In this case, I think the claimed legacy of various *IX programs made the decision a lot easier. (I use *IX instead of *NIX since they seem to have had an IRIX or two in there). Some people might have more trouble if a significant part of their software is firmly buried in Microsoft's products.
The most interesting bit, IMO, was the one about the ease to use proprietary and free applications together. That's what standards are for, and shows that Microsoft has NO reason to keep with their annoying obscurity of standards other than to hider competing products. It can be argued if it's ethical, smart, stupid or whatever, but from the end user point of view it's a restriction and an impediment.
I'm also not surprised they're going with Oracle for their DB. Free DB software needs some time and more work, although it's very usable in many cases right now. "Open source databases are where Linux was a number of years ago in terms of maturity", now the exact number of years is up for grabs;) I'd say 2, any takers?
And again, by someone whose music doesn't really interest me. Maria Jimenez, a singer from Spain, included a blank CD with one of her latest releases so that people wouldn't feel guilty about making copies for their own use. She only asked in return that people did buy her CD.
This is the only comment I found in English (last paragraph).
It's not good that a large number of components will be failing due to bad materials used, but it had to happen sooner or later. How many manufacturers are there for TFT displays? Laptops? Production of these parts is central to just a few very large manufacturing plants to save costs, and the "brands" just put the sticker (HP, Acer, Fujitsu, Samsung, you name it) and sell them at whatever price they want to charge.
So, now it seems like one of them was using some cheaper/environmentally friendlier crap in the manufacturing process and it's coming back to bite everyone's butts. Surprise surprise!
This is the same stuff that makes people open random attachments without looking at them because the "from" is someone they know, or support@microsoft.com or whatever. Somehow they managed to get it past whatever filters there are at download.com (no idea if they do any checking at all) and got their program there, and people were now running it randomly without checking what it really does because it came from somewhere they trust.
It kind of sucks that you can't trust download.com, but being paranoid always pays off for computer security. Download.com does not create the programs it hosts, so it's up to the user to check if what they're downloading is really what it claims to be.
Saying that a database that keeps the data of every person that does window shopping on your shop and reading every tag can "be built easily" might be true in a sense, but making sense of so much crap data is not.
So really, is it a big deal? Getting the tag off my groceries when I get home compared to just being able to walk out the supermarket with my groceries in a bag and have the bill ready instantly is a pretty small price to pay. Yeah, they can track what I've bought, but honestly, what's that going to be useful for?
The only thing that worries me a bit is about digital identity theft, which basically means I don't trust this technology to be secure enough. So, I'll just keep paying cash at the supermarket.
Watches, typewritters, dot-matrix printers, pagers... they all have the same qualities. They're cheap, they're reliable, and they require almost NO manteinance whatsoever. Listening to the radio is one flick of a switch away almost anywhere, you don't ahve to keep remembering to plug your laptop to the mains to recharge the battery if you happen to need typing.
Newer, more features and more bells and whistles don't mean better. My 50$ swatch will still be ticking in 10 years time, I might have to change the battery once. I'll stick with it, thankyouverymuch.
Evil minion #1: We're going to take down our servers on February the 1st and claim it was because of a worm DDoSing us, written by Linux Terrorists.
Evil minion #2: Excellent, we go live in 3 days!
Evil minion #3: Hmmm, February, that does ring a bell for some reason. Wait, isn't February that odd month with only 28 days?
Evil minion #1: Yes it is! But wait, does that mean, if we're going live in 3 days...
Evil minion #2: And February has 28 days...
All evil minions: Then we have to take the servers down immediately!!
A quick phone call and some screams later, a puzzled-looking engineer is unplugging network cables frantically.
The best is yet to come, wait for part two when they put their servers back online after realizing January has 31 days, not 30, and have acted one day too early;)
DSL is absolutely great. All the power of Linux in the small business card CD.
It does have a small con, and that is the hardware support, which is somewhat a bit more limited tham the latest Knoppix. I've run this on a few machines and ran into a bit of trouble with some of the more exotic hardware, but it really shines when running in old boxes (we got a Pentium 100 to boot with this thing).
I'd highly recommend this if you are going to go around showing Linux to people, giving it a try first while having the full-blown Knoppix as a backup.
At this point in time, scientific data be damned! As long as the Engineers get all the data they need to find out what's wrong, and hopefully fix it, that data is worth every bit.
We've already losr Beagle up there, losing Spirit before Opportunity arrives would be very very bad. I hope, I *really* hope, the problem is software and not hardware.
All that will happen is that I'll stop purchasing DVDs, same as I stopped purchasing CDs over 3 years ago.
