I tried for DAYS to get an e-mail with some words in bold, some in red, and with a table in it sent. I bought three books on developing applications in Domino. I'm not stupid, I've put together more little widgets for work than I can count. But I found this (what I consider) stupidly simple task nigh impossible.
Everything I read basically said something like, "To send an e-mail do this, this, this, and this. If you want to have formatting in it, well, that's a different type of message, and beyond the scope of this book."
We use a standard server setup for all of our servers. No, nothing Macafee touches them. Other applications—and there are a lot of them—seem to do fine, except for occasional glitches that all apps and servers have.
But not the Domino servers. Like I said, once a week. Like I said, I don't know why. The Notes team won't research it. Like I said, the reason we're always given is, "It's a Notes thing." Seriously. That's become a catch phrase for how much and why we hate our Notes support group around here.
To be fair, they're understaffed. There are only nine people supporting a huge application. Unfortunately, they spend the vast majority of their time fighting fires and don't have much time to troubleshoot what I think are fundamental problems with their application.
But...
Most of our other application teams (SAP a notable exception) are also understaffed, and somehow manage to keep their applications working fine. To me, from a management perspective (and yes, I'm both technical and managerial in my role), this says that either 1) we're unlucky and have nine really bad apples in our Notes support group (not true, I'd put it at two or so) or 2) there is something fundamentally wrong with the application that makes supporting it impossible. I think we have a winner in number two.
Do specific applications have problem running on servers with Lotus Notes? Probably, but that's taken into account. But we're not talking rocket science here. Every server is dedicated to the singular purpose of running Lotus Notes. The only other software we have installed on them are our standard monitoring tools (BMC Patrol), antivirus software (Symantec), and remote control software (pcAnywhere, since some of our Domino server are still running the version you can't administer via Terminal Services, the subject of a whole 'nother rant...). Like I said, every other application in our environment works fine with that suite of tools, and it's not like we haven't tried running Notes without those tools and it still failing. And it's not like every single company I have worked at with Notes hasn't had the same problems, they have.
And my rant was intended to be anecdotal. I'm not part of the Notes team, so I can't give details. I'm not directly on the server support team, so I can't go and troubleshoot the problem myself. All I can tell you is that from firsthand experience, every single Notes installation I've ever seen has been crap. At some point, you've got to stop blaming the individual installations and/or the people who did them and start looking at the one common factor: Lotus Notes.
And how funny. As I'm literally about to hit the submit button, I hear from some adjoining cubicles, "Is Notes down?..." "Yes, m09 is." "Ah crap, that's my server."
Typical. That's my server too. Looks like another fun-filled Notes kind of day.
There are not words in the English language to describe how much I am in utter comtempt for Lotus Notes. I once composed a three-page list of ways in which Lotus Notes sucks. Most of it was a list of client bugs and inconsistencies, because I didn't have much experience with the server itslef.
Later, I tried developing a simple agent that would compose an e-mail, taking information from fields stored elsewhere, and sending it out to a list of people. I never could get the damned thing to work. (Too long to explain here.) To this day, I'll write code in javascript, php, VB, C#, perl, whatever. But I refuse to touch Lotus Notes. Period. Even the most trivial of tasks are insanely complicated. (Okay, to be fair, I won't write Gimp scripts in Scheme, either.)
I'm sorry, and I am not a Microsoft lackey, but I'd take Exchange/Outlook over Notes any day. I'd rather use GMail as a corporate communications solution than Lotus Notes. Hell, I'd rather use yellow sticky notes on monitors than Lotus Notes!
As for the server, our entire Notes infrastructure has to be rebooted once a week at my company. (A very large MNC...) Once a frickin' week! No other application has that requirement. If SAP told us, "Yeah, and you'll have to reboot the SAP servers every Sunday night," we'd have their heads on a plate. But for some weird reason, Notes (which is just as critical to our business) gets away with it. Half the servers usually don't come back up without intervention, and our wonderful Notes server crew doesn't actually bother to check, so our operations center has to call them. Plus, we're constantly having to deal with mail servers crashing in the middle of the day, and the only explanations we get are, "It's a Notes thing. It just glitches like that sometimes." As you can tell, I have no particular fondness for our Notes support team, but they're not unique. I've worked at two other companies that use Lotus Notes, and the exact same thing happens at every one of them.
