"They focus on the pains of data migration, macros, and training"
Ah, the trials of a monopoly. Once you've attained complete market saturatation, your only option to is to keep locking in your current users more and more tightly. It's a bitch moving an Access database to another version of Access, let alone another suite entirely.
The Dalai LLama A watched comment never gets modded...
"For example, a multi-player game success story would be the XBOX Live system"
The X-Box Live system belongs to Microsoft (as I understand it). It's their system and if they want to lock anybody out of it for any reason or no reason, more power to 'em.
"these obvious benefits get ignored while they harp on all the negatives"
Ya' know, the trains did run on time.
The internet is everybody's system and my computer is my system. I don't think it's beyond possibility that the combined weight of Microsoft, Intel, and the other 900 lb. gorillas of the "Trusted Computing" gang might be able to leverage their power into locking out non-trusted (Linux?!?) computers from shared internet resources, or to lock out non-trusted operating systems from a motherboard.
That may sound tin-foil hattish, but there's a story on the main page right now that details how Microsoft used Intel to hammer the Go corporation and there's evidence that they are using SCO to hammer Linux. A monopoly can best be maintained by using all of its resources to lock out competition, and what better way to ensure that a driver will buy your car than to lock him out of his own or block his access to the freeway?
"perhaps the inevibility of Trusted Computing would be more favorable to consumers and developers"
Yes, monopolies, like dictatorships, can generally be counted on to act in the best interest of the people they serve.
Speaking of the Newton: Did Microsoft's monopolistic policies actually hurt our national security? Are there Al-Qaeda / Redmond links? Did Microsoft weaken our anti-terrorist defenses enough to allow 9/11?
Ummm... prob'ly not. But if the idea of a bunch of grunts with Newtons intrigues you, you might find these interesting:
The Dalai Llama I got your Sea Dragon right here...
Re:OSS - Security through lack of motivation
on
Gnome.org Compromised?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Sorry, should have been more explicit.
This story highlights the fact that the Gnome folks went out of their way to actively inform the community that their product may have been compromised.
My point is this: proprietary vendors have an incentive to hide from their customers security compromises; OSS software makers have an incentive to alert their customers to potential security compromises.
The idea is related to the "more eyes examining it" argument, but also subtly different.
The Dalai Llama willing to create a cute metaphor or analogy, if that will help
OSS - Security through lack of motivation
on
Gnome.org Compromised?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Just a thought, and I haven't been around very long, but if a major software company had reason to suspect their security had been compromised the day before a major release, which is to say sometime after major effort and bucks went into promoting the release, would they publicize it?
It seems to me that since Gnome is open-source, they don't have a lot to lose by delaying the release until they know their product has not been compromised.
The Dalai Llama Just thinking out loud, try not to get any on your shoes
For what it's worth... I'm not an "IT" professional by the standards of most/.ers, but I am the computer guy for a family violence shelter in a small city.
I don't get paid well because my employer would rather use the money to keep families safe, but I am afforded a lot of freedom in running things computer-wise. Also, the fact that we're small means that we use every resource to its fullest capacity and that innovation is appreciated. I can't write C++, but making an Access database that will track donations and reduce by 75% the time spent writing thank-you letters is a big deal, and is noted and appreciated. When a desktop user gets a weird attachment, she calls across the office to ask me about it and problems are headed off early; I also have the luxury of great tech-support by our ISP, who know us by name as an organization and know me personally. When a realty company upgraded its system, we got a bunch of old P-I's and I got to spend a couple of days cannibalizing and frankensteining 13 crap systems into 4 or 5 good ones that went to clients and appreciative end-users here.
My job is varied and fun, and working for a small organization includes a great amount of personal freedom that offsets much of the lack of pay. When my girl shows up to take me to lunch unexpectedly, I can take some extra time to enjoy it without worrying about some PHB. While I'm out, I can swing by the printer's office to drop off the files for our next brochure (files which, incidentally, their graphic-arts guy personally showed me how to tweak for 4-color printing). People really appreciate the skill and ability that I bring to the job, and I'm truly not much more than a glorified end-user, myself. I'm not acclaimed by the world's I.T. community for the l337ness of my code, but when I do something nifty for a coworker there's a very high chance that I'll be acclaimed with a donut.
