"But the key is nobody knowing you have it, so that it doesn't a. get you jumped, and b. walk off in the night or when you leave it in your apartment/hotel room/tent, or what have you."
With the EEE, just take the SD card out and put it in your wallet - the laptop is then ok to leave in a hotel room (since it doesn't contain your data any more, and the replacement cost is small)
"While Tor is WAAAY too slow to allow for usable VoIP, having a network of servers connected with opaque noise-filled pipes should give you decent enough privacy with just two geographically close hops."
Especially if some of those hops are routed via bluetooth or WiFi rather than GPRS... (the call might just disappear into a mesh network, well away from telephone wiretaps)
The question was "Have you ever received such a court order signed by a judge...". But if what they had received instead was a NSL, they would be under a gag provision (with *jail* as the penalty) to not mention anything about it.
So tell them to answer "no" until such time as their answer changes to "no comment"
Absence of a lock is not indicative of permission to enter. This makes sense because, lacking signs, there is no way to tell the difference between a WAP you are encouraged to enter, and one where the owner forgot to lock his door.
So you shouldn't go into shops or pubs without explicit permission?
"Additionally, my bank specifically stated that Safari was not supported. I chose to ignore this warning and indeed the initial setup process failed because I needed to download a secure certificate which involved some IE/Moz specific capability apparently. So I used Firefox to get the certificate and then exported it to the desktop and imported it into Keychain Access. Now my bank's website works perfectly well with Safari."
"I know this has been speculated on many times before, but I'm convinced that Apple is going to pull something out of the hat with regards to this, may be as soon as next year. Perhaps an Apple version of openOffice 2.0?"
When having a copies of Microsoft Office for Mac OS X both available in computer shops, and pre-installed as a demo version, is one of the few things reassuring apple customers that they won't be buying an incompatible computer?
I can't imagine Apple daring to do that, no matter how good NeoOffice/J is -- there's just too much risk that Microsoft will say "no more office" and watch (enough of a percentage of) the business types stop buying Macs.
Having said that, they've released their own suite, consisting of Pages and Keynote so far, both of which are very stylish, easy to use, cheaper than Microsoft, and remarkably devoid of cruft. Anyone know if they support OpenDocument?
"Another obvious advantage of this design is that unlike a propeller, you don't have to turn them around when the direction of the wind changes..."
Of course, turning turbines around has been a solved problem since forever. The disadvantage of vertical turbines is that the wind is so much faster at the top than the bottom, which makes half of the turbine essentially useless.
People who want to use Linux shouldn't buy a video or wireless card that came out last week, it's that simple.
Didn't Toms Hardware refuse to review too-new graphics cards a while ago, on the basis that the Windows drivers for them were buggy and unstable until several months after release?
iPod and Mac zealots are now going to proclaim that "iPods don't get viruses!"?
Well, Creative are famous for supplying large, complex, Windows-only drivers for everything.
I'm selling a Zen now because it's useless as USB storage (requiring hundreds of megabytes of software, not being able to run on mac or linux, (hence incompatible with AmaroK) and with an EULA that forbids you from installing the drivers on more than one machine)
Exactly. Why not link to what the proposed change is actually about, rather than all this "bringing us into line with the rest of the world" crap which is so easily disproven.
It basically means that inventors are no longer the ones who get patents, it's whoever files for the patent. It means that inventing something is no longer a guarantee that you won't infringe on a patent for your own invention. It means that patents no longer protect innovation, they merely protect the value of payments made to the patent office.
Or something like that. Read all about it, it's nothing to do with following the rest of the world, it's nothing to do with efficiency, and it's nothing to do with clarity.
Just over 1kg of coal, depending on what type. And that assumes that you're running the power supply at its limit rather than the nominal 30W that most computers use. So about 100g of coal.
"Think about it. If you're Coca-Cola (or some other huge multinational) that's spending 8-9 figures to be the "official whatever of the Olympics", you're going to want to be pretty sure that your competitor isn't going to just say the same thing unofficially"
Incidentally, one of the most memorable slogans was from one of the non-sponsors (presumably with millions of pounds extra to spend on brewing that they could have spent on sponsorship):
"I think if there's anything that can make a big difference, it's a media-centered site like Apple's iTunes that has things like music videos, sampling, playlists, online radio stations. I can listen to more new bands in a week through iTunes than I ever heard introduced as a new band on a radio, in all the years I've been alive."
The old MP3.com was exactly that. Big community of artists, loads of choice to listen to, and you could discover lots of music you liked.
