Oh, I hope my man Ballmer is awake. He should grab his bags and prepare to leave for Korea. We surely live in interesting times don't we?
I hear he's busy trying to stop excessive gland secretion -- 10 feet is a long way to skip. Anyway, from what I hear, Phil the Prince of Insufficient Light has been sent to South Korea to send all the evil Linux users straight to heck. He will hit the really naughty ones with his spoon.
Didn't they read that report by those two professors that got Microsoft funding about how Linux is plagued by security holes, higher ownership cost, and a swarm of locusts? I hope they can right the ship before it's too late.
If anybody is in trouble it is Microsoft. Aside from a FUD campaign, they have done nothing but encourage Linux growth with their strong apathy towards the end user they so often crap upon and insistance of keeping a brutal EULA and locking their users into a product cycle.
Microsoft is failing to compete, and thus their market shares are declining. It's simple buisness here. What... do you want them to get a federal subsidy? Those poor innocent submarine patent people...
It would seem the contest was cancelled b/c the webpage sponsoring the contest lacked the following features essential for any self-respecting Mac user to view:
- Gray brushed metal GUI
- Navigation that is "slick, clean, efficient, and effective"
- Think Different sticker
I need to take a diet from looking at those screenshots... anybody who has used Windows on a budget or mid-level PC and doesn't want to crawl around... they change performance to "best"... disabling all the ugly looking "graphical enhancement" crap. Now it seems those graphical enhancements are EVERYWHERE. I hope for the sake of Windows users it can be turned off everywhere in Longhorn, or prepare to feel the bloat.
Anybody have the Vegas Over/Under
on
PSP Launch Coverage
·
· Score: 4, Funny
I don't want to stray too far off topic, but they will probably go over how they do things and package their distros... this is a great chance for them to make a subtle but important change...
PLEASE embrace LSB and try to make it stronger. If Linux could have a strong and comprehensive core platform it would solve ALOT of problems. LSB in it's current form is very very weak. I think many distros make it optional... only distro I've seen in awhile with it as an upfront option is Mandrake.
A brief rundown of things a strong LSB would help:
- Finding things. Where did distro X stick important app Y? No more!
- Driver support. No need to greatly complicate engineering a driver for Linux by accounting for the various ways distros place and configure things.
- Ease of use. Take a Linux newbie and swap distros on them. Odds are they won't be happy when some things are mysteriously gone or put elsewhere or changed around.
I realize Linux by it's very nature tends to have endless variations... but driver support and familiarity would essentially "force by choice" many distros to comply if they want added userbase and drivers, etc.
There is a large noticeable difference between my previous system [Pentium IV 2.8 Ghz / 1.5 GB DDR] and my current [AMD 64 3500+ [90nm] / 1.5 GB DDR].
I multitask hardcore style... always have at least 10...15 things running, with MythTV, Folding@Home, and BOINC being among the larger of the system hogs.
Because with 64-bit linux I still feel the extra vroom, expecially in areas like MySQL [for MythTV] and I get the full benefit of the new instruction sets on said AMD chips [SSE3, among the many others.]
Yay for Gentoo and 64-bit! Boo for a nightmare to get nvidia drivers working;)
Now it's time for game makers to get with the game [dum dum TISHHHH]. I'm tired of seeing 32 bits of my AMD 64 wasted every time I game, and now that every major player has 64 bit processors succeeding 32 bit, they need to get with the program and stop wasting bits.
How easy is it to cause trouble? Ask the antisocial 14 year old shopping at hot topic that thinks IRC botnets are "0mfg sup3r 1337 pwnt r0x0r!!111". It would be easy to track said person and penalize them legally by fostering ISP 'spy' programs for such activity, but that will immediately cause a privacy/rights backlash. I think it's fair to say at the current time there is no true solution, only an option that will make the bleeding less obvious. The internet and it's anon. nature is great. It's one of the main reasons for the explosion of the internet.. people can freely express themselves without fear of being treated differently or outcast or whatnot. Such freedom of expression is awesome. But if it's so easy to be anonymous... how can you catch those who abuse the system on a scale that is effective and efficient without throwing privacy and personal rights out the window?
Most people, spoiled by plug and play, expect to plug it in and be just fine. From my wardriving experiences, still around 70% of APs are unsecure, and that's helped by buisnesses which have a very high secure rate (only about 5 to 10% I come across are open). About 90% of residential APs are open.
