But if medical science advances to the point that most of the human population has some horribly debilitating natural (ie: genetic) disease, to the point where they can't even reproduce without serious medical help, don't you think medical science would have advanced enough to cure that debilitatin genetic condition:)
I know it's already been said... just wanted to add my voice to the chorous.
Of course, in this hypothetical future, if there was a huge medical monopoly, they might decide to make the entire human race dependant on their procedures, rather than curing the problem. Ah well, I'm tired and cranky:)
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
It's a troll, and an obvious one. While the last thing they said, "Star Trek has been done to death. It's time for it to rest." had the ring of truth to it, this person was still obviously being an arse for the sake of it.
Just because a post has a bit of insight, doesn't mean that the troll who wrote it should be rewarded. Take the entirety of the message into account.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Re:That's not what they mean by "unique."
on
Who Owns Your Body?
·
· Score: 2
Please read my post more carefully, as well:)
I only said I "wanted my cut" as a figure of speech. But since it's also partially true, let me explain a little bit more clearly.
If somebody makes lots of money off of something that came from my body, then I'd like my fair share. If they want to release their findings into the public domain, then that's allright by me, I don't even care about credit. In this case, I wouldn't ask for anything, especially not money.
And you say I'm being a bit selfish? Well, isn't this hypothetical doctor that patents something selfish? Isn't the lawyer who helps that doctor patent it selfish? Or should we all just give away everything we think up freely? Would that make you happy?
I wouldn't mind it. But since it isn't going to happen soon, I choose to "play the game".
And they're not playing by the rules. I don't care *how* ubiquitous the molecule they find in my sample is. They want to use my sample, they either pay for it or release all their findings to public domain. Now, you might think, "well, fine, they'll just get another sample". True enough, it could happen. But if this practise were made widely known, how many patients would start loosing trust in their doctors? How many people would start demanding the same thing I want? If you're going to make unreasonable profit off something(which a patent would imply), then you get to share that profit with those who helped you make it. If you want to release whatever you find to the public, for the benefit of humanity at large, then no problem, would you like a kidney?
The point I'm trying to make is that there is a fairly decent chance that someone's biopsy is going to be used to make a discovery, and that that discovery will be patented. After that, there's a fairly good chance that that patent will be abused. Legally or not, I don't give a crap. If they abuse their discovery, which my sample helped make, I'll get pissed about it.
So I'm not saying this is a bad practice; I can imagine the hoops the doctors would have to jump through to get samples otherwise. But what I *am* saying is that if some of these doctors are nothing but profiteering opportunists, then they arn't allowed to take advantage of me and my body. Simple as that.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Re:That's not what they mean by "unique."
on
Who Owns Your Body?
·
· Score: 2
I'll take what you say as true.
And you know what, it still bothers the hell out of me.
If some doctor, down the line, uses my cells to develop some useful drug, patents it, and makes millions, I want my cut.
If that doctor found some useful drug from my cells, publishes the results in a reputable publication, and makes whatever intellectual property involved Public Domain, I've got no problem.
To me, the issue isn't that they're using my biopsies in a way that wasn't originally intended, what bothers me is that I might, unknowingly, be a key part in something that I find personally objectionable.
If they want biopsies, get the from themselves. If they want mine, then they get to play by my rules.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Fine, I'd use 'mmv' instead a for loop then. Whatever.
Anyways, I showed you an example(although a bad one) of how easy things can be from a CLI. Now, show me how I'd do the same in Windows, without a compiler.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
People migrating from Windows to *nix, and Linux in particular, are wasting their time if they never leave GNOME/KDE/whatever.
Aside from stability and philisophical issues, Linux doesn't have all that much to offer if you stay in the various desktop environments.
The power of *nix, and therefore Linux, comes at the command line. Lots of little utilities, which are fairly easy to learn(if one decides to learn them, and takes the time to read the documentation) lend themselves to a great environment.
