Why should Microsoft have to unbundle their software?
Must Ford sell you a car without an engine so you can put a Chevy 350 in it?
Do we demand that Epson make printers that accept HP ink cartridges?
Should we not be able to buy a left shoe from Nike that matches a right shoe from Adidas?
Why can't I write checks against my Bank of America account on check blanks issued by Wells Fargo?
Microsoft should not be forced to unbundle software, because there are alternatives out there. Let the market demand drive the development and sales of software. If it just so happens that Microsoft makes the best product at the best value (in the eyes of the average consumer, not the average slashdot reader), then Microsoft will "win." So be it. When something better comes along, it will win. What happened when Firefox grabbed a serious chunk of IE's market share? Microsoft announced plans to introduce Firefox-like features in IE. That's right, something better came along, and MS had to adapt.
So will you. Free market capitalism RULES. Communist-style market controls SUCK.
For myself? I would like to see Linux and other open-source products succeed, but I use Microsoft products because they work the way I expect, and uniformly. Sure, they are harder to administer, but they are easier to use. It doesn't matter how tight your code is, how easy your product is to configure, it's not worth a hill of beans if the user experience sucks. That's why Microsoft wins in the market -- they pay attention to their USERS. Know why they called their most recent desktop OS "Windows XP"? Because of the user eXPerience. That's what they worked hard on, that's what they marketed, that's what people liked, that's what people bought. If it had sucked, people would have demanded -- and got -- Windows 98. As a matter of fact, you could still buy Windows 98 after Windows Me disappeared from the shelves, because the user experience with Windows ME sucked, worse than Windows 98.
I once used Outlook Express instead of Netscape or Mozilla because it was a better IMAP client and because it supported multiple POP3 accounts. When Thunderbird came along, I switched, because I felt it was a better product. If OE -- or something else -- becomes better than Thunderbird, I'll switch again.
Right-o. When I saw the post, I expected something involving soldering irons and porting of source code. Alas, upon Reading The Fine Article, it was not to be so.
Not as annoying as the receptionist at one of my customers' offices, who would use the INTERCOM to speak to someone at another desk FIVE FREAKIN' FEET AWAY.
If there was enforcement of the Generic TLDs -- that is, if only non-profits could register.org; if only commercial enterprises (no fitting in any other category) could register.com; if only network service providers could register.net; if only search engines and brand-agnostic reference sites could register.info; if only porno sites could register.xxx -- such as there is with.gov,.edu, and.mil, then TLDs would actually have meaning.
As an aside, the.name suffix is for individuals' personal websites, but I'd prefer to see a.me extension.:-)
"I believe time travels slower at the equator than at the polls."
I don't know about that. When I was standing in line at the polls back in November, time seemed to drag on. Now, afterwards, it's dragging on even longer while we here in Washington State are still wondering who our governor is.
If you took someone who was familiar with Microsoft Word 1.0 (that is, familiar in the where-to-click sense) and plopped them in front of Word 11.0, would they know how to use it?
Probably not.
That's why it's important not to teach applications, but to teach concepts. Knowing an application doesn't help when the application changes; knowing the concepts will. You might not know where to look or what to look for, but you'll at least be able to recognize it when you see it.
I could tell you that ozone causes a scattering of blue light, and I could tell you that there is ozone in the upper atmosphere, but you might still wonder why the sky is blue.
While I have never been in the position of deciding whether to lease or buy technology assets, I'd like to offer some counterpoints to the advantages of purchasing you mentioned.
While you only lease it for 3 years, if you buy it you may own it for 5-7 years. So people that do not perform computing intensive tasks could care less about getting their PC refreshed.
Your lease agreement may allow you to upgrade your systems sooner at a lower cost, whereas purchasing systems means that you may not be able to upgrade for 5-7 years.
Accounting can depreciate it on taxes.
Only the depreciation in value can be deducted from taxes, and that only at specific rates. On the other hand, all lease costs may be deducted as business expenses.
When the life of the equipment is over you can donate the equipment to a needy organization for a tax write off.
It's crazy, but many needy organizations won't even touch 5-7 year old equipment, because it can't run the applications they wish to use, and because the disposal costs are too high for them. As for the tax write off, that would only amount to the value that remains after claiming depreciation.