All of the above is only buttressed by the fact that I get to see women walk into our shelter bleeding from abuse and walk back out on the road to a better life. If you're really unhappy with your job, try looking for someplace small. You won't get rich, but by helping others you may end up helping yourself.
The Dalai Llama You may also be afforded the luxury of posting to slashdot on your breaks and checking out The Onion on your lunch hour
Can't you get in trouble for monkeying with currency?
This was discussed in an earlier thread about some guys that nuked a stack of $20's looking for RFID tags (though I'm having trouble finding the article) and IIRC, the topic is dicussed here, as well.
The Dalai Llama
"I write messages on money. Its my own form of social protest. A letter printed on paper that no one will destroy passed indiscriminately across race, class And gender lines And written in a blood that keeps the beast alive. A Quiet little hijacking on the way to the check-out counter And a Federal crime. I hope that someone will find my message one day when they really need it.
You Are Not A Slave" - some guy on the liner notes for a Rage Against the Machine Album
but strikes me as something most of us would probably not want to play with.
Which may be why the page's warning takes up as much space as the page's main title.
From story (sort of):
"Ever want an easy way to make your 'small mind' even smaller?... mix a home-brewed machine, 6.5 kiloJoules, and 100,000 Amps of current!
The Dalai Llama
Who learned at a very young age that stripping the cord from an old clock, plugging the cord into the wall, and touching the bare wires to both sides of a watch battery produces an amazing spectacle that will put one off of any later attempts at producing home-brewed mini-change.
profane, adj. (Of speech or conduct) irreverent to something held sacred.
I know I'm jumping in late on this one, and I'm not reading at -1 so mod me down if I'm redundant, but what scares me the most about this is not that they are trying to prevent utterance of the dreaded "F-word" on TV. What scares me is that they are doing so because it is "profane".
This makes me fear that either:
A. The people in charge really don't speak the same language that the rest of us do and/or they don't even consider the ramifications of semantic uncertainty in the language that they use to write the laws by which they will punish us.
or
B. Somebody in our government will get to decide what is and what isn't officially sacred, they will get to decide just how irreverant the rest of us can and cannot be, and they will get to decide appropriate punishment for those of us who act in a manner they deem profane.
The Dalai LLama
"If we ever get a president named Booger, Skeeter, T-Bone, or Downtown President Brown, you'll know that finally this country is a relaxed, comfortable place to live." - George Carlin
I think the proliferation of broadband has helped the internet become a more valuable tool for the average 2.5-kids-having-explorer-driving-all-American-fami ly, which has caused it to be a greater part of all our lives. As such, it is now on the radar for the type of people who are threatened by anything beyond their control.
The more we become dependent on the internet, the more interest there will be in regulating it. The level of freedom, possibility, and power that the internet affords to the average person is simply unprecedented. Freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press. With the advent of the internet, the average soccer-mom now has a press that can publish to the entire world for pennies.
Attempts to regulate and lock-down the net are inevitable. It is the nature of those who seek power for themselves to deny and control the power afforded to others.
The possibility of always-on connections spewing a constant stream of malware and sludge is just an excuse. The proliferation of broadband is dangerous because it put the issue on the map and a very high level of power in the hands of the people.
The Dalai Llama Citizen of a nation where freedom of speech, bought with the blood of heroes, is used to spread pr0n and reality TV shows.
For what it's worth, I am the "Bob User" that he wrote for, and the article seemed to fairly accurately reflect the thought process that I would have gone through.
As far as easy installs go... I've plugged this before, but I think it's worth repeating that Arklinux has a really smooth install (including a little Tetris game to play during loading). After using Knoppix only a few times, I was able to install Ark on a Compaq laptop and give it a whirl.
Of course, your mileage may vary, but I'm dual-booting Ark on my home computer, and I've switched to using it exclusively (except when I'm playing Disney's Toontown, which only runs on I.E.), and I know next to nothing (I sort of know what a command line is, but that's about it.)
It's still in Alpha, so do be careful, but I would HIGHLY recommend it for clueless "windoze" users looking to get their feet wet.