I've found that in Linux, the more complex a task becomes, you need to put proportionally more work into it. I think it's about 1:1.
In Windows, the more complex a task is, you end up spending an exponential amount of time at it. As soon as you try to do something that doesn't have a button somewhere, you've got to bend over backwards.
Even when there is a button for it, you'll often have to find it, which isn't always easy.
There, I've said it:)
Anyways, I'm all for integrating the CLI into the GUI. I'd love to be able to type 'for i in *.txt; do mv ${i%%.txt} $i.html; done' in a URL bar.
Look at that, I just re-named thousands of files that ended in.txt to have thousands of files that no longer have.txt, but.html at the end. Hoo-YAH!:) Quick 'n easy, if hard to learn. Try doing the same without an quick 'n dirty shell script, or script of some other sort.
If GUIs start incorporating more shell-like features into them, we bring that up another layer, and make things easier.
Okay, I'm babbling. You'll have to forgive me, I'm really terribly sick with the flu:)
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
This is *way* too late to get modded up, but such is life. I'm going to say what I've got to say, ignoring the fact that it's already been said here before;)
In the interview, Mr. Burney said that at the time Corel Linux was being designed, there were no easy to use Linux distributions available.
WRONG. Oh, so WRONG.
Let's try to understand each other here, and seperate a few things:
Ease of use: The ability to easily get work done. If you can get more work done in less time, it's "easy to use".
Ease of learning: How long it takes you to start being productive. If you can sit down at a computer and immediately start writing a spreadsheet, it's "easy to learn".
Ease of maintenance: How easy it is to keep your system running. If you have to re-install all your software once a year to keep stuff running, it's *not* "easy to maintain.
Now, Linux in general is *very* difficult to learn. However, once learned, it's laughably easy to use. Easy-to-access scripting, pipes, the reliance on text-format data all makes Linux easy to use, if difficult to learn. I'd say on a score of 1-10, Linux has about 7 on ease-of-use, 2 on ease-of-learning, and 8 on ease-of-maintenance.
Windows, on the other hand is generally easy to learn. Hell, there's not much to learn in the first place:) However, to get work accomplished often takes longer, and involves more convoluted steps(that is to say, it's not particularily logical). I'd give Windows a 4 on ease-of-use, 3 on ease-of-maintenance, and 9 on ease-of-learning.
But Linux is *still* easier to use:)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
'make clean && make dep && time make bzImage':
real 7m24.803s
user 6m30.070s
sys 0m39.630s
'make clean && make dep && time make -j3 bzImage':
real 7m9.606s
user 6m28.400s
sys 0m38.910s
This is a relatively monolithic kernel; only sound is modular, everything else I need is compiled in. So, doing a 'make -j3' on *my* uniprocessor system yields an absolutely <sarcasm>*MASSIVE*</sarcasm> 15.2 second gain.
In short, while I wouldn't make any bets on the benchmark these fellows did, I don't think they're as useless as most people seem to be thinking.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I'm not going to argue about whether Linus is smothering kernel development or not. Quite frankly, I lean a bit more to the "yes" side of it. Of course, that doesn't matter, because his system seems to be working:)
But let's, for a moment, consider what the author is suggesting.
Would anyone here trust IBM, Compaq, and other heavyweights with the development of the kernel? Would you trust them to be honest and open? Would you trust them to keep other people's needs in mind, as well as their own?
Most importantly, do you honestly believe they'd make a compromise (in kernel functionality, or anything else) that would cost them money?
I didn't think so.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I live in Canada, and I'll adress a few of your points from a Canadian perspective:
1) Very few people trust their local telco. I certainly don't trust them even with DSL, let alone with cable access.
I trust my local telephone company. In my life, I've never been without telephone service. I'm serious. There was a tornado nearby once, and the power(and cable access) was out for nearly a day - but we still had our phones.
I've witnessed dozens of cable outages. While generally short(usually around an hour), a few have lasted upwards of a day or two.
