I have an Archos Gmini xs 202. It fits your specs perfectly. 20 gig, no huge flashy colour screen to drain battery life, and it's cheap too. I don't know if its still the case, but when I bought mine 9 months ago it was the cheapest 20 gig player you could get. Oh and best of all, no stupid custom interface for transfering music. You can drag and drop, or sync it with WMP.
So at around the same time for $250 you can either get an also-ran music player or a brand-new game console. Zounds to me like they are going to lose a lot of tech geek sales.
Look, I know this is Slashdot, I know we all hate MS and love Nintendo, but who, exactly, goes shopping for an MP3 player and comes back with a games console? That makes about as much sense as saying "I can get a full suspension mountain bike for the same price as a Wii. Nintendo has lost the cyclist market".
try to at least compare like with like. If $250 dollars is too much for an MP3 player since a wii is the same price, how much do you expect ipod sales to suffer after the wii is released?
Rather, my point is that Microsoft is using the word "genuine" in a way that deviates from the way the word IS used and that this evidently has a deceptive motivation.
My dictionary defines genuine as:
Genuine: possessing the claimed or attributed character, quality, or origin; not counterfeit; authentic; real:
OK, look. When MS say a copy of Windows is genuine, what they are saying is that they manufactured it (or it was manufactured by a third party with a license to do so), and that it is a legally held copy which they will support. What word do you believe they should use to say that if not "genuine"?
I find this use of "genuine" to be most peculiar. An unlicensed copy of Microsoft Windows is perfectly genuine. It has exactly the same functionality as a licensed copy and was made by the same company. In contrast, if you buy a "Rorex" watch, it is not genuine because it is not made by the Rolex company and does not have the aesthetics, functionality, and resale value of a real Rolex.
So, what if I make a copy of a Rolex from identical materials and to the same build quality? It's not impossible. Is the resulting watch a "genuine" rolex? No, of course not, because it did not originate at the Rolex factory. You will note that origin is one of the meanings listed in the dictionary definition of "genuine".
By the way, a pirate copy of Windows does not have the same functionality as an official and, dare I say it, genuine copy, since it won't be able to use WGA. Yes, you are of course right that this is a limitation placed on the software by MS, but it IS still a limitation. Furthermore, it doesn't have the same resale value, since the CD-R with "WIN XP" written on it in magic marker is going to go for far less than MSRP. Gee, it looks like pirate copies have already failed two of the same tests your hypothetical fake rolex did. And, unless, MS have started labeling their disks with felt pens, I think it's going to fail the aesthetics test too.
Now clearly, what I'm doing here is jumping through some fairly pointless semantic hoops. What MS means by genuine is "not pirated". I doubt you and I are going to agree on anything else, so can we at leaset agree that "Windows Not Pirated Advantage" is a rubbish name? You clearly think that the "genuine" name is just MS attempting to twist the language to give greater weight to it's crusade against unlicensed distribution. But really, I know what genuine means in this context. It means legally produced, with the consent of or by the copyright holder. It means no laws were broken in the making of this CD-ROM. What word would you prefer them to use in its place? I honestly think "legal advantage" or "non-copyright infringing advantage" are going to be more confusing.
By the way, I never said your motive invalidated you're arguments. I said Slashdot would scream that your motive invalidated you're arguments if you were Paul Thurrot bashing the FSF's use of language. I do think you're argument is tenuous and petty (and try not take offense at that. I don't for a second think you are tenuous and petty), and I think that the points I raised here and in my original post invalidate it. I think your bias explains why you made such a tenuous and petty argument.
I agree, MS are more than justified in using the word "genuine". I don't really feel the need to jump through semantic hoops to defend the choice either. I know what they mean when they say genuine, and it's a hell of a lot easier than calling the service "Windows Copy Produced In Accordance With The Prevailing Copyright Laws In This Jurisdiction Advantage" (WCPIAWTPCLITJA for short. Trips off the tongue huh?).
