...haven't had the pleasure of learning to drive in deep snow without 4WD and chains.
Actually, they probably should have hired Californians with experience driving 4WD vehicles across SAND since they got stuck in a dune. Maybe somebody who has experience in the Imperial Sand Dunes. Driving in snow is very different than driving in sand, I've done both. Plus, the rover appears to be a six wheel drive.
managed to put a tax on every cd, dvd, memory card (like the ones used it _cameras_).
What a strange world we live in. In America we have to order our perscription drugs across the Internet from another country to avoid excessive prices. In Europe you have to order your blank CDs, ipods and memory cards from the US, across the Internet, to avoid ridiculous taxes.
And as opposed to... what? A typical Sun Solaris (UNIX) server also has all the GUI libraries, just in case you need to run some X stuff on it over the network. We have admins doing that every day. And that too means that they're loaded in memory when you do run graphics stuff, they're unloaded when you don't. Just like on Windows, eh?
Well, since you can't disable the GUI in windows, it's hard to substantiate any claims of increasing or decreasing performance. In my experience, a server running X runs MUCH slower than a server that has X shut down. Personally, I don't normally let anyone run X apps from my servers, especially slow apps like firefox, opera or OpenOffice.
Again, since we have no basis for comparison on Windows machine it's hard to be sure, but under Linux running without a GUI makes a huge impact on server performance.
TCP signatures also vary from one TCP stack to the next, allowing you to identify a Linux box and a Windows box
I'm sure that's true, but do you think their spider is checking the TCP stack on every connection. It's probably just looking at the header the server sends like the grandparent stated. Why look at anything else, until of course everyone hacks their Apache servers to say they are IIS...
Stupid or not, they are a f**k'n evil empire. Such actions should be criminal. Who does this benefit?? Microsoft CEOs! this with detriment of the community.
Criminal? Why, they own the company, they own the search engine, they are nice enough to let you use it for free. So it gives biased results - there's a shocker. Don't like it? Don't use it.
Yes, this benefits Microsoft and their nice customers that bought their product. Nothing criminal about it. I'm not sure if there's even anything unethical about it. They don't promise that MSN Search gives unbiased results. Microsoft could easily argue that the best search results obviously come from sites that are educated enough to use their superior products.
Roundup use is bound to rise sharply in the next few years, hastening the day when farmers will be forced to seek new solutions.
Exactly. Roundup use has increased, but other, more expensive, more dangerous herbicide use should be deacreasing. Obviously, as the article states, there are still problems to overcome, but my point is most farmers will not be slathering their crops with herbicides just because they can.
Those aren't the only methods of weed control, there are organic methods as well. Two such methods are cover crops and mulching
Did a quick Google on that myself (I've got to quit and go to bed befort too much longer). Looks like those methods are primarily geared toward vegetable production. From my experience neither would work with a product like soybeans or pinto beans, especially in an area that requires row irrigation, and neither method would be anywhere near cost effective.
Don't get me wrong, I think herbicides are horrible, but coming from an Ag background I also recognize they are a necessary evil. The good old US government, between the use of farm subsidies and commodity trading (things like stockpiling grain) have artificially kept the price of wholesale food low. Farmers have had to use every tool at their disposal to make agriculture as profitable as possible. Now, with the popularity of 'organic' food Farmers can grow crops using other methods and get a higher price at market.
The thing that gets to me about this whole discussion is the prevalent attitude that the Farming community is some organized evil that wants to poison everyone. That is just NOT true. Any Farmer I've ever met is more in tune with nature than most people that shop at the local whole foods store. All they want to do is grow quality products and be able to survive on the fruit of their labor, but to do that in the culture we have created they have to use herbicides.
Studies have already been shown that when herbicide resistant crops are planted more herbicides are used. Afterall that's why they are made herbicide resistant.
Studies by whom? We all know that studies can be twisted to say many things. I'm sure more herbicides of certain types are used, but less of other types are used. As posted earlier, pre-emergents are used to control weeds on some non herbicide resistant crops (my personal experience is with Pinto Beans). This means that a herbicide that will keep weed from germinating is sprayed on the ground and then worked in prior to planting. This is done because Pinto Beans are particularly susceptible to many of the products used to kill broadleaf weeds (2-4D for example). The only way to control weed population is by using a pre-emergent, or to weed the fields by hand (machine cultivation isn't generally possible with pintos because the vines grow across the rows). If a herbicide resistant pinto bean was planted weeds could be killed using Roundup, 2-4D, or whatever herbicide the GM beans are resistant to as needed rather than using a pre-emergent just in case the weeds show up.