And to the "It's not really an e-mail system, it's a collaborative database application development environment..." people out there, go to hell. No, it's not. There's no such thing as a "flat database." It's called a frickin' table, and it's useless. If it were relational, maaaybe. But then if it were relational, I still wouldn't be using it, I'd be using Oracle, or MySQL, PostgreSQL, even MS SQL Server. You know, something competent.
So it's an awful e-mail system, it's an awful development environment, it's an awful database system. Let's see, that leaves... oh right. NOTHING. Lotus Notes has absolutely no useful value whatsoever. Q.E.D. Companies that use it (speaking from experience) are using it not because it's the best solution to their needs, but because they've invested a lot of money in it. (Which, by the way is STUPID. They're ignoring the cost going forward, which is the only relevant factor that should be considered!) If IBM really had their customers' best interest in mind, they would simply send out letters to everyone saying, "We're sorry, but in six months, we're going to stop supporting all version of Lotus Notes and never release another." Maybe even open-source the code so that maybe competent people can maybe turn it into something semi-useful.
Got me. AOL is one of those things that, even free, still isn't worth it.
At one point, my company had a "strategic business partnership" with AOL to provide personal Internet service for its employees. Everyone got free AOL accounts for a year. Most of the IT group didn't use them, we knew better. The people I know who did had nothing but trouble, and I don't know anyone who renewed their subscription when the free year ran out. The company didn't do it again. I think that the plan got nixed when all the employess started calling our help desk asking why their Internet at home wasn't working.
Then make it availble as an optional add-on. Problem solved, everybody wins, and you can use it as a real marketing tool without appearing so disingenuous and slimy.
Except that doesn't leave Microsoft the option of getting really nasty in the future. It's interesting how they want to leave that door open.
No, this spin is just... beyond. This is one of the funniest (and saddest) things I've ever read (emphasis mine):
Paul DeGroot, an analyst at Kirkland, Wash.-based Directions On Microsoft, said that while most consumers may find this sort of tracking by Microsoft intrusive, many corporations may actually welcome it.
When asked if companies that have installed more copies of Vista than they have purchased will find those copies de-activated, Microsoft said through its spokeswoman that companies "should think of it more like an application that tracks and protects their use of their Volume License keys and installations."
"Most corporations have no interest with getting away with anything at Microsoft's expense," he said. Indeed, corporations, especially those that have merged with another company or undergone a restructuring, often have a hard time keeping track of all the software they own. Most will "overbuy licenses because it's cheaper to do that then to designate staff people to actively manage them."
In other words, WGA isn't a means of cracking down on piracy, it's a useful tool that companies can use to save money! This message has obvously been brought to you by the same type of people who try to tell everyone that Digital Rights Management is a wonderful thing because it allows you to access content.
Jesus, are people really that naive? Why can't they just say what it is—a tool to keep people who haven't paid them lots of money from using their stuff. At least I could be on board with their motives. (Being paid for stuff I do is nice.) Am I the only one who is insulted not so much by WGA's existence as I am by how stupid they think we are in pitching it?
Well all I've got to say is *all* mp3 players (iPod included) sound like crap next to a good LP on a good turntable, and that listening to music on anything *other* then that is doing a disrespect to your music.
Yeah? Well music played from an LP on a good turntable is worse than crap compared to the band playing live in my living room! I admit that when Bono and the boys come over they sure do eat a lot of food, and I sure do miss listening to George Harrison, but it's worth it to know that I am apparently the only one here who truly knows how to not disrepect my music!
I think tonight, I'm going to listen to some Clapton. Sorry for cutting this message short, but I've got a few phone calls to make...
Another bill before Congress requires that all owners of physical bulletin boards hanging in public places such as offices, classrooms, and such be required to retain all materials posted on such bulletin boards for an unspecified period of time. Stricter efforts will also be placed on those responsible for bulletin boards placed in public places to verify the identity of those who post such materials. Any unverified materials being posted will result in the bulletin board and all retain material being immediately seized for investigation of potential terrorist activity, and the owners prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I hear there's also a bill pending that will make posting fingerpaintings in kindergarten classrooms illegal, and that the Department of Homeland Security will be investigating all reports of graffiti for possible terrorist links.