2) When was the last time a cable system in a big city (where the rollout would probably start, as it usually does) was economically viable with only 60 channels?
In most parts of Canada, you need to pay an extra 10-15 dollars(Canadian) to get 60 channels. Regular service has about 30-40. I think the most you can actually get(no matter how much money you have), short of getting a satellite dish, is about 75 or a hundred.
3) Think about the cable signal over copper lines. If you're in an area with fibre optics, great. But if not, your cable reception could be evil.
I'll agree that I think this is a backwards step. We should be moving away from old telephone lines to something approaching TV cable, or ideally, fibre. However, most of my region(I live in a town of 10,000 people) have fibre optics. In fact, I have fibre going right up to across the street(where there's a big telephone company box of some sort). Mind you, my impression is that Canada(and especially Ontario) is rather well-connected.
4) 95% (at least) of all municipalities that have cable available for residents have a long term contract in place. To switch to a telco for this would require some nifty sidestepping of issues.
I don't know anyone who has a long-term cable contract. It's always monthly.
5) Imagine cable support through your telco.
I was recently chatting with someone about this:) They were from Texas, I think, and had problems because of the local telephone company monopoly. They moved to an area with more competition, and things got better.
Well, I've got news:) Up until about five years ago, there was only ONE telephone carrier available in my area. And they were just fine:) No serious problems, technicians always made it out when they said they would(although, sometimes[if it wasn't a serious problem], you'd have to wait a few days). Perfectly well-behaved.
The point? Don't bash the technology because the people who are initially using it arn't the nicest people in the world. If this makes it into my city before cable broadband access does, I'll sign up for it.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I can't really say if the British Parliment actually wielded any power of time, but the Queen wasn't allowed in the Commons(where much of the decision-wrangling is done). She's never been allowed in there, and she's never been(or, maybe in the past year they did away with it? Not sure).
So, I don't know if they wielded any actual power, but they were able to tell the Queen that she couldn't step foot into a building within her kingdom. That's gotta say something:)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
You can get the security patches from the sourceforge site. What can I say? I'm shocked. Did anyone read the source? or do we just want these things open source for political reasons these days?
What are you talking about? The hole has been there for YEARS, put there by original Interbase authors, and it wasn't found until AFTER the code was released as open source.
Are you on drugs, do you not even read the Slashdot blurb, let alone the article, or are you just a troll?
Prick.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I can think of tons of things MS can do to stop Linux. Like:
1) Support tons of peripherals that Linux doesn't
That doesn't mean Linux won't exist any more. It'll just mean that Windows supports more peripherals.
2) Have a nice standard, easy to use and intuitive GUI
Can't argue with the "standard" part. But it's not easy to use. It's easy to learn. It's not intuitive, it's just that everyone has already used it. Understand this: easy to learn doesn't mean it's easy to use. Mind you, I'm not putting down easy-to-learn interfaces, but the difference merits mention.
3) Using MS means you never have to hear stupid arguments about licenses or asinine definitions of "free"
Flambait alert!:) Yeah, and using Linux means you never have to hear stupid stories about software vendor lock-in, nor asinine definitions of "ownership".
4) Plus it will be a cold day in hell before you have Office for Linux anyway...
Hey, I've heard hell has the occasional cold snap.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I don't think it's uncomfortable in the same way though. When someone is yelling at me, I want to hit them. When THIS guy USES CAPS too MUCH, I just want to close my browser.:)
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
That might explain why I'm starting to understand it with Python. Python may be sufficiently different than anything else I've used that it makes me re-learn stuff.
On the other hand, Lisp is also very different, but to me, only syntactically. 90% of the code I've ever written uses dynamic data for everything. I never did #a = $b + $c, it was always add(b, c, a) type things. Which is suprisingly like (setq a (+ b c))
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
If an object is data with functions, then I've been doing object-oriented programming all my life. Even with assembly. Sure, it might not have been in the code, but each bit of data I was working had a function associated with it.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Now, I'll be honest. About four paragraphs into the article, I had to stop. I didn't understand it.
