auction. If I sold you a stereo valued at $500 and sent a computer valued at $500 with no intention of sending the stereo you purchased, that is fraud. The customs declaration said "PowerBook," not art. Again, fraud. I have the feeling though, since the guy who started it was committing computer fraud (fraudulent web site for the purpose of theft), he's probably not going to press charges.:)
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You're right, I meant the major labels. IMHO (setting myself up for another flame here) a lot of the Indy stuff is less protected because it's crap and nobody would want to steal it. Looking at it from another angle, many of the Indy bands WANT people to share (i.e. steal) their music so they get more people listening and can sign to a major label. Before you slam me with a bunch of contradiction, yes, I have tried Indy music here and there. I listen to country, and by and large, I haven't found anything that sounded nearly as polished (or interesting) as many of the acts on major labels right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's a lot of great stuff out there; I just haven't run across that one percent in my browsing. I hope there's more of it in other genres. :)
Oh, please. MP3? No record label is going to approve sales of high-quality audio files with no copyright protection. I sincerely hope that was a troll.
Give me a break. Next you'll be talking about us whining about wanting more than 128 MB RAM because swap space does the job. Just because you're not utilizing the capabilities of your technology doesn't mean other people shouldn't.
I'm not a fan of the word myself, but I did do a Google search. Look at the tenth link on the search link you posted in your comment above. If you're going to scold someone for scolding you... *grin* I just didn't go to the blue bar; I looked at the results. That's actually pretty interesting, though. I've never actually clicked on the link in the blue bar to see that it jumps to a definition because I usually just go straight to dictionary.reference.com.
Yes it is. It's commonly used in business and corporate environments. If you're going to try to correct someone, at least do a Google search before posting. Sigh...
Sorry, just one more link! This one is the official history of UNIX, which includes a number of the BSD releases in the timeline. Same site as you mentioned, and they do mention major Linux kernel releases there. I still don't consider Linux a UN*X; I categorize it as UNIX-like. :)
I don't know that it necessarily matters a lot, and I'm probably splitting hairs, but I personally don't refer to Linux as a UN*X OS, where I do refer to BSD/BSDi as one because of historical source. It doesn't make one better than the other, just refers more to how they came about and probably the underlying architecture of the OS.
Mac OS X has its roots in NeXTSTEP/OpenSTEP, products of NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs after he left Apple, then sold to Apple before he came back. How's that for convoluted? ;) NeXT was also based on an earlier Mach microkernel and BSD 4.3.
This article actually describes a pretty heated battle between AT&T and Berkeley/BSD, so I probably didn't have that clear in my head, but I really recall reading somewhere that it was a partnership early on with students working on the AT&T code. When it comes down to it, though, BSD and AT&T's System 5 UNIX had a great deal of common code - in particular look at the discussion of the TCP/IP code, which was a part of BSD UNIX used in System 5.
I personally would never call Linux a UN*X OS because Linux was originally built (mostly) from the ground up to emulate UNIX, where most OSes that bear the UN*X tag originated from much of the same original source. Check out this cool UNIX history chart. Granted, the author definitely takes some liberties with the term UNIX, since the Linux tree and other UNIX-like OSes are included, but it's a pretty incredible timeline nonetheless. My understanding is that Linux and UNIX have very different takes on the kernel, and that to me differentiates the two trees enough that they should not both be called by the same term. That said, there's a great deal of code that's fairly portable between the two.
BSD is UNIX. Not only that, it's one of the first UNIX certified operating systems. I can't tell you a great deal about the early days of UNIX, but University of California at Berkeley's computer science department did a lot of work with Bell Labs to create the original UNIX. UNIX is a certification and registered trademark, not a single operating system. There are different versions of UNIX, of course, and I understand the OS certification is a time-consuming and expensive process. Part of the advantage of the certification is that UNIX operating systems comply with a set of standard commands (and I think POSIX compliance is part of the whole process). Linux is not UNIX; you were correct in that statement.
