Wait until XP SP2, and you'll get a new IE. Pop-up blocking and download managing are the only new features, AFAICT, though.
That will be enough the please the masses. The only thing Aunt Tilley complains about really is "I can't stand those stupid popups!". IE users will revere Microsoft for installing popup blocking into the browser so they don't have to bother with inconsistent third party apps to do so without ever realizing there is was an alternative to begin with.
It's the truth, plain and simple.
And I apologize in advance for my Aunt Tilley reference:)
Good god. I'm not fond of Ashcroft or the PATRIOT Act, but not everything is a conspiracy, you know.
And tell me, what part of the articles that were linked had ANYTHING to do with the Patriot act? This will get modded as flamebait, but seriously, allowing articles with falsified summaries to make it to the front page is not good AT ALL. It's not good for the slashdot admins because it makes them look careless and it's not good for us readers because we are being subject false information unless we read all of the links ourselves - which we know isn't happening for every article!
First language I learned was VB in VB6. It's good for teaching people the bare essentials such as what procedures and variables are. But that's all I would use it for:).
I didn't RTFA, but I agree with the parent. This could have been avoided if those purchasing the equipment from NEC had researched and consulted with others on what an apporopriate, lowest cost solution was. Instead, by the sounds of it, they just let NEC talk them into buying their latest whiz-bang product and NEC makes profit.
Sure it's immoral and unethical, but NEC are a for profit business and they sold their product and put money in their pockets and on their financial statements. EOS.
How is this a cash cow? At approx 3,000 users sued since last September with an average settling cost of $3000, that's only $9,000,000 over the course of the past ~8 months. That's chump change for such a large earning industry.
I don't think cash is what they are looking for. Scare tactics are more like it. They want to scare people out of sharing music and further force the buying of over priced music via CD.
My roomate in college always took me out to dinner anytime I "fixed" his windows computer. This normally involved the same thing as the parent poster, removing spyware/viruses and installing software firewalls etc etc.
I never bothered to try and install a Linux distro on his machine... because that would mean I would get fewer dinners:(
But what are we going to teach them? I hope you don't say the same things we are teaching them now. Our education system right now is built this way: in public elementary through high school we teach our kids the necessary things to survive in college... and for those who aren't going to college, they get simple vocational skills so they can go find a job and work for someone. The ones who go to college are then taught more subjects and skills so that they can go get a job and work for someone else. Both sets of people go on to have kids who teach their children to do the same things - go to school, get an "education", do what they tell you and jump through hoops so you can get a shiny piece of paper saying you graduated, and then get a job so you can live safely ever. The trend will keep going and keep going.
Instead of pumping MORE money into current education, which does nothing but teach basic human skills so that our future adults are able to work for someone else and elect a few officials without ever having to really think for themselves, why not take current monies and reform education. The education system we are using right now, for the most part, is not producing intelligable adults who can reason out and analyze such things as decisions made about war, decisions made about the economy, research money spent on medical research and weapons research and education. So why pump more money into that _same_ system.
Of course, as stated by someone else in this thread, changing the system or putting more money into it would create intelligent citizens... and we all know that intelligent citizens are not good government practice.
That article fails to address the point that their costs associated with developing and maintaining IP (Intellectual Property for the uninitiated) will also drop to near $0. This allows most business to focus on, well for instance, their business. It frees them in some regards from worrying about how much budget to allocate for the overhead of purchasing and maintaining closed source IT "solutions".
The problem with this from a business strategy point of view is that it reduces a form of competitive advantage. I agree that removing all IP of a company by seeking it through open source methods reduces all costs associated with obtaining that IP, and that makes great financial sense for an organization. But it doesn't make competitive sense. What is the goal of massive leading organizations such as Microsoft or Ford? I don't know what they officially state it is but I'm 99.99999999% sure it involves becoming and then staying the market leader by obtaining the most market share in their industry over their competitors. An organization obtains their piece of the market share by holding a competitive advantage over the rest of their industry. If a company uses nothing but open solutions, they lose a competitive advantage and they are put on an even level with everyone else using open solutions or on a lower level than the organization that does hold a competitive advantage with its IP. For a competitive business, it doesn't make sense to do this, and they won't do it. Open source decreases expenses. But open source also decreases competitive advantage and the most powerful organizations depend on their competitive advantages to stay at the top of their industries.
