I meant WTF like, "How did this nonsense get through?" Or, maybe "How about a little editorial process and chop that nonsense down into something with a viable answer?"
But, then I pretty much went a whole other direction...
"I am wondering what slashdotters have to offer on the idea of Linux based security systems, especially DVR software....
This is a troll post. The reason being, there is *something* out there to name that's GPL, but none of which would satisfy the author. I believe the way the question is constructed gives the author's actual intentions right up front. She/he wants to feel good about buying something off the shelf and reinforce his/her sense of 'getting a good deal.'
Just buy one better of the things all your friends have and then lie about the price paid. That's the American way.
FYI, this is the common marketing problem with being 'the other' alternative. In this case Linux actually drives more adoption of Mac/Win platforms. There is also a more vexing social problem with choosing the third alternative. It increases peer group insecurity. Few consumers can tolerate so much peer group insecurity. I would lump the author in that group.
IMO Its better for your career (in the long run) and sanity to work in some hypothetical burger joint on $6/hr for a GOOD boss than somewhere on $60,000 for an asshole...
I'm not sure if you are still living in your parent's basement, or have had the permanent backing of the Bank of Mom and Dad to fund your whimsical career path, but that's horrible advice.
The first TWO questions in career building: what was your last job description/title? How much were you paid?
You wouldn't even get past HR's buzzword-compliance monitor with your last job being retail wage slave.
Most employers hire on the 'trading up' principal. That is, they seek employees from larger companies to do the same job they did at the larger company. There are exceptions, but this is the general rule.
A great boss at the burger shack won't get you a l33t IT job.
Most of you are perfectly okay with companies treating their customers like cr@p. It's called the entertainment industry.
Bluray is even worse than the DVD in terms of limiting your clearly defined rights to personal use and dramatically raising the costs of entertainment. How many of you are loading up on those BluRay players/content this holiday season? You are happy about it too.
I think the basic notion that this will fail is right. It will fail because they will seek to extract similar profits AND lard on costs so early into the project that it won't ever have a chance.
One of the interminable flame wars when GIMP stories run is "If it just had feature XYZ... then I'd switch." Or, the flamebait, "GIMP isn't as good as Photoshop, therefore I'll never use it."
In this case, "If only a Linux distro had more XYZ... then I'd switch." People are stubborn. They will either switch and deal with the learning curve (warts and all) or they won't and they'll start flamebait threads like, "Docs suck..."
Like the GIMP, when some Photoshop feature makes it into the application, (ex. color management) the "If it just had feature XYZ..." comments don't decline and the new users don't come flooding in. Bottom line, there's no amount of documentation that would end the "Docs suck" post.
Do some specific applications need better documentation? Sure, but that's not a Linux-specific problem. Overall, it's a very well documented OS.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned the Gentoo pages, but those are pure gold when I don't know where to start.
Use it like a doorstop maybe, but otherwise you have to buy the Win7 Super Media Version with DRM that comes only on certain models of certain PC brands.
So, don't run Windows with administrative privileges either. It wasn't easy in the early years of Windows 2000 but it is very easy now
This is not true. Many applications Microsoft includes with their OS don't work correctly in less than Administrator mode.
I can't schedule a task in anything less than administrator mode. File browser doesn't work right when using 'runas Administrator' options as a lower priviledged user. Windows update doesn't work right at all.
I could go on, but my point is the OS doesn't work like you want it to in order to make some kind of parity claim with your average Linux distro.
Microsoft does give away free Anti Virus and Anti Malware and put in UAC. Despite all of this, it's 2001 all over again. Same security problems, same security model with UAC larded on top, different year.
There is probably little else they can do. There lots they could have done for their new version OS, but instead they chose to work on DRM. There is no reasonable excuse any more.
Win7 has to run on thousands of combinations of HDs, MoBos, CPUs and RAM, and then run thousands upon thousands of programs
Linux distros do this. In fact, much of the same code runs multiple processor platforms with great success. This is not a valid reason to forgive Microsoft.
It was built on a finite budget by a finite team trying to conform to something close to schedule. As are most Linux distros, the Linux kernel, the BSD teams have schedules too. Lack of resources is not an excuse.
I could go on, but the point here is you are clearly married to Microsoft and are senselessly defending it. That's okay. I hope it works out for you.