Though I don't think it's big news, it's not an HP-branded iPod, as they had originally stated when they showed the blue/gray iPod at an Apple press release. It's an Apple iPod. HP's shopping web site lists it as an "Apple iPod from HP." I'm not sure what the big deal is; every computer manufacturer offers complementary products from different vendors. That way they're getting the margin off the product instead of someone else getting it when they by the accessory later anyway. I guess the one significant thing about this is that it doesn't appear that Apple's likely to open up the iPod architecture any time soon, hardware or software.
If it's the penguins, wouldn't that be a Linux insurrection? ;)
I don't know how I feel about terraforming and destroying microbial species, personally. On the one hand, there may be some ethical issues, but on the other, it may come down to survival of our own species. There's something to be said for survival of the fittest, and humanity has destroyed thousands of species throughout its expansion. When a new housing development goes up, a certain type of mosquito may be exterminated. Species become extinct every day. Is it really preferable to have people living on the streets (realizing we're not there yet) in favor of a mosquito that may have become extinct on its own anyway? I'm not really advocating either course and think more research is necessary, obviously, but if terraforming Mars (or another planet) provides humanity with a second lease on life, I hope that we can use resources more responsibly with a second lease on life.
One question I have used that really has had some interesting results is "[h]ow would you rate your fit for this job on a scale from 1 to 10?" As a follow-up, ask "[w]hat would it take for you to move up one point?"
If they answer this question '10,' it makes the follow-up pretty uncomfortable, but you can always not ask it. If we've had a person who answers '10' and couldn't answer some of the questions we asked or were way off, it really seems to show that they don't have much self-awareness or are very overconfident. It could be that they're jut overselling, but in our organization, that's bad.
If they answer the second question, it's a good idea to see if they recognize the same limitations you see with your other interview questions. This can also spur some other interview questions, if some of the answers are enlightening. If there are some gaps between what you see and what they mention, it could spell trouble for professional growth.
Our organization has a high percentage of Macintosh computers, and we had a candidate who answered that she was a '10' for the position we were hiring. The problem was that she had no Mac experience and hadn't been able to answer any of the serveral Mac-specific questions we asked. It's one thing to sell yourself, but quite another to oversell to the point that it looks like you're blind to your own flaws. We've used it for three rounds of interviews for three positions (about fifteen interviews total), and it's almost always provided us with very interesting results.
Soon after the Xbox came out, a Microsoft rep told us that they were selling the Xbox well below cost. When they were priced at $299, you still had to buy 8 games before Microsoft broke even! While component prices have certainly come down, the price of the Xbox has also dropped 50%, so I'd be surprised if they're making money ont them even today. I don't think we're far from Microsoft doing "per-month" licensing for online play content.
Qwest was screwing me over for a number of years by bundling services I didn't want into my land line. They would actually charge me $6 a month because I wasn't getting long distance service!! I cut my land line mostly so I wasn't giving money to Qwest, but adding my wife's cell phone on to my plan actually saved us about $40 a month in basic service and long distance charges. I had many more unneeded features forced upon me with my landline than with my cell. I guess I should have said this before, but I use my cell phone for calls, the occasional text message, and voice mail, not for games, pictures and all that other crap. I'm not paying extra for that stuff in my plan though - Verizon actually lets you pay just for the services you'll use.
Y'know, understanding cell phone usage may just not be obvious to you because of your lifestyle. I live in Colorado, and we actually go out and do things (including weekend travel) very frequently. If we're trying to meet family or friends coming in to town, it's much easier to have them contact us this way, and we're not pinned to the house if we need to run errands or something.
Let me give you another example. I'm teaching college classes at night as a second job. The dean called the other day while I was at work to offer me options for courses to teach for summer session. I waited to decide and responded that evening, and I didn't get the class I wanted because another professor had taken it. However, if I had answered him on the spot I would have received the class I wanted. It would not have been feasible to check voice mail at home because I wasn't expecting the call, and I'm not one to waste time calling a voice mail box that's usually empty.
