Pardon the long post, but I feel there are several things to comment on here
Playing videos on Windows is even easier than that. You just download ffdshow and ac3codec, and you're set. You can then play divx, xvid, any mpeg, and lots of raw format files with complete hardware acceleration (regardless of video card, as long as it's less than 6 years old). The ac3codec gives you ac3 sound, which as it's a directshow filter, gives you hardware-accelerated sound. That's it. Two files you have to run. The player is built into windows (and does a fine job).
You've got two packages (ffdshow, ac3codec), we've got two packages (mplayer, "essential" codec package). Will yours play Quicktime and Real files with just those two packages?
I don't know if I would tout the media player being built in as a good thing. More than once, that built-in media player has opened the rest of the OS (including IE) to attack.
I'm not really going to address the directory structure issue. The standard linux structure is a bit arcane. There is a linux which is working at more readable directories... GoBoLinux
I've seen kde and pretty much everything else you can name, and there are always MANY apps (even ones that come WITH the OS) that seem to ignore the skins completely. They break the consistency. Of course you get them with Windows, too, but not included, and you rarely come across any. That's my point. Until most things actually look the way you intend, it's going to take a back seat. The public is fickle.
This is where most of the linux people say the same thing: that's because not much comes with Windows, whereas all kinds of third party apps come with your standard Linux distribution. All the KDE software looks like KDE, which is a more fair comparison.
There are, of course, apps that don't look just like your desktop. That's partially because of the KDE/GNOME difference. RedHat is making decent progress towards a solution for this.
You can't remove IE from Windows, as IE has lots of functionality Firefox doesn't. IE is available to the rest of the OS via COM object, activeX and DLLs, whereas firefox isn't. Windows relies on that to generate HTML previews, and render all the HTML-based content in Windows. That's quite a bit, seeing as Windows' native help format is based on HTML.
Interestingly, a lot of KDE apps use KHTML to do their HTML work. This is the same as the above problem, but with one key difference: most of those apps can be told to use Mozilla (firefox, if you like) instead, from one KDE control panel.
It is easily argued that, like the WMP problem above, that IE being so tightly integrated isn't a bonus. Again, this integration of non-OS-component/OS just means that problems in the non-OS-component hit the user harder. Of course, this has to be weighed against the problem of every app wanting HTML rendering... the market seems to have decided that it's worth the risk.
I've never had any products on windows screw up the OS to the point of re-installation. Ever. I can't imagine where you even pulled that one from. As for linux, it's a whole lot easier. As most apps have files spanning multiple directories and dependencies across the whole system, it's easy for an errant install to remove (or overwrite) something another app depends on. The sprawling dependency means the system is unstable. You can't deny that - linux's dependencies are a weakness as well as a strength.
Well, you're not in the majority if you've never hosed a Windows install. The problem you're talking about with Linux is solved by one common thing: a decent package manager. Gentoo, for instance, won't allow a package to overwrite another package's configuration files or binaries. Everything else is put in directories that are structured in such a way that they can't overwrite others (/usr/local/doc/packagename-packageversion/, as an example).
My school account gets more spam than normal mail these days. I haven't signed up for anything wierd on it (I have another address to use at hotwetsluts.com). My source of spam is primarily archives of mailing lists.
My work account gets 5-10 spam a day. I think I've sent a total of two emails outside the company, and those were to national labs. Source of spam? Asshats posting the group email alias in public places.
If you're playing music in a public place (like a resturaunt), you're paying. Radio? Pay for every station you play. CDs? Pay based on how many CDs you play a week/month. Satellite radio? Pay for every station, AND pay the satellite provider extra. Net streaming? God help you.
Now, enforcement is an issue. A place could go years without running into any trouble. But all it takes is someone who works for a label (or the RIAA) to walk in and notice that, why, that sounds like music.
I TAed an ethics class this previous semester. Out of curiosity, I had the whole class take the test and give me the results.
This class was made up of a large spectrum of people: anarchists, libertarians, traditional right and left, and everything in between. The plan was that the test would give a nice spread, and we could find it's center and look at how far from center it was.
Out of 30 people, 2 were _not_ in the lower left. One was the german student (who we all would put in the upper right) at 2, 0.5. The other was someone who was at something like -5, 1.
I'm surprised by this, as the GTA series did/does really well. The more recent games from Rockstar (Manhunt) are less impressive, but I thought they still did well enough to keep the company in the black.
You need some decent headphones, then. I've got a pair of Sennheiser HD280 (closed back) that I've been wearing since I got in to work today (~6 hours), and they're still comfortable.