I'm sure in some instances more herbicide is used with herbicide resistant crops, but generally farmers are using some type of herbicide anyway. Herbicide resistant strains just make it possible to use cheaper, safer alternatives.
Want to change things? Pass laws that prohibit political contributions from all business entities. Restrict contributions to individuals problems like this virtually vanish.
And many other problems as well. Sign me up for that one.
Go to http://directory.fsf.org/GNU/ and look at the list of utilities, tools and applications the RMS and the Free Software Foundation are responsible for. With the exception of Gates and Jobs, RMS either implemented everyone else's ideas, or made it possible for these people to implement their own ideas (Torvalds, Taco). I think he deserves a hell of a lot of credit.
I guess you're the sort of person who admires Dubya then.
Actually, that is a good comparison (although we both better duck, RMS will be throwing things at us). I respect the President's consistency and tenacity. Again, I don't agree with him all the time. I did vote for him, but mostly to help make sure that ninny Kerry didn't get into office.
Anyway, enough with the politics, your going to get us both modded OT, or a flame war.
Didn't say he was loony. Said he is a zealot, meaning overly enthusiastic, passionate or fervent. He has a single approach to the problem, which I don't 100% agree with, but he obviously does.
Besides, I would NEVER consider consistency 'faint praise'. It's too rare a commodity in our world.
They're not going to dump herbicides with "wreckless abandon" because doing so takes time and money. Farmers, like most people, don't want to spend either unproductively.
You are absolutely correct, except for one thing, Farmers are usually in a worse financial position to waste money on things like herbicides. Anyone that hasn't been in the agricultural business has no idea how much herbicides and insecticides cost, and how little most farmers want to use them. The only reason farmers use pesticides at all is to protect their investment and bring more product to market.
As GM plants become more common, less herbicide will be used, so the cost of said herbicides will increase (theoretically) proportionally. The chemical manufacturers will still make their money, the new biotech companies providing the GM plants will make their money, the farmer will get screwed and people will complain about how evil the frankenfood and herbicides are while ordering their $2.99 cheeseburger.
RMS making an issue out of what people call the Operating system at all is funny, an AC making a joke out of it is funny and finally, the fact that the whole issues is totally incomprehensible unless you are a ubergeek is funny.
Show me one financial package equivalent to Quickbooks Premier that runs on Linux....
You have an excellent point, there is a significant shortage of commercial business applications for the Linux platform. Personally, if I could purchase a copy of Quickbooks for Linux as cheaply as I can Quickbooks for Windows I would do it in a heartbeat.
OTOH, it is a sad thing when the only real advantage of a particular operating system is the third party applications that are available for it. 'Sure, Windows is expensive, less secure, prone to viruses and spyware, slow and unstable, but hey, It will run Quickbooks.'
Amazingly enough, Linux does have many applications available that can save many office environments money (gimp, gnumeric, OpenOffice, abiword) as well as backend server type functionality that can be used with Windows (samba, apache, sendmail, qmail, postfix) not to mention all of the web apps (intranets, monitors, ldap, etc..) that can be run on apache.
If Linux fits in your business now, great, if not, contact your vendor (Intuit) and request a Linux version. They will never come out with one if no one asks for it.
Yeah, RMS is right about a lot of stuff and really does have vision but I just have to disagree w/him here. Not everything has to be free.
Me too, and that's OK. I have tremendous respect for RMS, he's contributed more to the computing community as a whole than anyone else on the planet. Sure, he's a zealot, but at least he's consistent. You never get a mixed message out of RMS.
Thus, I know that a server would require a high-paid consultant to set up.
OK, let's say that's true. I do some consulting and usually charge about $50/hour which is actually very reasonable - at least where I live. I could install a full Linux system on most servers in 4-6 hours, so it would cost $200-$300 if I installed a Linux server for you. Microsoft Windows 2003 server standard edition's suggested retail price (with 5 licenses) is $999. With that pricing you could double the hourly cost to $100/hour and double the time to 8 hours and you would STILL be money ahead with a Linux system, especially if you require more than 5 licenses.
So, explain to me how Windows is cost effective, even if you have to hire a 'high-priced consultant'.
