"Left, centre, right. Ideal for flight simulators etc"
For flight simulators, you want 3 projectors at least. 5 projectors for helicopter simulations (so you can see out the sides), or 4 projectors for fastjets (one for the view upwards)
If you've got LCD monitors, they're useful too -- set them up as instrument panels, moving maps, or head-down displays.
"Without a Microsoft monoculture, he said, most of the recent progress in information technology could not have happened. Really? Could someone more familiar with Microsoft and their products kindly give me examples?"
Sure, no problem:
(*) Outlook viruses (*) Macro viruses (*) Information leakage in documents (*) Adware (*) Spyware (*) Shareware (*) Compulsory product registration (*) End user licensing (*) Windows messaging (*) AOL users (*) Popup windows? (or was this Netscape?) (*) MS-Word documents (*) Software patents (*) Palladium (*) Web-pages that only work on Internet Explorer (*) J++ (*) ActiveX controls (*) A choice of operating system for your new computer: "Windows98 or WindowsME" (*) Computers capable of powering battleships (*) A generation of office workers who need "retraining" to use OpenOffice (*) Talking paperclips (*) Steve Ballmer
"So the clueless newb will either run linux as root or login as root and install everything they see under the sun"
Huh? How did you figure that one out?
(a) You can't easily login as root. It's not listed on the login screen with other users, and if you tried, you'd get a bright red background with warning notices on it, and a lot of programs would refuse to run.
(b) You can't easily create a user with access to do random deletion stuff. Adding privileges to a user, or making the file permissions more lenient, is a complex task that requires a lot of reading to find out how to do. You don't get the "make this user an administrator" checkbox on the new-user screens.
(c) What exactly are you expecting them to install? Double-click on bonzai buddy from a web-page? Yeah, nice one "file type application/MSWindows, what would you like to do with this file [save] [open with wine]" I've not yet seen a new linux user who doesn't spend the first six months poking around the list of preinstalled applications, seeing what they do.
There's quite a difference between clicking "power user" on a Windows installation, and ignoring the many, many warnings that a Linux distro gives you if you try to do something stupid on installation. Most of the people with a shiny new Linux computer will have had it setup by a friend who explains what admin mode is, why they shouldn't use it, and who to call if they think they might need it.
"Thanks, you fail it."
Ah, the distinctive battlecry of a wannabe expert. "I've got my MCSE, gonna be a CTO someday..."
"I will have the opportunity to tell my IE using freinds and family to make sure they are upgraded to IE6+ or are using Mozilla/Firefox/Opera, otherwise they are at risk every time that the view a picture."
Or tell Privoxy to block bitmap pictures... who uses them on the web except by mistake?
Yes I know it's a hack and not a real fix, but we already know that Microsoft products aren't safe without a linux machine to protect them, whether it be firewall or proxy or load-balancer [microsoft.com] or whatever...
"I've said it before, and it's worth repeating... turn off HTML viewing in your email client, and do it now!... It's an easy way to protect yourself from all sorts of stupid stuff... Ahem, turn off HTML viewing in your email client NOW.
I misread that as "turn off HTML viewing in your web browser NOW", and wondered why it wasn't marked as funny...
Not illegal in China, India, Asia, Europe, Scandinavia... I can hear them laughing from here
Well the defense of U.S. computers does depend a lot on the security of MS-Windows. And Microsoft has said that if the source code were made public then it would compromise the security of Windows.
So...
prepare for the imminent attack?
If you believe what Microsoft said in court, and what the US government said on TV, it might be time to look at buying generators and water filters...
"if I can sue the person who let out the code because it will increase the time I have to spend securing my system."
That's interesting, because other operating systems are plenty secure enough with the source-code available. A logical person would say you should sue Microsoft if your system is insecure because of faults in the OS
Okay, that sounds like a different enough opinion from mine to ask about it.
My view on patents was that their only use is to prevent anyone else from working in a particular area of research. If I invent gadget-X and don't patent it, then the world gets gadget-X. But if I patent it, then I prevent anyone working independantly on the same ideas from working. If I patent it, then gadget-X will not be widely available nor available at a reasonable price until the patent expires. Nor will Gagdet-X ever be improved, because I'm the only person allowed to work on it. There won't be different models of gagdet-X, there won't be a competitive market. There won't be any alternatives. The patent is fundamentally damaging to society.
What was the last thing you bought that was patented? Did you manage to do much comparaison-shopping for it?
So I would never want to own a patent for that reason, I see it as a method for stifling research, rather than encouraging it. Especially in scientific and software* applications, where any license fee is too much.
* Ahem, "computer-implemented inventions" I mean, Lord David "fuck democracy, we're the patent office" Sainsbury.