If the band irritates you and you can get by without hearing too much of your coworkers (phone flashes, there's a door, etc), good earbuds are a solution. Not the little foam things that come with every portable music device, but some in-ear-canal ones. Nice ones will have plugs made out of the same foam that earplugs are made out of. You know, the expanding stuff that will perfectly fit your ear.
The downside? Both make it hard to hear anything else, so they're not viable for every job. They are both expensive (Senns are about $100 for the good stuff, comforable ear-canal buds will run more).
While the article is a good rant, it's just wrong sometimes. For instance:
* He says that IPv6 uses 64 bit addresses. It uses 128 bit in reality. You would think that, if you were saying why something was bad, you'd do some basic research?
* Also in the IPv6 stuff, "TCP/IP works pretty well". So? TCP/IPv4 and TCP/IPv6 are the same damn thing. That's not an argument against IPv6, it's an argument for knowing what you're talking about.
* Perl. Sorry, the reasons for moving to the model in Perl 6 is well documented and sane. There's some problems with Perl 5 that we can't get around without losing backwards compatibility (syntax braindamage, for instance).
* Mozilla. Ok, it's slow. The Mozilla team even admits it at this point. MozFirebird is better. The reason for starting fresh wasn't speed, it was because the old codebase sucked.
* HTML. Having a language for both layout and data sucks. Splitting it into 2 parts is much better. There are developer perks, too (no rewriting the website to make it look different, no playing with layout to add data).
The basic point he seems to be missing is: a major version change (1 to 2) is supposed to be a radical update. The version system used by the kernel (and a lot of OSS projects) is based on that. Major.minor.revision. Bump revision when making bug fixes, bump minor when adding features (without breaking too much API), bump major when it's something new altogether.
iTunes doesn't require you to have an iPod. It works fine on your computer. And it's the only solution that allows you to take the files you buy from it, unprotect them, and turn them into whatever format you want.
I know, you'll call me an Apple apologist. Whatever. I guess I could call you a Microsoft apologist and it would make as much sense.
Authentication, administration, everything you want: MeshAP. Supports authenticating against LDAP (comes in the package, or your own), MAC restrictions... everything.
It's open source, runs on commodity hardware (your PC with a WiFi card), and has a big community to help with the rough parts.
(no, I have nothing to do with it, I just like it)
"Hey don't knock Outlook, it's a fantastic product, I love it to bits and hope it goes on to dominate the world even more! I am however a security consultant by trade."
-- Ian Rawlings
I have a relative who is a teacher in California. She told me that, though you don't put your name on those tests they are handed out in order, so that they know who wrote down what.
You realize that the only difference between a 5 and a 4 is that transgaming will support your 5-rated games? For instance, GTA3:VC is rated a 4. It's flawless. They haven't fully tested it, so it's not a 5, but it works great for everyone who tries it.
Not the most helpful EFF page I've seen. "Yeah, party. Here's who is coming"
The Box site, however: On July 25th, from 8pm till 2am, the Electronic Frontier Foundation will host a night of music, art, and conversation to celebrate digital culture. Hosted at the Oakland Box in downtown Oakland, this special BayFF will bring up-and-coming artists of electronica, digital film, and illegal art together with leaders from the cyber-rights movement. Lawsuits and legislation have become the weapons of choice for dealing with file-sharing and cultural recycling("sampling"); come out and discover what all the hype is about. Between laptop music, hip hop, and industrial performances, you will hear from people who are fighting to protect new forms of expression and cultural distribution from the attacks of the entertainment industry. This is an all-ages event.
Slashdot Mirror
That's amazing. It's like Microsoft is saying "well, it's a cheap version. You can't expect them to understand everything Windows does, do you?"
Take your pick: racist or classist. Thanks, Microsoft!
Pardon the long post, but I feel there are several things to comment on here
Playing videos on Windows is even easier than that. You just download ffdshow and ac3codec, and you're set. You can then play divx, xvid, any mpeg, and lots of raw format files with complete hardware acceleration (regardless of video card, as long as it's less than 6 years old). The ac3codec gives you ac3 sound, which as it's a directshow filter, gives you hardware-accelerated sound. That's it. Two files you have to run. The player is built into windows (and does a fine job).
You've got two packages (ffdshow, ac3codec), we've got two packages (mplayer, "essential" codec package). Will yours play Quicktime and Real files with just those two packages?
I don't know if I would tout the media player being built in as a good thing. More than once, that built-in media player has opened the rest of the OS (including IE) to attack.