On a slight side track, I really do despise these language conservatives. The meaning of words changes over time, and if enough people understand a word to mean something, then that is what it means. The compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary (I believe the equivalent reference work for you chaps in the Colonies is Websters) do not decide what a word means, they report what it means. Witness "google" becoming a verb.
On a different tangent entirely, and one somewhat more related to TFA, I think it would be instructive if people had a quick look at Bill Poser's web site. I would like in particular to direct you the list of links at the bottom "The Beginning of the Free Software Movement ", "The Free Software Foundation ", "Groklaw [Everything about SCO's anti-Linux campaign]", "LinuxLinks", "Why You Shouldn't Send People (Including Me) Microsoft Word Documents" and "Treacherous Computing". Perhaps a more fitting headline for this story would have been "Free software Advocate Finds Tenuous Excuse To Bash MS".
Just a quick kalma protection disclaimer. I use Linux every day, it's my primary desktop OS on all my machines except the Wintendo, but if Paul Thurrot wrote an article complaining about the FSF using the wrong definition of any given word, there would be 300 posts calling him an MS shill before anyone got as far as reading the article. This article is just petty MS bashing, and nothing more.
Well, as I understand it, (although it's not made fantastically clear in TFA, so I could be wrong) the $20 million figure is the market value of the software he sold, not the amount he sold it for. So say Program X sells for $400 in PC World, and our guy sells 50,000 pirate copies for $50 each, that would be software with a value of $20 million, but he only made $2,500,000. That's the standard way the softwre industry* produces figures for piracy, using the amount it would have sold for legitimatly.
*Actually, every industry in any way affected by piracy/counterfeit goods does exactly the same thing.
. If you have to install software for it, it's too much work for many people
I take it then, that you recomend those people buy one of the many MP3 players that use windows media player as their frontend, so they don't have to install anything? After all, even if they bought one that just shows up as an external hard drive in explorer, they'd still have to install some sort of software to rip CDs, unless they use WMP, which ships with every Windows PC and will happily rip CDs to WMA, which is supported by nearly MP3 player out there other than the ipod.
This is just Microsoft being arrogant about the fact that a small, "unprofessional" team of people can create something that millions of people want and they, with all their billions and teams of "professionals" can't
That's right, because Halo and Halo 2 were both complete flops, weren't they? Hardly shifted a dozen units between them, right?
I say they reprogram the whole thing on a Quake 3 engine or something
I'm now fairly sure you never read the article, but, to give you the benifit of the doubt for a second and assume you did, could you explain what you mean by this comment? Because, as you are no doubt aware, this was a mod for Command and Conquer using Halo IP, not a mod for Halo. Could you explain (A) why microsoft would give a flying fuck which non-MS game these guys wrote a mod for and (B) exactly why you think it would be good idea for these guys to start over again with their RTS mod by dumping the RTS game they were trying to modify and attempting make an RTS using an FPS game engine? Just curious.
minus any actual mention of the word Halo of course.
And of course they're free to do that. As I have said eleswhere in this discussion, if these devs had just, I don't know, maybe come up with an original idea, instead of ripping off MS's IP, then maybe they wouldn't have just had to watch three years work disapear down the drain.
Oh I know, it's MS and they're evil and yes, they suck. But I just can't see what they've done wrong here. The Halo IP is a huge asset for MS, and the law of the land as currently written alows them to defend it. I cannot for the life of me see why anyone would expect them to do anything different. If you are making a game using someone elses IP then you are relying entirely on their good will. These devs never even asked permission. If I was about to embark on three years of hard work, I think I might ask the copyright holders permission first.
It's always easier to apologize than to ask permission
Yeah, that's true. It is easier to work your ass off for three years trying to get a project finished, then watch the whole thing go to waste, than it is to just ask a question before you start.
Bingo. I'm always amazed when people do things like this. These guys have put in three years of work on this project, and at no point over that entire time did any of them think that maybe they ought to check with MS's legal department first.
