The way I look at it: if it doesn't work in Mozilla, then it is, by definition, broken. There's no conceivable reason they shouldn't be able to code it to work in Mozilla. That it doesn't work is just plain laziness or ignorance.
This is how I write to webmasters of sites that won't work on my mozilla browser(s): "I am writing to inform you that your website is broken. I am trying to view page XYZ on [operating system] using [Mozilla Browser] and your [site feature] isn't working. I would be likely to return to your site regularly if it was coded properly. Please send me a reply when your website has been fixed."
Be the change you wish to see, as Ghandi put it. EXPECT sites to work on Moz. It's the only way they'll learn.
Americans: I'm voting third party, and you should too if you care one whit for the democratic process or the future of this country.
"A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush!" "Vote for the lesser evil." "Don't throw your vote away." and the even more misleading: "It isn't throwing your vote away, but it won't change anything."
are all memes I've grown to hate. They all completely miss the point. Vote for the man you want for the job. PERIOD. Because one day, a non-Republicrat WILL WIN.
I'm voting third party, at the encouragement of I.F. Stone, who tells me: "The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing--for the sheer fun and joy of it--to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it."
I'm voting third party because Bush and Kerry are exactly the same damned thing. And I am not going to let either head of the Republicrat media hydra turn me, or anyone who will listen to me, into some marionette to be tugged about by the memory of 9/11/01.
I'm voting third party because it's the only way I can leave that booth this November without the guilty weight of a near-decade of gratuitous bloodshed heaped upon my heart.
I have suspicions about what things will be like with four more years of these country club politicians. But getting to say "I told you so" is just not worth it this time.
I disagree that it balances out, because one powerful or wealthy party can hire whole teams of expensive lawyers to root out heaven-only-knows-what and prance about in the court room until the other, less powerful party runs out of money with which to pay HIS attorneys.
End result: the wealthy can lawfully oppress the poor. There is nothing new under the sun.
Some traits of this thing sound like the ultimate in modular design. Of course, I've done this sort of thing myself already by burning all the necessary files in/home onto a CD-RW. I could blow up my computer right now and probably have an identical Fedora system on another machine in as long as it takes the OS to install. The fact that they're proposing this as coming from a server really isn't that different. Once again, someone has re-invented the thin client. I would like to see something like a "medium client." System-level stuff is remotely hosted so any user-inflicted damage is repaired *once* and for all, but the client retains a disk, and other traits of a fat client, to give the user significant flexibility with what he's doing at the machine. Maybe I'm just talking out my ass, but wouldn't that be a little more useful and/or bandwidth friendly than the thin client everyone keeps talking about? Or would user apps keep breaking?
When Red Hat makes a business out of HOSTING people's systems and apps, then they've out-Microsofted Microsoft.
One thing Sci-Fi will always have a purpose for is that of authors with a passion for the sciences. Ideas in theoretical physics are always decent sources for interesting plots or complications. In the hands of a skilled author, SF based on this kind of thing is, IMHO, a great way to explore the implications of an invention before we can invent it.
But good fiction of any kind is always about the present. If it cannot provide insight about the present, then what good is it?
I know you're not necessarily making that assertion, but I disagree that software is a natural monopoly.
What is likely to be a natural monopoly is the standards used for communication protocols. Microsoft knows this and that's where we get the first Halloween Document. But broadly, I'm referring to protocols for hardware, networking, software interoperability, whatever. As long as everyone is using the same protocols to move data around (and some organization OTHER than a corporation is controlling the protocols), the front ends and added value to those protocols are still a wide open field for competition, open- or closed-source.
But with the growing popularity (and existing dominance) of OSS software, the natural monopoly might go to the general OSS framework. The vengeful part of me wants to see Microsoft miss that boat entirely. The practical part wants to see them participate, because once in a blue moon, they do have a well-implemented good idea.
I've actually wondered why someone hasn't done this already. It's very entertaining to watch good players play. What would be really neat is if you got a skilled "spectator" cameraman inside the game and that's what the spectators of the game would see on one screen (possibly as someone narrates, filling in the viewers on details about certain players and their habits or grudges). Meanwhile, the actual players are elsewhere, playing on their own machines and screens.
Perhaps they get paid for victories or good showmanship. It could be like professional wrestling, but with pale, pizzafaced adolescents instead!
