I might also get modded down for this, but here's some thoughts:
(note, when I write "USA" I mean the government, not the people).
The USA/Microsoft don't seem to fundementally "get it" with respect to terrorism/Linux.
Terrorism is a reaction to what is seen by many as a threat to their way of life. Similarly with F/OSS and Linux. If the USA/MS wasn't so heavy-handed, paranoid and predatory then the motives behind terrorism/Linux would be greatly reduced.
In responding to the threat of terrorism/Linux the USA/MS has made life harder for its own citizens/customers. MS has instigated expensive subscription-based licensing that has so far failed to deliver any new products. The USA has instigated the PATRIOT ACT and other draconian measures under the name of "security".
In responding to the threat of terrorism/Linux the USA/MS has done things which in fact help the recruitment for the "enemy". In Iraq many ordinary citizens have taken up arms against the US invaders to avenge the real or perceived injustices done to them (e.g lost family members). Around the world, many companies and even governments are deliberately moving away from MS software to rid themselves of MS's vendor lock-in tactics - tactics that are meant to keep people using MS software.
The USA/MS like to tout their long list of partners. Whom they eventually screw over.
The USA/MS like to use secret(ive) organisations to do their dirty work at a distance. The US has long used the CIA to carry out secret missions in Iran, Iraq, Chile, Afghanistan, etc. Microsoft has used PR comapanies and even its own employees to carry out "astroturf" campaigns. They also have ties to ADTI and possibly SCO.
The USA uses the word "freedom" a lot but doesn't seem to know what it really means. Microsoft uses the word "open" a lot but doesn't seem to know what it really means. (ok, rimshot)
Ok, you made a few good points there. But you shouldn't let the AC trolls get to you like that. I often see childish taunts by AC's to my posts but have to let them go. Most people won't even see them down at score -1, so it doesn't matter. Don't encourage the trolls with a reply.
Yes, hopefully Apple will help bring some polish and increased credibility to the Jabber world. I'd also like to see them working with the existing Jabber community to build future applications/protocols on top of Jabber. Jabber at its heart is just an XML messaging system. So get some creative minds together and we will see some really interesting new applications of the Jabber framework.
Personally, I like the idea of using Jabber for communicating with and between software agents. People have already made things like email notifiers, but you could take it beyond IM-like functionality. Imagine having temperature sensors around your sever room (or house, or outside) and a Jabber client/agent that regularly sends out temperature readings to it's "friends". You then have some applet on your desktop that is also a Jabber client/agent. It takes these readings and displays them in a little window (or docklet, etc). It would all be very simple for both agents/clients. One sends out formatted data to subscribed "friends" (there's already an IRC-like group-chat schema in Jabber), and the other displays it. Most of the coordination would be in the server(s). And if the Jabber server is visible from the public internet, then you could be anywhere in the world monitoring the temperatures of your server room (or house). This is what Jabber offers.
Reporters, especially TV reporters, are the worst. I once heard a TV reporter refer to "emailing over the web". Obviously popular webmail services confuse the issue a lot. But if the reporters can't get technology right, it makes me wonder about what else they're fudging or getting flat-out wrong. Politics? Economics? Foreign affairs? Scary stuff when you consider that the general population depends on the media to inform them about important and interesting matters.
How about a shitload of neutrons and other nuclear radiation. IIRC, the USA has satellites that detect nuclear detonations from orbit by looking for this burst.
It would be a good point to note that only the more recent releases of the Linux kernel suport Serial ATA.
It would also be a good point to note that SATA itself is a recent standard. Drives have only started showing up in the last year or so.
For Linux-SATA info, a quick Google turned up the Serial ATA chipsets -- Linux support status page.
In one of the few interviews we saw here in Australia, Mike basically said "Yes I'm biased, I won't deny that. But so is the mainstream US media and I'm trying to offer balance with this movie.". The interviewer was quite offended by Mikes opinion of her profession and became rather defensive.