Hell, if they had just dropped MS an e-mail three years ago, they could have been refused permission straight away, and spent the last three years developing a game using original IP. And then, if it turned out to be any good, they might even have made some money off of it. Instead, three years of labour and endevour are down the drain.
I remember many, many years ago, in a different time and place, when men were men and god was still a boy ( well, alright, about four years ago ) I used to work for a games company, and was asked at a convention by some guy whether he could write a novel using our characters and publish it himself. What amazed me most about it was the way he said "I wouldn't expect you guys to finance the publishing", like he thought he would be doing us a favour. He was genuinly amazed when I told him that, were he to do such a thing, our legal department would come round to his house, and gang rape him ( not a metaphor ). What posses people to think companies will let them do this sort of thing? The most valuable asset bungie has is the Halo name. If you think they're going to let just anyone use it for free, then frankly you're crazy.
And this is why Vista is "doomed"- the dreaded Microsoft Monopoly preys on the ignorance and confusion of the masses... a new generation, the first generation "raised on the Internet", the first generation of which 90% are proficient and experienced with a home PC.
I was with you up to this point, but honestly, I think this generation will be even more wedded to windows than mine was.
I'm in my late twenties. My fist computer was an Amstrad CPC, then a Spectrum +3, which I learnt to program on. After that, I had an Amiga 1200, and I didn't get my first PC, which ran windows 95, till I was 17. So, before I was 18, I had used several different operating systems.
Now, just yesterday, I had to explain to a 19 year old that Macs do not come with windows. She just did not understand. As far as she is concerned, computers run windows. She has never even seen a computer running any other OS. She was actually surprised to learn that there are "non-windows computers".
That's your proficient computer users right there. They are NOT proficient with PCs. They are, at best, proficient with windows. Unfortunatly, they themselves can't tell the difference.
Then how, might I ask, is it that the rest of us don't have to reboot sixteen times to install XP?
Well, two reasons spring to mind.
It could be that we are all just much smarter.
Or, probably more likely, he's telling the truth, sort of. Note the words "that was how windows guided him through it". I installed Win 2000 on a laptop yesterday. Now, if I had rebooted every time it flashed up the "reboot now" or "reboot later" dialog, I would have been rebooting around a dozen times. Granted, that was for installing drivers, not patches, but it is a possible reason why you might clock up a large number of reboots when installing windows.
Of course, I rebooted twice, since there really is no need to reboot individually for every driver or patch. But if you were, say, trolling on some online forum and wanted to paint windows, sorry windoze, in the worst possible light, then counting each option to reboot as a forced reboot is probably the way to go
All terrorists have been muslims? So the Unabomber was Muslim? Timmothy McVeigh is Muslim? THe IRA are all Muslim? Those right wing christian orgs who blow up abortion sites are muslims in disguise? The Shining Path is Muslim?
I believe he was referring to all he terrorists post 911. But even your own examples prove the guys point. The IRA were all Irish, so if you believed they were plotting to blow up a plane, it would make sense to focus on searching Irish people. Those right wing Christians are all, if you'll forgive me for stating the obvious, christians, so if you believed they were plotting to blow up a plane, it would make sense to focus on searching christians. THe shining path were all maoists, so if you believed they were plotting to blow up a plane, it would make sense to focus on searching maoists.
Can you see a pattern emerging?
There are problems with this approach, certainly, not least of which is that the terrorists may try to choose someone from outside the profile to commit the attack, but to claim there are no valid reasons to use profiling is just plain wrong. It's all about playing the odds. If a quarter of a million people pass through an airport daily, and assuming you aren't going to search them all, then you really are just hoping to get lucky. Anything that cuts those odds in your favour is a good thing. If the terrorists you are presently worried about come from a particular group of people, then I don't see what's wrong with focussing on that group.