(note: I am not an economist or business analyst... but I can play one on slashdot)
Since EVERY other mainstream distro is on version 9 (Slackware, Redhat, Mandrake(although 10 is here) and even SuSE I think) they must be bumping the number up just to look current in the eyes of the consumer!
Ok, that's just pure speculation, but it does strike me as a coincedence.
I can already tell this distribution isn't heading in the right direction. Their webserver isn't capable of handling a good 'ol slashdotting. Their inability to meet this mandatory prerequisite of having a linux distribution is startling and does not bode well at all.
I'm not the most observant character around here, but I did notice in the article (and I RTFA) that these tunnels intersect into water systems. Now, this request was an open request and under most circumstances should and would have been granted as by law. In this case however, and I believe this would be true in any time period and not just the one we have now, if the student was provided data to these tunnels he has direct access to the water that everyone drinks and showers in everyday. I don't care who you are, what institution you work for, or if you believe that having big brother watching you is best, but if anyone was simply allowed to request information such as the information in *this case* and recieve it without being investigated/questioned byanyone, I would be worried out of my mind.
In the computer world, we speak of security policies in the form of how is one authenticated and what authorizations they have. If this tunneling system is a direct route to something so sensitive and so crucial as the water we use everyday, I definitely want Joe Schmoe being questioned by authorities about his interest in it. Only a select few of authorized people should EVER have access to something like that. I'm no expert on these types of things by an stretch of the imagination, but I would imagine one of the quickest ways to spread some sort of biological weapon or perform a "terrorist attack" would be to pollute the water. I'm not convicting the student of anything and in all likelihood he wanted to know these things out of curiousity, but it pays to be paranoid in such a case as this.
And don't get me wrong, I'm allow about having information open to the public about a great many things, but in this instance I could definitely make a case for it not being open.
Ive been saying forever that the year MS perfects its anti-piracy technique really WILL BE the year of the linux desktop, and this (at least in my eyes) is a step closer to that.
Offer Joe College kid (just like myself) a free as in beer operating system when he doesn't mind using one and the one he is use to is giving him pains and you have yourselves an influx of new Linux users.
It's what got me started with Linux. I couldn't download security updates to Windows because a) my version of 98 wasn't supported anymore and b) because my WinXP key that I was given to borrow was invalid. As a result of Microsoft's product support life cycle, they managed to turn a Windows user over to the "dark side" and now I am the enemy and I am advocating to all of my college friends to use open source software and open source operating systems.
Even the next time my mother wants me to format her computer, she is getting a copy of either SuSE on it and not the outdated Windows 98 install we have.
You'd be amazed at the % of college students who simply jump through hoops for their shiny piece of paper with the word "degree" on it. These are the same students who sleep and yawn through lectures and then go back to their residences, drink beer, watch the Real World, and sleep for the rest of their collegiate existence. The unfortunate thing is, most of these students have immense potential, but don't know how to learn because they are hand-held, catered to, and not challenged in their K-12 public education. They will never "learn how to learn" unless that quality is pumped into them by their college faculty and advisors.
A good school should be teaching you that your schooling never ends. As in, never stop learning or you will be left in the dust. Any school that doesn't enforce this opinion on their students in any subject matter are already putting their students at a disadvantage.
And I ask this question as a recent graduate with a degree in MIS/CIS who's only real development expertise is in the.NET framework? I'm all about open source and I use nothing but Linux at home, but at my place of work I double as a sys admin and a developer of online webforms using microsoft OS's and languages exclusively. Does the release of mono now give me the ability to port my web apps over to Linux servers using apache? Do I now have a development environment similar to Visual Studio or Web Matrix for the Linux platform? The big question though, is mono going to be beneficial for me to try and learn to use over the long term?
I concur. Isn't this fighting what Microsoft has allegedly stated they want to stop: the unsolicited sending of marketing based messages through the inboxes of every consumer and business employee? I didn't RTFA but judging from the gist of the summary I have to call major bullshit on Microsoft's stance on discouraging spam and creating technology to reduce/eliminate spam, and then pulling a tactic such as this to allow "marketers" who are legitimate to still send marketing emails in mass. Perhaps I missed something over the past 5 years regarding the definition of spam. I always under the impression that spam was the sending of any unsolicated message by a for profit agency in mass to a multitude of internet users. If that isn't what it is then I'll be eagerly awaiting Microsoft's marketing department to enlighten me on the subject.