Buying in large quantities will yield discounts if you create a bidding situation.
You can create bidding situations with leases, too, if you shop different vendors.
If you are spending 150 (after late fees) for a floppy that costs $15 at the local computer store or though the manufacturer of the equipment and have overruns like this consistently then something is definitely wrong in the organization.
Perhaps you need to renegotiate your lease to include repair/replacement of hardware at reasonable cost. Sure, a floppy may cost $15, but you also incur the costs of tech time to replace it. In some organizations this can be quite high, especially if you outsource your IT support.
You could use Autoclave, but since it's being end-of-lifed, you could follow the Autoclave author's recommendation and use Darik's Boot and Nuke instead.
It's not the material that the conductors are made of, but the material the dielectric (read: insulation) is made of, the quality of the shield (where applicable), and the structure of the cable (the position of the conductors and shield relative to each other) that will make a difference in the sound.
The other thing that will make a difference is the quality of construction (again, not materials) of the terminations at each end.
Monster cable -- at least the speaker cable -- is really just super-expensive extension cord. As for their interconnect cables, sure there will be some difference between them and the thin, el-cheapos that you buy at K-Mart, but you might need an oscilloscope to tell (at least for sound). For video, you'll probably notice the difference, because a TV is really just a specialized oscilloscope.
What I mean is that far too often, scientists will believe that the hypothesis is the only possible conclusion, and when the results don't match the hypothesis, they assume they did the test wrong or they skew the results to fit the hypothesis. They will also (often unknowingly) influence the experiment to achieve the desired result.
In an age when scientists attempt to prove what they already believe, it's nice to know that there are still some who practice science for the sake of discovery:
"We're back to square one," said Dr. Sara Seager, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, co-author of the Deming paper. "For us theorists, that's fun."
Ah, if we could all enter into an investigation with a blank slate free of preconceived notions, there's no telling what we'll find.
Put in a 2' x 2' (61cm x 61cm) drop ceiling grid, but don't actually put any tiles in. If possible, install the T-bars upside down so the flat part is on top. This will provide plenty of support for your cabling, you can run cables along and across the T-bars, and the 2' spacing allows you to get your fat belly up there to work on it (if you have the luxury of high ceilings).
If it comes time to sell and Mr. Home Buyer doesn't want it, it's easier to rip out than a raised floor. Because it's open, there are no fire code issues; since it's not a plenum you can probably user cheaper, riser-rated cable. Because it's suspended from the ceiling, you only have to worry about supporting the cables, not your servers.
So, my Epson R300 has ink cartridges that are just ink. However, it meters use, and assumes that a cartridge lasts for so many seconds at such-and-such coverage. Therefore, the cartridge can still have a fair amount of ink in it before it tells you to replace it, OR it can go empty before it tells you to replace it. I'm guessing they build in a pretty good fudge factor to ensure that it never goes dry.
Here's the stinker: most Epson printers will NOT let you replace the cartridge until it says it needs to be replaced. So if it tells you it needs to be replaced, and you just pop the old cart out and put it right back in, it will assume that a new, full cart is installed. Then when it DOES run dry, it won't let you replace it because it doesn't think that it's empty.
There's a workaround though: turn off the printer. Then look under the printhead carriage, there'll be a plastic tab that prevents you from sliding the carriage out to where you can change the cart. Just flip this tab forward, and replace the cart. Slide the carriage back, and turn on the printer. It won't even know that you've just changed the cartridge.
Since the cart is separate from the head, and the head isn't replaceable, it's probably a good idea to NOT let it run truly empty, as then you'll end up with air in the head that you'll have to purge.
I've got another gripe about inkjets, and they all seem to do this. If, say, your cyan has a blocked head, you can't just clean the cyan. You have to clean them all. This wastes ink from colors that don't need to be cleaned!
It's not cleaning the heads, it's cleaning out your wallet.
Some browsers let you withold the referrer field. How hard would it be to modify the browser to spoof the referrer so a deep link from a foreign website appears to be referred from their own site?
"The prudent mariner will not rely solely on any single aid to navigation."
The point is well made. Just as a spelunker never enters a cave without three independent sources of light (usually electric, flame, and chemical), a mariner should never enter the water without at least three independent methods of navigation.