It's really not that hard to secure an AP.
WEP + Mac filtering... bonus points for secure VPN.
Even though it's very weak, even just having WEP is enough for your average person... why would a 1337 h4x0r bother to take the type to break your WEP when the next idiot down the road doesn't even have that?
And please, do the world a favor... put in something for the SSID other than default, linksys, or leaving the SSID blank. Having a blank SSID is a very false sense of security... all it does is make it harder for legit users to connect, contribute to confusion (two people close together without SSIDs), and is really very easy to notice.
Well, this could go a long way to explaining how the country of France works.
[Brain, USA] Are you thinking what I'm thinking Pinky? [Pinky, France] Narf! Gee I dunno Brain... [Brain, USA] Come here Pinky.. let me see what you're thinking...
*long silence*
[Brain, USA] Pinky.. you are thinking aren't you... ? [Pinky, France] Narf! Gee I dunno Brain...
Let's compare, shall we, the price of your company using Gentoo with the price of installing Windows NT and then Windows XP Pro and soon Windows Longhorn. This isn't even beginning to cover the avalanche of software just to keep yourself from being mauled. Anti-virus software... anti-virus subscription (on a per machine basis, you know)... then there's the malware tools (also on a per machine basis). While we're at it let's go ahead and throw in firewall software since the Windows firewall fixes a broken arm with a band-aid.
And yes, if you're running your company and have the control to decide the computer deployment your computer uses... and you're stupid enough to use Windows... I betcha there's a 14 year old on the internet that can see your company's financial resources after as he skirts around your box through (yet another) Windows security exploit that you are protected from by obscurity.
But could that be because the name "starter" is very appropriate?
First... you buy this... then we lock you into this product cycle where you have to keep upgrading or eventually support for you will be dropped, meaning malware and virus makers will have their way with you.
It all goes back to TCO... and unless you're Steve Ballmer (YEAAA GET UP!! I LOVE THIS COMPANYYYY YEAAA!!!) the TCO is definately less with Linux. And that is just the tip of the iceberg young grasshoppa.
But seeing has how the RIAA and its many incarnations worldwide have been deaf [dum dum TISHHH] to the demands of those they depend on for SO LONG, I say pirate on my friend. It's quite simple really... the RIAA can quit living in the mid-to-late 20th century and get with the program, or alternatives will find their way into market and force the RIAA to change to survive. A brief rundown of the MANY shortcomings of the RIAA:
- They DO NOT do justice to your average artist
[Steve Albini, producer of Nirvana's "In Utero" album, explaining how the artist is screwed: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html ]
- Convicted of breaking federal anti-trust laws for price fixing et al multiple times
- They keep pushing forward this one-hit-wonder crap assembly line style, making you pay the $12 (use to be $20 before anti-trust suit) for one or two songs. They don't want you to download online per-song [see the older Slashdot article about them wanting to raise the rate for an online download], because that threats this model of forcing you to pay for extra music that sucks.
- They have NO concept of fair use. They've made it pretty evident they don't want you to rip your CDs into your own mix... or *gasp* put your mix on an mp3 player. How pirate of you. iTunes? Hope you don't like burning your mixes too often to change them around. We wouldn't you to get fair use of that piece of "intellectual property" you just PURCHASED THE RIGHTS TO now would we?
For extra credit class, please view KoRn's music video "Ya'll Want A Single" --> it is bootlegged online in many places, and the video even requests you download it.
"Film makers can offer their audience a choice of ways to see movies -- they can view them in the theater, rent them, or buy them. Music companies are much less flexible. It's hard to buy one song. You're forced to buy the CD."
- Peter Chernin, CEO Fox Entertainment Group
Quite frankly, the RIAA has shown it doesn't care if it craps on me, so I don't mind seeing everybody crap on them. Karma is a b**** aint it?
It's really sad how far NASA has plummeted down the priority list since it wasn't being pushed to 'defeat' communism.
The decline in NASA's quality and quantity of work are inevitable given how their budget seems to be the sacrificial lamb in Washington so often.
I, for one, will continue to be interested in the heavens. As was said in my favorite commercial:
"We've always watched the stars. If you look at the sky you can see the beginning of time."