I'm not sure we should all try to filter out bias, but perhaps instead try to better understand our own biases and those of others.
Nothing does. He's simply "answering" the questions that have been levelled at him and his movie. That doesn't necessarily make him right, but he at least provides the sources of his information so you can investigate things for yourself.
I know I would love to put together something like GTA:VC or MTA. I'm sure many others have as well. My problem is that I'm perhaps not as good a coder as I'd like to think, and I've never explored game programming before. But I have put a lot of thought into it the last year or two, and have come up with these resources:
DIE - a car game in the early stages of development. It uses the two previous libraries.
Boost - C++ libraries. In particular, there is Boost.Python which allows good cooperation between C++ and Python. That could be useful for scripting the interactive behaviour of the various people, vehicles, weapons, and other devices.
As you say, the key would be in creating a flexible engine at the core. I imagine people adding new vehicles, tools, missions, and venues. I'm not sure what the "aim" of the game would be, but I'm sure people would create things to do. Here's my wishlist of improvements and other ideas:
Climbing ability. I see lots of ladders around GTA:VC, but can't climb them. The ability to hang onto ledges like Tomb Raider would be useful as well.
More detailed buildings. Most of the buildings in GTA:VC are just boxes. I'd like the ability to walk inside, use the stairs or elevators, find a sniping position on the balcony or window, etc.
Focus less on violence. GTA:VC has been heavily criticised for its violence and sometimes even I find it a little too much. I'd like to see more focus on stunts and tricks, mischief, puzzle solving and just simple exploration. Perhaps make the police more likely to catch you when you do something "wrong".
Different character classes. Perhaps not as detailed as a full-on role-playing game, but do have different types of characters with slightly different abilities. You need variety when multiple people are playing online.
More interactive elements like light switches, garage doors, elevators, etc. Perhaps the player could obtain a garage door remote control and go around opening peoples garages.
For the ultimate geek thrill, simulate several thousand artificial people! Get rid of the annoying "background" element of the cars and pedestrians in GTA:VC. Everyone has a house, they travel to work every morning and travel home every evening. Police and police cars actually patrol and have to travel to you instead of just appearing. Likewise with the heavier SWAT vans, police helicopter, and army trucks and tanks. Tourists travel in on planes to the airport, stay at hotels, travel around by day seeing the sights, and leave again by plane. Oh boy, lots of computation and memory and bandwidth! Perhaps a little too far-fetched for now.
SPF and DomainKeys do look like they'll fit well together. The DomainKeys FAQ points out that the real power of DomainKeys (and SPF too) will be in allowing reputation mechanisms to be built. These will allow an email server to do a quick lookup and see that the domain sending an email has sent a lot of spam in the past and act appropriately. You really need some good authentication for this to work at all.
Not true. IIRC, the MS patent is not on SPF itself but some other mechanism that MS created for "Caller ID" and was added to "Sender ID". See this post from last week for more information. SPF is still safe.
What I want to know is why posts that criticise commercial software are classed as Interesting or Insightful and those that criticise open-source software are classed as Flamebait.
Because commercial software is created by commercial entities. Their whole purpose is to create a good (and/or service) in exchange for money. If a customer finds the product lacking then they are perfectly justified in criticising it. Critics might also have used the software without purchasing it (i.e at work, on a friends computer, etc), so there isn't always the need for money to change hands.
Contrast this with F/OSS software, where most development is still done on a volunteer basis. This is generally software that is developed by people because they have an interest in it. Thus unfairly criticising F/OSS software is akin to insulting an artist or community volunteer. They've just gone and created something for everyone to use and all some people can do is whine and complain. Constructive criticism generally goes down better, but that usually isn't what I'm seeing in the trolls and flames here on/.
I have to point out how superficial your car comparison is. Do you have to use VW-compatible petrol/gas? Is the boot (almost wrote hood) welded shut? Does the street map in the glove box have to be VW-compatible? Do you have troubles driving it on non-VW roads?