I am still reminded of Sun's Project Looking Glass. They showed in a big presentation to hundreds/thousands of people a desktop system where the windows were 3d panels, with little buttons and tools embedded on the sides; you could flip them any which way, watch a video from behind. You could stack all the windows edgewise on the side of the screen with one click, and restore them with another. It looked intuitive, concise, and efficient; a very very clever extension of the desktop metaphor we're all used to. And it was WORKING. It looked like they could release it tomorrow. And this was in 2003.
The only Microsoft 3d desktop demonstration I can recall seeing was some obscure handycam video of some guy moving 2d windows around inside a WindowsXP mod called SphereXP. Not to bash the guy's efforts but by comparison it looked hacked together and confusing (especially for "Aunt Tillie"). I'm looking at research.microsoft.com right now and the video of Microsoft guys talking about a 3d desktop... Then they show their implementation of one. It. Is. A. Mess. It is beyond description. You really have to see it for yourself. Nobody would want this. If you thought people's Windows desktops now were cluttered, organizational trainwrecks, you should see this thing. It would make Aunt Tillie's head spin--if it didn't give her motion sickness first.
I'm inclined to agree with you that Microsoft may already have lost its position of leadership. Listening to the guys in the research.microsoft.com video, it sounds like MSFT is mostly populated by PHB's now.
But it looks like Microsoft is pulling the same old vaporware trick again. Whether they wanted to or not.
I honestly thought they weren't going to release Longhorn until it was done; until it had what they said it was going to have. I was starting to think it might be good enough to swat down the Linux competition long enough for MSFT to catch its breath.
I suspected this before, but now I think I'm convinced: The term "Longhorn" just refers to "whatever sneaks out the door when the deadline hits, we're not really sure". So what is this thing going to be, anyway? A bunch of new proprietary networking protocols and 3d-accelerated OS services? At least we can hope its security dashboard will be more refined than XP2's. Unix-izing the division between Administrator and User would also be a very simple, colossal step in the right direction (as we all keep saying). Here's hoping it doesn't suck.
You would think that they would be a Microsoft shill given the fact that it's *MS*NBC, but most of the time I hear the exact opposite kind of talk out of them. They seem to be frank about MS product flaws, and willing to praise praiseworthy competitors.
Do they just happen to NOT have their heads up their asses, or is there a more cynical explanation?
Way back in I-don't-remember-when, I had heard so much about this "Counter-Strike" thing that I finally broke down and bought a $30 retail copy at GameStop. Loved it. I quickly relalized this was just a mod for the full game called Half-Life. Always wanted to play Half-Life, but it was never worth the extra $20-30 bucks to me to be able to play it. So I pirated my roommate's copy until I almost beat the game... Then there was a hard drive format, so no more HL.
Steam comes along and with my CS reg key, I at last get the full version of Half-Life LEGALLY, and quick and easy access to other popular mods, and a server Favorites list (don't remember if original CS allowed this. I used to write down the IP of a good server to play there) so I can find good games faster, and keep it updated VERY easily. I've installed older CS numerous times and version compatibility was a constant headache, even WITH the seemingly appropriate patches. With Steam, all that business is managed automatically. It's heaven. As for buggy or memory intensive, I encountered one bug so far (input lag playing havoc with my keyboard) and that lasted only a few days. And I don't know how little RAM you have, but steam barely scratches my 512mb, which I presume is common for todays FPS player.
As long as you didn't pirate the game(s), Steam is wonderful, IMHO
I had always planned on getting one for work once I graduated with my English degree and begin interning at a publishing house. But a few things have turned me off against it.
1) Extremely annoying Mac zealots chanting "It has teh UNIX!" when they have no clue what that means. 2) "Total Cost of 0wnership" study showing how laughably weak MacOS is, even though "it has teh UNIX!" 3) The OS is proprietary, as is the hardware. Expensive and hard to come by. 4) The elitist stigma that would come with owning one. (I don't think they'll sell you one unless you have an aloof attitude, a goatee and a pair of those fashionably thick-framed rectangular eyeglasses.) 5) This bit of news.
Apple is just as susceptible to flaws like this as anyone else. I prefer the more ubiquitous and affordable hardware.
I've decided instead that when the time comes I should get an IBM Thinkpad and put RHEL on it.
What I think is the "real" issue here is that customers that have installed SP2 simply don't have a clue about what a firewall is, what it does, and how to use it.
I still firmly believe that a person needs a bit of an education before using a personal computer of any sort, especially one with internet access. For their own safety, if not for the safety of others. This isn't the sort of thing that can be remedied by making UI's more intuitive or friendly. Some things you just need to know. For example, everyone should know: what the Internet is; that not everyone on it is trustworthy, and most importantly to READ BEFORE YOU CLICK.