Please, understand your thinking around Microsoft versus other OS's is clearly impaired.
but Windows 2000 and beyond has the structure to allow users to log in as normal users with their own environment. HKCU is their own personal registry hive and they have their own 'home' folder at %userprofile%
This statement is false. It's vaguely truthful in the sense that these the things mentioned exist, but attempting to use the OS it all falls apart.
Their file browser does not work correctly in less than Administrator mode. Can't schedule a task in anything less than Administrator mode. Windows update doesn't work at all in less than Administrator mode. Errors out, with no way to elevate privileges. The is just the top of my list. I know this because I admin windows 2000 on-up servers as less than admin and run into stupid issues like this *every* *single* *day.*
We're practically 10 years into the 'new' Microsoft security thinking. Microsoft is selling their new-improved security ideal (and you bought it) but their inaction shows nothing has changed. 10 years, nothing has changed.
Linux and the BSD's have made huge progress in the same time span.
Back to the main story: hidden registry entries suggests what Microsoft critics have been maintaining all along, Windows 8 security is the 2000/XP security model with UAC lard on top.
That means she ultimately accepts the billing rates and service conditions.
If you want to be a cowboy webmaster, part of your burden/joy is defining the scope of work and setting a price for that scope of work.
There are plenty of customers willing to haggle to the last dollar, be eternally late paying only after many calls trying to get your AR current and demanding services that aren't explicitly spelled-out as 'free.' In order not to feel exploited, the cowboy webmaster needs to better manage her expectations and the client's expectations. I'm not saying 'suck it up' or 'screw the customer.'
This is an opportunity for the webmaster to work out some service-level tiers and related pricing. She'll have to take her work up a notch when she's servicing the customer, but figure out what that looks like in the form of an SLA. If she doesn't want to do this, then maybe being a cowboy webmaster isn't right for her.
This is pretty run-of-the-mill back stabbing in OEM/ODM business.
1. The manufacturer sees an opportunity with a weak 'partner' 2. Screws the partner. 3. Profit!
The thing is 'Fusion Garage' would have screwed him even if they worked a geographic restrictions deal out. If there was any meaningful market acceptance, any number of bigger OEM's would have taken their lunch in ~24 months.
Sad it has to go like this, but this very common unless you are an HP/Apple/Dell. Typical chicken-egg capitalism problem.
If you are squaretrade, the independent warranty provider, does their business model work at these failure rates? I was too lazy to go figure out what SquareTrade would do with a laptop that qualifies for their warranty coverage.
If they replace it, it seems to me these failure rates would bust their business compared to the price of the warranty. Maybe it's like American Health Insurance. It looks like it provides protection, but the details say otherwise.
Seriously, taxes are evil. A necessary evil at times, but evil. The fewer the better...
Oh no. No weasel words. You like taxes. You crazy Socialist. If you are a member of REI, you are a Communist too. Maybe you farm and belong to a coop? Communist!
You like the equalization taxes provide. Consistent roads, consistent building codes, safe water, sanitation services, etc.
As soon as you move out of your parent's basement, maybe you'll recognize how big businesses like Amazon shift their costs onto you with 'taxes are evil' pablum.
Let's just get rid of Public Health altogether. Never mind it's *far* cheaper to have public health services than not. How about law enforcement? Second Amendment is all I need. How about Welfare? Those lazy SOB's need to get to work. How about Child Services? Kids are young. The sooner they learn to be on their own the better. How about jails? Stack em' higher!
Finally, the culture of 'starving the beast' *never* works. Why? Because the 'starve the beast' advocates have their own pet publicly-funded projects.
Taxes are bad? Okay, let's eliminate taxes altogether. No more public safety. No more road maintenance. No more bridge maintenance. Oh, and let's not forget the sewage Those utility bills used to be so much cheaper and more reliable when there was a utility commission.
Shangri-la!
Don't back pedal on me and declare some taxes 'good' and other 'bad.' You suggest all taxes are bad.
Amazon, and every business like it, endlessly complain that the American business environment is 'hostile' to their growth. Looking back at the last 15 years, I'd say they got everything they wanted plus more. And yet, the business environment is more constrained by legislation designed protect companies the size of Amazon. And yet the crocodile tears keep flowing as companies the size of Amazon ship their work overseas.
Specifically, codifying State-based tax rates is not rocket science. Every decent shopping cart can do it and somehow Amazon can't?
My fictionally perfect game that will sell WAY more than this title will have country-specific enemies. Marketed in the U.S? Russia. Marketed in Russia? U.S. Marketed in India? Pakistan. Marketed in Pakistan? Indians.
