I'm not trying to flamebait here, but I have big doubts with the two party systems in the USA and in England (or the UK?). It seems like those two parties are certain to have the almost absolute power from time to time, and smaller parties are never able to get enough votes to rule the country. (I also have big questions with corporate sponsoring of the parties in the USA, this makes the country being run by the corporations and not it's inhabitants, the way it should be.)
I'm from Belgium, and here there are a lot of parties. The orange (catholics), the blue (they seem to be for the people not working for the state, people who like to keep as much money they earn), the red (the socialists, but do not think this is some kind of communism, the world is not black & white you know;) ), the greens, and so on...
When the elections are over, the winning party needs to form a government, and they do this by making a coalition with one or two other parties so they represent more than 50% of the voting people in the country. This way all major opinions should be represented in a government. A new party might not be a part of a new government, but they are able to use there representation power in the parlement, for example when new laws are discussed and voted for.
I fear that the hunger for power will keep the system in England and the USA just the way it is, and also the corporate sponsoring. I guess those countries are screwed for eternity. Perhaps I'm missing some extreme good thing about their systems? I only see abuse of power, greed and the same thing happening over and over again. (Slightly offtopic: it's nice to know that Microsoft is loved a lot in exactly those countries.)
PS1. I know it's a lot more complicated than this in our country, you've got flanders, brussels and wallony with their own governments and parties, but I'm just making a point here.
PS2. Those who are up to date with belgian politics know this time is kind of worrysome, but this has nothing to do with the point I'm making.:-)
And I can't resist saying this: Now the American patriots can mod me down into oblivion for my rant against their best country in the world!:P
It seems MS is trying hard to get XP to work on the OLPC, but since the SD connection is not a standard one, they need to make the drivers to all the hardware themselves AND they so definitely can not touch any olpc GPL code they need to be very careful! Things are not going as smooth as MS would like it to be.
Wouldn't it be better to just make a gum that's safe to swallow?
'Chewing gum consists of a fibre that can't be digested by our bodies, so, if it's swallowed, apart from the unpleasant texture, it will pass harmlessly through the body intact along with other waste.' http://www.raisingkids.co.uk/ask/EX07_PRE01.ASP
I still find it strange that people think swallowing gum is bad for you or something.:-)
This is very good! The more businesses are forced to actually pay for all those MS loaded machines, the easier they might consider using linux.
Go Microsoft!
(This is why I wish copyright protection on software would be 100% succesful: Too many people just download software and keep using it that way, if this would be impossible a fraction of those would pay but many more will start searching alternatives...)
The reason Microsoft wants to keep the cost high to virtualize Vista is because they want people to actually run Vista as the main os. When lots of people start running linux (or parallels on macs), they are using Vista simply as a bunch of libraries to run one or two apps.
They want to remain in control of the platform, if people use mac or linux as their main os and use Windows to run one of those not-yet-supported programs the power of Microsoft wil start to degrade...
Microsoft clearly want to divide and conquer: They know they cannot fight against the movement of open/free software, but they sure can influence companies. As long as there are big distro's as foolisch to walk the path Microsoft lays down for them these kind of agreements will keep coming.
I'm very curious what will happen with these agreements with Novell, Xandros and now Linspire when gpl v3 arrives. And don't forget, the list of companies signing agreements with Microsoft will keep on growing.
But it seems these companies do not handle in the best interest of the community anymore, but only to serve their paying customers.
The most accurate description I can give based on the one time I witnessed it is that it looked very similar to the luminescent jellyfish that you might see when boating at night (soft glow, bluish, semi-translucent).
Perhaps because these are tiny lab expirment ones, a real one created with an actual lightning might indeed look quite different. The substance where a real one comes from is normally not a pure silicon based thing.
But I fear this is one of these things that are difficult to recreate accurately...
I wonder how much extra bandwith wil be used, incremental to the load bittorrent (and other p2p technologies) has on the internet. There are so many technological enthousiasts pumping everthing they have through those internet wires, I wonder how much the global traffic would rise. I remember bittorrent taking up about 30% of the total global load or something.