No.
You can put in any brand petrol/gas you like, as long as it's the type it accepts (unleaded, etc). It can be serviced by yourself or any mechanic. A service manual and likely many other books are available for a reasonable cost. If you buy a new car of a different make, there's no great "migration". The car seat covers might or might not fit. And you don't actually "create" anything with a car. The only thing comparable to user files is the junk you carry in the car. And there should be no problem moving that.
In short, your car metaphor is deceptive and plain wrong.
You're not kidding? Did the whole DOJ anti-trust trial just fly over your head? What about the halloween memos? You can't be that new to slashdot, your uid number isn't that large.
It's simple. Microsoft got an early lead in the industry, mostly through being at the right place at the right time. i.e Gary Kildall (or his wife) turned down IBM and Microsoft got the contract to provide MS-DOS for the first IBM PC. Since then Microsoft has increasingly succeeded through business deals and lately vendor lock-in. Not technological superiority. Don't let yourself be blinded by the money and success.
If we're talking about visibility, then it's simple. The Microsoft Windows OEM licenses are very important. To get the best price (and keep the price of a PC down) an OEM has to play by Microsoft's rules. One of those is that a PC can't have another operating system pre-loaded on it. In fact, the rules apparently state that nothing can appear between the BIOS POST screen and the Windows logo boot screen. So OEM's can't even provide a dual-boot machine with Windows and Linux/BSD/BeOS/etc. Well, they could. But they would have to pay more for it. And with profit margins so thin that's a cost that few would want to take. I think there's also little discounts to OEM's for e.g putting those little 'made for windows' badges on PCs. To make matters worse, the exact pricing is made on a case-by-case basis and is confidential information. So we can't know how much each one is paying for Windows/Office/etc and the OEM's can't use it in negotiations.
I'm not complaining that the AOL-using public is a "bunch of newbs". I do that a lot normally, but that's not what I'm talking about directly. MS and others seem to know their customers very well. They know that most people will learn to use what's pre-installed on their computers. Just witness all the stuff that MS has been bundling with Windows in recent years. It all started with Internet Explorer, conveniently marked "The Internet" on the desktop. Now we have Outlook Express, Windows Media Player, and MSN messenger. Sure, people can download Firefox, Thunderbird, RealPlayer, Quicktime, and all sorts of IM programs. But most people don't. It's a combination of laziness and the network effect. You can see this especially in the IM market. People use these programs to communicate with their friends and the networks generally don't work together. So one person will exert pressure on their friends to use the same IM network/client, simply by being unavailable on others networks/clients.
(People in a recent/. story said that the ICQ client sucked. I wouldn't know. I used various Linux/X11 clones and never had any great problems. Now I'm using a Jabber server on the family ADSL router along with GNOME-jabber. So I'm effectively on three networks through the one client.)
In recent years Microsoft has leant heavily on vendor lock-in using on-disk formats and network protocols. OpenOffice seems to be doing a good job of "unlocking" many of the Office formats. Samba has been doing a great job for years of providing compatability with Microsoft's network disk/printer sharing protocols. But it takes time to reverse-engineer these things and in the mean time F/OSS projects look to be "behind" simply because of the format/protocol issue.
Anyway, this is what's referred to as a "barrier to entry". Microsoft aren't directly preventing others from entering the market and making a place for themselves. But they do make to very hard with their well-established software and lock-in tricks. Anyone wishing to compete with MS cannot make something just a little better than MS's product. They would have to make it so incredibly, amazingly better than MS to offset the added cost of moving people, data, and possibly whole company procedures to the new software. And first they have to get noticed. That's hard to do when most IT journalists are still such unadventerous twits and do little more than rewrite press releases.
If MS software is really as bad as everyone here makes out then why doesn't someone do it better?