I just thank god that all of this is making us so much safer and that we can rest assured that we'll never be attacked again. Those weird concepts such as freedom and liberty and privacy have always been overrated anyway.
First of all, I reiterate that I wasn't arguing for virtualization, I was merely stating that it exists and will continue to grow in the future.
Second of all, if your network goes down twice a week, then your IT people are incompetent idiots and should be fired immediately. (Sorry to have to break it to you. I hope I'm preaching to the choir.)
Third of all, remote computing and virtualization are not the same thing. In fact, they have nothing to do with each other, unless one of your virtual servers happens to be a Citrix server or something, but that's really stretching. In fact, networking and virtualization have nothing to do with each other either.
I don't know about your company, but I work for a giant Fortune 100 multinational company, by far one of the largest and most profitable and recognizable ones in the world. I'm very familiar with our computing environment, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that running applications on virtual machines is not only common here, it's a very important part of our future.
Yes, real applications, the kind that are business critical.
Is it a smart move? Maybe yes, maybe no. If you want to argue about it, go for it. (I don't really care one way or another.) But is it happening? Hell yeah, it already has.
Rutkowska says of the Blue Pill concept, "I am very excited about the chance to work with Sony on how this technology can be used to protect their next generation of music CDs, DVDs, and high-definition Bluray discs. I believe it will be a win-win situation for everyone involved. Well, everyone important, anyway."
Re:Proof we are not a democracy
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Death By DMCA
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· Score: 1
Shit, man, we can't even get people to go to the polls and vote for free, what makes you think we'll be able to get people to actually pay for getting representation?
Non-U.S.'ers not safe either
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Death By DMCA
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First of all, this was a damn good article, one of the most thoughtful and thorough ones I've read in a long, long time.
Second of all, non-U.S. citizens aren't safe. The RIAA and MPAA are pushing our government to force other countries to sign their digital freedoms away in trade agreements and treaties. The article specifically deals with this issue.
Remember, the guy who released deCSS was arrested for breaking no Norweigian law. The Pirate Bay guys have had their equipment seized for breaking no Swedish law. The point is that just as the U.S. flexes its military muscles in places like Iraq, it flexes its corporate muscles in countries such as the one that you call home, wherever that may be. And as weird and hard as it may be to believe, I'm 100% sure that the government in your country is just as capable of doing the same really boneheaded stupid things that the U.S. government has done given the right (*ahem*) incentives.
So no, this is not a problem unique to the United States. Yes, the U.S. may be the worst of the lot, and yes, a lot of this foolishness has arisen primarily because of corrupt greedy U.S. organizations who don't give a flip about consumers there or anywhere else, but if you believe nothing else, believe this: This idiocy will reach you in your supposedly safe and comfortable home country unless you are vigilant and active about stopping it.
Oh my god, you're right! It does look like he wrote this application in.NET solely for the purpose of being a huge burden on everyone! After thinking about it, I guess it really does have nothing to do with.NET probably being the language he's most familiar with. I'm sure that he probably did want to spend several months learning a new language for something that could best be described as an amusing diversion, but chose not to because he wanted to waste the few minutes it would take you to download and install.NET. Come to think of it, I'm sure the fact that most people already have.NET installed probably just makes him mad, because it mitigates the toll his application will take on society.
The fact that it's kind of cool is only a ruse in his more diabolical agenda of making your life miserable for five or so minutes. The fact that we are compelled to install it by means I don't quite understand yet only makes the situation worse. If only we had a choice whether or not we wanted to play with a 5-dimensional Rubik's Cube!
Personally, I think that if you're as outraged as I am, since you're obviously so much smarter then me, you should rewrite his application in a morally superior language. The kink in this fool's plan is that he seems to have forgotten to patent the application (but be careful, it could be another trick!), which leaves the door open for anyone to simply rewrite it!
Please start working on it right away, as this outrage must not go unanswered!
Um, I'm pretty good at reading, and I read this the same way that person did. Your exact words were:
make Nautilus ask for the root password when you try to copy/delete files out of your ~ folder
I thought the same thing. Why in the world should anyone need the root password to copy or delete files from their home directory? That makes no sense. Because I'm good at pretty good at reading minds as well as reading books, I think what you meant to say was this:
make Nautilus ask for the root password when you try to copy/delete files to a folder you don't have permissions to
There, fixed! No need to get all defensive, and no need to give the root password out to users. It all makes sense now, and I'd be much more inclined to agree.
