Windows 98 still works. You can use it for Internet browsing, email, and word processing. You can run older games on it, too--there are even a fair number of recent games that will run on it--but if you have the money for the appropriate hardware, you'll upgrade Windows.
The point is, not everyone can afford $100 for a software upgrade that's not really necessary, especially if it will probably significantly decrease the speed of their computer.
The grandparent's argument was more like "My 1989 Buick gets me around, but doesn't have side airbags. I can't afford a new car, so I won't." If you had two neurons to rub together, you'd realize that.
What risk is there in US $.05 coins? They don't contain nickel--if they did, melting them down would get you more than $.05. Moreover, they'd be magnetic, like iron and cobalt. Try sticking a nickel to a magnet--it doesn't work.
On the other hand, it would be simple as hell to embed eighteen bricks in the chassis of any SUV you care to name. Nobody would notice the difference--except that you have to plug your SUV in every night.
The whole penis enlargement issue is sad--literally.
People don't seem to realize that, first, vaginas aren't terribly sensitive, and second, the vagina itself is only four inches deep, give or take. If you have an eight-inch penis, you're going to punch holes in your girlfriend's cervix (unless she's extremely tall, of course). It's girth much more than length that matters, but even so, most women don't get off on vaginal stimulation.
So if you have a small penis, just work on the dexterity of your tongue. No one will complain.
On the other hand, this is Slashdot; I doubt it's an issue here.
Well, if you took metal and a workshop and copied your Buick to create an identical vehicle, would that be stealing?
But it would infringe on trademarks and patents.
It's a matter of where you got the object in question--whether it was copied by a consumer or created by the distributor.
There's no marginal loss in copyright infringement. There's opportunity loss, though. On the other hand, theft always involves marginal loss and usually opportunity loss.
In short, if I get an illegal copy of OS X, Apple doesn't have any less money or property than it had before, but it has less money or property than it would have had.
Not necessarily. You could say there are fewer flaws to find in Windows.
On the other hand, most remote exploits for Linux depend on SSH. Want a secure desktop Linux? Turn off SSH. And remove sudo.
Besides, those flaws are in specific applications, not the OS itself, in many cases.
Also, most flaws found in Linux are patched within days of discovery, announced upon verification, and less serious than the Windows counterparts. Given those facts, I'd say that less work goes into finding Windows exploits. Perhaps more goes into patching them, though--you have to ensure compatability with a very wide range of programs from 1995 to the present. And when I find a bug, I can't submit a patch to Microsoft.
Such a meter can only monitor the sound of your voice. It would totally fail on me; I use a monotone. It would have widely varying and unhelpful results for a portion of the population. Unless, of course, you can 'train' it like voice recognition software, but that would involve a good bit of math and some complex learning algorithms; I'm not sure how I'd implement anything like that.
What you're talking about would probably involve a natural language processor at the least, possibly full-fledged AI.
Charitable deductions come from your income--they're basically not computed into your taxes. If the charity $ were deducted from the amount you had to pay, then I'd have this objection; but if you give away half your money to charity, you're still taxed on half your money.
It's a rather crappy system, in my view. One designed to encourage people to pay taxes like good lemmings. The only way it could help is by dropping you down into a lower tax bracket, and $5M won't do that for Microsoft.
Ah, so now we're all running thin clients? It shouldn't be too much trouble to intercept the packets sent across the LAN.
But you forget about commuters--they need off-campus access, and probably offline access. If these ebooks aren't available on CD, then the university has to give out laptops and offer free off-campus Internet access. Some (most?) offer the latter; the former won't be as common. So the class buys one copy of the CD, waits a week for this semester's crack to come out, and profits.
I find that my professors tend to write their own textbooks half the time. Those are distributed for free or for the copying fee.
1. Depends on the kid's age. They're going to learn about sex; best to teach them before puberty, and then let them find out about the details of kink on their own--though you should make sure they understand it's not a bad thing, ever, as long as it's safe, sane, and consensual. Then Goatse would strike them as odd, perhaps intriguing, perhaps disgusting, but nothing to cause shame.
2. The computer will not kill you.
3. Agreed--and you don't let any kid run around online with a credit card number.
4. Most people are trustworthy in real life. So as long as you explain to the kid that it's a bad idea to give anyone your street address, there should be no problems. I've never encountered anyone malicious online, probably because I tend toward smaller areas for interaction. Which you should tell your kids to do, too.
One other reason to keep a computer in your child's room: porn. You know they'll probably check it out, and best if they need not worry or get embarrassed at the possibility that you'll find out.