But then again, bittorrent is kinda distributed all over the world, and without smart mirrors streaming the world cup data this might saturate key points of the internet infrastructure. It's not as if local proxies can handle most of the load, since each pc/phone/whatever probably has a direct link to the streamin server(/cluster).
Sometimes I think those free software guys are going way to ideological. Granted, linux would not be as succesfull today without their GNU tools (hence GNU/linux is the correct name to them), and without the GPL i can't imagine what legal troubles might have been here (hooray for SCO!), and how we would solve them. The GPL is fairly strong for this matter.
Even more, I would say we should be thankful to nVidia and Ati for even going into the trouble of creating their proprietary video drivers, even if this is only so they can get their money out of the linux (business) market. And the point made that the open source versions of such drivers lag behind is completely true, and a very good reason imho to allow such linking, for once, to be legal.
I even wonder why the FSF is so determined to disallow programs to be linked to GPL programs. I perfectly well know the LGPL exists, but c'mon, as long as people are not stealing or abusing code many OSS developers worked hard for I don't see anything wrong.
From TFA: "Will it persuade Steve Jobs that releasing his OS is an insanely great idea?"
I don't think so, Apple wants to produce a quality product, and can control the hardware and the OS, so it's fairly easy to make it a very stable product.
If they would want to release a version that runs on all (intel) x86 PC's they won't be able to have as much stability and quality control at all, and might give end users a bad feeling about this producs just as lots of people are annoyed with those driver issues that plague the Windows world (in terms of stability)...
I know that, so that's why I said 'Do you check all those extensions once a month to see for any new ones?', so I mean to actually check for _new ones_, not if they're being updated.
They put stuff as default to make it easy for everyone. Users, website creaters, people with bad intentions.
The first rule of Microsoft is: Let's make it as easy so blind monkeys can use it. All else comes as an afterthought.
Did I ever state Microsoft should be applauded? No! But they make a coherent package, with lots of default stuff (and crap). That's my whole point.
(I actually hate Microsoft for all the right reasons and type this sentence right now in opera on my Mandriva box. Don't think I'm a Microsoft fanboy...)
So much for IE having features that FireFox does not.
How many regular browser users ever change a setting for that browser? How many firefox users install extensions?
Microsoft realises the mose people use software out of the box, and never touch settings. They don't expect the mainstream of people wil tweak into oblivion and so they choose to make a browser which has everything as it should as default.
(This is about the same way opera does their browser. Did you ever check how many extensions there are for firefox? Are they all the same quality/stability? Do you check all those extensions once a month to see for any new ones?)
Look, I'm not trying to be a flamebait here, but simplicity is key for the most Microsoft software users. It's just that simple...
Wouldn't the traffic be carried by the DSL or cable providers?
Certainly.
And when they start to get much more traffic (I presume online gaming with those newest games does need some bandwith), they definately need to start updating their switches/routers. Which Cisco sells.
And why would they want to keep the patent on that again, for other reasons than just appearing "evil"?
Lots of mobile devices and flash memory cards use a form of FAT formatting. You wouldn't believe how many things in the world today use such a fragile filesystem, because it's easy, tested and does not need a strong protection for data loss.
And when Microsoft would suddenly like to force each manufacturer to start paying licence fees, they're all screwed.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not trying to flamebait here, but I have big doubts with the two party systems in the USA and in England (or the UK?). It seems like those two parties are certain to have the almost absolute power from time to time, and smaller parties are never able to get enough votes to rule the country. (I also have big questions with corporate sponsoring of the parties in the USA, this makes the country being run by the corporations and not it's inhabitants, the way it should be.)
;) ), the greens, and so on...