The Dalai Llama
I would while away the hours conversatin' with the flowers... if I only had a.sig
In January, McBride's unlisted home telephone number was placed on Slashdot.org... Hackers also targeted the company's Web site... McBride said he sometimes carries a gun...
I'm not a big fan of people taking the law into their own hands, but...
It's one thing to throw rocks at someone from the safety of a cushy penthouse and the security of a legal/corporate structure designed to benefit and serve you (and those like you). Must be a tad unsettling to find that one's actions as a corporate entity can lead to consequences in the real world.
On another note...
McBride said he sometimes carries a gun, declining to specify the type...
If his handgun is as powerful as his legal standing, I'm guessing it's a.32 automatic.
The Dalai LLama
"If someone ever shot me with a.22 and I found out about it, I'd be mad as hell!" - Some Texas Ranger
I gather that, given enough time, most/.ers could write working binaries with nothing but a pencil, some paper, and a case of Jolt cola, but I guess this is the place for my first post: an old thread where my almost-complete ignorance works in my favor. Mod me redundant, but if there are any other newbies reading this, let me second NtroP's recommendation of Arklinux.
Other than Knoppix, ARKlinux is the only distro I've ever tried*. It has installed smoothly on both of my machines (a Compaq laptop and a home-baked system built around a 1.2G Athlon), using an interface that makes installation easy for newbs. It can either be installed by itself (be careful - this option overwrites your drives), or it can be installed parallel to an existing OS using unpartitioned disk space (it co-exists with Win98 nicely on my machine) or space that it clears for itself (if I'm understanding correctly, and I'm really not a reliable source). It's still in Alpha stages, so I wouldn't recommend trying to put it on the machine that has the only existing copy of your almost-finished doctoral thesis, but it's easy enough and stable enough that I've switched to it completely as my home OS.
If you're a newb looking to get your feet wet, have the obligatory one-night stand with Knoppix and then give Ark a try. YMMV, but I have nothing but good things to say about it (and I am a reliable source by virtue of my cluelessness).
The Dalai Llama
* Ok, there was that time I tried to use BasicLinux on a 286 laptop and learned the hard way that, unlike Windows, anything saved in the "temp" directory goes away when you cut the power. That doesn't count.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, the trials of a monopoly. Once you've attained complete market saturatation, your only option to is to keep locking in your current users more and more tightly. It's a bitch moving an Access database to another version of Access, let alone another suite entirely.
The Dalai LLama
A watched comment never gets modded...
The X-Box Live system belongs to Microsoft (as I understand it). It's their system and if they want to lock anybody out of it for any reason or no reason, more power to 'em.
Ya' know, the trains did run on time.
The internet is everybody's system and my computer is my system. I don't think it's beyond possibility that the combined weight of Microsoft, Intel, and the other 900 lb. gorillas of the "Trusted Computing" gang might be able to leverage their power into locking out non-trusted (Linux?!?) computers from shared internet resources, or to lock out non-trusted operating systems from a motherboard.
That may sound tin-foil hattish, but there's a story on the main page right now that details how Microsoft used Intel to hammer the Go corporation and there's evidence that they are using SCO to hammer Linux. A monopoly can best be maintained by using all of its resources to lock out competition, and what better way to ensure that a driver will buy your car than to lock him out of his own or block his access to the freeway?
Yes, monopolies, like dictatorships, can generally be counted on to act in the best interest of the people they serve.
The Dalai Llama
trust no one...Speaking of the Newton: Did Microsoft's monopolistic policies actually hurt our national security? Are there Al-Qaeda / Redmond links? Did Microsoft weaken our anti-terrorist defenses enough to allow 9/11?
Ummm... prob'ly not. But if the idea of a bunch of grunts with Newtons intrigues you, you might find these interesting:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/hunter- warrior.htm
This one's PDF, takes a while to load:www.cadrc.calpoly.edu/pdf/feat4_brochure.pdf
The Dalai Llama
I got your Sea Dragon right here...
Sorry, should have been more explicit.
This story highlights the fact that the Gnome folks went out of their way to actively inform the community that their product may have been compromised.
