Of course, the smart way to use dirty workarounds is to document where and why you used them. That way future generations will see why your code is so ugly and perhaps not run into the same problems again when they decide to clean up your stuff.
Probably because they cater to the lowest-price segment. Aldi and Lidl are optimized to waste as little money as possible and to pass the savings on to the customer. The result is that they have extremely low prices. (By the way, consumer watchdogs have found out that the quality of Aldi goods in on par with that of regular supermarkets. That's unsurprising, as most of their stuff actually comes from big-brand producers.)
In a different thread someone noted that recent builds of the kernel don't have this problem anymore. You might want to look at the repository before filing a report.
I didn't think of that. Over here, credit cards aren't as popular as in the USA, so it doesn't matter whether most small stores take them at all or charge extra. (It's understandable that they do; supporting CCs is expensive.)
Washington
The US Army will abandon depleted uranium, instead opting to use John C. Dvorak's pressed nail clippings as the new antitank weapon of choice. This change in policy followed a study that proved Dvorak to be the densest object on Earth, surpassing DU by at least an order of magnitude.
This amazing property of his stems from the fact that his brain seems to be a lump of pure neutronium, a material previously thought not to exist in our solar system. In order to sustain the ultra-massive brain, the rest of the body has dramatically inreased density, as well.
"We plucked some of his eyebrow hairs and used them in flechette rounds," said General J. Random Soldier during a press conference held Friday. "They punched through two inches of reinforced steel like butter."
"This is pretty amazing," added scientist Foobar Quux, who conducted the study on Dvorak's unique physique "I mean, how does he think with that brain at all?"
In order to produce the massive amounts of nail clippings required by the USA Army, Dvorak has been put on special medication intended to accelerate nail growth. Even though the drugs are known to have debilitating side effects including the loss of all higher brain functions, Army scientists have not been able to detect any difference in Dvorak's behavior.
No, they should have either said "sorry, we screwed up, but we're working on a fix" or "sorry, we screwed up and can't fix it; you need to fix it Linux-side". Both are better than "Linux is not supported and that is a sufficient explanation as to why our USB device acts funky".
They pulled out because nobody cared about Wal-Mart. Seriously, Wal-Mart was just another supermarket corporation, except that they didn't have the presence of the big players. Many of the stragegies that make Wal-Mart so powerful in the USA were already in use at the local corps, so essentially Wal-Mart competed against a couple of other Wal-Marts that just happened to be much stronger. However, I am not aware of Edeka or Rewe being associated with sweatshops, an image blemish that has further helped with making Wal-Mart unpopular.
Yes, Wal-Mart was just plain unpopular in Germany. They carried over their corporate identity and culture from the states; however, Germans have a different taste and Wal-Mart managed to exactly miss it. Their reputation of killing smaller stores made them unpopular enough for people to protest against the opening of Wal-Mart stores. Them not shelving products that did't fit their family-friendly image didn't help, either. Also, Wal-Mart was somewhat expensive when compared to the hugely popular disounters like Aldi.
So in essence, Wal-Mart was the underdog, was unpopular from the start, couldn't leverage any of its usual advantages and didn't even have the price advantage as the Wal-Mart business model is too expensive to compete with Aldi-style discounters on price. No wonder they pulled out; in order to win over Germany they would have had to change much of their corporate identity and culture and posiion themselves in an entirely different market segment than in the States (where, as far as I know, they cater to the low-price segment).
By the way, what's currently the word on the various manufacturers? I know that Maxtor has a reputation of low durability, however its RMA process is rather good. Seagate has long warranties, but what about the quality of the drives? Last thing I heard, IBMs were overpriced and underperforming; is that still true?
Some insight into what/. thinks of the various manufacturers would be helpful in deciding on future purchases.
The really smart way to react would have been: "This is a issue with Linux taking longer then expected by us to identify itself as USB 2 compatible upon the hard drive leaving standby mode. We will publish a modifed firmware with a longer timeout; until then Linux users can use the entirely unsupported workarounds detailed on our website."
Or: "This is a issue with Linux taking longer then expected by us to identify itself as USB 2 compatible upon the hard drive leaving standby mode. Unfortunately, the timeout is hardcoded in the drive's USB interface and cannot be changed; Linux users are advised to use the entirely unsupported workarounds detailed on our website or choose a different product."
Both responses would have saved face. Linux users can stomach some fairly complex workarounds (especially since those workarounds tend to end up as transparent fixes in places like the kernel), but they won't accept "Linux is not supported".
1) No. But hey, Germany's still part of the world.