Programming with Visual Basic and C# is much easier and faster than programming with C++, by the reports I've heard. Unfortunately, there's no open library to allow interoperability in Linux, Unix et alia. I'd rather use C# than Java just for speed--though I'd have to stay away from the standard library, since I don't use Windows.
The products that Microsoft produces aren't horrible, just mediocre in a networked environment and not terribly reliable. (Contrast with Linux--I've had to reset my computer maybe three times in the past year due to X crashing, with zero errors in the past four months or so.)
As for their hiring practices...they're definitely odd. You don't have to apply at Microsoft to get a job there, but you do have to pass a few logic tests. It works for Google, too, though.
Well, perhaps the fact that a five-year-old can't reach the pedals or see above the dashboard has a bit of influence.
There's also the safety factor--do little kids have the attention span to drive ten miles down the freeway, obeying traffic laws? Explosions are cool, after all. And then there's the whole hand-eye coordination in development thing.
It's an interface issue. A car has a wheel and a few levers; you need to know how to work three of the levers (for an automatic), and you see results almost immediately. A computer has a keyboard and mouse, but those aren't the real interface; you've got a web browser with ten buttons and six menus (and about two dozen submenus), half a score of dialog boxes that you can access via the menus and buttons....and oftentimes, you alter a setting and don't see any result for quite some time.
That's about one essential text input widget, four or five essential buttons, and maybe three essential menus.
And the average user uses what, web browser, text editor, file manager, maybe a couple more applications? That's closer to five input widgets, a score of essential menus, and even more buttons to remember.
Less important stuff, well, cars would have about two or three option levers, plus stereo and AC.
I'm not talking about maintainence, I'm talking about pure use. It's a lot easier to get into a car and drive than to use a computer.
Says me, who hasn't driven in the past three years and uses Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
Stiffu.
Windows 98 still works. You can use it for Internet browsing, email, and word processing. You can run older games on it, too--there are even a fair number of recent games that will run on it--but if you have the money for the appropriate hardware, you'll upgrade Windows.
The point is, not everyone can afford $100 for a software upgrade that's not really necessary, especially if it will probably significantly decrease the speed of their computer.
The grandparent's argument was more like "My 1989 Buick gets me around, but doesn't have side airbags. I can't afford a new car, so I won't." If you had two neurons to rub together, you'd realize that.
Sometimes X refuses input, and even pressing Ctrl-Alt-F doesn't switch back to the console.
.swf is Flash. Firefox sometimes flakes out when you try to run a non-embedded Flash animation with it.
I saw that the article said "Shockwave" and thought it ironic--as everyone knows, Shockwave doesn't run on Linux (except via Wine).
What risk is there in US $.05 coins? They don't contain nickel--if they did, melting them down would get you more than $.05. Moreover, they'd be magnetic, like iron and cobalt. Try sticking a nickel to a magnet--it doesn't work.
On the other hand, it would be simple as hell to embed eighteen bricks in the chassis of any SUV you care to name. Nobody would notice the difference--except that you have to plug your SUV in every night.
The whole penis enlargement issue is sad--literally.
People don't seem to realize that, first, vaginas aren't terribly sensitive, and second, the vagina itself is only four inches deep, give or take. If you have an eight-inch penis, you're going to punch holes in your girlfriend's cervix (unless she's extremely tall, of course). It's girth much more than length that matters, but even so, most women don't get off on vaginal stimulation.
So if you have a small penis, just work on the dexterity of your tongue. No one will complain.
On the other hand, this is Slashdot; I doubt it's an issue here.
Well, if you took metal and a workshop and copied your Buick to create an identical vehicle, would that be stealing?
But it would infringe on trademarks and patents.
It's a matter of where you got the object in question--whether it was copied by a consumer or created by the distributor.
There's no marginal loss in copyright infringement. There's opportunity loss, though. On the other hand, theft always involves marginal loss and usually opportunity loss.
In short, if I get an illegal copy of OS X, Apple doesn't have any less money or property than it had before, but it has less money or property than it would have had.
Okay, so this isn't news, just an announcement that there's going to be news.
Or am I being too cynical?
What about hacking hardware you got via BitTorrent?
How many bugbytes is that?
Not necessarily. You could say there are fewer flaws to find in Windows.
On the other hand, most remote exploits for Linux depend on SSH. Want a secure desktop Linux? Turn off SSH. And remove sudo.
Besides, those flaws are in specific applications, not the OS itself, in many cases.