:-)
:P
I'm from Belgium, and here there are a lot of parties. The orange (catholics), the blue (they seem to be for the people not working for the state, people who like to keep as much money they earn), the red (the socialists, but do not think this is some kind of communism, the world is not black & white you know
When the elections are over, the winning party needs to form a government, and they do this by making a coalition with one or two other parties so they represent more than 50% of the voting people in the country. This way all major opinions should be represented in a government. A new party might not be a part of a new government, but they are able to use there representation power in the parlement, for example when new laws are discussed and voted for.
I fear that the hunger for power will keep the system in England and the USA just the way it is, and also the corporate sponsoring. I guess those countries are screwed for eternity. Perhaps I'm missing some extreme good thing about their systems? I only see abuse of power, greed and the same thing happening over and over again. (Slightly offtopic: it's nice to know that Microsoft is loved a lot in exactly those countries.)
PS1. I know it's a lot more complicated than this in our country, you've got flanders, brussels and wallony with their own governments and parties, but I'm just making a point here.
PS2. Those who are up to date with belgian politics know this time is kind of worrysome, but this has nothing to do with the point I'm making.
And I can't resist saying this: Now the American patriots can mod me down into oblivion for my rant against their best country in the world!
Youtube video mentioned in the article:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NaCPw1s3GFw
It seems MS is trying hard to get XP to work on the OLPC, but since the SD connection is not a standard one, they need to make the drivers to all the hardware themselves AND they so definitely can not touch any olpc GPL code they need to be very careful! Things are not going as smooth as MS would like it to be.
Some interesting stories:
concerns for this all
general info about the things MS is doing
If the problem seems to be too much heat, why do they try to use difficult to install heatsinks?
Underclocking people! Makes the system way more stable.
Wouldn't it be better to just make a gum that's safe to swallow?
:-)
'Chewing gum consists of a fibre that can't be digested by our bodies, so, if it's swallowed, apart from the unpleasant texture, it will pass harmlessly through the body intact along with other waste.'
http://www.raisingkids.co.uk/ask/EX07_PRE01.ASP
I still find it strange that people think swallowing gum is bad for you or something.
This is very good! The more businesses are forced to actually pay for all those MS loaded machines, the easier they might consider using linux.
Go Microsoft!
(This is why I wish copyright protection on software would be 100% succesful: Too many people just download software and keep using it that way, if this would be impossible a fraction of those would pay but many more will start searching alternatives...)
The reason Microsoft wants to keep the cost high to virtualize Vista is because they want people to actually run Vista as the main os. When lots of people start running linux (or parallels on macs), they are using Vista simply as a bunch of libraries to run one or two apps.
They want to remain in control of the platform, if people use mac or linux as their main os and use Windows to run one of those not-yet-supported programs the power of Microsoft wil start to degrade...
Microsoft clearly want to divide and conquer: They know they cannot fight against the movement of open/free software, but they sure can influence companies. As long as there are big distro's as foolisch to walk the path Microsoft lays down for them these kind of agreements will keep coming.
I'm very curious what will happen with these agreements with Novell, Xandros and now Linspire when gpl v3 arrives. And don't forget, the list of companies signing agreements with Microsoft will keep on growing.
But it seems these companies do not handle in the best interest of the community anymore, but only to serve their paying customers.
Greed, anyone?
... but luckily youtube has a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7r-qlKkUo
The most accurate description I can give based on the one time I witnessed it is that it looked very similar to the luminescent jellyfish that you might see when boating at night (soft glow, bluish, semi-translucent).
Perhaps because these are tiny lab expirment ones, a real one created with an actual lightning might indeed look quite different. The substance where a real one comes from is normally not a pure silicon based thing.
But I fear this is one of these things that are difficult to recreate accurately...
So it's like 60% of porn p2p downloads?
:-D
Those porn actors should not complain about loss of sales, they get busy each and every day for hours! Who are they to complain!
So what are our options for trickjumping, wallhacking, ... on the moon and mars?