2) Perhaps. He does read/., after all.
3) I used Germany as an example. If out local corps are strong enough to keep Wal-Mart out, those in other countries might be able to, as well.
You mean the USA and maybe Canada, right? Other countries have their large chains, too, and as Wal-Mart's failure in Germany shows, being a large player in the USA doesn't neccessarily mean squat elsewhere.
For those who don't follow German supermarket corporation politics: Wal-Mart pulled out of the German market in 2006 after losing ~$3 bn and sold their local assets to the Rewe corporation, one of the big players in the German supermarket business.
If BB/CC expaded to Germany they'd meed stiff resistance from firmly entrenched players like Media Markt (which should have a near-100% brand recognition) and Saturn, which both belong to the Metro Group, which is one of the big players that Wal-Mart lost against. Hardly a good way go gain foothold.
I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Germany, the big brick-and-mortar chains are firmly entrenched with the trenches in question being nuke-proof bunkers.
Have you tried looking for a computer store that isn't part of a big chain? I generaly prefer small stores because there you find people who know what they're selling and who can give you decent advice on what to buy, decent hardware at usually decent prices and service that the big guys just can't match.
Example: I needed some thermal grease for an emergency repair. I drove to a small local store and asked for some; what gets handed to me is a small tube that they just happened to have lying around, free of charge. They didn't need it and couldn't sell it, so I could have it.
Example: Another time, my graphics card became screwy and I didn't have a second PCIe card to replace it with. It was 17:40, twenty minutes before the store closes. I call them and ask them if they can close a bit later as I need to make an emergency purchase. No problem at all, they tell me. 18:05 I walk into the store and buy "the cheapest NVidia PCIe card you have".
You don't get that kind of service with the big chains. Sure, they might have a bigger selection, but the independent/small-chain stores generally have everything you might need in a hurry and can back-order stuff they don't have. And even if they can't always match the big players' prices, the service is in an entirely different league.
"Like, I'll totally have to ask [IE general manager] Dean [Hachamovitch] what the hell is going on, I mean, we're not, there's totally not, like, some deep secret about what we're doing with IE or something."
-- like, what Bill Gates actually said
There are plenty of ideas to copy. I mean, for IE7 they took tabbed browsing, mixed up the UI and called that a major release. Maybe for version 8 they might take XHTML support, although I'd rather imagine they include a spellchecker, put the menu bar at the bottom of the window and call the result IE8.
I'm not violent and I'm opposed to widespread gun ownership (a civilized society shouldn't have a need for that), but the idea of US-sanctioned RIAA goons coming to my home and trying to enforce US law where it doesn't apply coupled with the fact that big media owns all politicians everywhere makes the prospect of owning a handgun somewhat attractive.
Seriously, if this continues someone will be up against the wall. The only question is if the ones against the wall belong to us or to them.
I think it would be called "Microsoft Windows Mobile Telephone Platform for GSM 2009 Basic Edition", cost 300 dollars (EDGE, GPRS and MMS supported only by the Professional Edition for $500), weigh in at 2 pounds and have a battery life of ten hours idle (mostly due to the Geforce 8600M that drives the Aero Mobile interface).
Seriously, how can someone implement electronic voting without making at least EAL5 for all involved components as well as for the system as a whole a mandatory requirement? (I'd demand EAL6, but let's stay somewhat realistic.) If I'd be the lawmaker, I'd be pretty paranoid about e-voting; I'd let at least three reknowned e-security experts draft up lists of requirements independently of each other and then combine them together in the most restrictive way possible. Encrypted transmissions, encrypted file storage, encrypted everything. Steel casings locked down with combination physical/induction key locks (the key contains an induction dongle), complete with tampering detection hardware. Mandatory submission of the device to several security shops at least one year in advance; if any feasible attacks (whether compromization or DOS) are found until three months before the election, the devices get red-lighted.
My voting machines would make mil-spec computers look like $199 Walmart junk. Of course the user interface would undergo similarly rigorous testing before being standardized - if there's any chance any reasonable voter can get confused the whole UI and, by extension, all voting machines aren't worth jack.
Then again I'm not a politician. They know best what's in their interest; certifiably secure elections might not be.
Oh, and snape kills dumbledor ( after a gay affair ).
See, it's changes like that one why I refuse to watch the digitally remastered Star Wars movies. Those characters didn't even appear in the original movies!
If we manage to completely sterilize Earth, we're fucked anyway. A doomsday scenario might just end with a massive loss in biodiversity (for example if we manage to set most of Earth on fire); in that case such a seed bank would be immensely useful.