GPS is wonderful as a general positioning aid, but it cannot tell you the location of shifting shoals. It cannot tell you the location of another craft. Also, if its datum is different from the map you are referencing, you just might find that the center of the channel is in the middle of dry land.
Except for dead reckoning, no navigational aid has ever become obsolete. As new ones come along, they simply provide an additional point of reference you may use to be able to more accurately determine your location. They don't obsolete each other; they complement each other.
Think of the modes of failure:
GPS: Battery failure. The military can turn off selective availability. the military can turn off public availability. Failure of your receiver.
LORAN: may not be available where you are. Failure of your receiver.
RADAR: The only navaid other than your own eyes that will tell you where other craft are. Can be easily misadjusted. Negatively impacted by rain and waves. Failure of receiver.
LIGHTHOUSES: They don't tell you where YOU are, they tell you where THEY are. You need a minimum of two known lights (some would say three) and local charts to triangulate your position. Lighthouses, buoys, and other local markers can become damaged by severe storms, earthquakes, erosion, and vandalism.
CHARTS: become obsolete as local conditions change. Can be torn.
COMPASS: Subject to local magnetic disturbances and polar drift.
SEXTANT/CELESTIAL NAVIGATION: Doesn't work in cloudy conditions.
DEAD RECKONING: Notoriously inaccurate, more likely to leave you dead than reckoning.
I've often wondered if this is the purpose of spam. (Not SPAM the luncheon meat product, but spam the unsolicited commercial email product.)
It's simple -- hide your message in what appears to be an advertisement, send it to billions of people (including your intended target). Because it looks like spam, anyone monitoring a suspect's mailbox will assume it's spam and ignore it completely. The monitor probably got an exact copy of the same message in his inbox, so obviously it's spam, right? Only the true recipient will know it for what it is.
Slashdot Mirror
Why should Microsoft have to unbundle their software?
Must Ford sell you a car without an engine so you can put a Chevy 350 in it?
Do we demand that Epson make printers that accept HP ink cartridges?
Should we not be able to buy a left shoe from Nike that matches a right shoe from Adidas?
Why can't I write checks against my Bank of America account on check blanks issued by Wells Fargo?
Microsoft should not be forced to unbundle software, because there are alternatives out there. Let the market demand drive the development and sales of software. If it just so happens that Microsoft makes the best product at the best value (in the eyes of the average consumer, not the average slashdot reader), then Microsoft will "win." So be it. When something better comes along, it will win. What happened when Firefox grabbed a serious chunk of IE's market share? Microsoft announced plans to introduce Firefox-like features in IE. That's right, something better came along, and MS had to adapt.
So will you. Free market capitalism RULES. Communist-style market controls SUCK.
For myself? I would like to see Linux and other open-source products succeed, but I use Microsoft products because they work the way I expect, and uniformly. Sure, they are harder to administer, but they are easier to use. It doesn't matter how tight your code is, how easy your product is to configure, it's not worth a hill of beans if the user experience sucks. That's why Microsoft wins in the market -- they pay attention to their USERS. Know why they called their most recent desktop OS "Windows XP"? Because of the user eXPerience. That's what they worked hard on, that's what they marketed, that's what people liked, that's what people bought. If it had sucked, people would have demanded -- and got -- Windows 98. As a matter of fact, you could still buy Windows 98 after Windows Me disappeared from the shelves, because the user experience with Windows ME sucked, worse than Windows 98.
I once used Outlook Express instead of Netscape or Mozilla because it was a better IMAP client and because it supported multiple POP3 accounts. When Thunderbird came along, I switched, because I felt it was a better product. If OE -- or something else -- becomes better than Thunderbird, I'll switch again.
You have guts.
First of all, you have given information that indicates you have clicked on that link.
Secondly, you have obviously spent time thinking about what you saw there.
Thirdly, you have not posted anonymously.
I don't know which is most disturbing.
No, I have not clicked on that link.
Right-o. When I saw the post, I expected something involving soldering irons and porting of source code. Alas, upon Reading The Fine Article, it was not to be so.
Not as annoying as the receptionist at one of my customers' offices, who would use the INTERCOM to speak to someone at another desk FIVE FREAKIN' FEET AWAY.