I'm not really going to address the directory structure issue. The standard linux structure is a bit arcane. There is a linux which is working at more readable directories... GoBoLinux
I've seen kde and pretty much everything else you can name, and there are always MANY apps (even ones that come WITH the OS) that seem to ignore the skins completely. They break the consistency. Of course you get them with Windows, too, but not included, and you rarely come across any. That's my point. Until most things actually look the way you intend, it's going to take a back seat. The public is fickle.
This is where most of the linux people say the same thing: that's because not much comes with Windows, whereas all kinds of third party apps come with your standard Linux distribution. All the KDE software looks like KDE, which is a more fair comparison.
There are, of course, apps that don't look just like your desktop. That's partially because of the KDE/GNOME difference. RedHat is making decent progress towards a solution for this.
You can't remove IE from Windows, as IE has lots of functionality Firefox doesn't. IE is available to the rest of the OS via COM object, activeX and DLLs, whereas firefox isn't. Windows relies on that to generate HTML previews, and render all the HTML-based content in Windows. That's quite a bit, seeing as Windows' native help format is based on HTML.
Interestingly, a lot of KDE apps use KHTML to do their HTML work. This is the same as the above problem, but with one key difference: most of those apps can be told to use Mozilla (firefox, if you like) instead, from one KDE control panel.
It is easily argued that, like the WMP problem above, that IE being so tightly integrated isn't a bonus. Again, this integration of non-OS-component/OS just means that problems in the non-OS-component hit the user harder. Of course, this has to be weighed against the problem of every app wanting HTML rendering... the market seems to have decided that it's worth the risk.
I've never had any products on windows screw up the OS to the point of re-installation. Ever. I can't imagine where you even pulled that one from. As for linux, it's a whole lot easier. As most apps have files spanning multiple directories and dependencies across the whole system, it's easy for an errant install to remove (or overwrite) something another app depends on. The sprawling dependency means the system is unstable. You can't deny that - linux's dependencies are a weakness as well as a strength.
Well, you're not in the majority if you've never hosed a Windows install. The problem you're talking about with Linux is solved by one common thing: a decent package manager. Gentoo, for instance, won't allow a package to overwrite another package's configuration files or binaries. Everything else is put in directories that are structured in such a way that they can't overwrite others (/usr/local/doc/packagename-packageversion/, as an example).
I do have objectivity.
All I have to say is, WRX. Not quite a lesbian car, though you may be mistaken for a street racer.
The fix seems fairly straightforward, and is implemented by my employer. Simply:
This is a contract written for programmers, so the language is fairly clear about not fucking you on your home projects.
But we also get 50% of royalties on anything they end up owning (that goes to patent), so maybe we just suck less :)
Good for you?
My school account gets more spam than normal mail these days. I haven't signed up for anything wierd on it (I have another address to use at hotwetsluts.com). My source of spam is primarily archives of mailing lists.
My work account gets 5-10 spam a day. I think I've sent a total of two emails outside the company, and those were to national labs. Source of spam? Asshats posting the group email alias in public places.
Not everyone who gets spammed deserves it.
At least in the US, you're wrong.
If you're playing music in a public place (like a resturaunt), you're paying. Radio? Pay for every station you play. CDs? Pay based on how many CDs you play a week/month. Satellite radio? Pay for every station, AND pay the satellite provider extra. Net streaming? God help you.
Now, enforcement is an issue. A place could go years without running into any trouble. But all it takes is someone who works for a label (or the RIAA) to walk in and notice that, why, that sounds like music.
Of course. I wouldn't be surprised by it being shifted a bit. but the class average was around -5, -5.
the politicalcompass site is slanted, a lot.
I TAed an ethics class this previous semester. Out of curiosity, I had the whole class take the test and give me the results.
This class was made up of a large spectrum of people: anarchists, libertarians, traditional right and left, and everything in between. The plan was that the test would give a nice spread, and we could find it's center and look at how far from center it was.
Out of 30 people, 2 were _not_ in the lower left. One was the german student (who we all would put in the upper right) at 2, 0.5. The other was someone who was at something like -5, 1.
Not exactly a fair test, it seems.
I failed it.
(fp?)
I'm surprised by this, as the GTA series did/does really well. The more recent games from Rockstar (Manhunt) are less impressive, but I thought they still did well enough to keep the company in the black.
You need some decent headphones, then. I've got a pair of Sennheiser HD280 (closed back) that I've been wearing since I got in to work today (~6 hours), and they're still comfortable.