And compared with modern imitations like iTunes or Megatunes or whatever, it was actually in a usable MP3 format, not some streaming-RealPlayer or WMA inconvenience. (or buy before you try, like iTunes)
"My team is using a combination of Trac and Mantis at the moment - my boss likes Mantis better as a pure bugtracker, but I'm hoping to convert him after Trac 0.9.:)"
"Fog creek software" also do an okay bug-tracker, as joel will never tire of telling you...
"Really!!! Do you even know or have you seen how a average person chooses a laptop?"
OK, should've been clearer. You describe very well the process people typically use to choose laptops. However, such people will have a non-functional laptop within a month, and might easily be classed as "non computer-literate", which was why I rather glossed-over their opinions before.
I should have said something like "people who know what they're doing might buy a linux laptop because..." (for pretty much the same reasons that people who know what they're doing buy Apple laptops)
Actually, yes. However, it got infected by a virus within an hour, and by the time I arrived, people were asking "why doesn't the internet work?", "why is it so slow?" and other such questions.
I've just been setting-up Windows2000 on computers here, and it seems to take 2-3 days per computer (firewall installation, virus checkers, spyware checkers, lots and lots of "windows update", lots of reboots, service packs, printer drivers, scanner drivers, mouse drivers, modem drivers, camera drivers, browser updates, and everything else that takes so long when you've only got a modem and your CD of useful software)
"Besides why would a common person go ahead and buy a laptop linux?"
For the same reason they buy Apple laptops - they want something that doesn't get hacked within 5 minutes of connecting it to the internet, they want something that doesn't have "critical security advisories" every week, and they want something where every program for the platform isn't spyware.
Or perhaps they'd just like a prettier desktop and some customisability.
Slashdot Mirror
"But the key is nobody knowing you have it, so that it doesn't a. get you jumped, and b. walk off in the night or when you leave it in your apartment/hotel room/tent, or what have you."
With the EEE, just take the SD card out and put it in your wallet - the laptop is then ok to leave in a hotel room (since it doesn't contain your data any more, and the replacement cost is small)
"While Tor is WAAAY too slow to allow for usable VoIP, having a network of servers connected with opaque noise-filled pipes should give you decent enough privacy with just two geographically close hops."
Especially if some of those hops are routed via bluetooth or WiFi rather than GPRS... (the call might just disappear into a mesh network, well away from telephone wiretaps)
The question was "Have you ever received such a court order signed by a judge...".
But if what they had received instead was a NSL, they would be under a gag provision (with *jail* as the penalty) to not mention anything about it.
So tell them to answer "no" until such time as their answer changes to "no comment"
"Or they could make the media available in an openly documented format, that's already supported by multiple platforms."
Like, anything supported by Democracy Player...
Absence of a lock is not indicative of permission to enter. This makes sense because, lacking signs, there is no way to tell the difference between a WAP you are encouraged to enter, and one where the owner forgot to lock his door.
So you shouldn't go into shops or pubs without explicit permission?
that doesn't sound right/
"Why shouldn't DRM'd software be written and sold, as long as the transaction is voluntary?"
Maybe FSF thinks that people need to be protected from exploitation?
So is this one Free Software?
(and can you redistribute it once you've provided your email address to Phil for the download link?)
"Additionally, my bank specifically stated that Safari was not supported. I chose to ignore this warning and indeed the initial setup process failed because I needed to download a secure certificate which involved some IE/Moz specific capability apparently. So I used Firefox to get the certificate and then exported it to the desktop and imported it into Keychain Access. Now my bank's website works perfectly well with Safari."
Is that kind of hacking into bank websites legal?
"I know this has been speculated on many times before, but I'm convinced that Apple is going to pull something out of the hat with regards to this, may be as soon as next year. Perhaps an Apple version of openOffice 2.0?"
When having a copies of Microsoft Office for Mac OS X both available in computer shops, and pre-installed as a demo version, is one of the few things reassuring apple customers that they won't be buying an incompatible computer?
I can't imagine Apple daring to do that, no matter how good NeoOffice/J is -- there's just too much risk that Microsoft will say "no more office" and watch (enough of a percentage of) the business types stop buying Macs.
Having said that, they've released their own suite, consisting of Pages and Keynote so far, both of which are very stylish, easy to use, cheaper than Microsoft, and remarkably devoid of cruft. Anyone know if they support OpenDocument?
"Another obvious advantage of this design is that unlike a propeller, you don't have to turn them around when the direction of the wind changes..."
Of course, turning turbines around has been a solved problem since forever. The disadvantage of vertical turbines is that the wind is so much faster at the top than the bottom, which makes half of the turbine essentially useless.
People who want to use Linux shouldn't buy a video or wireless card that came out last week, it's that simple.