Columbus once undertook a research voyage funded by Spanish royalty
That's an interesting example. The difference between Columbus' voyage an NASA's work is that the Spanish royal family was interested in making money. In fact, I can't think of one of the early exploration voyages to the Americas that was motivated primarily by research or national security. Magellen, Cortez, Hudson, Drake, they were all motivated to find a way to India, or to take riches from the new world. Some of that exploration may have been funded by the governments, but much of it was private, and nearly all of it was motivated by money.
He'd certainly be swimming the long way round if he was to be attacked by killer penguins. Unless he swims through a zoo!
Why? Where exactly to the 'killer penguins' live? I know the regular penquins live around the south pole (antarctica, whatever), but not sure where the 'killer' variety is located.
the multi windows is a real turn off for regular Windows users.
I've been using Linux and gimp for YEARS an the multi windows still makes me crazy. I do a lot of web development, so like to have a browser open when I'm working with gimp. Every time I bring the browser to the front all of my gimp windows go to the back and I have to retrieve them one at a time. Makes me crazy.
br
Other than that and some minor ui issues, I really like it. Wish they would just add the ability to put all the windows together as an option - wouldn't think it would be that big of deal.
Maybe an analogy would be hiring a contractor to build a house for you, but you keep showing up every day asking how the finishing on the oak door trimmings is going while he's still framing.
Which happens all the time and makes my contractor friends crazy.
y...those with no money will quit in disgust, and those with money will lose interest after they run up against enough other players with enough money to equip themselves well.
I disagree. Not everything in life can be purchased. There are people that have more talent at playing video games than others do and it has little to do with their level or items. For example, my sister will beat me at Madden Football EVERY TIME, usually by several touchdowns. Doesn't matter what team I pick, how I play, she can just win. There are people like that at EQ, or any online game as well. Doesn't matter how much money you have, they will beat you because you suck. Just like Michael Jordan and Garth Brooks couldn't be professional baseball players, not every EQ character is going to be a pro because they have money.
Slashdot Mirror
...haven't had the pleasure of learning to drive in deep snow without 4WD and chains.
Actually, they probably should have hired Californians with experience driving 4WD vehicles across SAND since they got stuck in a dune. Maybe somebody who has experience in the Imperial Sand Dunes. Driving in snow is very different than driving in sand, I've done both. Plus, the rover appears to be a six wheel drive.
managed to put a tax on every cd, dvd, memory card (like the ones used it _cameras_).
What a strange world we live in. In America we have to order our perscription drugs across the Internet from another country to avoid excessive prices. In Europe you have to order your blank CDs, ipods and memory cards from the US, across the Internet, to avoid ridiculous taxes.
Crazy...
And as opposed to... what? A typical Sun Solaris (UNIX) server also has all the GUI libraries, just in case you need to run some X stuff on it over the network. We have admins doing that every day. And that too means that they're loaded in memory when you do run graphics stuff, they're unloaded when you don't. Just like on Windows, eh?
Well, since you can't disable the GUI in windows, it's hard to substantiate any claims of increasing or decreasing performance. In my experience, a server running X runs MUCH slower than a server that has X shut down. Personally, I don't normally let anyone run X apps from my servers, especially slow apps like firefox, opera or OpenOffice.
Again, since we have no basis for comparison on Windows machine it's hard to be sure, but under Linux running without a GUI makes a huge impact on server performance.
It was hard to write, it should be hard to read.
TCP signatures also vary from one TCP stack to the next, allowing you to identify a Linux box and a Windows box
I'm sure that's true, but do you think their spider is checking the TCP stack on every connection. It's probably just looking at the header the server sends like the grandparent stated. Why look at anything else, until of course everyone hacks their Apache servers to say they are IIS...
Stupid or not, they are a f**k'n evil empire. Such actions should be criminal. Who does this benefit?? Microsoft CEOs! this with detriment of the community.
Criminal? Why, they own the company, they own the search engine, they are nice enough to let you use it for free. So it gives biased results - there's a shocker. Don't like it? Don't use it.
Yes, this benefits Microsoft and their nice customers that bought their product. Nothing criminal about it. I'm not sure if there's even anything unethical about it. They don't promise that MSN Search gives unbiased results. Microsoft could easily argue that the best search results obviously come from sites that are educated enough to use their superior products.