They'd sell more games pandering to country-specific deeply ingrained cultural enemies. Maybe the game engine doesn't support locales like that though.
Your post reminds me of many people who love the Springsteen song "Born in the U.S.A." thinking the song is super-patriotic.
Seriously, the USERS decide which search engine is best, not the website owners
1. Implicit in your platitude is the notion that people are willing to change the minute something better comes along. They are not unless forced by some overwhelming need. The history of computers is loaded with better products and ideas that failed because people were unwilling to change.
2. Marketing is all of what is driving what consumption choices you haven't already made. Mysteriously, companies who shout the loudest tend to have the largest consumer market share. I bring that up because your mythic USER has a brand ladder for everything where there is the slightest hint of discriminating preferences and therefore do not relish choices.
Frankly, morons like you are the reason the industry is laughed at by other, more formalized disciplines. Could you imagine what we'd do to a bridge builder who just tacked stuff on until it kinda sorta stood?
Easy on the self-righteous indignation. I'll stay with your bridge analogy.
The simple truth is there are few software industry segments written to your 'bridge building' requirement. You want maintainable software. Your boss wants maintainable software. At the C-level meetings, they want faster and cheaper.
Nowhere in "faster and cheaper" is there room for your mythic "formalized discipline." I'm not sure if you are after the kind of societal reverence a doctor or lawyer gets or what. If that societal respect is you want, get a JD.
Best case scenario, you are well-known and respected by your peers and the person to whom you report.
Slashdot Mirror
I meant WTF like, "How did this nonsense get through?" Or, maybe "How about a little editorial process and chop that nonsense down into something with a viable answer?"
But, then I pretty much went a whole other direction...
"I am wondering what slashdotters have to offer on the idea of Linux based security systems, especially DVR software....
This is a troll post. The reason being, there is *something* out there to name that's GPL, but none of which would satisfy the author. I believe the way the question is constructed gives the author's actual intentions right up front. She/he wants to feel good about buying something off the shelf and reinforce his/her sense of 'getting a good deal.'
Just buy one better of the things all your friends have and then lie about the price paid. That's the American way.
FYI, this is the common marketing problem with being 'the other' alternative. In this case Linux actually drives more adoption of Mac/Win platforms. There is also a more vexing social problem with choosing the third alternative. It increases peer group insecurity. Few consumers can tolerate so much peer group insecurity. I would lump the author in that group.
IMO Its better for your career (in the long run) and sanity to work in some hypothetical burger joint on $6/hr for a GOOD boss than somewhere on $60,000 for an asshole...
I'm not sure if you are still living in your parent's basement, or have had the permanent backing of the Bank of Mom and Dad to fund your whimsical career path, but that's horrible advice.
The first TWO questions in career building: what was your last job description/title? How much were you paid?
You wouldn't even get past HR's buzzword-compliance monitor with your last job being retail wage slave.
Most employers hire on the 'trading up' principal. That is, they seek employees from larger companies to do the same job they did at the larger company. There are exceptions, but this is the general rule.
A great boss at the burger shack won't get you a l33t IT job.
Most of you are perfectly okay with companies treating their customers like cr@p. It's called the entertainment industry.
Bluray is even worse than the DVD in terms of limiting your clearly defined rights to personal use and dramatically raising the costs of entertainment. How many of you are loading up on those BluRay players/content this holiday season? You are happy about it too.
I think the basic notion that this will fail is right. It will fail because they will seek to extract similar profits AND lard on costs so early into the project that it won't ever have a chance.
One of the interminable flame wars when GIMP stories run is "If it just had feature XYZ... then I'd switch." Or, the flamebait, "GIMP isn't as good as Photoshop, therefore I'll never use it."
In this case, "If only a Linux distro had more XYZ... then I'd switch." People are stubborn. They will either switch and deal with the learning curve (warts and all) or they won't and they'll start flamebait threads like, "Docs suck..."
Like the GIMP, when some Photoshop feature makes it into the application, (ex. color management) the "If it just had feature XYZ..." comments don't decline and the new users don't come flooding in. Bottom line, there's no amount of documentation that would end the "Docs suck" post.
Do some specific applications need better documentation? Sure, but that's not a Linux-specific problem. Overall, it's a very well documented OS.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned the Gentoo pages, but those are pure gold when I don't know where to start.