If the band irritates you and you can get by without hearing too much of your coworkers (phone flashes, there's a door, etc), good earbuds are a solution. Not the little foam things that come with every portable music device, but some in-ear-canal ones. Nice ones will have plugs made out of the same foam that earplugs are made out of. You know, the expanding stuff that will perfectly fit your ear.
The downside? Both make it hard to hear anything else, so they're not viable for every job. They are both expensive (Senns are about $100 for the good stuff, comforable ear-canal buds will run more).
slashdotted already. I'm one of the first few posts.
They're reponsive, but their mySQL isn't.
From the site:
Pros:
# Only 14dB which means its silent
# 5v &12v lines are very strong
# Cables are a good length
Cons:
# Does not have a box
That's all we get?
While the article is a good rant, it's just wrong sometimes. For instance:
* He says that IPv6 uses 64 bit addresses. It uses 128 bit in reality. You would think that, if you were saying why something was bad, you'd do some basic research?
* Also in the IPv6 stuff, "TCP/IP works pretty well". So? TCP/IPv4 and TCP/IPv6 are the same damn thing. That's not an argument against IPv6, it's an argument for knowing what you're talking about.
* Perl. Sorry, the reasons for moving to the model in Perl 6 is well documented and sane. There's some problems with Perl 5 that we can't get around without losing backwards compatibility (syntax braindamage, for instance).
* Mozilla. Ok, it's slow. The Mozilla team even admits it at this point. MozFirebird is better. The reason for starting fresh wasn't speed, it was because the old codebase sucked.
* HTML. Having a language for both layout and data sucks. Splitting it into 2 parts is much better. There are developer perks, too (no rewriting the website to make it look different, no playing with layout to add data).
The basic point he seems to be missing is: a major version change (1 to 2) is supposed to be a radical update. The version system used by the kernel (and a lot of OSS projects) is based on that. Major.minor.revision. Bump revision when making bug fixes, bump minor when adding features (without breaking too much API), bump major when it's something new altogether.
What?
iTunes doesn't require you to have an iPod. It works fine on your computer. And it's the only solution that allows you to take the files you buy from it, unprotect them, and turn them into whatever format you want.
I know, you'll call me an Apple apologist. Whatever. I guess I could call you a Microsoft apologist and it would make as much sense.
Authentication, administration, everything you want: MeshAP. Supports authenticating against LDAP (comes in the package, or your own), MAC restrictions... everything.
It's open source, runs on commodity hardware (your PC with a WiFi card), and has a big community to help with the rough parts.
(no, I have nothing to do with it, I just like it)
"Hey don't knock Outlook, it's a fantastic product, I love it to bits and
hope it goes on to dominate the world even more! I am however a security
consultant by trade."
-- Ian Rawlings
Yeah...
I have a relative who is a teacher in California. She told me that, though you don't put your name on those tests they are handed out in order, so that they know who wrote down what.
Bastards, all of them.
Site response is already slow here...
Mirror from 13:15 GMT -7
The Diamond Age. It's just a passing reference, though, nothing too involved.
There's nothing wrong with that!
Unless, of course, you are thinking about code {maintenance, reusability, readability}. But real programmers don't worry about that, right?
Ok, the RIAA says they won't come after you if you fill out the form and destroy your copies. That's great.
What about the labels/artists they represent? Those people probably still have the rights to do so. And, hey, they've got your name and stuff...
I'm still a fan of only downloadings stuff you're allowed to, but whatever. I'm not too zealous about people downloading their music.
You realize that the only difference between a 5 and a 4 is that transgaming will support your 5-rated games? For instance, GTA3:VC is rated a 4. It's flawless. They haven't fully tested it, so it's not a 5, but it works great for everyone who tries it.
Not the most helpful EFF page I've seen. "Yeah, party. Here's who is coming"
The Box site, however:
On July 25th, from 8pm till 2am, the Electronic Frontier Foundation will host a night of music, art, and conversation to celebrate digital culture. Hosted at the Oakland Box in downtown Oakland, this special BayFF will bring up-and-coming artists of electronica, digital film, and illegal art together with leaders from the cyber-rights movement. Lawsuits and legislation have become the weapons of choice for dealing with file-sharing and cultural recycling("sampling"); come out and discover what all the hype is about. Between laptop music, hip hop, and industrial performances, you will hear from people who are fighting to protect new forms of expression and cultural distribution from the attacks of the entertainment industry. This is an all-ages event.
And, if you're here, check out the Carlsbad Caverns. Beautiful place.