I am *not* a OOP programmer. To be honest, I've never been able to understand it. The first programming language I learned was dBase(if you can call that a programming language), and I learned that when I was around 5 or 6.
After than, I learned assembly. 16-bit, 80286-style Intel assembly.
When I was around 16, I learned Borland Turbo Pascal. I've been using computers my entire life. I'm good. Not great, but good.
And you know what? I've never understood OOP. I just don't "get it." Sure, I understand the theory, but when it comes to real work, I've never understood it.
Now, that's not to say I've never used it. I've used it, and used it well. But I never knew why they had to call it "object-oriented". It always confused me. Whenever someone started talking about OOP, I'd have to leave the room. It didn't make any sense. It's like if everyone started calling the TV a "forbick". Doesn't make any sense does it? I mean, it's a TV. Why call it a forbick?
Anyways, I'm beginning to understand a bit more. I've been playing with Python, and I think I'm starting to grasp it.
Ah well, I'm tired and babbling:)
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Three years, eh? How many accounts have you started then? That's an aaawfully high number for someone who would have had an account for three years...:)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Those people who moderated posts up must be in the majority. It probably wasn't obvious to them, because they modded it up. Since they're a good crossection of the majority, that probably means that the majority doesn't think it's obvious, and it then became worth saying:)
Dave
P.S.: I don't mind constructive critisism - no need to post anonymously when replying to one of my posts.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Thanks, you hit the nail on the head with that one:)
And Eazel will eventually be charging for their services, keep in mind. Of course you're willing to pay, so that's all right:) I'd rather contribute my fair share of effort than pay. Feels better that way:)
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Mandrake is up-to-date in Cooker. Would they release Cooker? Will Cooker eventually be on CD as Mandrake 8 or somesuch? That's the question.
The entire point of 'apt' is two things:
1) Easy installation of package x.
2) Easy upgrade of package x to the latest version.
In order for the easy installation of package x, it has to be available in a place where 'apt' can find it. You mentioned that you'll only be able to download packages that are signed? Does that mean Mandrake will devote 3-4 developers, full time, to package all the various 10000+ utilities/applications/etc that are available for Linux? That's where my doubts lie. Debian's package maintainers do have the time an efforts - there are hundreds of them, all working on their own little packages. So, sure, if you can only download signed packages the quality can have some guarantee, but that's only if the package you want is available from a certified source(like your distribution maker's computers). But as soon as they don't have something packaged, all that guarantee goes out the window. If it was there in the first place.
As far as easy upgrades, it doesn't matter that Mandrake has Cooker. Ever tried to get a Cooker RPM to work on a regularily installed Mandrake 7.1 distribution? Never went well for me. So not only do they have to have it packaged, but it has to be packaged for all the various versions of their distributions.
A lot of work.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Granted, I only tried cooker quite a while ago, but it seemed to me to be incredibly broken.
As I recall, dependancies were often very innacurate, packages had not been completely compiled(as in they didn't have all the binaries/libraries the package should have), and three out of every ten moderately complex programs segfaulted.
Now, that was quite a while ago:)
Right now I'm using the bleeding edge version of Debian. Called Sid, standing for Still In Development, it's not suggested for casual users. It's not even suggested for enthusiastic users. It's only for people who are familiar with system recovery:) Even so, I've only had one major break since I've started running it. Lemme see if I can remember what broke...
Damn, can't remember. Something to do with KDE2, though, I'm pretty sure.
Ah well:)
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Slashdot Mirror
You raise an interesting point.
:)
... just wanted to add my voice to the chorous.
:)
But if medical science advances to the point that most of the human population has some horribly debilitating natural (ie: genetic) disease, to the point where they can't even reproduce without serious medical help, don't you think medical science would have advanced enough to cure that debilitatin genetic condition
I know it's already been said
Of course, in this hypothetical future, if there was a huge medical monopoly, they might decide to make the entire human race dependant on their procedures, rather than curing the problem. Ah well, I'm tired and cranky
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Who moderated that post up?