Roundup use is bound to rise sharply in the next few years, hastening the day when farmers will be forced to seek new solutions.
Exactly. Roundup use has increased, but other, more expensive, more dangerous herbicide use should be deacreasing. Obviously, as the article states, there are still problems to overcome, but my point is most farmers will not be slathering their crops with herbicides just because they can.
Those aren't the only methods of weed control, there are organic methods as well. Two such methods are cover crops and mulching
Did a quick Google on that myself (I've got to quit and go to bed befort too much longer). Looks like those methods are primarily geared toward vegetable production. From my experience neither would work with a product like soybeans or pinto beans, especially in an area that requires row irrigation, and neither method would be anywhere near cost effective.
Don't get me wrong, I think herbicides are horrible, but coming from an Ag background I also recognize they are a necessary evil. The good old US government, between the use of farm subsidies and commodity trading (things like stockpiling grain) have artificially kept the price of wholesale food low. Farmers have had to use every tool at their disposal to make agriculture as profitable as possible. Now, with the popularity of 'organic' food Farmers can grow crops using other methods and get a higher price at market.
The thing that gets to me about this whole discussion is the prevalent attitude that the Farming community is some organized evil that wants to poison everyone. That is just NOT true. Any Farmer I've ever met is more in tune with nature than most people that shop at the local whole foods store. All they want to do is grow quality products and be able to survive on the fruit of their labor, but to do that in the culture we have created they have to use herbicides.
Studies have already been shown that when herbicide resistant crops are planted more herbicides are used. Afterall that's why they are made herbicide resistant.
Studies by whom? We all know that studies can be twisted to say many things. I'm sure more herbicides of certain types are used, but less of other types are used. As posted earlier, pre-emergents are used to control weeds on some non herbicide resistant crops (my personal experience is with Pinto Beans). This means that a herbicide that will keep weed from germinating is sprayed on the ground and then worked in prior to planting. This is done because Pinto Beans are particularly susceptible to many of the products used to kill broadleaf weeds (2-4D for example). The only way to control weed population is by using a pre-emergent, or to weed the fields by hand (machine cultivation isn't generally possible with pintos because the vines grow across the rows). If a herbicide resistant pinto bean was planted weeds could be killed using Roundup, 2-4D, or whatever herbicide the GM beans are resistant to as needed rather than using a pre-emergent just in case the weeds show up.
I'm sure in some instances more herbicide is used with herbicide resistant crops, but generally farmers are using some type of herbicide anyway. Herbicide resistant strains just make it possible to use cheaper, safer alternatives.
Want to change things? Pass laws that prohibit political contributions from all business entities. Restrict contributions to individuals problems like this virtually vanish.
And many other problems as well. Sign me up for that one.
Go to http://directory.fsf.org/GNU/ and look at the list of utilities, tools and applications the RMS and the Free Software Foundation are responsible for. With the exception of Gates and Jobs, RMS either implemented everyone else's ideas, or made it possible for these people to implement their own ideas (Torvalds, Taco). I think he deserves a hell of a lot of credit.
I guess you're the sort of person who admires Dubya then.
Actually, that is a good comparison (although we both better duck, RMS will be throwing things at us). I respect the President's consistency and tenacity. Again, I don't agree with him all the time. I did vote for him, but mostly to help make sure that ninny Kerry didn't get into office.
Anyway, enough with the politics, your going to get us both modded OT, or a flame war.
Didn't say he was loony. Said he is a zealot, meaning overly enthusiastic, passionate or fervent. He has a single approach to the problem, which I don't 100% agree with, but he obviously does.
Besides, I would NEVER consider consistency 'faint praise'. It's too rare a commodity in our world.
They're not going to dump herbicides with "wreckless abandon" because doing so takes time and money. Farmers, like most people, don't want to spend either unproductively.
You are absolutely correct, except for one thing, Farmers are usually in a worse financial position to waste money on things like herbicides. Anyone that hasn't been in the agricultural business has no idea how much herbicides and insecticides cost, and how little most farmers want to use them. The only reason farmers use pesticides at all is to protect their investment and bring more product to market.
As GM plants become more common, less herbicide will be used, so the cost of said herbicides will increase (theoretically) proportionally. The chemical manufacturers will still make their money, the new biotech companies providing the GM plants will make their money, the farmer will get screwed and people will complain about how evil the frankenfood and herbicides are while ordering their $2.99 cheeseburger.