Are you kidding? How about a little thing called "barrier to entry". Perhaps there are lots of software out there that's better. But it's hard for them to get a toe-hold when MS Windows and Office comes on >95% of PC's sold. When almost every single mainstream computer user thinks Windows == computer. When a frightening proportion of them have difficulty even naming the software that they do use because it's so ubiquitous. How can they possibly know of competing software?
John Howard dragged us into the "coalition of the willing" with the US. The comments of Howard and foreign minister Alexander Downer criticizing countries that have pulled out of Iraq haven't gone down too well.
I do think our part in the coalition has raised the amount of attention we receive from various islamic extremists. I remember hearing a report that Australia had been specifically mentioned in message claimed to be from Osama bin Laden. I think Howard's sycophantic position of following the US has put as in more danger and tarnished our image overseas. I'm afraid that we're no longer those nice Aussies, but in some people's eyes we're now those American wannabe's.
No, I can't imagine the country being worse off with Bob Brown as PM. Please, explain how this country would be ruined by the only leader and party with an untarnished image.
Re:Whose task is copy&paste
on
The Power of X
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
It's simple. You save to a file in app A and then open it in app B. Honestly, where's the attraction in having your data floating about in a clipboard like some etherial juggling act? Without extra tools you can only hold one thing in the clipboard. If you have to transfer many items you end up copying and pasting things one at a time, like a two-person boat transferring people across a river. But you can have as many files as you like. And they're only limited by your disk space, not your RAM+swap.
This Linux geek is quite happy with the cut buffer, complete with copy-on-select, thank you very much.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, uh, alright. Carry on then!
(note, when I write "USA" I mean the government, not the people).
Ok, you made a few good points there. But you shouldn't let the AC trolls get to you like that. I often see childish taunts by AC's to my posts but have to let them go. Most people won't even see them down at score -1, so it doesn't matter. Don't encourage the trolls with a reply.
Yeah, wow. A bug in the decoding of RLE-encoded Windows BMP files, and another in decompressing LHA archives. That'll really affect a lot of people.
</sarcasm>
I think I'm still pretty safe up here all high and mighty. Got any other obscure bugs you want to blow out of proportion?
Yes, hopefully Apple will help bring some polish and increased credibility to the Jabber world. I'd also like to see them working with the existing Jabber community to build future applications/protocols on top of Jabber. Jabber at its heart is just an XML messaging system. So get some creative minds together and we will see some really interesting new applications of the Jabber framework.
Personally, I like the idea of using Jabber for communicating with and between software agents. People have already made things like email notifiers, but you could take it beyond IM-like functionality. Imagine having temperature sensors around your sever room (or house, or outside) and a Jabber client/agent that regularly sends out temperature readings to it's "friends". You then have some applet on your desktop that is also a Jabber client/agent. It takes these readings and displays them in a little window (or docklet, etc). It would all be very simple for both agents/clients. One sends out formatted data to subscribed "friends" (there's already an IRC-like group-chat schema in Jabber), and the other displays it. Most of the coordination would be in the server(s). And if the Jabber server is visible from the public internet, then you could be anywhere in the world monitoring the temperatures of your server room (or house). This is what Jabber offers.
Reporters, especially TV reporters, are the worst. I once heard a TV reporter refer to "emailing over the web". Obviously popular webmail services confuse the issue a lot. But if the reporters can't get technology right, it makes me wonder about what else they're fudging or getting flat-out wrong. Politics? Economics? Foreign affairs? Scary stuff when you consider that the general population depends on the media to inform them about important and interesting matters.
The scene did not "cut out". Jack dipped and kissed Samantha just as the stargate was engaging, which meant time was about to loop around again.
How about a shitload of neutrons and other nuclear radiation. IIRC, the USA has satellites that detect nuclear detonations from orbit by looking for this burst.
It would also be a good point to note that SATA itself is a recent standard. Drives have only started showing up in the last year or so.
For Linux-SATA info, a quick Google turned up the Serial ATA chipsets -- Linux support status page.