OK, first of all, they have not yet confirmed that we will be unable to turn off the sound. I personally think that you WILL be able to disable this when vista ships, but lets wait and see. Secondly :
Any bleeps or bloops or Windows logo noises will get picked up and passed along with the program material and broadcast
I admit, I don't work in radio, but maybe you could explain something to me. You are worried that if a PC reboots while it's line out output is being bradcast, the windows sound effect would go out over the air. My question would have to be this; if you were broadcasting a PC rebooting, wouldn't that mean that you're broadcasting silence? After all, it's not as if this bradcast automation software could be running during boot, is it?
They will have to come up with some kind of way to turn it off.
They already did. You turn off the speakers. Or, if your speakers don't have an independent power switch (say they're built into your monitor), then just mute the sound in windows. I don't know about Vista, but XP stays muted after you reboot.
I really don't see this as a big deal. I normally only turn on my speakers after my computer has booted, so I rarely, if ever, hear a startup sound. I can see it annoying notebook users, since they often don't have hardware volume controls these days, but even then, we're talking about a 5 second startup sound. Annoying, yes. A reason not to use the OS? Hardly. My Gamecube, DS and mobile phone all make a noise when turned on. I would prefer it if they din't, but I care about it so little that I can't even be bothered to hunt through the settings on the phone to turn the sound off.
Now, to be fair to MS (shocking idea on slashdot I know, but bear with me) you can play just as much HD content on XP, and presumably Vista, as you can on Linux, regardless of what kind of CPU you have.
You see, the article is talking about HDCP DRM protected content, specifically blue ray and HD-DVD. To the best of my knowledge, there are no Blue Ray or HD-DVD players for linux, or OS-X for that matter, so even if windows only supports them on 64-bit CPUs, that will still be better support than any other OS has at present.
I'd say that Ubuntu already has easier OS and app installation than Windows... For apps, you have apt-get, the synaptic gui and even the simplified Add/Remove Applications proggy that Ubuntu (at least Dapper) provides by default.
Really? Thats all there is to it? Great! Could you tell me the names of the DVD player software, and which media player to install that will play WMVs?
Yeah, that's a troll. And yes, I know those two particular examples aren't in the repos because of patent and licensing issues. The point I was rather sarcastically trying to make is that the app installation in Ubuntu is only easier than in windows if the app you want is in the repos. Yes, you could add additional repos, or you could download a.deb and use dpkg, but once you do either of those things I'd say you're reaching a level of complexity somewhat beyond "download.exe and double click".
What happens when they figure out that performance under linux/ogl is better because of the reduced overhead?
Nothing happens. Video game companies are interested, firts and formost, in shifting units. Why would they target a platform with such a small user base, however good the performance may be?
I definitely know how to use Windows XP (Considering that I port games and other software to/from it for a living, I would have to)- it's unstable, rent with Spyware, Virii, Worms, and the lot
Really? Because I have been using XP since it came out, both at work and at home, and I have never had a virus, worm, or any kind of spyware. As for unstable, well I'm sat next to a windows machine that was last rebooted 4 months ago, and that was when we moved offices. Do I know how to use it better than you, or am I just lucky?
You are kind of right about the easy to use thing though, it really does depend on what you're used to. For me, OSX would be the most difficult OS of the three, because I've never used it. I think both Linux and Windows have huge "ease of use" problems, but if you're used to them you can work around them.
I think it was badly worded, but I do see his point. To many businesses, Office is an important application. Not to mention the host of custom built in house software most companies have that will only run on windows.
Slashdot Mirror
I have an Archos Gmini xs 202. It fits your specs perfectly. 20 gig, no huge flashy colour screen to drain battery life, and it's cheap too. I don't know if its still the case, but when I bought mine 9 months ago it was the cheapest 20 gig player you could get. Oh and best of all, no stupid custom interface for transfering music. You can drag and drop, or sync it with WMP.
Archos website
I knew I couldn't be the only one who thought that.