Mythbusters actually tackled this one not too long ago (episode 49). If I recall correctly, the final verdict was "Plausable." On most modern jets, the electronics and navigation equipment are shielded, so cell phones and electronics won't interfere. They showed that by taking a device that simulated cell phone frequencies and cranked it up on a private jet on the ground, and the avionics didn't even blink.
But when the wiring wasn't shielded, some of the devices did move the needles, which could cause an issue on some older (or presumably cheaper) airplanes. Also, since you never really know what frequencies devices may start using tomorrow or what kind of output they'll have, the airlines probably decided to ban all electronics just in case.
Frankly, I don't blame them. I'd rather them err on the side of their planes not falling out of the sky.
However, if they use their own equipment (or, in the case of wi-fi, equipment whose frequencies are known) that is well-tested and verified not to interfere with the avionics, I don't see any reason for them not to install it and use it. Will they charge for it? Of course! They have to recoup the cost of testing and installation, plus some of that equipment is specially designed to be used in the air, not just your cheap Linksys router from Newegg.com. And yes, of course, they want to make some money off of it too. Blame relatively cheap air fares or chalk it up to greed, but I don't see anything wrong with it. If you don't want to pay for it, just don't use it.
Oh, by the way, I wouldn't try to get around this rule if I were you. If I recall correctly, doing so is a felony offense.
You must be playing the wrong game, then. Or maybe I just happen to be playing the right ones. The one I happen to spend most of my time in is City of Heroes, and the people there are great. Almost every person I've run across in these games have been exceptionally nice people. And, as I said, I have a few good friends outside of the games now as a result.
Are there idiots? Sure. But to say that they're all idiots (or even to imply that most of them are) is just plain wrong, and as I said, a gross mischaracterization of these games.
And any company that tries to make money by deliberately catering to idiots will soon find themselves broke and out of business. (Or advertising their junk on late-night informercials.)
no 1337-sp33k, no chat spamming, no people out of character, no griefing, and none of the other jackassery that plagues every MMORPG in the universe
...And no camaraderie, no sense of accomplishing something (even if it's only virtually) with other people, no real community, no socializing, no making of real friends from parts of the country (and the world!) that you've never been to and would likely probably never have gone, no chatting about that cool quest you ran last night with someone who was there, no sharing of jokes, no showing off some creativity and imagination (and being shown!) with people who appreciate it, and so on.
To each his own, I suppose, and if you don't like MMORPGs because you can't see past the actions of a few people, more power to you. But I think you've grossly mischaracterized the experience of playing one. Some of us recognize those things that you mentioned for what they are: a small price to pay for a much cooler experience hanging out with new friends than just sitting around the house playing by yourself for ~60 hours in a month. I mean, I have nothing particularly against single-player RPGs; I grew up on them. But when all is said and done, they are all just games, and after you've sunk your time into them, there's not much you can say you've gotten from the experience other than, well, fleeting amusement at the cost of possibly massive amounts of time spent. Personally, I'd rather risk a little "jackassery" if it means coming away from the experience with real friends, which is a lot more than just time sunk into a game.
Now that I've played an MMORPG, I doubt that I'll ever play much of any game that's not an MM* game. Of course, that's just my 2 cent's worth, YMMV.
Unfortunately, there usually isn't a choice, and no, it's not a situation that is always one's own fault.
Traffic patterns change. Where I live now, in five short years, places that weren't congested before are now locked up tight every single workday. Am I supposed to move every five years? Also, some of us kind of like the idea of being able to someday pay off our house, but we work in an idustry where people shuffle around every six months to a year. (Thank you, outsourcing!) If I moved every time I've changed jobs to be closer to work, I'd be constantly selling and buying houses, a proposition I'm not too fond of.
Plus, there are factors involved in where you live other than just where you work. I have a friend who has lived in the same house for around 20 years. He knows the people in his community, his kids have grown up there and are still in school, and it's where he'll likely live until the day he dies. When he got laid off, he had to take a job that was around half an hour further away, and he's been trying to find something else closer ever since. Is his commute his own fault? I suppose technically, yes, but it doesn't make his situation any less worthy of sympathy.