RMS making an issue out of what people call the Operating system at all is funny, an AC making a joke out of it is funny and finally, the fact that the whole issues is totally incomprehensible unless you are a ubergeek is funny.
Yeah, it's too funny.
Show me one financial package equivalent to Quickbooks Premier that runs on Linux....
You have an excellent point, there is a significant shortage of commercial business applications for the Linux platform. Personally, if I could purchase a copy of Quickbooks for Linux as cheaply as I can Quickbooks for Windows I would do it in a heartbeat.
OTOH, it is a sad thing when the only real advantage of a particular operating system is the third party applications that are available for it. 'Sure, Windows is expensive, less secure, prone to viruses and spyware, slow and unstable, but hey, It will run Quickbooks.'
Amazingly enough, Linux does have many applications available that can save many office environments money (gimp, gnumeric, OpenOffice, abiword) as well as backend server type functionality that can be used with Windows (samba, apache, sendmail, qmail, postfix) not to mention all of the web apps (intranets, monitors, ldap, etc..) that can be run on apache.
If Linux fits in your business now, great, if not, contact your vendor (Intuit) and request a Linux version. They will never come out with one if no one asks for it.
Yeah, RMS is right about a lot of stuff and really does have vision but I just have to disagree w/him here. Not everything has to be free.
Me too, and that's OK. I have tremendous respect for RMS, he's contributed more to the computing community as a whole than anyone else on the planet. Sure, he's a zealot, but at least he's consistent. You never get a mixed message out of RMS.
That is too funny.
Thus, I know that a server would require a high-paid consultant to set up.
OK, let's say that's true. I do some consulting and usually charge about $50/hour which is actually very reasonable - at least where I live. I could install a full Linux system on most servers in 4-6 hours, so it would cost $200-$300 if I installed a Linux server for you. Microsoft Windows 2003 server standard edition's suggested retail price (with 5 licenses) is $999. With that pricing you could double the hourly cost to $100/hour and double the time to 8 hours and you would STILL be money ahead with a Linux system, especially if you require more than 5 licenses.
So, explain to me how Windows is cost effective, even if you have to hire a 'high-priced consultant'.
Columbus once undertook a research voyage funded by Spanish royalty
That's an interesting example. The difference between Columbus' voyage an NASA's work is that the Spanish royal family was interested in making money. In fact, I can't think of one of the early exploration voyages to the Americas that was motivated primarily by research or national security. Magellen, Cortez, Hudson, Drake, they were all motivated to find a way to India, or to take riches from the new world. Some of that exploration may have been funded by the governments, but much of it was private, and nearly all of it was motivated by money.
He'd certainly be swimming the long way round if he was to be attacked by killer penguins. Unless he swims through a zoo!
Why? Where exactly to the 'killer penguins' live? I know the regular penquins live around the south pole (antarctica, whatever), but not sure where the 'killer' variety is located.
I'm not quite sure in what universe it's reasonable to swim from Norway to Hawaii to make the trip shorter.
But a great circle route under the ice cap to Alaska would be WAY shorter.
the multi windows is a real turn off for regular Windows users.
I've been using Linux and gimp for YEARS an the multi windows still makes me crazy. I do a lot of web development, so like to have a browser open when I'm working with gimp. Every time I bring the browser to the front all of my gimp windows go to the back and I have to retrieve them one at a time. Makes me crazy.
br Other than that and some minor ui issues, I really like it. Wish they would just add the ability to put all the windows together as an option - wouldn't think it would be that big of deal.
Maybe an analogy would be hiring a contractor to build a house for you, but you keep showing up every day asking how the finishing on the oak door trimmings is going while he's still framing.
Which happens all the time and makes my contractor friends crazy.
It seems like this job would be way more than any single person can handle.
Better switch to 3.2 beer.
y...those with no money will quit in disgust, and those with money will lose interest after they run up against enough other players with enough money to equip themselves well.
I disagree. Not everything in life can be purchased. There are people that have more talent at playing video games than others do and it has little to do with their level or items. For example, my sister will beat me at Madden Football EVERY TIME, usually by several touchdowns. Doesn't matter what team I pick, how I play, she can just win. There are people like that at EQ, or any online game as well. Doesn't matter how much money you have, they will beat you because you suck. Just like Michael Jordan and Garth Brooks couldn't be professional baseball players, not every EQ character is going to be a pro because they have money.