So at around the same time for $250 you can either get an also-ran music player or a brand-new game console. Zounds to me like they are going to lose a lot of tech geek sales.
Look, I know this is Slashdot, I know we all hate MS and love Nintendo, but who, exactly, goes shopping for an MP3 player and comes back with a games console? That makes about as much sense as saying "I can get a full suspension mountain bike for the same price as a Wii. Nintendo has lost the cyclist market".
try to at least compare like with like. If $250 dollars is too much for an MP3 player since a wii is the same price, how much do you expect ipod sales to suffer after the wii is released?
Rather, my point is that Microsoft is using the word "genuine" in a way that deviates from the way the word IS used and that this evidently has a deceptive motivation.
:
My dictionary defines genuine as
Genuine: possessing the claimed or attributed character, quality, or origin; not counterfeit; authentic; real:
OK, look. When MS say a copy of Windows is genuine, what they are saying is that they manufactured it (or it was manufactured by a third party with a license to do so), and that it is a legally held copy which they will support. What word do you believe they should use to say that if not "genuine"?
I find this use of "genuine" to be most peculiar. An unlicensed copy of Microsoft Windows is perfectly genuine. It has exactly the same functionality as a licensed copy and was made by the same company. In contrast, if you buy a "Rorex" watch, it is not genuine because it is not made by the Rolex company and does not have the aesthetics, functionality, and resale value of a real Rolex.
So, what if I make a copy of a Rolex from identical materials and to the same build quality? It's not impossible. Is the resulting watch a "genuine" rolex? No, of course not, because it did not originate at the Rolex factory. You will note that origin is one of the meanings listed in the dictionary definition of "genuine".
By the way, a pirate copy of Windows does not have the same functionality as an official and, dare I say it, genuine copy, since it won't be able to use WGA. Yes, you are of course right that this is a limitation placed on the software by MS, but it IS still a limitation. Furthermore, it doesn't have the same resale value, since the CD-R with "WIN XP" written on it in magic marker is going to go for far less than MSRP. Gee, it looks like pirate copies have already failed two of the same tests your hypothetical fake rolex did. And, unless, MS have started labeling their disks with felt pens, I think it's going to fail the aesthetics test too.
Now clearly, what I'm doing here is jumping through some fairly pointless semantic hoops. What MS means by genuine is "not pirated". I doubt you and I are going to agree on anything else, so can we at leaset agree that "Windows Not Pirated Advantage" is a rubbish name? You clearly think that the "genuine" name is just MS attempting to twist the language to give greater weight to it's crusade against unlicensed distribution. But really, I know what genuine means in this context. It means legally produced, with the consent of or by the copyright holder. It means no laws were broken in the making of this CD-ROM. What word would you prefer them to use in its place? I honestly think "legal advantage" or "non-copyright infringing advantage" are going to be more confusing.
By the way, I never said your motive invalidated you're arguments. I said Slashdot would scream that your motive invalidated you're arguments if you were Paul Thurrot bashing the FSF's use of language. I do think you're argument is tenuous and petty (and try not take offense at that. I don't for a second think you are tenuous and petty), and I think that the points I raised here and in my original post invalidate it. I think your bias explains why you made such a tenuous and petty argument.
I agree, MS are more than justified in using the word "genuine". I don't really feel the need to jump through semantic hoops to defend the choice either. I know what they mean when they say genuine, and it's a hell of a lot easier than calling the service "Windows Copy Produced In Accordance With The Prevailing Copyright Laws In This Jurisdiction Advantage" (WCPIAWTPCLITJA for short. Trips off the tongue huh?).
On a slight side track, I really do despise these language conservatives. The meaning of words changes over time, and if enough people understand a word to mean something, then that is what it means. The compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary (I believe the equivalent reference work for you chaps in the Colonies is Websters) do not decide what a word means, they report what it means. Witness "google" becoming a verb.