There's still books and videogames. Of course, the second will disappear as soon as Palladium comes along (out of spite, as usual), and by the looks of it project Gutenbert will run out of books if Disney keeps pushing copyright longer and longer.
You're right, it IS frigtening, I might have to step out of the house one of these days!:)
How hard would it be to have, instead of a wheel, a thin strip of the stuff they use for touchpads in laptops (god, how I hate them, give me a trackball anytime) on the side to replace the functionality of said wheel?
I don't think it'd be TOO hard, and the results would probably be good.
You're absolutely right, and you've also have nailed a very important point about MMOGs.
The physical media for traditional games is important because, no matter what, you will be able to play that game.
In MMOGs the real "game", so to speak, is being provided to you by the company on a way similar to arcades. People don't like to go and buy a CD and then pay for the online content since the online content is the only game. You're tied to the company, and they decide the fate of the game, so there is no point in buying the CD, and more importantly, that's a market where people will be much more likely to pay for downloading bits instead of buying plastic!
I just remembered the "Phantom" console and had a good chuckle;)
I had heard of these things before (like here, but it's the first time I see anyone talking about it seriously other than in future, vague projects and predictions.
It's like low-cost, low-tech satellite communications (less area covered, less powerful transmission units, but cheaper too), the only thing I see as a possible problem is the interference with air traffic in higher populated areas (probably the reason why they're starting with these more remote locations for implementation).
It's not only the beeping of alarm clocks, or the fact that they wake you up in the middle of your threesome with Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone knows socks morph into boxers/briefs (whatever you use) during laundry.
Think about it, you run out of paired socks but you rarely run out of boxers.
Just like the recent attempt by Sanofi to acquire Aventis, their rival Pharma. Sanofi is about 3 times smaller, go figure.
Your vote "BUSH" on February 25th,@11:45AM (#112734123) has been moderated "-1, Troll".
Somewhere else: Your moderation to vote #112734123 -1, Troll has been meta-moderated "Unfair".
And most importantly, CowboyNeal would be in every single voting and election!
*I(X|S) obviously. *I* would match Windows too.
If there is also Linux then it should be *(I|U)(X|S)
Finding an appropiate one for the inclusion of *BSD is left as an exercise to the reader.
In this case, I think the claimed legacy of various *IX programs made the decision a lot easier. (I use *IX instead of *NIX since they seem to have had an IRIX or two in there). Some people might have more trouble if a significant part of their software is firmly buried in Microsoft's products.
;) I'd say 2, any takers?
The most interesting bit, IMO, was the one about the ease to use proprietary and free applications together. That's what standards are for, and shows that Microsoft has NO reason to keep with their annoying obscurity of standards other than to hider competing products. It can be argued if it's ethical, smart, stupid or whatever, but from the end user point of view it's a restriction and an impediment.
I'm also not surprised they're going with Oracle for their DB. Free DB software needs some time and more work, although it's very usable in many cases right now. "Open source databases are where Linux was a number of years ago in terms of maturity", now the exact number of years is up for grabs
I though that was what the Phantom was for ;)
Better yet, if the examples they give are to be trusted, it'll enlarge your penis and get you out of debt too!
And again, by someone whose music doesn't really interest me. Maria Jimenez, a singer from Spain, included a blank CD with one of her latest releases so that people wouldn't feel guilty about making copies for their own use. She only asked in return that people did buy her CD.
This is the only comment I found in English (last paragraph).
It's not good that a large number of components will be failing due to bad materials used, but it had to happen sooner or later. How many manufacturers are there for TFT displays? Laptops? Production of these parts is central to just a few very large manufacturing plants to save costs, and the "brands" just put the sticker (HP, Acer, Fujitsu, Samsung, you name it) and sell them at whatever price they want to charge.
So, now it seems like one of them was using some cheaper/environmentally friendlier crap in the manufacturing process and it's coming back to bite everyone's butts. Surprise surprise!
This is the same stuff that makes people open random attachments without looking at them because the "from" is someone they know, or support@microsoft.com or whatever. Somehow they managed to get it past whatever filters there are at download.com (no idea if they do any checking at all) and got their program there, and people were now running it randomly without checking what it really does because it came from somewhere they trust.
It kind of sucks that you can't trust download.com, but being paranoid always pays off for computer security. Download.com does not create the programs it hosts, so it's up to the user to check if what they're downloading is really what it claims to be.
Saying that a database that keeps the data of every person that does window shopping on your shop and reading every tag can "be built easily" might be true in a sense, but making sense of so much crap data is not.