It's a troll, and an obvious one. While the last thing they said, "Star Trek has been done to death. It's time for it to rest." had the ring of truth to it, this person was still obviously being an arse for the sake of it.
Just because a post has a bit of insight, doesn't mean that the troll who wrote it should be rewarded. Take the entirety of the message into account.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Please read my post more carefully, as well :)
I only said I "wanted my cut" as a figure of speech. But since it's also partially true, let me explain a little bit more clearly.
If somebody makes lots of money off of something that came from my body, then I'd like my fair share. If they want to release their findings into the public domain, then that's allright by me, I don't even care about credit. In this case, I wouldn't ask for anything, especially not money.
And you say I'm being a bit selfish? Well, isn't this hypothetical doctor that patents something selfish? Isn't the lawyer who helps that doctor patent it selfish? Or should we all just give away everything we think up freely? Would that make you happy?
I wouldn't mind it. But since it isn't going to happen soon, I choose to "play the game".
And they're not playing by the rules. I don't care *how* ubiquitous the molecule they find in my sample is. They want to use my sample, they either pay for it or release all their findings to public domain. Now, you might think, "well, fine, they'll just get another sample". True enough, it could happen. But if this practise were made widely known, how many patients would start loosing trust in their doctors? How many people would start demanding the same thing I want? If you're going to make unreasonable profit off something(which a patent would imply), then you get to share that profit with those who helped you make it. If you want to release whatever you find to the public, for the benefit of humanity at large, then no problem, would you like a kidney?
The point I'm trying to make is that there is a fairly decent chance that someone's biopsy is going to be used to make a discovery, and that that discovery will be patented. After that, there's a fairly good chance that that patent will be abused. Legally or not, I don't give a crap. If they abuse their discovery, which my sample helped make, I'll get pissed about it.
So I'm not saying this is a bad practice; I can imagine the hoops the doctors would have to jump through to get samples otherwise. But what I *am* saying is that if some of these doctors are nothing but profiteering opportunists, then they arn't allowed to take advantage of me and my body. Simple as that.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I'll take what you say as true.
And you know what, it still bothers the hell out of me.
If some doctor, down the line, uses my cells to develop some useful drug, patents it, and makes millions, I want my cut.
If that doctor found some useful drug from my cells, publishes the results in a reputable publication, and makes whatever intellectual property involved Public Domain, I've got no problem.
To me, the issue isn't that they're using my biopsies in a way that wasn't originally intended, what bothers me is that I might, unknowingly, be a key part in something that I find personally objectionable.
If they want biopsies, get the from themselves. If they want mine, then they get to play by my rules.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Okay, again, sorry, my fault :)
:)
Truth be told, I am sucking back NyQuil quite quickly, and I'm having trouble focusing
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Fine, I'd use 'mmv' instead a for loop then. Whatever.
Anyways, I showed you an example(although a bad one) of how easy things can be from a CLI. Now, show me how I'd do the same in Windows, without a compiler.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
lol :) Thanks for pointing that out.
:)
Like I said, I've got the flu a I'm rather feverish
Thanks again,
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
:)
.txt to have thousands of files that no longer have .txt, but .html at the end. Hoo-YAH! :) Quick 'n easy, if hard to learn. Try doing the same without an quick 'n dirty shell script, or script of some other sort.
:)
People migrating from Windows to *nix, and Linux in particular, are wasting their time if they never leave GNOME/KDE/whatever.
Aside from stability and philisophical issues, Linux doesn't have all that much to offer if you stay in the various desktop environments.
The power of *nix, and therefore Linux, comes at the command line. Lots of little utilities, which are fairly easy to learn(if one decides to learn them, and takes the time to read the documentation) lend themselves to a great environment.