If there was enforcement of the Generic TLDs -- that is, if only non-profits could register .org; if only commercial enterprises (no fitting in any other category) could register .com; if only network service providers could register .net; if only search engines and brand-agnostic reference sites could register .info; if only porno sites could register .xxx -- such as there is with .gov, .edu, and .mil, then TLDs would actually have meaning.
.name suffix is for individuals' personal websites, but I'd prefer to see a .me extension. :-)
As an aside, the
Are they afraid you're going to dismantle the plane over Nova Scotia?
"I believe time travels slower at the equator than at the polls."
I don't know about that. When I was standing in line at the polls back in November, time seemed to drag on. Now, afterwards, it's dragging on even longer while we here in Washington State are still wondering who our governor is.
What's that? You meant poles? My mistake.
That's right. Time travel IS possible, but only forward, and only at a 1:1 ratio.
If you took someone who was familiar with Microsoft Word 1.0 (that is, familiar in the where-to-click sense) and plopped them in front of Word 11.0, would they know how to use it?
Probably not.
That's why it's important not to teach applications, but to teach concepts. Knowing an application doesn't help when the application changes; knowing the concepts will. You might not know where to look or what to look for, but you'll at least be able to recognize it when you see it.
I could tell you that ozone causes a scattering of blue light, and I could tell you that there is ozone in the upper atmosphere, but you might still wonder why the sky is blue.
I once knew a plumber named Don
While I have never been in the position of deciding whether to lease or buy technology assets, I'd like to offer some counterpoints to the advantages of purchasing you mentioned.
While you only lease it for 3 years, if you buy it you may own it for 5-7 years. So people that do not perform computing intensive tasks could care less about getting their PC refreshed.
Your lease agreement may allow you to upgrade your systems sooner at a lower cost, whereas purchasing systems means that you may not be able to upgrade for 5-7 years.
Accounting can depreciate it on taxes.
Only the depreciation in value can be deducted from taxes, and that only at specific rates. On the other hand, all lease costs may be deducted as business expenses.
When the life of the equipment is over you can donate the equipment to a needy organization for a tax write off.
It's crazy, but many needy organizations won't even touch 5-7 year old equipment, because it can't run the applications they wish to use, and because the disposal costs are too high for them. As for the tax write off, that would only amount to the value that remains after claiming depreciation.
Buying in large quantities will yield discounts if you create a bidding situation.
You can create bidding situations with leases, too, if you shop different vendors.
If you are spending 150 (after late fees) for a floppy that costs $15 at the local computer store or though the manufacturer of the equipment and have overruns like this consistently then something is definitely wrong in the organization.
Perhaps you need to renegotiate your lease to include repair/replacement of hardware at reasonable cost. Sure, a floppy may cost $15, but you also incur the costs of tech time to replace it. In some organizations this can be quite high, especially if you outsource your IT support.
You could use Autoclave, but since it's being end-of-lifed, you could follow the Autoclave author's recommendation and use Darik's Boot and Nuke instead.
Don't forget to burn in your optical cables for optimum signal transmission.
It's not the material that the conductors are made of, but the material the dielectric (read: insulation) is made of, the quality of the shield (where applicable), and the structure of the cable (the position of the conductors and shield relative to each other) that will make a difference in the sound.
The other thing that will make a difference is the quality of construction (again, not materials) of the terminations at each end.
Monster cable -- at least the speaker cable -- is really just super-expensive extension cord. As for their interconnect cables, sure there will be some difference between them and the thin, el-cheapos that you buy at K-Mart, but you might need an oscilloscope to tell (at least for sound). For video, you'll probably notice the difference, because a TV is really just a specialized oscilloscope.
What I mean is that far too often, scientists will believe that the hypothesis is the only possible conclusion, and when the results don't match the hypothesis, they assume they did the test wrong or they skew the results to fit the hypothesis. They will also (often unknowingly) influence the experiment to achieve the desired result.
In an age when scientists attempt to prove what they already believe, it's nice to know that there are still some who practice science for the sake of discovery:
"We're back to square one," said Dr. Sara Seager, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, co-author of the Deming paper. "For us theorists, that's fun."
Ah, if we could all enter into an investigation with a blank slate free of preconceived notions, there's no telling what we'll find.
...because it breaks so many critical packages...
OK, so what does it break that turning off the Windows Firewall doesn't fix?
I have yet to see a list.