So really, is it a big deal? Getting the tag off my groceries when I get home compared to just being able to walk out the supermarket with my groceries in a bag and have the bill ready instantly is a pretty small price to pay. Yeah, they can track what I've bought, but honestly, what's that going to be useful for?
The only thing that worries me a bit is about digital identity theft, which basically means I don't trust this technology to be secure enough. So, I'll just keep paying cash at the supermarket.
In one word: Reliability.
Watches, typewritters, dot-matrix printers, pagers... they all have the same qualities. They're cheap, they're reliable, and they require almost NO manteinance whatsoever. Listening to the radio is one flick of a switch away almost anywhere, you don't ahve to keep remembering to plug your laptop to the mains to recharge the battery if you happen to need typing.
Newer, more features and more bells and whistles don't mean better. My 50$ swatch will still be ticking in 10 years time, I might have to change the battery once. I'll stick with it, thankyouverymuch.
Evil minion #1: We're going to take down our servers on February the 1st and claim it was because of a worm DDoSing us, written by Linux Terrorists.
;)
Evil minion #2: Excellent, we go live in 3 days!
Evil minion #3: Hmmm, February, that does ring a bell for some reason. Wait, isn't February that odd month with only 28 days?
Evil minion #1: Yes it is! But wait, does that mean, if we're going live in 3 days...
Evil minion #2: And February has 28 days...
All evil minions: Then we have to take the servers down immediately!!
A quick phone call and some screams later, a puzzled-looking engineer is unplugging network cables frantically.
The best is yet to come, wait for part two when they put their servers back online after realizing January has 31 days, not 30, and have acted one day too early
With that plan, 1. and 2. are optional. Besides, everyone knows in Soviet Russia the Beowulf cluster of G5s film Episode III!
DSL is absolutely great. All the power of Linux in the small business card CD.
It does have a small con, and that is the hardware support, which is somewhat a bit more limited tham the latest Knoppix. I've run this on a few machines and ran into a bit of trouble with some of the more exotic hardware, but it really shines when running in old boxes (we got a Pentium 100 to boot with this thing).
I'd highly recommend this if you are going to go around showing Linux to people, giving it a try first while having the full-blown Knoppix as a backup.
Ooooh, does that mean the EULA practice is going to be challenged in court? This should be interesting.
No actual scientific data came down, though.
At this point in time, scientific data be damned! As long as the Engineers get all the data they need to find out what's wrong, and hopefully fix it, that data is worth every bit.
We've already losr Beagle up there, losing Spirit before Opportunity arrives would be very very bad. I hope, I *really* hope, the problem is software and not hardware.
There seems to be some dry ice there too, so don't worry about it.
All that will happen is that I'll stop purchasing DVDs, same as I stopped purchasing CDs over 3 years ago.
:)
There's still books and videogames. Of course, the second will disappear as soon as Palladium comes along (out of spite, as usual), and by the looks of it project Gutenbert will run out of books if Disney keeps pushing copyright longer and longer.
You're right, it IS frigtening, I might have to step out of the house one of these days!
How hard would it be to have, instead of a wheel, a thin strip of the stuff they use for touchpads in laptops (god, how I hate them, give me a trackball anytime) on the side to replace the functionality of said wheel?
I don't think it'd be TOO hard, and the results would probably be good.
You're absolutely right, and you've also have nailed a very important point about MMOGs.
;)
The physical media for traditional games is important because, no matter what, you will be able to play that game.
In MMOGs the real "game", so to speak, is being provided to you by the company on a way similar to arcades. People don't like to go and buy a CD and then pay for the online content since the online content is the only game. You're tied to the company, and they decide the fate of the game, so there is no point in buying the CD, and more importantly, that's a market where people will be much more likely to pay for downloading bits instead of buying plastic!
I just remembered the "Phantom" console and had a good chuckle
You take the minerals you're interested in, make them into giant balls and toss them towards the Earth. Some of the stuff will survive the re-entry.
;)
Note: Aim for Siberia or something. And don't be too greedy packing the giant balls, you don't want to overdo it, trust me
I had heard of these things before (like here, but it's the first time I see anyone talking about it seriously other than in future, vague projects and predictions.
It's like low-cost, low-tech satellite communications (less area covered, less powerful transmission units, but cheaper too), the only thing I see as a possible problem is the interference with air traffic in higher populated areas (probably the reason why they're starting with these more remote locations for implementation).
Damn cool if you ask me.
It's not only the beeping of alarm clocks, or the fact that they wake you up in the middle of your threesome with Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
Ah, so they are not so evil after all.
Basically two GBAs?
Yet another step in evolution brought you by duct tape!