Ignorant (and often gullible) users are too easy to manipulate; 90% of the time it is they who succumb to the shenanigans of fraudsters and virus-writers. For their own sake they need an education, Lord knows the worst of them don't have any common sense.
And indeed, every user should know how to operate a basic firewall. It's an easy thing to explain, especially at the level of allowing or disallowing programs access to the 'net. I've taught several people how to use ZoneAlarm or McAffee Firewall. Most people understand it pretty quickly.
Perhaps if the education can be integrated into the UI somehow (error/warning/question dialog boxes with more pedestrian language and more explanation), we might make some headway against the exploitation of ignorant users.
Dell has too much work ahead of them for this really to be a feasible switch.
How much work? All Dell does is throw commodity parts into a fancy branded tower. All they need to do to pick up this market is to use more expensive components and make a fancier branded tower. Aside from utter incompetence, there is no way Dell could fail. The only real hurdle for Dell is figuring out the proper marketing.
I fired an email his way before this story made it to slashdot, so I was able to get a reply. He seems to believe that P2P is definitely important and should be preserved, just somehow regulated.
Personally, I think it's fine the way it is. And if someone is stupid enough to broadcast personal photos all over the web well, that's their lookout. But the freakazoids at the **AA are definitely going to use stories like this to justify banning it altogether.
I mean, it's an operating system like any other right? And no, it isn't for the canned reasons like instability, insecurity or other "Windows is teh sux0r" gibberings.
Fact is, these research and hardware people don't have to negotiate a license with anybody, don't have to wait for the proper "10240 Processor Edition Platinum Plus Edition XP" of the OS to be finished by the developer, because Linux, in its free nature, allows them to add all the necessary capabilities (and remove unnecessary ones) themselves. Because of the philosophy Free Software, science is not held for ransom by some developer's arbitrary software price.
I suppose I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think those of us interested in telling other people about OSS advantages ought to point to things like this. If you have a project in mind which requires software to fulfill, your work does not have to be at the mercy of some EULA. This empowers individuals and organizations, liberating both from needing to be tethered to some vendor's idea of what they should do with their machines.
Slashdot Mirror
The way I look at it: if it doesn't work in Mozilla, then it is, by definition, broken. There's no conceivable reason they shouldn't be able to code it to work in Mozilla. That it doesn't work is just plain laziness or ignorance.
This is how I write to webmasters of sites that won't work on my mozilla browser(s): "I am writing to inform you that your website is broken. I am trying to view page XYZ on [operating system] using [Mozilla Browser] and your [site feature] isn't working. I would be likely to return to your site regularly if it was coded properly. Please send me a reply when your website has been fixed."
Be the change you wish to see, as Ghandi put it. EXPECT sites to work on Moz. It's the only way they'll learn.
Americans:
I'm voting third party, and you should too if you care one whit for the democratic process or the future of this country.
"A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush!"
"Vote for the lesser evil."
"Don't throw your vote away."
and the even more misleading: "It isn't throwing your vote away, but it won't change anything."
are all memes I've grown to hate. They all completely miss the point. Vote for the man you want for the job. PERIOD. Because one day, a non-Republicrat WILL WIN.
I'm voting third party, at the encouragement of I.F. Stone, who tells me:
"The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing--for the sheer fun and joy of it--to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it."
I'm voting third party because Bush and Kerry are exactly the same damned thing. And I am not going to let either head of the Republicrat media hydra turn me, or anyone who will listen to me, into some marionette to be tugged about by the memory of 9/11/01.
I'm voting third party because it's the only way I can leave that booth this November without the guilty weight of a near-decade of gratuitous bloodshed heaped upon my heart.
I have suspicions about what things will be like with four more years of these country club politicians. But getting to say "I told you so" is just not worth it this time.
I disagree that it balances out, because one powerful or wealthy party can hire whole teams of expensive lawyers to root out heaven-only-knows-what and prance about in the court room until the other, less powerful party runs out of money with which to pay HIS attorneys.
End result: the wealthy can lawfully oppress the poor. There is nothing new under the sun.
More frivolous federal spending!
I can't believe people still think this administration is "conservative."
Thank you. .
I don't use Windows!
The astroturf accusation is a serious one. Can you point to whatever source informed you that Red Hat is doing this?
Personally, I use Fedora myself and enjoy it. I would hate to discover that RHAT is employing such an underhanded tactic.