I've found that in Linux, the more complex a task becomes, you need to put proportionally more work into it. I think it's about 1:1.
In Windows, the more complex a task is, you end up spending an exponential amount of time at it. As soon as you try to do something that doesn't have a button somewhere, you've got to bend over backwards.
Even when there is a button for it, you'll often have to find it, which isn't always easy.
There, I've said it
Anyways, I'm all for integrating the CLI into the GUI. I'd love to be able to type 'for i in *.txt; do mv ${i%%.txt} $i.html; done' in a URL bar.
Look at that, I just re-named thousands of files that ended in
If GUIs start incorporating more shell-like features into them, we bring that up another layer, and make things easier.
Okay, I'm babbling. You'll have to forgive me, I'm really terribly sick with the flu
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
This is *way* too late to get modded up, but such is life. I'm going to say what I've got to say, ignoring the fact that it's already been said here before ;)
:) However, to get work accomplished often takes longer, and involves more convoluted steps(that is to say, it's not particularily logical). I'd give Windows a 4 on ease-of-use, 3 on ease-of-maintenance, and 9 on ease-of-learning.
:)
In the interview, Mr. Burney said that at the time Corel Linux was being designed, there were no easy to use Linux distributions available.
WRONG. Oh, so WRONG.
Let's try to understand each other here, and seperate a few things:
Ease of use: The ability to easily get work done. If you can get more work done in less time, it's "easy to use".
Ease of learning: How long it takes you to start being productive. If you can sit down at a computer and immediately start writing a spreadsheet, it's "easy to learn".
Ease of maintenance: How easy it is to keep your system running. If you have to re-install all your software once a year to keep stuff running, it's *not* "easy to maintain.
Now, Linux in general is *very* difficult to learn. However, once learned, it's laughably easy to use. Easy-to-access scripting, pipes, the reliance on text-format data all makes Linux easy to use, if difficult to learn. I'd say on a score of 1-10, Linux has about 7 on ease-of-use, 2 on ease-of-learning, and 8 on ease-of-maintenance.
Windows, on the other hand is generally easy to learn. Hell, there's not much to learn in the first place
But Linux is *still* easier to use
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Just for the hell of it, I tried out my own little benchmark.
Single-processors system, compiling linux-2.2.18 w/ ReiserFS patch 3.5.29.
'make clean && make dep && time make bzImage':
real 7m24.803s
user 6m30.070s
sys 0m39.630s
'make clean && make dep && time make -j3 bzImage':
real 7m9.606s
user 6m28.400s
sys 0m38.910s
This is a relatively monolithic kernel; only sound is modular, everything else I need is compiled in. So, doing a 'make -j3' on *my* uniprocessor system yields an absolutely <sarcasm>*MASSIVE*</sarcasm> 15.2 second gain.
In short, while I wouldn't make any bets on the benchmark these fellows did, I don't think they're as useless as most people seem to be thinking.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I'm not going to argue about whether Linus is smothering kernel development or not. Quite frankly, I lean a bit more to the "yes" side of it. Of course, that doesn't matter, because his system seems to be working :)
But let's, for a moment, consider what the author is suggesting.
Would anyone here trust IBM, Compaq, and other heavyweights with the development of the kernel? Would you trust them to be honest and open? Would you trust them to keep other people's needs in mind, as well as their own?
Most importantly, do you honestly believe they'd make a compromise (in kernel functionality, or anything else) that would cost them money?
I didn't think so.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I live in Canada, and I'll adress a few of your points from a Canadian perspective:
:) They were from Texas, I think, and had problems because of the local telephone company monopoly. They moved to an area with more competition, and things got better.
:) Up until about five years ago, there was only ONE telephone carrier available in my area. And they were just fine :) No serious problems, technicians always made it out when they said they would(although, sometimes[if it wasn't a serious problem], you'd have to wait a few days). Perfectly well-behaved.
1) Very few people trust their local telco. I certainly don't trust them even with DSL, let alone with cable access.