My point is this: proprietary vendors have an incentive to hide from their customers security compromises; OSS software makers have an incentive to alert their customers to potential security compromises.
The idea is related to the "more eyes examining it" argument, but also subtly different.
The Dalai Llama
willing to create a cute metaphor or analogy, if that will help
Just a thought, and I haven't been around very long, but if a major software company had reason to suspect their security had been compromised the day before a major release, which is to say sometime after major effort and bucks went into promoting the release, would they publicize it?
It seems to me that since Gnome is open-source, they don't have a lot to lose by delaying the release until they know their product has not been compromised.
The Dalai Llama
Just thinking out loud, try not to get any on your shoes
For what it's worth... I'm not an "IT" professional by the standards of most /.ers, but I am the computer guy for a family violence shelter in a small city.
I don't get paid well because my employer would rather use the money to keep families safe, but I am afforded a lot of freedom in running things computer-wise. Also, the fact that we're small means that we use every resource to its fullest capacity and that innovation is appreciated. I can't write C++, but making an Access database that will track donations and reduce by 75% the time spent writing thank-you letters is a big deal, and is noted and appreciated. When a desktop user gets a weird attachment, she calls across the office to ask me about it and problems are headed off early; I also have the luxury of great tech-support by our ISP, who know us by name as an organization and know me personally. When a realty company upgraded its system, we got a bunch of old P-I's and I got to spend a couple of days cannibalizing and frankensteining 13 crap systems into 4 or 5 good ones that went to clients and appreciative end-users here.
My job is varied and fun, and working for a small organization includes a great amount of personal freedom that offsets much of the lack of pay. When my girl shows up to take me to lunch unexpectedly, I can take some extra time to enjoy it without worrying about some PHB. While I'm out, I can swing by the printer's office to drop off the files for our next brochure (files which, incidentally, their graphic-arts guy personally showed me how to tweak for 4-color printing). People really appreciate the skill and ability that I bring to the job, and I'm truly not much more than a glorified end-user, myself. I'm not acclaimed by the world's I.T. community for the l337ness of my code, but when I do something nifty for a coworker there's a very high chance that I'll be acclaimed with a donut.
All of the above is only buttressed by the fact that I get to see women walk into our shelter bleeding from abuse and walk back out on the road to a better life. If you're really unhappy with your job, try looking for someplace small. You won't get rich, but by helping others you may end up helping yourself.
The Dalai Llama
You may also be afforded the luxury of posting to slashdot on your breaks and checking out The Onion on your lunch hour
...the clever people who've sold things like "genuine air guitars" and "nothing".
Half the fun of e-bay is the really bizarre stuff.
The Dalai Llama .sig available for purchase: $100,000 USD -ebay auction #66666. Buyer pays shipping from Andorra.
This
This was discussed in an earlier thread about some guys that nuked a stack of $20's looking for RFID tags (though I'm having trouble finding the article) and IIRC, the topic is dicussed here, as well.
The Dalai Llama
"I write messages on money. Its my own form of social protest. A letter printed on paper that no one will destroy passed indiscriminately across race, class And gender lines And written in a blood that keeps the beast alive. A Quiet little hijacking on the way to the check-out counter And a Federal crime. I hope that someone will find my message one day when they really need it. You Are Not A Slave" - some guy on the liner notes for a Rage Against the Machine Album
From parent post:
Which may be why the page's warning takes up as much space as the page's main title.
From story (sort of):The Dalai Llama
Who learned at a very young age that stripping the cord from an old clock, plugging the cord into the wall, and touching the bare wires to both sides of a watch battery produces an amazing spectacle that will put one off of any later attempts at producing home-brewed mini-change.I know I'm jumping in late on this one, and I'm not reading at -1 so mod me down if I'm redundant, but what scares me the most about this is not that they are trying to prevent utterance of the dreaded "F-word" on TV. What scares me is that they are doing so because it is "profane".
This makes me fear that either:
A. The people in charge really don't speak the same language that the rest of us do and/or they don't even consider the ramifications of semantic uncertainty in the language that they use to write the laws by which they will punish us.
or
B. Somebody in our government will get to decide what is and what isn't officially sacred, they will get to decide just how irreverant the rest of us can and cannot be, and they will get to decide appropriate punishment for those of us who act in a manner they deem profane.