In one of the few interviews we saw here in Australia, Mike basically said "Yes I'm biased, I won't deny that. But so is the mainstream US media and I'm trying to offer balance with this movie.". The interviewer was quite offended by Mikes opinion of her profession and became rather defensive.
I'm not sure we should all try to filter out bias, but perhaps instead try to better understand our own biases and those of others.
Nothing does. He's simply "answering" the questions that have been levelled at him and his movie. That doesn't necessarily make him right, but he at least provides the sources of his information so you can investigate things for yourself.
I know I would love to put together something like GTA:VC or MTA. I'm sure many others have as well. My problem is that I'm perhaps not as good a coder as I'd like to think, and I've never explored game programming before. But I have put a lot of thought into it the last year or two, and have come up with these resources:
As you say, the key would be in creating a flexible engine at the core. I imagine people adding new vehicles, tools, missions, and venues. I'm not sure what the "aim" of the game would be, but I'm sure people would create things to do. Here's my wishlist of improvements and other ideas:
Japan was transmitting analog HDTV since the early 90's.
SPF and DomainKeys do look like they'll fit well together. The DomainKeys FAQ points out that the real power of DomainKeys (and SPF too) will be in allowing reputation mechanisms to be built. These will allow an email server to do a quick lookup and see that the domain sending an email has sent a lot of spam in the past and act appropriately. You really need some good authentication for this to work at all.
Not true. IIRC, the MS patent is not on SPF itself but some other mechanism that MS created for "Caller ID" and was added to "Sender ID". See this post from last week for more information. SPF is still safe.
Because commercial software is created by commercial entities. Their whole purpose is to create a good (and/or service) in exchange for money. If a customer finds the product lacking then they are perfectly justified in criticising it. Critics might also have used the software without purchasing it (i.e at work, on a friends computer, etc), so there isn't always the need for money to change hands.
Contrast this with F/OSS software, where most development is still done on a volunteer basis. This is generally software that is developed by people because they have an interest in it. Thus unfairly criticising F/OSS software is akin to insulting an artist or community volunteer. They've just gone and created something for everyone to use and all some people can do is whine and complain. Constructive criticism generally goes down better, but that usually isn't what I'm seeing in the trolls and flames here on /.
*cough* GNOME Storage *cough*
I have to point out how superficial your car comparison is. Do you have to use VW-compatible petrol/gas? Is the boot (almost wrote hood) welded shut? Does the street map in the glove box have to be VW-compatible? Do you have troubles driving it on non-VW roads?
No.
You can put in any brand petrol/gas you like, as long as it's the type it accepts (unleaded, etc). It can be serviced by yourself or any mechanic. A service manual and likely many other books are available for a reasonable cost. If you buy a new car of a different make, there's no great "migration". The car seat covers might or might not fit. And you don't actually "create" anything with a car. The only thing comparable to user files is the junk you carry in the car. And there should be no problem moving that.
In short, your car metaphor is deceptive and plain wrong.
You're not kidding? Did the whole DOJ anti-trust trial just fly over your head? What about the halloween memos? You can't be that new to slashdot, your uid number isn't that large.
It's simple. Microsoft got an early lead in the industry, mostly through being at the right place at the right time. i.e Gary Kildall (or his wife) turned down IBM and Microsoft got the contract to provide MS-DOS for the first IBM PC. Since then Microsoft has increasingly succeeded through business deals and lately vendor lock-in. Not technological superiority. Don't let yourself be blinded by the money and success.