More school funding is given to non-science activities such as sports, instead of funding a new science lab.
Because sports brings both money and recognition back to the school and increases the public image. What does the science lab do? It costs a hell of a lot of money with no return for the school system (at least in a short term/micro view) . Schools want to be viewed as prestigious institutions, and the number one way to do that is through athletics. Just look in your local daily newspaper. In all of the sections count the number of stories related to high schools in all of non-sports sections that are positive stories. Then, flip to the sports section and read how many stories/reports there are about local area high schools. The ratio is going to be immensly in the favor of sports stories. Local people couldn't care less what their children are learning in their coursework in school. To them, school is just another hoop to jump through for their children to move forward in the real world. Sports on the other hand gets their children and their organizations on the front page of a newspaper section and on the nightly news. When the local sports team does well, the community gains in recognition and prestige. It's no wonder that the money goes to sports and not real education... it's what the community wants.
Slashdot Mirror
Ignorance of the law is not a defense.
That will be enough the please the masses. The only thing Aunt Tilley complains about really is "I can't stand those stupid popups!". IE users will revere Microsoft for installing popup blocking into the browser so they don't have to bother with inconsistent third party apps to do so without ever realizing there is was an alternative to begin with.
It's the truth, plain and simple.
And I apologize in advance for my Aunt Tilley reference :)
Sure you do. It's the physical world in which you can strafe jump to gain speed and get to work faster.
And tell me, what part of the articles that were linked had ANYTHING to do with the Patriot act? This will get modded as flamebait, but seriously, allowing articles with falsified summaries to make it to the front page is not good AT ALL. It's not good for the slashdot admins because it makes them look careless and it's not good for us readers because we are being subject false information unless we read all of the links ourselves - which we know isn't happening for every article!
First language I learned was VB in VB6. It's good for teaching people the bare essentials such as what procedures and variables are. But that's all I would use it for :).
Sure it's immoral and unethical, but NEC are a for profit business and they sold their product and put money in their pockets and on their financial statements. EOS.
I don't think cash is what they are looking for. Scare tactics are more like it. They want to scare people out of sharing music and further force the buying of over priced music via CD.
I never bothered to try and install a Linux distro on his machine... because that would mean I would get fewer dinners :(
Or he can claim that someone else took his words and are using them in an open forum while infringing on licenses in the process of doing so.
Instead of pumping MORE money into current education, which does nothing but teach basic human skills so that our future adults are able to work for someone else and elect a few officials without ever having to really think for themselves, why not take current monies and reform education. The education system we are using right now, for the most part, is not producing intelligable adults who can reason out and analyze such things as decisions made about war, decisions made about the economy, research money spent on medical research and weapons research and education. So why pump more money into that _same_ system.
Of course, as stated by someone else in this thread, changing the system or putting more money into it would create intelligent citizens... and we all know that intelligent citizens are not good government practice.
Seriously, no matter what happens in our world of technology, users will be users and will stay users.
The problem with this from a business strategy point of view is that it reduces a form of competitive advantage. I agree that removing all IP of a company by seeking it through open source methods reduces all costs associated with obtaining that IP, and that makes great financial sense for an organization. But it doesn't make competitive sense. What is the goal of massive leading organizations such as Microsoft or Ford? I don't know what they officially state it is but I'm 99.99999999% sure it involves becoming and then staying the market leader by obtaining the most market share in their industry over their competitors. An organization obtains their piece of the market share by holding a competitive advantage over the rest of their industry. If a company uses nothing but open solutions, they lose a competitive advantage and they are put on an even level with everyone else using open solutions or on a lower level than the organization that does hold a competitive advantage with its IP. For a competitive business, it doesn't make sense to do this, and they won't do it. Open source decreases expenses. But open source also decreases competitive advantage and the most powerful organizations depend on their competitive advantages to stay at the top of their industries.
(note: I am not an economist or business analyst... but I can play one on slashdot)
Ok, that's just pure speculation, but it does strike me as a coincedence.
they are targeting people using Windows already :)
"Problem in Database Connection"
I can already tell this distribution isn't heading in the right direction. Their webserver isn't capable of handling a good 'ol slashdotting. Their inability to meet this mandatory prerequisite of having a linux distribution is startling and does not bode well at all.