I wonder how much extra bandwith wil be used, incremental to the load bittorrent (and other p2p technologies) has on the internet. There are so many technological enthousiasts pumping everthing they have through those internet wires, I wonder how much the global traffic would rise. I remember bittorrent taking up about 30% of the total global load or something.
But then again, bittorrent is kinda distributed all over the world, and without smart mirrors streaming the world cup data this might saturate key points of the internet infrastructure. It's not as if local proxies can handle most of the load, since each pc/phone/whatever probably has a direct link to the streamin server(/cluster).
Sometimes I think those free software guys are going way to ideological. Granted, linux would not be as succesfull today without their GNU tools (hence GNU/linux is the correct name to them), and without the GPL i can't imagine what legal troubles might have been here (hooray for SCO!), and how we would solve them. The GPL is fairly strong for this matter.
Even more, I would say we should be thankful to nVidia and Ati for even going into the trouble of creating their proprietary video drivers, even if this is only so they can get their money out of the linux (business) market. And the point made that the open source versions of such drivers lag behind is completely true, and a very good reason imho to allow such linking, for once, to be legal.
I even wonder why the FSF is so determined to disallow programs to be linked to GPL programs. I perfectly well know the LGPL exists, but c'mon, as long as people are not stealing or abusing code many OSS developers worked hard for I don't see anything wrong.
For those interested in some more background (and with way too much free time), check this out:
Wikpedia article about computer games.
Comprehensive article with lots of detail.
From TFA:
"Will it persuade Steve Jobs that releasing his OS is an insanely great idea?"
I don't think so, Apple wants to produce a quality product, and can control the hardware and the OS, so it's fairly easy to make it a very stable product.
If they would want to release a version that runs on all (intel) x86 PC's they won't be able to have as much stability and quality control at all, and might give end users a bad feeling about this producs just as lots of people are annoyed with those driver issues that plague the Windows world (in terms of stability)...
Duke Nukem Forever you say? What is it? What happened untill now?
Check it out for yourself, from Wikipedia..
Check this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=175857&thresho ld=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=14615426#14615 511
I know that, so that's why I said 'Do you check all those extensions once a month to see for any new ones?', so I mean to actually check for _new ones_, not if they're being updated.
They put stuff as default to make it easy for everyone. Users, website creaters, people with bad intentions.
The first rule of Microsoft is: Let's make it as easy so blind monkeys can use it. All else comes as an afterthought.
Did I ever state Microsoft should be applauded? No! But they make a coherent package, with lots of default stuff (and crap). That's my whole point.
(I actually hate Microsoft for all the right reasons and type this sentence right now in opera on my Mandriva box. Don't think I'm a Microsoft fanboy...)
So much for IE having features that FireFox does not.
How many regular browser users ever change a setting for that browser? How many firefox users install extensions?
Microsoft realises the mose people use software out of the box, and never touch settings. They don't expect the mainstream of people wil tweak into oblivion and so they choose to make a browser which has everything as it should as default.
(This is about the same way opera does their browser. Did you ever check how many extensions there are for firefox? Are they all the same quality/stability? Do you check all those extensions once a month to see for any new ones?)
Look, I'm not trying to be a flamebait here, but simplicity is key for the most Microsoft software users. It's just that simple...
Wouldn't the traffic be carried by the DSL or cable providers?
Certainly.
And when they start to get much more traffic (I presume online gaming with those newest games does need some bandwith), they definately need to start updating their switches/routers. Which Cisco sells.
A no-brainer actually...
Goobuntu? I certainly hope that won't be the final name.
:-D
Imagine someone's face when they hear I'm going to put some goob on their hard drive...
reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations"
Whow... that must be the ugliest link I ever saw!
And why would they want to keep the patent on that again, for other reasons than just appearing "evil"?
Lots of mobile devices and flash memory cards use a form of FAT formatting. You wouldn't believe how many things in the world today use such a fragile filesystem, because it's easy, tested and does not need a strong protection for data loss.
And when Microsoft would suddenly like to force each manufacturer to start paying licence fees, they're all screwed.