It's fine to not understand why people desire or need cell phones, but it really surprises me that someone with the nickname "ModernGeek" can't see how they would benefit some people with active lifestyles. If they don't fit your lifestyle, that's great, but with my traveling, it's awesome that I can call from wherever I stop for lunch to keep in touch with family or avoid stupid "per call" charges at the occasional hotel. If you pick the right plan for your lifestyle, you can really save yourself money or headaches. I'm well aware that I'm paying close to $1000 per year for two phones, but it's worth it to me to be able to stay in touch with my family, who also get out of their houses frequently.
Bah. Pirates won't really be the problem. They've stolen corporate versions of antivirus software too!!
Yikes! Sorry, misread post 64. Looks like it's potentially Fedora that's messing with the table. Either way, it's just a little bug. I'm not sure this is worth a news header. And look at me - I'm screwy enough that I've posted on this twice!! ;)
Just because the bug was submitted on BugZilla doesn't mean that it's necessarily a Fedora problem. I've used every version of Fedora from Core 1 through Core 2 (including intermediate betas), and I've never had a problem with the GRUB loading XP. Without knowing what the bug poster and the other posters have done to their systems, it's hard to even judge if it's a bug at all. Look at posts 63 and 64. They point to a corrupted partition table, potentially with something another vendor has done.
<rant>Hate to say it, but just because it's on Slashdot, it's not necessarily a conspiracy. I can't believe how much gets totally blown out of proportion here. It's a bug, they'll probably fix it. It's nice to know to watch out for this, but is this really worthy of a news header on Slashdot? It's obviously documented in bugzilla for anyone who cares to look.</rant>
If this was the case, why wouldn't there be warnings about leaving the radio on or tallking on a CB (citizens' band) radio? Truckers use CBs all the time at gas stations, and they put out much more power than cell phones. I actually looked around with search engines and on news sites, and have not found a single case where a cell phone was conclusively determined to be the cause of a fire, while there were hundreds of cases of static electricity being the cause. To those who were saying that most were women, this was true, but not entirely because they were getting back in their cars. The articles I've read pointed mostly to the ones involved in fires wearing static-causing clothes such as nylons then creating a spark next to the fuel tank as they went to take the nozzle out of the tank.
I'm not arguing that the guy didn't deserve what he got. But you can't say that Jeff isn't guilty of fraud. He misrepresented the transaction by telling the guy he'd send him the PowerBook listed in the auction (and yes, I know it wasn't an ebay transaction, but he represented that he was sending the computer listed in the auction to the crook). Rather than sending the item he said he would, he sent a box of basically useless junk and misrepresented its value on the customs declaration to defraud the guy of a few hundred dollars in duties. Even though he wasn't the recipient of the money, the intent was to defraud, and it sounds like it worked.
Two wrongs don't make a right. That said, I think this situation is hilarious and the guy got his just desserts, but it's still vigilante justice. Take for example a similar situation, though obviously more extreme. Let's say a friend of mine is killed by a carjacker. If I track the murderer down and kill him in cold blood, do you really think I'd get away without being tried for murder? Of course not; I'd be a murderer as well. Breaking the law because someone else did is not an excuse. I don't know what I would have done in this situation, but of course the proper way to handle it would have been to alert the local authorities.
He didn't. I actually read the whole story (the PDF, not the 82-page original thread) before I posted. The declaration said something like "computer equipment," and he included a CD-ROM drive in the package in case anyone actually checked. The fraud was not in the declaration, but in the agreement. It's all moot since the guy was trying to scam him, but he agreed to send the PowerBook (actual computer) prior to the "buyer" sending payment through an escrow company.
That logic doesn't follow in this case, unfortunately. It would be fraud because he didn't send the item described in the auction. If I sold you a stereo valued at $500 and sent a computer valued at $500 with no intention of sending the stereo you purchased, that is fraud. The customs declaration said "PowerBook," not art. Again, fraud. I have the feeling though, since the guy who started it was committing computer fraud (fraudulent web site for the purpose of theft), he's probably not going to press charges. :)
If you look at the dates, that was only last week (last e-mail May 11). They know he paid duties on it, so he definitely got burned.
Sorry. Just took it the wrong way. I blame it all on Amazon anyway. "One Click" ordering? Sheesh. What a patent!
Actually, I wasn't saying that they should even get a patent. I was saying that it's not really a huge technology change.