I think that the model that Microsoft uses and the community that they have is very different from alternatives. Not only are they the target of security flaws, which is the first defense you hear in this conversation, but their development model is different. They have flaws in the first place because debugging an operating system is pretty difficult. God knows that with as much cash as Microsoft has, they have enought money to try to find their major flaws, if only to shut up Linux/Mac people if that was all it took. If Linux or one of its major pieces of software has a large flaw, and it has, and it is discovered pretty quickly, as it usually is, they post a patch or a new package, and we Linux zealots eagerly apply them. Even if Microsoft came out with updates immediately every time, few would apply them. Even if this is an exaggeration, better attention to updates would do Windows users better, (even if the updates are sometimes flawed).
I am glad to see that someone posted about this. I bought a Karma maybe a year plus a couple months ago. Right after I got it, it locked up on me as described as well as other weird behavior. This actually only happened when I jogged with it. I was furious because the thing had a stop watch on it, I mean, what else is that for? So, finally, the thing just crapped out and when started in the safe mode it said like "busted drive, you poor shmuck", so I called on like the last day of my warranty, which was a month if I remember correctly, and yelled at them. Support was worthless, so they sent me a new one. I stupidly assumed that the previous one was defective, so I jogged with it again, and I started to get some of the same unpredictable behavior, so I stopped jogging with it all together. Aside from these bad experiences, and the problem with the ethernet and crappy java program, the player actually is pretty good. If used with the windows software and kept quite still, the thing surprisingly does what it is told and plays music. Would I suggest someone buys one? Well, if the things mentioned were definitely fixed, they yes, I really would. If not, then, I would say spend the money on anything else.
"Also of note, 80% of users are male and the top films purchased are sci-fi and fantasy.".... and are in their parents' basement looking the the linux kernel at 4 am with a greasy Frito hand mark across the front of their shirt.... pr0n, ok, pr0n
One of the main criticisms of GNU/Linux for example is that there are not consistant standards. I know that this has recently been fixed to a large degree with the specification created a few weeks ago by all the big distros and important people, but this is a great example of the more general situation. Linux people out of all people are for open implimentations, but there was still a need for large collaberation in interface. As a result, some freedom was taken away, but I think most would agree that this is a good thing. Sometimes what you need is a good benevolent dictator. Is Sun benevolent? I don't know. That has been a point of recent contraversy.
Although there are many important differences between different distros, aside from some configuration utilities, (which make a large difference to unfamiliar people), they all offer the same software written by someone else and hope that they have compiled it correctly and have it running stabley. GNU/Linux is all about the same whichever flavor you like it.
Clearly politics is a very important topic and in many ways it is very relevant to "Nerd" topics. In fact we constantly see Slashdot articles about patents and licensing as well as laws concerning technology. Maybe these topics have a place in a politics section, but I am cynical and can imagine it as a place for people to go on endlessly about partisan topics as is periodically done anyway. If I want this type of stuff, I can find it elsewhere. Slashdot is a tech sanctuary and should be wary of being adulterated with certain political topics.
Anyone who chats online any decent amount has probably gotten pretty good at typing a large group of common words. Anyone who has this skill regardless of how they accomplish this, whether it is because they have perfect or horrible form, can accomplish almost all jobs that require any sort of typing at some significant (70 or 80?) percent efficiency as compared to the speeds they have when they are talking to their friends online. For things like programming (which is much more relevant for slashdot), which uses all sorts of funny non chat like typing behavior, it is not like you can think as fast as type anyway, so typing is not the bottleneck there.
We have a lot of Windows machines in ee labs that use Windows software for things like programming boards as well as in labs that are free for general use such as in the main library. In the cs/software area on the other hand, there are almost entirely Solaris machines as well as a few Linux machines. This does not seem to be changing very much at all. I know that Microsoft tries as hard as they can to offer cs students free software, but at least the school has not caught on with it because well, lets face it, we are hippies and we like open source software.