Slashdot Mirror
I hear he's busy trying to stop excessive gland secretion -- 10 feet is a long way to skip. Anyway, from what I hear, Phil the Prince of Insufficient Light has been sent to South Korea to send all the evil Linux users straight to heck. He will hit the really naughty ones with his spoon.
Didn't they read that report by those two professors that got Microsoft funding about how Linux is plagued by security holes, higher ownership cost, and a swarm of locusts? I hope they can right the ship before it's too late.
The one... THE ONLY......
WINDOWS... MILLENIUM... EDITION.
I think I can hear them screaming about it all the way over here. :)
Microsoft is failing to compete, and thus their market shares are declining. It's simple buisness here. What... do you want them to get a federal subsidy? Those poor innocent submarine patent people...
- Gray brushed metal GUI
- Navigation that is "slick, clean, efficient, and effective"
- Think Different sticker
I need to take a diet from looking at those screenshots... anybody who has used Windows on a budget or mid-level PC and doesn't want to crawl around... they change performance to "best" ... disabling all the ugly looking "graphical enhancement" crap. Now it seems those graphical enhancements are EVERYWHERE. I hope for the sake of Windows users it can be turned off everywhere in Longhorn, or prepare to feel the bloat.
For days until Linux can be put on it?
Linkage to my comment in the Ubuntu news topic, which very much applies to Novell too: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=143486&cid=120 28361
I don't want to stray too far off topic, but they will probably go over how they do things and package their distros... this is a great chance for them to make a subtle but important change... PLEASE embrace LSB and try to make it stronger. If Linux could have a strong and comprehensive core platform it would solve ALOT of problems. LSB in it's current form is very very weak. I think many distros make it optional... only distro I've seen in awhile with it as an upfront option is Mandrake. A brief rundown of things a strong LSB would help: - Finding things. Where did distro X stick important app Y? No more! - Driver support. No need to greatly complicate engineering a driver for Linux by accounting for the various ways distros place and configure things. - Ease of use. Take a Linux newbie and swap distros on them. Odds are they won't be happy when some things are mysteriously gone or put elsewhere or changed around. I realize Linux by it's very nature tends to have endless variations... but driver support and familiarity would essentially "force by choice" many distros to comply if they want added userbase and drivers, etc.
There is a large noticeable difference between my previous system [Pentium IV 2.8 Ghz / 1.5 GB DDR] and my current [AMD 64 3500+ [90nm] / 1.5 GB DDR]. I multitask hardcore style... always have at least 10 ...15 things running, with MythTV, Folding@Home, and BOINC being among the larger of the system hogs.
Because with 64-bit linux I still feel the extra vroom, expecially in areas like MySQL [for MythTV] and I get the full benefit of the new instruction sets on said AMD chips [SSE3, among the many others.] Yay for Gentoo and 64-bit! Boo for a nightmare to get nvidia drivers working ;)
Now it's time for game makers to get with the game [dum dum TISHHHH]. I'm tired of seeing 32 bits of my AMD 64 wasted every time I game, and now that every major player has 64 bit processors succeeding 32 bit, they need to get with the program and stop wasting bits.
The malware has a slick looking, brushed gray metal GUI... and is clean, sipmle, effective, efficient, and beautiful.
Nope. Won't work. Two words: Karma whores.
How easy is it to cause trouble? Ask the antisocial 14 year old shopping at hot topic that thinks IRC botnets are "0mfg sup3r 1337 pwnt r0x0r!!111". It would be easy to track said person and penalize them legally by fostering ISP 'spy' programs for such activity, but that will immediately cause a privacy/rights backlash. I think it's fair to say at the current time there is no true solution, only an option that will make the bleeding less obvious. The internet and it's anon. nature is great. It's one of the main reasons for the explosion of the internet.. people can freely express themselves without fear of being treated differently or outcast or whatnot. Such freedom of expression is awesome. But if it's so easy to be anonymous... how can you catch those who abuse the system on a scale that is effective and efficient without throwing privacy and personal rights out the window?
You don't want to disturb the natives on Mars. I know I don't want to listen to Hank Williams music to get rid of them should we make them angry.