On a different tangent entirely, and one somewhat more related to TFA, I think it would be instructive if people had a quick look at Bill Poser's web site. I would like in particular to direct you the list of links at the bottom "The Beginning of the Free Software Movement ", "The Free Software Foundation ", "Groklaw [Everything about SCO's anti-Linux campaign]", "LinuxLinks", "Why You Shouldn't Send People (Including Me) Microsoft Word Documents" and "Treacherous Computing". Perhaps a more fitting headline for this story would have been "Free software Advocate Finds Tenuous Excuse To Bash MS".
Just a quick kalma protection disclaimer. I use Linux every day, it's my primary desktop OS on all my machines except the Wintendo, but if Paul Thurrot wrote an article complaining about the FSF using the wrong definition of any given word, there would be 300 posts calling him an MS shill before anyone got as far as reading the article. This article is just petty MS bashing, and nothing more.
Well, as I understand it, (although it's not made fantastically clear in TFA, so I could be wrong) the $20 million figure is the market value of the software he sold, not the amount he sold it for. So say Program X sells for $400 in PC World, and our guy sells 50,000 pirate copies for $50 each, that would be software with a value of $20 million, but he only made $2,500,000. That's the standard way the softwre industry* produces figures for piracy, using the amount it would have sold for legitimatly.
*Actually, every industry in any way affected by piracy/counterfeit goods does exactly the same thing.
Oh hell, I just can't resist this one.
. If you have to install software for it, it's too much work for many people
I take it then, that you recomend those people buy one of the many MP3 players that use windows media player as their frontend, so they don't have to install anything? After all, even if they bought one that just shows up as an external hard drive in explorer, they'd still have to install some sort of software to rip CDs, unless they use WMP, which ships with every Windows PC and will happily rip CDs to WMA, which is supported by nearly MP3 player out there other than the ipod.
This is just Microsoft being arrogant about the fact that a small, "unprofessional" team of people can create something that millions of people want and they, with all their billions and teams of "professionals" can't
That's right, because Halo and Halo 2 were both complete flops, weren't they? Hardly shifted a dozen units between them, right?
I say they reprogram the whole thing on a Quake 3 engine or something
I'm now fairly sure you never read the article, but, to give you the benifit of the doubt for a second and assume you did, could you explain what you mean by this comment? Because, as you are no doubt aware, this was a mod for Command and Conquer using Halo IP, not a mod for Halo. Could you explain (A) why microsoft would give a flying fuck which non-MS game these guys wrote a mod for and (B) exactly why you think it would be good idea for these guys to start over again with their RTS mod by dumping the RTS game they were trying to modify and attempting make an RTS using an FPS game engine? Just curious.
minus any actual mention of the word Halo of course.
And of course they're free to do that. As I have said eleswhere in this discussion, if these devs had just, I don't know, maybe come up with an original idea, instead of ripping off MS's IP, then maybe they wouldn't have just had to watch three years work disapear down the drain.
Oh I know, it's MS and they're evil and yes, they suck. But I just can't see what they've done wrong here. The Halo IP is a huge asset for MS, and the law of the land as currently written alows them to defend it. I cannot for the life of me see why anyone would expect them to do anything different. If you are making a game using someone elses IP then you are relying entirely on their good will. These devs never even asked permission. If I was about to embark on three years of hard work, I think I might ask the copyright holders permission first.
It's always easier to apologize than to ask permission
Yeah, that's true. It is easier to work your ass off for three years trying to get a project finished, then watch the whole thing go to waste, than it is to just ask a question before you start.
Oh, no, hang on, it isn't.
This should answer that question for you.
Byt he way, I not an American myslef, nor do I live in the US. But I do accept that Slashdot is a US site, and has a US-centric focus.
Bingo. I'm always amazed when people do things like this. These guys have put in three years of work on this project, and at no point over that entire time did any of them think that maybe they ought to check with MS's legal department first.