What do you mean by 'use' a cable card in Win7?
Use it like a doorstop maybe, but otherwise you have to buy the Win7 Super Media Version with DRM that comes only on certain models of certain PC brands.
http://www.geektonic.com/2009/05/cablecard-tuner-hack-for-diy-vista-and.html
Will I be able to stream the HD recorded to other frontends in my house? Nope. DRM restrictions.
Nevertheless, I'm interested in subscribing to your newsletter.
#2 is what I do using Mythtv.
#3 will only work in Windows, but only work poorly, as Microsoft's DRM prevents them from fully functioning.
http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2006/11/8300.ars
http://www.geektonic.com/2009/05/cablecard-tuner-hack-for-diy-vista-and.html
Important details!
I had similar issues with Windows Media Center.
So, don't run Windows with administrative privileges either. It wasn't easy in the early years of Windows 2000 but it is very easy now
This is not true. Many applications Microsoft includes with their OS don't work correctly in less than Administrator mode.
I can't schedule a task in anything less than administrator mode.
File browser doesn't work right when using 'runas Administrator' options as a lower priviledged user.
Windows update doesn't work right at all.
I could go on, but my point is the OS doesn't work like you want it to in order to make some kind of parity claim with your average Linux distro.
Microsoft does give away free Anti Virus and Anti Malware and put in UAC.
Despite all of this, it's 2001 all over again. Same security problems, same security model with UAC larded on top, different year.
There is probably little else they can do.
There lots they could have done for their new version OS, but instead they chose to work on DRM. There is no reasonable excuse any more.
Win7 has to run on thousands of combinations of HDs, MoBos, CPUs and RAM, and then run thousands upon thousands of programs
Linux distros do this. In fact, much of the same code runs multiple processor platforms with great success. This is not a valid reason to forgive Microsoft.
It was built on a finite budget by a finite team trying to conform to something close to schedule.
As are most Linux distros, the Linux kernel, the BSD teams have schedules too. Lack of resources is not an excuse.
I could go on, but the point here is you are clearly married to Microsoft and are senselessly defending it. That's okay. I hope it works out for you.
Please, understand your thinking around Microsoft versus other OS's is clearly impaired.
but Windows 2000 and beyond has the structure to allow users to log in as normal users with their own environment. HKCU is their own personal registry hive and they have their own 'home' folder at %userprofile%
This statement is false. It's vaguely truthful in the sense that these the things mentioned exist, but attempting to use the OS it all falls apart.
Their file browser does not work correctly in less than Administrator mode.
Can't schedule a task in anything less than Administrator mode.
Windows update doesn't work at all in less than Administrator mode. Errors out, with no way to elevate privileges.
The is just the top of my list. I know this because I admin windows 2000 on-up servers as less than admin and run into stupid issues like this *every* *single* *day.*
We're practically 10 years into the 'new' Microsoft security thinking. Microsoft is selling their new-improved security ideal (and you bought it) but their inaction shows nothing has changed. 10 years, nothing has changed.
Linux and the BSD's have made huge progress in the same time span.
Back to the main story: hidden registry entries suggests what Microsoft critics have been maintaining all along, Windows 8 security is the 2000/XP security model with UAC lard on top.
1. She's an independent webmaster.
That means she ultimately accepts the billing rates and service conditions.
If you want to be a cowboy webmaster, part of your burden/joy is defining the scope of work and setting a price for that scope of work.
There are plenty of customers willing to haggle to the last dollar, be eternally late paying only after many calls trying to get your AR current and demanding services that aren't explicitly spelled-out as 'free.' In order not to feel exploited, the cowboy webmaster needs to better manage her expectations and the client's expectations. I'm not saying 'suck it up' or 'screw the customer.'
This is an opportunity for the webmaster to work out some service-level tiers and related pricing. She'll have to take her work up a notch when she's servicing the customer, but figure out what that looks like in the form of an SLA. If she doesn't want to do this, then maybe being a cowboy webmaster isn't right for her.
This is pretty run-of-the-mill back stabbing in OEM/ODM business.
1. The manufacturer sees an opportunity with a weak 'partner'
2. Screws the partner.
3. Profit!
The thing is 'Fusion Garage' would have screwed him even if they worked a geographic restrictions deal out. If there was any meaningful market acceptance, any number of bigger OEM's would have taken their lunch in ~24 months.