The Dalai LLama
"If we ever get a president named Booger, Skeeter, T-Bone, or Downtown President Brown, you'll know that finally this country is a relaxed, comfortable place to live." - George CarlinI think the proliferation of broadband has helped the internet become a more valuable tool for the average 2.5-kids-having-explorer-driving-all-American-fami ly, which has caused it to be a greater part of all our lives. As such, it is now on the radar for the type of people who are threatened by anything beyond their control.
The more we become dependent on the internet, the more interest there will be in regulating it. The level of freedom, possibility, and power that the internet affords to the average person is simply unprecedented. Freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press. With the advent of the internet, the average soccer-mom now has a press that can publish to the entire world for pennies.
Attempts to regulate and lock-down the net are inevitable. It is the nature of those who seek power for themselves to deny and control the power afforded to others.
The possibility of always-on connections spewing a constant stream of malware and sludge is just an excuse. The proliferation of broadband is dangerous because it put the issue on the map and a very high level of power in the hands of the people.
The Dalai Llama
Citizen of a nation where freedom of speech, bought with the blood of heroes, is used to spread pr0n and reality TV shows.
For what it's worth, I am the "Bob User" that he wrote for, and the article seemed to fairly accurately reflect the thought process that I would have gone through.
As far as easy installs go... I've plugged this before, but I think it's worth repeating that Arklinux has a really smooth install (including a little Tetris game to play during loading). After using Knoppix only a few times, I was able to install Ark on a Compaq laptop and give it a whirl.
Of course, your mileage may vary, but I'm dual-booting Ark on my home computer, and I've switched to using it exclusively (except when I'm playing Disney's Toontown, which only runs on I.E.), and I know next to nothing (I sort of know what a command line is, but that's about it.)
It's still in Alpha, so do be careful, but I would HIGHLY recommend it for clueless "windoze" users looking to get their feet wet.
The Dalai Llama
I would while away the hours conversatin' with the flowers... if I only had a .sig
I'm not a big fan of people taking the law into their own hands, but...
It's one thing to throw rocks at someone from the safety of a cushy penthouse and the security of a legal/corporate structure designed to benefit and serve you (and those like you). Must be a tad unsettling to find that one's actions as a corporate entity can lead to consequences in the real world.
On another note...
If his handgun is as powerful as his legal standing, I'm guessing it's a .32 automatic.
The Dalai LLama .22 and I found out about it, I'd be mad as hell!" - Some Texas Ranger
"If someone ever shot me with a
I imagine that there will be many Parkinson's sufferers who will be very grateful for the opportunity to march in lock-step.
The Dalai Llama
I gather that, given enough time, most /.ers could write working binaries with nothing but a pencil, some paper, and a case of Jolt cola, but I guess this is the place for my first post: an old thread where my almost-complete ignorance works in my favor. Mod me redundant, but if there are any other newbies reading this, let me second NtroP's recommendation of Arklinux.
Other than Knoppix, ARKlinux is the only distro I've ever tried*. It has installed smoothly on both of my machines (a Compaq laptop and a home-baked system built around a 1.2G Athlon), using an interface that makes installation easy for newbs. It can either be installed by itself (be careful - this option overwrites your drives), or it can be installed parallel to an existing OS using unpartitioned disk space (it co-exists with Win98 nicely on my machine) or space that it clears for itself (if I'm understanding correctly, and I'm really not a reliable source). It's still in Alpha stages, so I wouldn't recommend trying to put it on the machine that has the only existing copy of your almost-finished doctoral thesis, but it's easy enough and stable enough that I've switched to it completely as my home OS.
If you're a newb looking to get your feet wet, have the obligatory one-night stand with Knoppix and then give Ark a try. YMMV, but I have nothing but good things to say about it (and I am a reliable source by virtue of my cluelessness).
The Dalai Llama
* Ok, there was that time I tried to use BasicLinux on a 286 laptop and learned the hard way that, unlike Windows, anything saved in the "temp" directory goes away when you cut the power. That doesn't count.