Or we nuke most of our food-producing crops to oblivion and need to replace those.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, the smart way to use dirty workarounds is to document where and why you used them. That way future generations will see why your code is so ugly and perhaps not run into the same problems again when they decide to clean up your stuff.
Probably because they cater to the lowest-price segment. Aldi and Lidl are optimized to waste as little money as possible and to pass the savings on to the customer. The result is that they have extremely low prices. (By the way, consumer watchdogs have found out that the quality of Aldi goods in on par with that of regular supermarkets. That's unsurprising, as most of their stuff actually comes from big-brand producers.)
In a different thread someone noted that recent builds of the kernel don't have this problem anymore. You might want to look at the repository before filing a report.
Whoops. Overlooked that one.
I didn't think of that. Over here, credit cards aren't as popular as in the USA, so it doesn't matter whether most small stores take them at all or charge extra. (It's understandable that they do; supporting CCs is expensive.)
Washington
The US Army will abandon depleted uranium, instead opting to use John C. Dvorak's pressed nail clippings as the new antitank weapon of choice. This change in policy followed a study that proved Dvorak to be the densest object on Earth, surpassing DU by at least an order of magnitude.
This amazing property of his stems from the fact that his brain seems to be a lump of pure neutronium, a material previously thought not to exist in our solar system. In order to sustain the ultra-massive brain, the rest of the body has dramatically inreased density, as well.
"We plucked some of his eyebrow hairs and used them in flechette rounds," said General J. Random Soldier during a press conference held Friday. "They punched through two inches of reinforced steel like butter."
"This is pretty amazing," added scientist Foobar Quux, who conducted the study on Dvorak's unique physique "I mean, how does he think with that brain at all?"
In order to produce the massive amounts of nail clippings required by the USA Army, Dvorak has been put on special medication intended to accelerate nail growth. Even though the drugs are known to have debilitating side effects including the loss of all higher brain functions, Army scientists have not been able to detect any difference in Dvorak's behavior.
No, they should have either said "sorry, we screwed up, but we're working on a fix" or "sorry, we screwed up and can't fix it; you need to fix it Linux-side". Both are better than "Linux is not supported and that is a sufficient explanation as to why our USB device acts funky".
They pulled out because nobody cared about Wal-Mart. Seriously, Wal-Mart was just another supermarket corporation, except that they didn't have the presence of the big players. Many of the stragegies that make Wal-Mart so powerful in the USA were already in use at the local corps, so essentially Wal-Mart competed against a couple of other Wal-Marts that just happened to be much stronger. However, I am not aware of Edeka or Rewe being associated with sweatshops, an image blemish that has further helped with making Wal-Mart unpopular.
Yes, Wal-Mart was just plain unpopular in Germany. They carried over their corporate identity and culture from the states; however, Germans have a different taste and Wal-Mart managed to exactly miss it. Their reputation of killing smaller stores made them unpopular enough for people to protest against the opening of Wal-Mart stores. Them not shelving products that did't fit their family-friendly image didn't help, either. Also, Wal-Mart was somewhat expensive when compared to the hugely popular disounters like Aldi.
So in essence, Wal-Mart was the underdog, was unpopular from the start, couldn't leverage any of its usual advantages and didn't even have the price advantage as the Wal-Mart business model is too expensive to compete with Aldi-style discounters on price. No wonder they pulled out; in order to win over Germany they would have had to change much of their corporate identity and culture and posiion themselves in an entirely different market segment than in the States (where, as far as I know, they cater to the low-price segment).
By the way, what's currently the word on the various manufacturers? I know that Maxtor has a reputation of low durability, however its RMA process is rather good. Seagate has long warranties, but what about the quality of the drives? Last thing I heard, IBMs were overpriced and underperforming; is that still true?
/. thinks of the various manufacturers would be helpful in deciding on future purchases.
Some insight into what
The really smart way to react would have been: "This is a issue with Linux taking longer then expected by us to identify itself as USB 2 compatible upon the hard drive leaving standby mode. We will publish a modifed firmware with a longer timeout; until then Linux users can use the entirely unsupported workarounds detailed on our website."
Or: "This is a issue with Linux taking longer then expected by us to identify itself as USB 2 compatible upon the hard drive leaving standby mode. Unfortunately, the timeout is hardcoded in the drive's USB interface and cannot be changed; Linux users are advised to use the entirely unsupported workarounds detailed on our website or choose a different product."
Both responses would have saved face. Linux users can stomach some fairly complex workarounds (especially since those workarounds tend to end up as transparent fixes in places like the kernel), but they won't accept "Linux is not supported".