"She whines about how modern OO languages aren't intuitive for certain relationships"
Hang on, things like bridges are as object-oriented and real-world as it gets, yet it takes years of work by people paid a lot more than programmers to figure out all the complexities... How is real-world analogy going to help code? In interface world, people have stopped trying to emulate actual devices (bitmaps of the front of a VCR on a video-player for example) when they realised that computers inherently do things much more powerful than their physical equivalents, so they need commands that are more powerful.
Try telling your video recorder you want to copy 20 tapes to a backup area, then you realise why imitating the real-world object isn't any help in computing.
p.s. why does every tutorial on object-oriented programming use the example of dog objects in the animal class and such like? It's seriously distracting if you're trying to use the language to create a map-projection-conversions object, if all the books assume you're trying to describe physical objects.
Does this mean that the "average linux computer" is no longer going to be a 200MHz AMD, and the K icon will start to be seen on glow-in-the-dark quad-processor computers with jet engine noises coming from the graphics cards?
Slashdot Mirror
"Left, centre, right. Ideal for flight simulators etc"
For flight simulators, you want 3 projectors at least. 5 projectors for helicopter simulations (so you can see out the sides), or 4 projectors for fastjets (one for the view upwards)
If you've got LCD monitors, they're useful too -- set them up as instrument panels, moving maps, or head-down displays.
"Real is much much worse than even Microsoft."
Why do you think they offered to put it on CDs? For a true punishment, they could have made microsoft pre-install it.
"Nope, don't want that, nope, don't want that, nope, don't want that, aaghh, why are you dialling the internet? nope, don't want that, advanced options, additional advanced options, don't install download manager, next, next, I agree, ok, ok..."
"If I want to hear it, I'll go to their website. Saves the trees, and keeps my inbox clear."
Or go to their blog. I mean, all serious candidates have blogs, right?
"Without a Microsoft monoculture, he said, most of the recent progress in information technology could not have happened. Really? Could someone more familiar with Microsoft and their products kindly give me examples?"
Sure, no problem:
(*) Outlook viruses
(*) Macro viruses
(*) Information leakage in documents
(*) Adware
(*) Spyware
(*) Shareware
(*) Compulsory product registration
(*) End user licensing
(*) Windows messaging
(*) AOL users
(*) Popup windows? (or was this Netscape?)
(*) MS-Word documents
(*) Software patents
(*) Palladium
(*) Web-pages that only work on Internet Explorer
(*) J++
(*) ActiveX controls
(*) A choice of operating system for your new computer: "Windows98 or WindowsME"
(*) Computers capable of powering battleships
(*) A generation of office workers who need "retraining" to use OpenOffice
(*) Talking paperclips
(*) Steve Ballmer
"No one else had the balls to say "screw dumb serial ports, USB is better"."
No one else ever had to interface custom hardware to their computer I guess...
"So the clueless newb will either run linux as root or login as root and install everything they see under the sun"
Huh? How did you figure that one out?
(a) You can't easily login as root. It's not listed on the login screen with other users, and if you tried, you'd get a bright red background with warning notices on it, and a lot of programs would refuse to run.
(b) You can't easily create a user with access to do random deletion stuff. Adding privileges to a user, or making the file permissions more lenient, is a complex task that requires a lot of reading to find out how to do. You don't get the "make this user an administrator" checkbox on the new-user screens.
(c) What exactly are you expecting them to install? Double-click on bonzai buddy from a web-page? Yeah, nice one "file type application/MSWindows, what would you like to do with this file [save] [open with wine]" I've not yet seen a new linux user who doesn't spend the first six months poking around the list of preinstalled applications, seeing what they do.
There's quite a difference between clicking "power user" on a Windows installation, and ignoring the many, many warnings that a Linux distro gives you if you try to do something stupid on installation. Most of the people with a shiny new Linux computer will have had it setup by a friend who explains what admin mode is, why they shouldn't use it, and who to call if they think they might need it.
"Thanks, you fail it."
Ah, the distinctive battlecry of a wannabe expert. "I've got my MCSE, gonna be a CTO someday..."
"And my forst thought was "postage stamp"?! WTF is a postage stamp!?!?.. Haven't they heard of email??.."
New! A 1GB memory device which fits into a chip the size of an email header!
"Wouldn't it be interesting to see the patch come out later today, from an anonymous source!"
Line 3: replace "int" with "unsigned int"
Do I need to be anonymous for this to work?
"More proof that code who's source is open is less secure!"
Surely it's now more secure? The bug has been found. As soon as it's patched there'll be one less bug than there was yesterday.
Assuming a patch, assuming people download it, assuming IE5 is still supported, assuming IE users aren't idiots, assuming air transport of pigs...
"I will have the opportunity to tell my IE using freinds and family to make sure they are upgraded to IE6+ or are using Mozilla/Firefox/Opera, otherwise they are at risk every time that the view a picture."