Most people, spoiled by plug and play, expect to plug it in and be just fine. From my wardriving experiences, still around 70% of APs are unsecure, and that's helped by buisnesses which have a very high secure rate (only about 5 to 10% I come across are open). About 90% of residential APs are open. It's really not that hard to secure an AP. WEP + Mac filtering ... bonus points for secure VPN.
Even though it's very weak, even just having WEP is enough for your average person... why would a 1337 h4x0r bother to take the type to break your WEP when the next idiot down the road doesn't even have that?
And please, do the world a favor... put in something for the SSID other than default, linksys, or leaving the SSID blank. Having a blank SSID is a very false sense of security... all it does is make it harder for legit users to connect, contribute to confusion (two people close together without SSIDs), and is really very easy to notice.
Well, this could go a long way to explaining how the country of France works.
[Brain, USA] Are you thinking what I'm thinking Pinky?
[Pinky, France] Narf! Gee I dunno Brain...
[Brain, USA] Come here Pinky.. let me see what you're thinking...
*long silence*
[Brain, USA] Pinky.. you are thinking aren't you... ?
[Pinky, France] Narf! Gee I dunno Brain...
Let's compare, shall we, the price of your company using Gentoo with the price of installing Windows NT and then Windows XP Pro and soon Windows Longhorn. This isn't even beginning to cover the avalanche of software just to keep yourself from being mauled. Anti-virus software... anti-virus subscription (on a per machine basis, you know)... then there's the malware tools (also on a per machine basis). While we're at it let's go ahead and throw in firewall software since the Windows firewall fixes a broken arm with a band-aid.
And yes, if you're running your company and have the control to decide the computer deployment your computer uses... and you're stupid enough to use Windows... I betcha there's a 14 year old on the internet that can see your company's financial resources after as he skirts around your box through (yet another) Windows security exploit that you are protected from by obscurity.
Now back to Redmond with yee.
It all goes back to TCO... and unless you're Steve Ballmer (YEAAA GET UP!! I LOVE THIS COMPANYYYY YEAAA!!!) the TCO is definately less with Linux. And that is just the tip of the iceberg young grasshoppa.
... if they don't talk in 1337 sp34k.
But seeing has how the RIAA and its many incarnations worldwide have been deaf [dum dum TISHHH] to the demands of those they depend on for SO LONG, I say pirate on my friend. It's quite simple really... the RIAA can quit living in the mid-to-late 20th century and get with the program, or alternatives will find their way into market and force the RIAA to change to survive. A brief rundown of the MANY shortcomings of the RIAA: - They DO NOT do justice to your average artist [Steve Albini, producer of Nirvana's "In Utero" album, explaining how the artist is screwed: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html ] - Convicted of breaking federal anti-trust laws for price fixing et al multiple times - They keep pushing forward this one-hit-wonder crap assembly line style, making you pay the $12 (use to be $20 before anti-trust suit) for one or two songs. They don't want you to download online per-song [see the older Slashdot article about them wanting to raise the rate for an online download], because that threats this model of forcing you to pay for extra music that sucks. - They have NO concept of fair use. They've made it pretty evident they don't want you to rip your CDs into your own mix... or *gasp* put your mix on an mp3 player. How pirate of you. iTunes? Hope you don't like burning your mixes too often to change them around. We wouldn't you to get fair use of that piece of "intellectual property" you just PURCHASED THE RIGHTS TO now would we? For extra credit class, please view KoRn's music video "Ya'll Want A Single" --> it is bootlegged online in many places, and the video even requests you download it. "Film makers can offer their audience a choice of ways to see movies -- they can view them in the theater, rent them, or buy them. Music companies are much less flexible. It's hard to buy one song. You're forced to buy the CD." - Peter Chernin, CEO Fox Entertainment Group Quite frankly, the RIAA has shown it doesn't care if it craps on me, so I don't mind seeing everybody crap on them. Karma is a b**** aint it?
So much for running Linux on Bubba the Big Mouth Bass. That was my dedicated firewall too!
I can see myself take a shotgun to supporters of EU patents in life-like 3D? Where do I sign up??
It's really sad how far NASA has plummeted down the priority list since it wasn't being pushed to 'defeat' communism. The decline in NASA's quality and quantity of work are inevitable given how their budget seems to be the sacrificial lamb in Washington so often. I, for one, will continue to be interested in the heavens. As was said in my favorite commercial: "We've always watched the stars. If you look at the sky you can see the beginning of time."