Some traits of this thing sound like the ultimate in modular design. Of course, I've done this sort of thing myself already by burning all the necessary files in /home onto a CD-RW. I could blow up my computer right now and probably have an identical Fedora system on another machine in as long as it takes the OS to install. The fact that they're proposing this as coming from a server really isn't that different. Once again, someone has re-invented the thin client. I would like to see something like a "medium client." System-level stuff is remotely hosted so any user-inflicted damage is repaired *once* and for all, but the client retains a disk, and other traits of a fat client, to give the user significant flexibility with what he's doing at the machine. Maybe I'm just talking out my ass, but wouldn't that be a little more useful and/or bandwidth friendly than the thin client everyone keeps talking about? Or would user apps keep breaking?
When Red Hat makes a business out of HOSTING people's systems and apps, then they've out-Microsofted Microsoft.
If the Linux kernel really has got such terrible problems, I guess there's always HURD.
One thing Sci-Fi will always have a purpose for is that of authors with a passion for the sciences. Ideas in theoretical physics are always decent sources for interesting plots or complications. In the hands of a skilled author, SF based on this kind of thing is, IMHO, a great way to explore the implications of an invention before we can invent it.
But good fiction of any kind is always about the present. If it cannot provide insight about the present, then what good is it?
I know you're not necessarily making that assertion, but I disagree that software is a natural monopoly.
What is likely to be a natural monopoly is the standards used for communication protocols. Microsoft knows this and that's where we get the first Halloween Document. But broadly, I'm referring to protocols for hardware, networking, software interoperability, whatever. As long as everyone is using the same protocols to move data around (and some organization OTHER than a corporation is controlling the protocols), the front ends and added value to those protocols are still a wide open field for competition, open- or closed-source.
But with the growing popularity (and existing dominance) of OSS software, the natural monopoly might go to the general OSS framework. The vengeful part of me wants to see Microsoft miss that boat entirely. The practical part wants to see them participate, because once in a blue moon, they do have a well-implemented good idea.
I go to school in the relative vicinity of Ann Arbor.... Like the other respondent: any plans for doing this again?
I've actually wondered why someone hasn't done this already. It's very entertaining to watch good players play. What would be really neat is if you got a skilled "spectator" cameraman inside the game and that's what the spectators of the game would see on one screen (possibly as someone narrates, filling in the viewers on details about certain players and their habits or grudges). Meanwhile, the actual players are elsewhere, playing on their own machines and screens.
Perhaps they get paid for victories or good showmanship. It could be like professional wrestling, but with pale, pizzafaced adolescents instead!
Netcraft confirms. Microsoft is dying.
The only Microsoft 3d desktop demonstration I can recall seeing was some obscure handycam video of some guy moving 2d windows around inside a WindowsXP mod called SphereXP. Not to bash the guy's efforts but by comparison it looked hacked together and confusing (especially for "Aunt Tillie"). I'm looking at research.microsoft.com right now and the video of Microsoft guys talking about a 3d desktop... Then they show their implementation of one. It. Is. A. Mess. It is beyond description. You really have to see it for yourself. Nobody would want this. If you thought people's Windows desktops now were cluttered, organizational trainwrecks, you should see this thing. It would make Aunt Tillie's head spin--if it didn't give her motion sickness first.
I'm inclined to agree with you that Microsoft may already have lost its position of leadership. Listening to the guys in the research.microsoft.com video, it sounds like MSFT is mostly populated by PHB's now.
I honestly thought they weren't going to release Longhorn until it was done; until it had what they said it was going to have. I was starting to think it might be good enough to swat down the Linux competition long enough for MSFT to catch its breath.
I suspected this before, but now I think I'm convinced: The term "Longhorn" just refers to "whatever sneaks out the door when the deadline hits, we're not really sure". So what is this thing going to be, anyway? A bunch of new proprietary networking protocols and 3d-accelerated OS services? At least we can hope its security dashboard will be more refined than XP2's. Unix-izing the division between Administrator and User would also be a very simple, colossal step in the right direction (as we all keep saying). Here's hoping it doesn't suck.
You would think that they would be a Microsoft shill given the fact that it's *MS*NBC, but most of the time I hear the exact opposite kind of talk out of them. They seem to be frank about MS product flaws, and willing to praise praiseworthy competitors.
Do they just happen to NOT have their heads up their asses, or is there a more cynical explanation?