Like Parasite Eve, but a little bit less unfeasible.
1) No. But hey, Germany's still part of the world. /., after all.
2) Perhaps. He does read
3) I used Germany as an example. If out local corps are strong enough to keep Wal-Mart out, those in other countries might be able to, as well.
For those who don't follow German supermarket corporation politics: Wal-Mart pulled out of the German market in 2006 after losing ~$3 bn and sold their local assets to the Rewe corporation, one of the big players in the German supermarket business.
If BB/CC expaded to Germany they'd meed stiff resistance from firmly entrenched players like Media Markt (which should have a near-100% brand recognition) and Saturn, which both belong to the Metro Group, which is one of the big players that Wal-Mart lost against. Hardly a good way go gain foothold.
I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Germany, the big brick-and-mortar chains are firmly entrenched with the trenches in question being nuke-proof bunkers.
Have you tried looking for a computer store that isn't part of a big chain? I generaly prefer small stores because there you find people who know what they're selling and who can give you decent advice on what to buy, decent hardware at usually decent prices and service that the big guys just can't match.
Example: I needed some thermal grease for an emergency repair. I drove to a small local store and asked for some; what gets handed to me is a small tube that they just happened to have lying around, free of charge. They didn't need it and couldn't sell it, so I could have it.
Example: Another time, my graphics card became screwy and I didn't have a second PCIe card to replace it with. It was 17:40, twenty minutes before the store closes. I call them and ask them if they can close a bit later as I need to make an emergency purchase. No problem at all, they tell me. 18:05 I walk into the store and buy "the cheapest NVidia PCIe card you have".
You don't get that kind of service with the big chains. Sure, they might have a bigger selection, but the independent/small-chain stores generally have everything you might need in a hurry and can back-order stuff they don't have. And even if they can't always match the big players' prices, the service is in an entirely different league.
"Like, I'll totally have to ask [IE general manager] Dean [Hachamovitch] what the hell is going on, I mean, we're not, there's totally not, like, some deep secret about what we're doing with IE or something."
-- like, what Bill Gates actually said
There are plenty of ideas to copy. I mean, for IE7 they took tabbed browsing, mixed up the UI and called that a major release. Maybe for version 8 they might take XHTML support, although I'd rather imagine they include a spellchecker, put the menu bar at the bottom of the window and call the result IE8.
I'm not violent and I'm opposed to widespread gun ownership (a civilized society shouldn't have a need for that), but the idea of US-sanctioned RIAA goons coming to my home and trying to enforce US law where it doesn't apply coupled with the fact that big media owns all politicians everywhere makes the prospect of owning a handgun somewhat attractive.
Seriously, if this continues someone will be up against the wall. The only question is if the ones against the wall belong to us or to them.
I think it would be called "Microsoft Windows Mobile Telephone Platform for GSM 2009 Basic Edition", cost 300 dollars (EDGE, GPRS and MMS supported only by the Professional Edition for $500), weigh in at 2 pounds and have a battery life of ten hours idle (mostly due to the Geforce 8600M that drives the Aero Mobile interface).
Seriously, how can someone implement electronic voting without making at least EAL5 for all involved components as well as for the system as a whole a mandatory requirement? (I'd demand EAL6, but let's stay somewhat realistic.) If I'd be the lawmaker, I'd be pretty paranoid about e-voting; I'd let at least three reknowned e-security experts draft up lists of requirements independently of each other and then combine them together in the most restrictive way possible. Encrypted transmissions, encrypted file storage, encrypted everything. Steel casings locked down with combination physical/induction key locks (the key contains an induction dongle), complete with tampering detection hardware. Mandatory submission of the device to several security shops at least one year in advance; if any feasible attacks (whether compromization or DOS) are found until three months before the election, the devices get red-lighted.
My voting machines would make mil-spec computers look like $199 Walmart junk. Of course the user interface would undergo similarly rigorous testing before being standardized - if there's any chance any reasonable voter can get confused the whole UI and, by extension, all voting machines aren't worth jack.
Then again I'm not a politician. They know best what's in their interest; certifiably secure elections might not be.
Whatever he's called, we're talking about the big scary guy with the Force Sweat.
If we manage to completely sterilize Earth, we're fucked anyway. A doomsday scenario might just end with a massive loss in biodiversity (for example if we manage to set most of Earth on fire); in that case such a seed bank would be immensely useful.
Or we nuke most of our food-producing crops to oblivion and need to replace those.
Because photovoltaics are well-known for not failing after two or three decades. Right.
Brillant!