Also, most flaws found in Linux are patched within days of discovery, announced upon verification, and less serious than the Windows counterparts. Given those facts, I'd say that less work goes into finding Windows exploits. Perhaps more goes into patching them, though--you have to ensure compatability with a very wide range of programs from 1995 to the present. And when I find a bug, I can't submit a patch to Microsoft.
Even a monkey can find a flaw in Windows.
Such a meter can only monitor the sound of your voice. It would totally fail on me; I use a monotone. It would have widely varying and unhelpful results for a portion of the population. Unless, of course, you can 'train' it like voice recognition software, but that would involve a good bit of math and some complex learning algorithms; I'm not sure how I'd implement anything like that.
What you're talking about would probably involve a natural language processor at the least, possibly full-fledged AI.
Charitable deductions come from your income--they're basically not computed into your taxes. If the charity $ were deducted from the amount you had to pay, then I'd have this objection; but if you give away half your money to charity, you're still taxed on half your money.
It's a rather crappy system, in my view. One designed to encourage people to pay taxes like good lemmings. The only way it could help is by dropping you down into a lower tax bracket, and $5M won't do that for Microsoft.
Ah, so now we're all running thin clients? It shouldn't be too much trouble to intercept the packets sent across the LAN.
But you forget about commuters--they need off-campus access, and probably offline access. If these ebooks aren't available on CD, then the university has to give out laptops and offer free off-campus Internet access. Some (most?) offer the latter; the former won't be as common. So the class buys one copy of the CD, waits a week for this semester's crack to come out, and profits.
I find that my professors tend to write their own textbooks half the time. Those are distributed for free or for the copying fee.
1. Depends on the kid's age. They're going to learn about sex; best to teach them before puberty, and then let them find out about the details of kink on their own--though you should make sure they understand it's not a bad thing, ever, as long as it's safe, sane, and consensual. Then Goatse would strike them as odd, perhaps intriguing, perhaps disgusting, but nothing to cause shame.
2. The computer will not kill you.
3. Agreed--and you don't let any kid run around online with a credit card number.
4. Most people are trustworthy in real life. So as long as you explain to the kid that it's a bad idea to give anyone your street address, there should be no problems. I've never encountered anyone malicious online, probably because I tend toward smaller areas for interaction. Which you should tell your kids to do, too.
One other reason to keep a computer in your child's room: porn. You know they'll probably check it out, and best if they need not worry or get embarrassed at the possibility that you'll find out.
I'm from upstate New York. Guess which has colder winters.
How about Sears? They use AIX and Linux.
Microsoft uses PowerPC chips so people don't put Windows on their XBoxes.
Duh!
Programming with Visual Basic and C# is much easier and faster than programming with C++, by the reports I've heard. Unfortunately, there's no open library to allow interoperability in Linux, Unix et alia. I'd rather use C# than Java just for speed--though I'd have to stay away from the standard library, since I don't use Windows.
The products that Microsoft produces aren't horrible, just mediocre in a networked environment and not terribly reliable. (Contrast with Linux--I've had to reset my computer maybe three times in the past year due to X crashing, with zero errors in the past four months or so.)
As for their hiring practices...they're definitely odd. You don't have to apply at Microsoft to get a job there, but you do have to pass a few logic tests. It works for Google, too, though.
There's the problem with package managers. It would be nice if they used metadata including the command needed to invoke the program.
Until then, there's always "apropos ", but it rather sucks.
Well, perhaps the fact that a five-year-old can't reach the pedals or see above the dashboard has a bit of influence.
There's also the safety factor--do little kids have the attention span to drive ten miles down the freeway, obeying traffic laws? Explosions are cool, after all. And then there's the whole hand-eye coordination in development thing.
In five years, you won't be able to give this stuff away.
It's an interface issue. A car has a wheel and a few levers; you need to know how to work three of the levers (for an automatic), and you see results almost immediately. A computer has a keyboard and mouse, but those aren't the real interface; you've got a web browser with ten buttons and six menus (and about two dozen submenus), half a score of dialog boxes that you can access via the menus and buttons....and oftentimes, you alter a setting and don't see any result for quite some time.
That's about one essential text input widget, four or five essential buttons, and maybe three essential menus.
And the average user uses what, web browser, text editor, file manager, maybe a couple more applications? That's closer to five input widgets, a score of essential menus, and even more buttons to remember.
Less important stuff, well, cars would have about two or three option levers, plus stereo and AC.
I'm not talking about maintainence, I'm talking about pure use. It's a lot easier to get into a car and drive than to use a computer.
Says me, who hasn't driven in the past three years and uses Linux.