I was under the impression from their statements that SCO claimed that Linux stole many lines almost literally from Unix. Instead, at least with regard to ELF, it is purely an interface matter which seems far more dubious an infraction than it seemed was implied. It seems that this tactic was deemed necessary to fight the war of propaganda and make Linux users look like a bunch of theives. That's pretty irritating.
If people running windows were not so used to running as admin, this would not be a fundemental problem. If Windows was more friendly to being used as a multi user system, then only the os would be the bottleneck (although still a significant one) in making a system secure. I mean, running a browser should be a fairly secure activity, after all, it is such a basic part of every day computer use.
With Windows, even the most experienced person cannot entirely avoid the popular hazards of windows such as its viruses and adware. Many of those Windows users who would claim to not have problems with these things actively run anti virus programs and anti-adware programs. It does not occur to them that this is not a normal part of computer use....Similarly, "Ehhh, sometimes you just have to format your hard drive, it happens,....", BS!! This is not normal use. This is a bad product from a non competitive industry. Not surprisingly, with an open source os which is mainly based on open source software, you are more in control of what is going on on your computer. Even the community of users is different. Do these people constantly download and run binaries? Not nearly with the frequency of Windows users. Even if one chooses to be reckelss, and lets say, does run a random binary, why should your whole system be vulnerable? Almost all windows users don't understand the concept of a non administrative login. Windows users are used to bending over and they don't even know it. I would rather run a system where the system as well the software itself is set up to let me choose just how much trust I want to give to everything. As we all know, even being carefull on a windows system for the average user guarentees nothing.
Re:As flattering a photo of RMS as there'll ever b
on
Stallman vs Ken Brown
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· Score: 1
I always thought that Scheme and Logo were basically the same thing. Aside from some simple syntax differences and possibly scoping, I have always thought of logo as scheme with a drawing turtle. In fact one of the first things that I did in the first computer science class I took was first making a Scheme interpreter in Scheme and then making a Logo interpreter written in Scheme, which didn't require many changes. Anyway, you can do some pretty complex things with some simple languages. I would use Logo to draw some cool fractals.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that the model that Microsoft uses and the community that they have is very different from alternatives. Not only are they the target of security flaws, which is the first defense you hear in this conversation, but their development model is different. They have flaws in the first place because debugging an operating system is pretty difficult. God knows that with as much cash as Microsoft has, they have enought money to try to find their major flaws, if only to shut up Linux/Mac people if that was all it took. If Linux or one of its major pieces of software has a large flaw, and it has, and it is discovered pretty quickly, as it usually is, they post a patch or a new package, and we Linux zealots eagerly apply them. Even if Microsoft came out with updates immediately every time, few would apply them. Even if this is an exaggeration, better attention to updates would do Windows users better, (even if the updates are sometimes flawed).
I am glad to see that someone posted about this. I bought a Karma maybe a year plus a couple months ago. Right after I got it, it locked up on me as described as well as other weird behavior. This actually only happened when I jogged with it. I was furious because the thing had a stop watch on it, I mean, what else is that for? So, finally, the thing just crapped out and when started in the safe mode it said like "busted drive, you poor shmuck", so I called on like the last day of my warranty, which was a month if I remember correctly, and yelled at them. Support was worthless, so they sent me a new one. I stupidly assumed that the previous one was defective, so I jogged with it again, and I started to get some of the same unpredictable behavior, so I stopped jogging with it all together. Aside from these bad experiences, and the problem with the ethernet and crappy java program, the player actually is pretty good. If used with the windows software and kept quite still, the thing surprisingly does what it is told and plays music. Would I suggest someone buys one? Well, if the things mentioned were definitely fixed, they yes, I really would. If not, then, I would say spend the money on anything else.
"Also of note, 80% of users are male and the top films purchased are sci-fi and fantasy." .... and are in their parents' basement looking the the linux kernel at 4 am with a greasy Frito hand mark across the front of their shirt .... pr0n, ok, pr0n
One of the main criticisms of GNU/Linux for example is that there are not consistant standards. I know that this has recently been fixed to a large degree with the specification created a few weeks ago by all the big distros and important people, but this is a great example of the more general situation. Linux people out of all people are for open implimentations, but there was still a need for large collaberation in interface. As a result, some freedom was taken away, but I think most would agree that this is a good thing. Sometimes what you need is a good benevolent dictator. Is Sun benevolent? I don't know. That has been a point of recent contraversy.