Didn't Toms Hardware refuse to review too-new graphics cards a while ago, on the basis that the Windows drivers for them were buggy and unstable until several months after release?
iPod and Mac zealots are now going to proclaim that "iPods don't get viruses!"?
Well, Creative are famous for supplying large, complex, Windows-only drivers for everything.
I'm selling a Zen now because it's useless as USB storage (requiring hundreds of megabytes of software, not being able to run on mac or linux, (hence incompatible with AmaroK) and with an EULA that forbids you from installing the drivers on more than one machine)
Exactly. Why not link to what the proposed change is actually about, rather than all this "bringing us into line with the rest of the world" crap which is so easily disproven.
It basically means that inventors are no longer the ones who get patents, it's whoever files for the patent. It means that inventing something is no longer a guarantee that you won't infringe on a patent for your own invention. It means that patents no longer protect innovation, they merely protect the value of payments made to the patent office.
Or something like that. Read all about it, it's nothing to do with following the rest of the world, it's nothing to do with efficiency, and it's nothing to do with clarity.
Just over 1kg of coal, depending on what type. And that assumes that you're running the power supply at its limit rather than the nominal 30W that most computers use. So about 100g of coal.
"Think about it. If you're Coca-Cola (or some other huge multinational) that's spending 8-9 figures to be the "official whatever of the Olympics", you're going to want to be pretty sure that your competitor isn't going to just say the same thing unofficially"
Incidentally, one of the most memorable slogans was from one of the non-sponsors (presumably with millions of pounds extra to spend on brewing that they could have spent on sponsorship):
"Officially a beer during Euro 2000"
"I would suggest using Macromedia Dreamweaver..."
Dreamweaver's "sanitise Word's HTML" filter seems to lock-up the computer once you feed in anything larger than 50 pages or so
"it is WAY better than Google's start page too - you can actually drag the various sections on the page and place them anywhere on the page."
It's not a true Microsoft application until you can accidentally drag the menu bar into the middle of the screen whilst trying to click on it...
"I think if there's anything that can make a big difference, it's a media-centered site like Apple's iTunes that has things like music videos, sampling, playlists, online radio stations. I can listen to more new bands in a week through iTunes than I ever heard introduced as a new band on a radio, in all the years I've been alive."
The old MP3.com was exactly that. Big community of artists, loads of choice to listen to, and you could discover lots of music you liked.
And compared with modern imitations like iTunes or Megatunes or whatever, it was actually in a usable MP3 format, not some streaming-RealPlayer or WMA inconvenience. (or buy before you try, like iTunes)
"My team is using a combination of Trac and Mantis at the moment - my boss likes Mantis better as a pure bugtracker, but I'm hoping to convert him after Trac 0.9. :)"
"Fog creek software" also do an okay bug-tracker, as joel will never tire of telling you...
http://invisiblog.com/ - sign your blog and send it via MixMaster to the website where it gets automatically published if the signature matches
"DJB is going to turn into the next RMS if he doesn't stop spouting at the mouth"
Excellent... we need some more software which will still be working in 30 years' time. Anyone else wants to become more like RMS, I'm all for it...
"Really!!! Do you even know or have you seen how a average person chooses a laptop?"
OK, should've been clearer. You describe very well the process people typically use to choose laptops. However, such people will have a non-functional laptop within a month, and might easily be classed as "non computer-literate", which was why I rather glossed-over their opinions before.
I should have said something like "people who know what they're doing might buy a linux laptop because..." (for pretty much the same reasons that people who know what they're doing buy Apple laptops)
"Could your grandmother install Windows?"
Actually, yes. However, it got infected by a virus within an hour, and by the time I arrived, people were asking "why doesn't the internet work?", "why is it so slow?" and other such questions.
I've just been setting-up Windows2000 on computers here, and it seems to take 2-3 days per computer (firewall installation, virus checkers, spyware checkers, lots and lots of "windows update", lots of reboots, service packs, printer drivers, scanner drivers, mouse drivers, modem drivers, camera drivers, browser updates, and everything else that takes so long when you've only got a modem and your CD of useful software)
"Does anyone have any experience with running Yellow Dog linux on a powerbook?"
When I asked YellowDog about compatibility, there were things like "external VGA doesn't work", "no auto-brightness", etc.
"Besides why would a common person go ahead and buy a laptop linux?"
For the same reason they buy Apple laptops - they want something that doesn't get hacked within 5 minutes of connecting it to the internet, they want something that doesn't have "critical security advisories" every week, and they want something where every program for the platform isn't spyware.
Or perhaps they'd just like a prettier desktop and some customisability.