Sad it has to go like this, but this very common unless you are an HP/Apple/Dell. Typical chicken-egg capitalism problem.
If you are squaretrade, the independent warranty provider, does their business model work at these failure rates? I was too lazy to go figure out what SquareTrade would do with a laptop that qualifies for their warranty coverage.
If they replace it, it seems to me these failure rates would bust their business compared to the price of the warranty. Maybe it's like American Health Insurance. It looks like it provides protection, but the details say otherwise.
I could be totally wrong though.
Seriously, taxes are evil. A necessary evil at times, but evil. The fewer the better...
Oh no. No weasel words. You like taxes. You crazy Socialist. If you are a member of REI, you are a Communist too. Maybe you farm and belong to a coop? Communist!
You like the equalization taxes provide. Consistent roads, consistent building codes, safe water, sanitation services, etc.
As soon as you move out of your parent's basement, maybe you'll recognize how big businesses like Amazon shift their costs onto you with 'taxes are evil' pablum.
How about cutting spending
Okay, where would you begin?
Let's just get rid of Public Health altogether. Never mind it's *far* cheaper to have public health services than not.
How about law enforcement? Second Amendment is all I need.
How about Welfare? Those lazy SOB's need to get to work.
How about Child Services? Kids are young. The sooner they learn to be on their own the better.
How about jails? Stack em' higher!
Finally, the culture of 'starving the beast' *never* works. Why? Because the 'starve the beast' advocates have their own pet publicly-funded projects.
Just saying...
What are you saying?
Taxes are bad? Okay, let's eliminate taxes altogether. No more public safety. No more road maintenance. No more bridge maintenance. Oh, and let's not forget the sewage Those utility bills used to be so much cheaper and more reliable when there was a utility commission.
Shangri-la!
Don't back pedal on me and declare some taxes 'good' and other 'bad.' You suggest all taxes are bad.
Amazon, and every business like it, endlessly complain that the American business environment is 'hostile' to their growth. Looking back at the last 15 years, I'd say they got everything they wanted plus more. And yet, the business environment is more constrained by legislation designed protect companies the size of Amazon. And yet the crocodile tears keep flowing as companies the size of Amazon ship their work overseas.
Specifically, codifying State-based tax rates is not rocket science. Every decent shopping cart can do it and somehow Amazon can't?
Seriously,
My fictionally perfect game that will sell WAY more than this title will have country-specific enemies. Marketed in the U.S? Russia. Marketed in Russia? U.S. Marketed in India? Pakistan. Marketed in Pakistan? Indians.
They'd sell more games pandering to country-specific deeply ingrained cultural enemies. Maybe the game engine doesn't support locales like that though.
At well run companies, they understand up to the highest levels that long run, maintainable and understandble code is faster and cheaper.
Agreed. I work for one of those now. The parent's comments about bridge building suggest there's more going on for him though.
understanding your own code is in the category of "basic competency".
I agree 100%. I don't use 'magic code' because it's a bear to do anything with much later.
But, there's a stronger current to the grandparent's bridge building comment that you are not factoring into my reply.
Your post reminds me of many people who love the Springsteen song "Born in the U.S.A." thinking the song is super-patriotic.
Seriously, the USERS decide which search engine is best, not the website owners
1. Implicit in your platitude is the notion that people are willing to change the minute something better comes along. They are not unless forced by some overwhelming need. The history of computers is loaded with better products and ideas that failed because people were unwilling to change.
2. Marketing is all of what is driving what consumption choices you haven't already made. Mysteriously, companies who shout the loudest tend to have the largest consumer market share. I bring that up because your mythic USER has a brand ladder for everything where there is the slightest hint of discriminating preferences and therefore do not relish choices.
You are not as free as you think you are.
Frankly, morons like you are the reason the industry is laughed at by other, more formalized disciplines. Could you imagine what we'd do to a bridge builder who just tacked stuff on until it kinda sorta stood?
Easy on the self-righteous indignation. I'll stay with your bridge analogy.
The simple truth is there are few software industry segments written to your 'bridge building' requirement. You want maintainable software. Your boss wants maintainable software. At the C-level meetings, they want faster and cheaper.
Nowhere in "faster and cheaper" is there room for your mythic "formalized discipline." I'm not sure if you are after the kind of societal reverence a doctor or lawyer gets or what. If that societal respect is you want, get a JD.
Best case scenario, you are well-known and respected by your peers and the person to whom you report.
You just made my day. Thank you.