Hell, if they had just dropped MS an e-mail three years ago, they could have been refused permission straight away, and spent the last three years developing a game using original IP. And then, if it turned out to be any good, they might even have made some money off of it. Instead, three years of labour and endevour are down the drain.
I remember many, many years ago, in a different time and place, when men were men and god was still a boy ( well, alright, about four years ago ) I used to work for a games company, and was asked at a convention by some guy whether he could write a novel using our characters and publish it himself. What amazed me most about it was the way he said "I wouldn't expect you guys to finance the publishing", like he thought he would be doing us a favour. He was genuinly amazed when I told him that, were he to do such a thing, our legal department would come round to his house, and gang rape him ( not a metaphor ). What posses people to think companies will let them do this sort of thing? The most valuable asset bungie has is the Halo name. If you think they're going to let just anyone use it for free, then frankly you're crazy.
And this is why Vista is "doomed"- the dreaded Microsoft Monopoly preys on the ignorance and confusion of the masses ... a new generation, the first generation "raised on the Internet", the first generation of which 90% are proficient and experienced with a home PC.
I was with you up to this point, but honestly, I think this generation will be even more wedded to windows than mine was.
I'm in my late twenties. My fist computer was an Amstrad CPC, then a Spectrum +3, which I learnt to program on. After that, I had an Amiga 1200, and I didn't get my first PC, which ran windows 95, till I was 17. So, before I was 18, I had used several different operating systems.
Now, just yesterday, I had to explain to a 19 year old that Macs do not come with windows. She just did not understand. As far as she is concerned, computers run windows. She has never even seen a computer running any other OS. She was actually surprised to learn that there are "non-windows computers".
That's your proficient computer users right there. They are NOT proficient with PCs. They are, at best, proficient with windows. Unfortunatly, they themselves can't tell the difference.
The XP machine nest to my desk at work was last rebooted almost five months ago. And that was when we moved offices.
Then how, might I ask, is it that the rest of us don't have to reboot sixteen times to install XP?
Well, two reasons spring to mind.
It could be that we are all just much smarter.
Or, probably more likely, he's telling the truth, sort of. Note the words "that was how windows guided him through it". I installed Win 2000 on a laptop yesterday. Now, if I had rebooted every time it flashed up the "reboot now" or "reboot later" dialog, I would have been rebooting around a dozen times. Granted, that was for installing drivers, not patches, but it is a possible reason why you might clock up a large number of reboots when installing windows.
Of course, I rebooted twice, since there really is no need to reboot individually for every driver or patch. But if you were, say, trolling on some online forum and wanted to paint windows, sorry windoze, in the worst possible light, then counting each option to reboot as a forced reboot is probably the way to go
All terrorists have been muslims? So the Unabomber was Muslim? Timmothy McVeigh is Muslim? THe IRA are all Muslim? Those right wing christian orgs who blow up abortion sites are muslims in disguise? The Shining Path is Muslim?
I believe he was referring to all he terrorists post 911. But even your own examples prove the guys point. The IRA were all Irish, so if you believed they were plotting to blow up a plane, it would make sense to focus on searching Irish people. Those right wing Christians are all, if you'll forgive me for stating the obvious, christians, so if you believed they were plotting to blow up a plane, it would make sense to focus on searching christians. THe shining path were all maoists, so if you believed they were plotting to blow up a plane, it would make sense to focus on searching maoists.
Can you see a pattern emerging?
There are problems with this approach, certainly, not least of which is that the terrorists may try to choose someone from outside the profile to commit the attack, but to claim there are no valid reasons to use profiling is just plain wrong. It's all about playing the odds. If a quarter of a million people pass through an airport daily, and assuming you aren't going to search them all, then you really are just hoping to get lucky. Anything that cuts those odds in your favour is a good thing. If the terrorists you are presently worried about come from a particular group of people, then I don't see what's wrong with focussing on that group.