Way back in I-don't-remember-when, I had heard so much about this "Counter-Strike" thing that I finally broke down and bought a $30 retail copy at GameStop. Loved it. I quickly relalized this was just a mod for the full game called Half-Life. Always wanted to play Half-Life, but it was never worth the extra $20-30 bucks to me to be able to play it. So I pirated my roommate's copy until I almost beat the game... Then there was a hard drive format, so no more HL.
Steam comes along and with my CS reg key, I at last get the full version of Half-Life LEGALLY, and quick and easy access to other popular mods, and a server Favorites list (don't remember if original CS allowed this. I used to write down the IP of a good server to play there) so I can find good games faster, and keep it updated VERY easily. I've installed older CS numerous times and version compatibility was a constant headache, even WITH the seemingly appropriate patches. With Steam, all that business is managed automatically. It's heaven. As for buggy or memory intensive, I encountered one bug so far (input lag playing havoc with my keyboard) and that lasted only a few days. And I don't know how little RAM you have, but steam barely scratches my 512mb, which I presume is common for todays FPS player.
As long as you didn't pirate the game(s), Steam is wonderful, IMHO
Just sad. Why not bundle the phone with an eHarmony service if your phone user is that lonely?
I had always planned on getting one for work once I graduated with my English degree and begin interning at a publishing house. But a few things have turned me off against it.
1) Extremely annoying Mac zealots chanting "It has teh UNIX!" when they have no clue what that means.
2) "Total Cost of 0wnership" study showing how laughably weak MacOS is, even though "it has teh UNIX!"
3) The OS is proprietary, as is the hardware. Expensive and hard to come by.
4) The elitist stigma that would come with owning one. (I don't think they'll sell you one unless you have an aloof attitude, a goatee and a pair of those fashionably thick-framed rectangular eyeglasses.)
5) This bit of news.
Apple is just as susceptible to flaws like this as anyone else. I prefer the more ubiquitous and affordable hardware.
I've decided instead that when the time comes I should get an IBM Thinkpad and put RHEL on it.
I still firmly believe that a person needs a bit of an education before using a personal computer of any sort, especially one with internet access. For their own safety, if not for the safety of others. This isn't the sort of thing that can be remedied by making UI's more intuitive or friendly. Some things you just need to know. For example, everyone should know: what the Internet is; that not everyone on it is trustworthy, and most importantly to READ BEFORE YOU CLICK.
Ignorant (and often gullible) users are too easy to manipulate; 90% of the time it is they who succumb to the shenanigans of fraudsters and virus-writers. For their own sake they need an education, Lord knows the worst of them don't have any common sense.
And indeed, every user should know how to operate a basic firewall. It's an easy thing to explain, especially at the level of allowing or disallowing programs access to the 'net. I've taught several people how to use ZoneAlarm or McAffee Firewall. Most people understand it pretty quickly.
Perhaps if the education can be integrated into the UI somehow (error/warning/question dialog boxes with more pedestrian language and more explanation), we might make some headway against the exploitation of ignorant users.
How much work? All Dell does is throw commodity parts into a fancy branded tower. All they need to do to pick up this market is to use more expensive components and make a fancier branded tower. Aside from utter incompetence, there is no way Dell could fail. The only real hurdle for Dell is figuring out the proper marketing.
I fired an email his way before this story made it to slashdot, so I was able to get a reply. He seems to believe that P2P is definitely important and should be preserved, just somehow regulated.
Personally, I think it's fine the way it is. And if someone is stupid enough to broadcast personal photos all over the web well, that's their lookout. But the freakazoids at the **AA are definitely going to use stories like this to justify banning it altogether.
I thought Linux clusters brought us Google and Pixar.
And good luck licensing a 10240-processor copy of Windows.
I mean, it's an operating system like any other right? And no, it isn't for the canned reasons like instability, insecurity or other "Windows is teh sux0r" gibberings.
Fact is, these research and hardware people don't have to negotiate a license with anybody, don't have to wait for the proper "10240 Processor Edition Platinum Plus Edition XP" of the OS to be finished by the developer, because Linux, in its free nature, allows them to add all the necessary capabilities (and remove unnecessary ones) themselves. Because of the philosophy Free Software, science is not held for ransom by some developer's arbitrary software price.
I suppose I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think those of us interested in telling other people about OSS advantages ought to point to things like this. If you have a project in mind which requires software to fulfill, your work does not have to be at the mercy of some EULA. This empowers individuals and organizations, liberating both from needing to be tethered to some vendor's idea of what they should do with their machines.