If we're talking about visibility, then it's simple. The Microsoft Windows OEM licenses are very important. To get the best price (and keep the price of a PC down) an OEM has to play by Microsoft's rules. One of those is that a PC can't have another operating system pre-loaded on it. In fact, the rules apparently state that nothing can appear between the BIOS POST screen and the Windows logo boot screen. So OEM's can't even provide a dual-boot machine with Windows and Linux/BSD/BeOS/etc. Well, they could. But they would have to pay more for it. And with profit margins so thin that's a cost that few would want to take. I think there's also little discounts to OEM's for e.g putting those little 'made for windows' badges on PCs. To make matters worse, the exact pricing is made on a case-by-case basis and is confidential information. So we can't know how much each one is paying for Windows/Office/etc and the OEM's can't use it in negotiations.
I'm not complaining that the AOL-using public is a "bunch of newbs". I do that a lot normally, but that's not what I'm talking about directly. MS and others seem to know their customers very well. They know that most people will learn to use what's pre-installed on their computers. Just witness all the stuff that MS has been bundling with Windows in recent years. It all started with Internet Explorer, conveniently marked "The Internet" on the desktop. Now we have Outlook Express, Windows Media Player, and MSN messenger. Sure, people can download Firefox, Thunderbird, RealPlayer, Quicktime, and all sorts of IM programs. But most people don't. It's a combination of laziness and the network effect. You can see this especially in the IM market. People use these programs to communicate with their friends and the networks generally don't work together. So one person will exert pressure on their friends to use the same IM network/client, simply by being unavailable on others networks/clients.
(People in a recent /. story said that the ICQ client sucked. I wouldn't know. I used various Linux/X11 clones and never had any great problems. Now I'm using a Jabber server on the family ADSL router along with GNOME-jabber. So I'm effectively on three networks through the one client.)
In recent years Microsoft has leant heavily on vendor lock-in using on-disk formats and network protocols. OpenOffice seems to be doing a good job of "unlocking" many of the Office formats. Samba has been doing a great job for years of providing compatability with Microsoft's network disk/printer sharing protocols. But it takes time to reverse-engineer these things and in the mean time F/OSS projects look to be "behind" simply because of the format/protocol issue.
Anyway, this is what's referred to as a "barrier to entry". Microsoft aren't directly preventing others from entering the market and making a place for themselves. But they do make to very hard with their well-established software and lock-in tricks. Anyone wishing to compete with MS cannot make something just a little better than MS's product. They would have to make it so incredibly, amazingly better than MS to offset the added cost of moving people, data, and possibly whole company procedures to the new software. And first they have to get noticed. That's hard to do when most IT journalists are still such unadventerous twits and do little more than rewrite press releases.
Are you kidding? How about a little thing called "barrier to entry". Perhaps there are lots of software out there that's better. But it's hard for them to get a toe-hold when MS Windows and Office comes on >95% of PC's sold. When almost every single mainstream computer user thinks Windows == computer. When a frightening proportion of them have difficulty even naming the software that they do use because it's so ubiquitous. How can they possibly know of competing software?
John Howard dragged us into the "coalition of the willing" with the US. The comments of Howard and foreign minister Alexander Downer criticizing countries that have pulled out of Iraq haven't gone down too well.
I do think our part in the coalition has raised the amount of attention we receive from various islamic extremists. I remember hearing a report that Australia had been specifically mentioned in message claimed to be from Osama bin Laden. I think Howard's sycophantic position of following the US has put as in more danger and tarnished our image overseas. I'm afraid that we're no longer those nice Aussies, but in some people's eyes we're now those American wannabe's.
No, I can't imagine the country being worse off with Bob Brown as PM. Please, explain how this country would be ruined by the only leader and party with an untarnished image.
ALP: Truth overboard... 27 lies and counting
johnhowardlies.com
It's simple. You save to a file in app A and then open it in app B. Honestly, where's the attraction in having your data floating about in a clipboard like some etherial juggling act? Without extra tools you can only hold one thing in the clipboard. If you have to transfer many items you end up copying and pasting things one at a time, like a two-person boat transferring people across a river. But you can have as many files as you like. And they're only limited by your disk space, not your RAM+swap.
This Linux geek is quite happy with the cut buffer, complete with copy-on-select, thank you very much.