I trust my local telephone company. In my life, I've never been without telephone service. I'm serious. There was a tornado nearby once, and the power(and cable access) was out for nearly a day - but we still had our phones.
I've witnessed dozens of cable outages. While generally short(usually around an hour), a few have lasted upwards of a day or two.
2) When was the last time a cable system in a big city (where the rollout would probably start, as it usually does) was economically viable with only 60 channels?
In most parts of Canada, you need to pay an extra 10-15 dollars(Canadian) to get 60 channels. Regular service has about 30-40. I think the most you can actually get(no matter how much money you have), short of getting a satellite dish, is about 75 or a hundred.
3) Think about the cable signal over copper lines. If you're in an area with fibre optics, great. But if not, your cable reception could be evil.
I'll agree that I think this is a backwards step. We should be moving away from old telephone lines to something approaching TV cable, or ideally, fibre. However, most of my region(I live in a town of 10,000 people) have fibre optics. In fact, I have fibre going right up to across the street(where there's a big telephone company box of some sort). Mind you, my impression is that Canada(and especially Ontario) is rather well-connected.
4) 95% (at least) of all municipalities that have cable available for residents have a long term contract in place. To switch to a telco for this would require some nifty sidestepping of issues.
I don't know anyone who has a long-term cable contract. It's always monthly.
5) Imagine cable support through your telco.
I was recently chatting with someone about this
Well, I've got news
The point? Don't bash the technology because the people who are initially using it arn't the nicest people in the world. If this makes it into my city before cable broadband access does, I'll sign up for it.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I can't really say if the British Parliment actually wielded any power of time, but the Queen wasn't allowed in the Commons(where much of the decision-wrangling is done). She's never been allowed in there, and she's never been(or, maybe in the past year they did away with it? Not sure).
:)
So, I don't know if they wielded any actual power, but they were able to tell the Queen that she couldn't step foot into a building within her kingdom. That's gotta say something
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
You can get the security patches from the sourceforge site. What can I say? I'm shocked. Did anyone read the source? or do we just want these things open source for political reasons these days?
What are you talking about? The hole has been there for YEARS, put there by original Interbase authors, and it wasn't found until AFTER the code was released as open source.
Are you on drugs, do you not even read the Slashdot blurb, let alone the article, or are you just a troll?
Prick.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I can think of tons of things MS can do to stop Linux. Like:
:) Yeah, and using Linux means you never have to hear stupid stories about software vendor lock-in, nor asinine definitions of "ownership".
1) Support tons of peripherals that Linux doesn't
That doesn't mean Linux won't exist any more. It'll just mean that Windows supports more peripherals.
2) Have a nice standard, easy to use and intuitive GUI
Can't argue with the "standard" part. But it's not easy to use. It's easy to learn. It's not intuitive, it's just that everyone has already used it. Understand this: easy to learn doesn't mean it's easy to use. Mind you, I'm not putting down easy-to-learn interfaces, but the difference merits mention.
3) Using MS means you never have to hear stupid arguments about licenses or asinine definitions of "free"
Flambait alert!
4) Plus it will be a cold day in hell before you have Office for Linux anyway...
Hey, I've heard hell has the occasional cold snap.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
You're right. It is just as uncomfortable :)
:)
I don't think it's uncomfortable in the same way though. When someone is yelling at me, I want to hit them. When THIS guy USES CAPS too MUCH, I just want to close my browser.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Did anyone feel enlightenened by the end of this? I felt that someone had robbed my of my time.
The questions wern't answered terribly well(I'm not going to single any out), AND HE YELLED WAY TO MUCH!!!!
It was PAINFUL to READ!
Are they SURE that's REALLY Andre Hedrick? It LOOKS like some l33t k1dd13's RESPONSE!
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
That might explain why I'm starting to understand it with Python. Python may be sufficiently different than anything else I've used that it makes me re-learn stuff.