Although there are many important differences between different distros, aside from some configuration utilities, (which make a large difference to unfamiliar people), they all offer the same software written by someone else and hope that they have compiled it correctly and have it running stabley. GNU/Linux is all about the same whichever flavor you like it.
Clearly politics is a very important topic and in many ways it is very relevant to "Nerd" topics. In fact we constantly see Slashdot articles about patents and licensing as well as laws concerning technology. Maybe these topics have a place in a politics section, but I am cynical and can imagine it as a place for people to go on endlessly about partisan topics as is periodically done anyway. If I want this type of stuff, I can find it elsewhere. Slashdot is a tech sanctuary and should be wary of being adulterated with certain political topics.
Anyone who chats online any decent amount has probably gotten pretty good at typing a large group of common words. Anyone who has this skill regardless of how they accomplish this, whether it is because they have perfect or horrible form, can accomplish almost all jobs that require any sort of typing at some significant (70 or 80?) percent efficiency as compared to the speeds they have when they are talking to their friends online. For things like programming (which is much more relevant for slashdot), which uses all sorts of funny non chat like typing behavior, it is not like you can think as fast as type anyway, so typing is not the bottleneck there.
We have a lot of Windows machines in ee labs that use Windows software for things like programming boards as well as in labs that are free for general use such as in the main library. In the cs/software area on the other hand, there are almost entirely Solaris machines as well as a few Linux machines. This does not seem to be changing very much at all. I know that Microsoft tries as hard as they can to offer cs students free software, but at least the school has not caught on with it because well, lets face it, we are hippies and we like open source software.
I was under the impression from their statements that SCO claimed that Linux stole many lines almost literally from Unix. Instead, at least with regard to ELF, it is purely an interface matter which seems far more dubious an infraction than it seemed was implied. It seems that this tactic was deemed necessary to fight the war of propaganda and make Linux users look like a bunch of theives. That's pretty irritating.
If people running windows were not so used to running as admin, this would not be a fundemental problem. If Windows was more friendly to being used as a multi user system, then only the os would be the bottleneck (although still a significant one) in making a system secure. I mean, running a browser should be a fairly secure activity, after all, it is such a basic part of every day computer use.
With Windows, even the most experienced person cannot entirely avoid the popular hazards of windows such as its viruses and adware. Many of those Windows users who would claim to not have problems with these things actively run anti virus programs and anti-adware programs. It does not occur to them that this is not a normal part of computer use....Similarly, "Ehhh, sometimes you just have to format your hard drive, it happens, ....", BS!! This is not normal use. This is a bad product from a non competitive industry. Not surprisingly, with an open source os which is mainly based on open source software, you are more in control of what is going on on your computer. Even the community of users is different. Do these people constantly download and run binaries? Not nearly with the frequency of Windows users. Even if one chooses to be reckelss, and lets say, does run a random binary, why should your whole system be vulnerable? Almost all windows users don't understand the concept of a non administrative login. Windows users are used to bending over and they don't even know it. I would rather run a system where the system as well the software itself is set up to let me choose just how much trust I want to give to everything. As we all know, even being carefull on a windows system for the average user guarentees nothing.
Those pictures of RMS are a bit out of date. When he is not looking like a grizzled maniac, he likes playing dress up.
I always thought that Scheme and Logo were basically the same thing. Aside from some simple syntax differences and possibly scoping, I have always thought of logo as scheme with a drawing turtle. In fact one of the first things that I did in the first computer science class I took was first making a Scheme interpreter in Scheme and then making a Logo interpreter written in Scheme, which didn't require many changes. Anyway, you can do some pretty complex things with some simple languages. I would use Logo to draw some cool fractals.