In the computer world, we speak of security policies in the form of how is one authenticated and what authorizations they have. If this tunneling system is a direct route to something so sensitive and so crucial as the water we use everyday, I definitely want Joe Schmoe being questioned by authorities about his interest in it. Only a select few of authorized people should EVER have access to something like that. I'm no expert on these types of things by an stretch of the imagination, but I would imagine one of the quickest ways to spread some sort of biological weapon or perform a "terrorist attack" would be to pollute the water. I'm not convicting the student of anything and in all likelihood he wanted to know these things out of curiousity, but it pays to be paranoid in such a case as this.
And don't get me wrong, I'm allow about having information open to the public about a great many things, but in this instance I could definitely make a case for it not being open.
My 2cents.
Offer Joe College kid (just like myself) a free as in beer operating system when he doesn't mind using one and the one he is use to is giving him pains and you have yourselves an influx of new Linux users.
It's what got me started with Linux. I couldn't download security updates to Windows because a) my version of 98 wasn't supported anymore and b) because my WinXP key that I was given to borrow was invalid. As a result of Microsoft's product support life cycle, they managed to turn a Windows user over to the "dark side" and now I am the enemy and I am advocating to all of my college friends to use open source software and open source operating systems.
Even the next time my mother wants me to format her computer, she is getting a copy of either SuSE on it and not the outdated Windows 98 install we have.
You'd be amazed at the % of college students who simply jump through hoops for their shiny piece of paper with the word "degree" on it. These are the same students who sleep and yawn through lectures and then go back to their residences, drink beer, watch the Real World, and sleep for the rest of their collegiate existence. The unfortunate thing is, most of these students have immense potential, but don't know how to learn because they are hand-held, catered to, and not challenged in their K-12 public education. They will never "learn how to learn" unless that quality is pumped into them by their college faculty and advisors.
A good school should be teaching you that your schooling never ends. As in, never stop learning or you will be left in the dust. Any school that doesn't enforce this opinion on their students in any subject matter are already putting their students at a disadvantage.
And I ask this question as a recent graduate with a degree in MIS/CIS who's only real development expertise is in the .NET framework? I'm all about open source and I use nothing but Linux at home, but at my place of work I double as a sys admin and a developer of online webforms using microsoft OS's and languages exclusively. Does the release of mono now give me the ability to port my web apps over to Linux servers using apache? Do I now have a development environment similar to Visual Studio or Web Matrix for the Linux platform? The big question though, is mono going to be beneficial for me to try and learn to use over the long term?
I concur. Isn't this fighting what Microsoft has allegedly stated they want to stop: the unsolicited sending of marketing based messages through the inboxes of every consumer and business employee? I didn't RTFA but judging from the gist of the summary I have to call major bullshit on Microsoft's stance on discouraging spam and creating technology to reduce/eliminate spam, and then pulling a tactic such as this to allow "marketers" who are legitimate to still send marketing emails in mass. Perhaps I missed something over the past 5 years regarding the definition of spam. I always under the impression that spam was the sending of any unsolicated message by a for profit agency in mass to a multitude of internet users. If that isn't what it is then I'll be eagerly awaiting Microsoft's marketing department to enlighten me on the subject.
and Daikatana won game of the year.
It's nothing compared to track no. 7 though... Eric S. Raymond - "My Dear Aunt Tillie"
Yes there is. When the right to view American Idol and the real world are DRM'ed.
Because sports brings both money and recognition back to the school and increases the public image. What does the science lab do? It costs a hell of a lot of money with no return for the school system (at least in a short term/micro view) . Schools want to be viewed as prestigious institutions, and the number one way to do that is through athletics. Just look in your local daily newspaper. In all of the sections count the number of stories related to high schools in all of non-sports sections that are positive stories. Then, flip to the sports section and read how many stories/reports there are about local area high schools. The ratio is going to be immensly in the favor of sports stories. Local people couldn't care less what their children are learning in their coursework in school. To them, school is just another hoop to jump through for their children to move forward in the real world. Sports on the other hand gets their children and their organizations on the front page of a newspaper section and on the nightly news. When the local sports team does well, the community gains in recognition and prestige. It's no wonder that the money goes to sports and not real education... it's what the community wants.