Or tell Privoxy to block bitmap pictures... who uses them on the web except by mistake?
Yes I know it's a hack and not a real fix, but we already know that Microsoft products aren't safe without a linux machine to protect them, whether it be firewall or proxy or load-balancer [microsoft.com] or whatever...
"What really annoys me about e-cards is that even the legitimate ones look like spam"
Send people a tutorial on how to _attach_ the cute picture to the email, and write the text themselves?
Saves us all time...
"I've said it before, and it's worth repeating... turn off HTML viewing in your email client, and do it now!... It's an easy way to protect yourself from all sorts of stupid stuff... Ahem, turn off HTML viewing in your email client NOW.
I misread that as "turn off HTML viewing in your web browser NOW", and wondered why it wasn't marked as funny...
Well, it would make some things safer...
"How would the FBI having Verisign's private key serve to make SSL any less secure?"
It would give them the ability to put themselves between a user and your website, with no visible indication that anything abnormal was happening.
Granted, if people use Internet Explorer, you can do this anyway without needing the Verisign key...
"Technically, you could call source code blueprints."
Technically, only if you printed it. In blue.
Not illegal in China, India, Asia, Europe, Scandinavia... I can hear them laughing from here
Well the defense of U.S. computers does depend a lot on the security of MS-Windows. And Microsoft has said that if the source code were made public then it would compromise the security of Windows.
So...
prepare for the imminent attack?
If you believe what Microsoft said in court, and what the US government said on TV, it might be time to look at buying generators and water filters...
So, anyone happen to have a torrent link for this "cooking_recipes.zip" file?
Humour intentionally missed
"if I can sue the person who let out the code because it will increase the time I have to spend securing my system."
That's interesting, because other operating systems are plenty secure enough with the source-code available. A logical person would say you should sue Microsoft if your system is insecure because of faults in the OS
"There are mathematics to back up the encryption and the protocols."
Are we assuming that the Verisign key is not available to the FBI?
At worst, they could sign their own version of your key and use it for a bored-agent-in-the-middle attack
Okay, that sounds like a different enough opinion from mine to ask about it.
My view on patents was that their only use is to prevent anyone else from working in a particular area of research. If I invent gadget-X and don't patent it, then the world gets gadget-X. But if I patent it, then I prevent anyone working independantly on the same ideas from working. If I patent it, then gadget-X will not be widely available nor available at a reasonable price until the patent expires. Nor will Gagdet-X ever be improved, because I'm the only person allowed to work on it. There won't be different models of gagdet-X, there won't be a competitive market. There won't be any alternatives. The patent is fundamentally damaging to society.
What was the last thing you bought that was patented? Did you manage to do much comparaison-shopping for it?
So I would never want to own a patent for that reason, I see it as a method for stifling research, rather than encouraging it. Especially in scientific and software* applications, where any license fee is too much.
* Ahem, "computer-implemented inventions" I mean, Lord David "fuck democracy, we're the patent office" Sainsbury.
Its almost as bad as ' a red ford suv ran over the child ' or ' the gun killed the intruder '..
The MyDoom virus apparently, spread through email systems running Unix.
"the leaked source files, which do not compile into a usable form of Windows."
As opposed to the full source-code?
"She whines about how modern OO languages aren't intuitive for certain relationships"
Hang on, things like bridges are as object-oriented and real-world as it gets, yet it takes years of work by people paid a lot more than programmers to figure out all the complexities... How is real-world analogy going to help code? In interface world, people have stopped trying to emulate actual devices (bitmaps of the front of a VCR on a video-player for example) when they realised that computers inherently do things much more powerful than their physical equivalents, so they need commands that are more powerful.
Try telling your video recorder you want to copy 20 tapes to a backup area, then you realise why imitating the real-world object isn't any help in computing.
p.s. why does every tutorial on object-oriented programming use the example of dog objects in the animal class and such like? It's seriously distracting if you're trying to use the language to create a map-projection-conversions object, if all the books assume you're trying to describe physical objects.
"HUGE thanks to Ryan @ Icculus for keeping Linux gaming a really, really good thing."
Hopefully with a big bonus too... I'd never heard of this game before, but damn, if it runs on Linux, I want some games which run on Linux...
I've almost finished MythII as well. Let's try a shooter.
"It's already taken me half a day to download 150MB of the 200 total. This isn't going to help any..."
HTTP goes slower when lots of people are using it. BitTorrent goes faster when lots of people are using it. Right tool for the job...
[...he says, starting the download on his work computer, and going home for the weekend...]
Does this mean that the "average linux computer" is no longer going to be a 200MHz AMD, and the K icon will start to be seen on glow-in-the-dark quad-processor computers with jet engine noises coming from the graphics cards?