OK, first of all, they have not yet confirmed that we will be unable to turn off the sound. I personally think that you WILL be able to disable this when vista ships, but lets wait and see. Secondly :
Any bleeps or bloops or Windows logo noises will get picked up and passed along with the program material and broadcast
I admit, I don't work in radio, but maybe you could explain something to me. You are worried that if a PC reboots while it's line out output is being bradcast, the windows sound effect would go out over the air. My question would have to be this; if you were broadcasting a PC rebooting, wouldn't that mean that you're broadcasting silence? After all, it's not as if this bradcast automation software could be running during boot, is it?
They will have to come up with some kind of way to turn it off.
They already did. You turn off the speakers. Or, if your speakers don't have an independent power switch (say they're built into your monitor), then just mute the sound in windows. I don't know about Vista, but XP stays muted after you reboot.
I really don't see this as a big deal. I normally only turn on my speakers after my computer has booted, so I rarely, if ever, hear a startup sound. I can see it annoying notebook users, since they often don't have hardware volume controls these days, but even then, we're talking about a 5 second startup sound. Annoying, yes. A reason not to use the OS? Hardly. My Gamecube, DS and mobile phone all make a noise when turned on. I would prefer it if they din't, but I care about it so little that I can't even be bothered to hunt through the settings on the phone to turn the sound off.
Now, to be fair to MS (shocking idea on slashdot I know, but bear with me) you can play just as much HD content on XP, and presumably Vista, as you can on Linux, regardless of what kind of CPU you have.
You see, the article is talking about HDCP DRM protected content, specifically blue ray and HD-DVD. To the best of my knowledge, there are no Blue Ray or HD-DVD players for linux, or OS-X for that matter, so even if windows only supports them on 64-bit CPUs, that will still be better support than any other OS has at present.
I'd say that Ubuntu already has easier OS and app installation than Windows... For apps, you have apt-get, the synaptic gui and even the simplified Add/Remove Applications proggy that Ubuntu (at least Dapper) provides by default.
.deb and use dpkg, but once you do either of those things I'd say you're reaching a level of complexity somewhat beyond "download .exe and double click".
Really? Thats all there is to it? Great! Could you tell me the names of the DVD player software, and which media player to install that will play WMVs?
Yeah, that's a troll. And yes, I know those two particular examples aren't in the repos because of patent and licensing issues. The point I was rather sarcastically trying to make is that the app installation in Ubuntu is only easier than in windows if the app you want is in the repos. Yes, you could add additional repos, or you could download a
the government has never openly declared critical Linux updates an imperative? Why Windows?
= 2
Well, possibly it's because windows has a +90% share of the desktop market, whereas linux has a 1% share or less.
And yes unusually for a slashdot post, I will cite a source :
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid
br> Cue twenty or more posts screaming "that's only because people hack firefox to identify itself as IE on XP".
What happens when they figure out that performance under linux/ogl is better because of the reduced overhead?
Nothing happens. Video game companies are interested, firts and formost, in shifting units. Why would they target a platform with such a small user base, however good the performance may be?
Yes, very nice. How old are you ? 12? Run along and play, the grown ups are talking.
I definitely know how to use Windows XP (Considering that I port games and other software to/from it for a living, I would have to)- it's unstable, rent with Spyware, Virii, Worms, and the lot
Really? Because I have been using XP since it came out, both at work and at home, and I have never had a virus, worm, or any kind of spyware. As for unstable, well I'm sat next to a windows machine that was last rebooted 4 months ago, and that was when we moved offices. Do I know how to use it better than you, or am I just lucky?
You are kind of right about the easy to use thing though, it really does depend on what you're used to. For me, OSX would be the most difficult OS of the three, because I've never used it. I think both Linux and Windows have huge "ease of use" problems, but if you're used to them you can work around them.
I think it was badly worded, but I do see his point. To many businesses, Office is an important application. Not to mention the host of custom built in house software most companies have that will only run on windows.
I didn't count them. I copy pasted and used the word count feature in Word. Took a good six or seven seconds. Work smarter, not harder.