4. All your base are belong to us.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of BSODs.
There. I said it. Happy?
Put in a 2' x 2' (61cm x 61cm) drop ceiling grid, but don't actually put any tiles in. If possible, install the T-bars upside down so the flat part is on top. This will provide plenty of support for your cabling, you can run cables along and across the T-bars, and the 2' spacing allows you to get your fat belly up there to work on it (if you have the luxury of high ceilings).
If it comes time to sell and Mr. Home Buyer doesn't want it, it's easier to rip out than a raised floor. Because it's open, there are no fire code issues; since it's not a plenum you can probably user cheaper, riser-rated cable. Because it's suspended from the ceiling, you only have to worry about supporting the cables, not your servers.
So, my Epson R300 has ink cartridges that are just ink. However, it meters use, and assumes that a cartridge lasts for so many seconds at such-and-such coverage. Therefore, the cartridge can still have a fair amount of ink in it before it tells you to replace it, OR it can go empty before it tells you to replace it. I'm guessing they build in a pretty good fudge factor to ensure that it never goes dry.
Here's the stinker: most Epson printers will NOT let you replace the cartridge until it says it needs to be replaced. So if it tells you it needs to be replaced, and you just pop the old cart out and put it right back in, it will assume that a new, full cart is installed. Then when it DOES run dry, it won't let you replace it because it doesn't think that it's empty.
There's a workaround though: turn off the printer. Then look under the printhead carriage, there'll be a plastic tab that prevents you from sliding the carriage out to where you can change the cart. Just flip this tab forward, and replace the cart. Slide the carriage back, and turn on the printer. It won't even know that you've just changed the cartridge.
Since the cart is separate from the head, and the head isn't replaceable, it's probably a good idea to NOT let it run truly empty, as then you'll end up with air in the head that you'll have to purge.
I've got another gripe about inkjets, and they all seem to do this. If, say, your cyan has a blocked head, you can't just clean the cyan. You have to clean them all. This wastes ink from colors that don't need to be cleaned!
It's not cleaning the heads, it's cleaning out your wallet.
Some browsers let you withold the referrer field. How hard would it be to modify the browser to spoof the referrer so a deep link from a foreign website appears to be referred from their own site?
The point is well made. Just as a spelunker never enters a cave without three independent sources of light (usually electric, flame, and chemical), a mariner should never enter the water without at least three independent methods of navigation.
GPS is wonderful as a general positioning aid, but it cannot tell you the location of shifting shoals. It cannot tell you the location of another craft. Also, if its datum is different from the map you are referencing, you just might find that the center of the channel is in the middle of dry land.
Except for dead reckoning, no navigational aid has ever become obsolete. As new ones come along, they simply provide an additional point of reference you may use to be able to more accurately determine your location. They don't obsolete each other; they complement each other.
Think of the modes of failure:
GPS: Battery failure. The military can turn off selective availability. the military can turn off public availability. Failure of your receiver.
LORAN: may not be available where you are. Failure of your receiver.
RADAR: The only navaid other than your own eyes that will tell you where other craft are. Can be easily misadjusted. Negatively impacted by rain and waves. Failure of receiver.
LIGHTHOUSES: They don't tell you where YOU are, they tell you where THEY are. You need a minimum of two known lights (some would say three) and local charts to triangulate your position. Lighthouses, buoys, and other local markers can become damaged by severe storms, earthquakes, erosion, and vandalism.
CHARTS: become obsolete as local conditions change. Can be torn.
COMPASS: Subject to local magnetic disturbances and polar drift.
SEXTANT/CELESTIAL NAVIGATION: Doesn't work in cloudy conditions.
DEAD RECKONING: Notoriously inaccurate, more likely to leave you dead than reckoning.
Best to have as many as possible.
You said "stenography" (taking notes). Di you really mean to say "steganography" (hiding data)?
I've often wondered if this is the purpose of spam. (Not SPAM the luncheon meat product, but spam the unsolicited commercial email product.)
It's simple -- hide your message in what appears to be an advertisement, send it to billions of people (including your intended target). Because it looks like spam, anyone monitoring a suspect's mailbox will assume it's spam and ignore it completely. The monitor probably got an exact copy of the same message in his inbox, so obviously it's spam, right? Only the true recipient will know it for what it is.