On the other hand, Lisp is also very different, but to me, only syntactically. 90% of the code I've ever written uses dynamic data for everything. I never did #a = $b + $c, it was always add(b, c, a) type things. Which is suprisingly like (setq a (+ b c))
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Like I said, I understand the theory.
If an object is data with functions, then I've been doing object-oriented programming all my life. Even with assembly. Sure, it might not have been in the code, but each bit of data I was working had a function associated with it.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Now, I'll be honest. About four paragraphs into the article, I had to stop. I didn't understand it.
:)
I am *not* a OOP programmer. To be honest, I've never been able to understand it. The first programming language I learned was dBase(if you can call that a programming language), and I learned that when I was around 5 or 6.
After than, I learned assembly. 16-bit, 80286-style Intel assembly.
When I was around 16, I learned Borland Turbo Pascal. I've been using computers my entire life. I'm good. Not great, but good.
And you know what? I've never understood OOP. I just don't "get it." Sure, I understand the theory, but when it comes to real work, I've never understood it.
Now, that's not to say I've never used it. I've used it, and used it well. But I never knew why they had to call it "object-oriented". It always confused me. Whenever someone started talking about OOP, I'd have to leave the room. It didn't make any sense. It's like if everyone started calling the TV a "forbick". Doesn't make any sense does it? I mean, it's a TV. Why call it a forbick?
Anyways, I'm beginning to understand a bit more. I've been playing with Python, and I think I'm starting to grasp it.
Ah well, I'm tired and babbling
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Three years, eh? How many accounts have you started then? That's an aaawfully high number for someone who would have had an account for three years ... :)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Those people who moderated posts up must be in the majority. It probably wasn't obvious to them, because they modded it up. Since they're a good crossection of the majority, that probably means that the majority doesn't think it's obvious, and it then became worth saying :)
Dave
P.S.: I don't mind constructive critisism - no need to post anonymously when replying to one of my posts.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Thanks, you hit the nail on the head with that one :)
:) I'd rather contribute my fair share of effort than pay. Feels better that way :)
And Eazel will eventually be charging for their services, keep in mind. Of course you're willing to pay, so that's all right
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Mandrake is up-to-date in Cooker. Would they release Cooker? Will Cooker eventually be on CD as Mandrake 8 or somesuch? That's the question.
The entire point of 'apt' is two things:
1) Easy installation of package x.
2) Easy upgrade of package x to the latest version.
In order for the easy installation of package x, it has to be available in a place where 'apt' can find it. You mentioned that you'll only be able to download packages that are signed? Does that mean Mandrake will devote 3-4 developers, full time, to package all the various 10000+ utilities/applications/etc that are available for Linux? That's where my doubts lie. Debian's package maintainers do have the time an efforts - there are hundreds of them, all working on their own little packages. So, sure, if you can only download signed packages the quality can have some guarantee, but that's only if the package you want is available from a certified source(like your distribution maker's computers). But as soon as they don't have something packaged, all that guarantee goes out the window. If it was there in the first place.
As far as easy upgrades, it doesn't matter that Mandrake has Cooker. Ever tried to get a Cooker RPM to work on a regularily installed Mandrake 7.1 distribution? Never went well for me. So not only do they have to have it packaged, but it has to be packaged for all the various versions of their distributions.
A lot of work.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Granted, I only tried cooker quite a while ago, but it seemed to me to be incredibly broken.
:)
:) Even so, I've only had one major break since I've started running it. Lemme see if I can remember what broke ...
:)
As I recall, dependancies were often very innacurate, packages had not been completely compiled(as in they didn't have all the binaries/libraries the package should have), and three out of every ten moderately complex programs segfaulted.
Now, that was quite a while ago
Right now I'm using the bleeding edge version of Debian. Called Sid, standing for Still In Development, it's not suggested for casual users. It's not even suggested for enthusiastic users. It's only for people who are familiar with system recovery
Damn, can't remember. Something to do with KDE2, though, I'm pretty sure.
Ah well
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)