My point is that while it's true that some people deliberately make informed choices to move far away from their work, in reality, that is rarely the case, and it's no excuse for people to not raise the question, "Is there any way to make the traffic situation better?"
Slashdot Mirror
Two words: Rich Text.
I tried for DAYS to get an e-mail with some words in bold, some in red, and with a table in it sent. I bought three books on developing applications in Domino. I'm not stupid, I've put together more little widgets for work than I can count. But I found this (what I consider) stupidly simple task nigh impossible.
Everything I read basically said something like, "To send an e-mail do this, this, this, and this. If you want to have formatting in it, well, that's a different type of message, and beyond the scope of this book."
We use a standard server setup for all of our servers. No, nothing Macafee touches them. Other applications—and there are a lot of them—seem to do fine, except for occasional glitches that all apps and servers have.
But not the Domino servers. Like I said, once a week. Like I said, I don't know why. The Notes team won't research it. Like I said, the reason we're always given is, "It's a Notes thing." Seriously. That's become a catch phrase for how much and why we hate our Notes support group around here.
To be fair, they're understaffed. There are only nine people supporting a huge application. Unfortunately, they spend the vast majority of their time fighting fires and don't have much time to troubleshoot what I think are fundamental problems with their application.
But...
Most of our other application teams (SAP a notable exception) are also understaffed, and somehow manage to keep their applications working fine. To me, from a management perspective (and yes, I'm both technical and managerial in my role), this says that either 1) we're unlucky and have nine really bad apples in our Notes support group (not true, I'd put it at two or so) or 2) there is something fundamentally wrong with the application that makes supporting it impossible. I think we have a winner in number two.
Do specific applications have problem running on servers with Lotus Notes? Probably, but that's taken into account. But we're not talking rocket science here. Every server is dedicated to the singular purpose of running Lotus Notes. The only other software we have installed on them are our standard monitoring tools (BMC Patrol), antivirus software (Symantec), and remote control software (pcAnywhere, since some of our Domino server are still running the version you can't administer via Terminal Services, the subject of a whole 'nother rant...). Like I said, every other application in our environment works fine with that suite of tools, and it's not like we haven't tried running Notes without those tools and it still failing. And it's not like every single company I have worked at with Notes hasn't had the same problems, they have.
And my rant was intended to be anecdotal. I'm not part of the Notes team, so I can't give details. I'm not directly on the server support team, so I can't go and troubleshoot the problem myself. All I can tell you is that from firsthand experience, every single Notes installation I've ever seen has been crap. At some point, you've got to stop blaming the individual installations and/or the people who did them and start looking at the one common factor: Lotus Notes.
And how funny. As I'm literally about to hit the submit button, I hear from some adjoining cubicles, "Is Notes down?..." "Yes, m09 is." "Ah crap, that's my server."
Typical. That's my server too. Looks like another fun-filled Notes kind of day.
AMEN, BROTHER!!!
There are not words in the English language to describe how much I am in utter comtempt for Lotus Notes. I once composed a three-page list of ways in which Lotus Notes sucks. Most of it was a list of client bugs and inconsistencies, because I didn't have much experience with the server itslef.
Later, I tried developing a simple agent that would compose an e-mail, taking information from fields stored elsewhere, and sending it out to a list of people. I never could get the damned thing to work. (Too long to explain here.) To this day, I'll write code in javascript, php, VB, C#, perl, whatever. But I refuse to touch Lotus Notes. Period. Even the most trivial of tasks are insanely complicated. (Okay, to be fair, I won't write Gimp scripts in Scheme, either.)
I'm sorry, and I am not a Microsoft lackey, but I'd take Exchange/Outlook over Notes any day. I'd rather use GMail as a corporate communications solution than Lotus Notes. Hell, I'd rather use yellow sticky notes on monitors than Lotus Notes!
As for the server, our entire Notes infrastructure has to be rebooted once a week at my company. (A very large MNC...) Once a frickin' week! No other application has that requirement. If SAP told us, "Yeah, and you'll have to reboot the SAP servers every Sunday night," we'd have their heads on a plate. But for some weird reason, Notes (which is just as critical to our business) gets away with it. Half the servers usually don't come back up without intervention, and our wonderful Notes server crew doesn't actually bother to check, so our operations center has to call them. Plus, we're constantly having to deal with mail servers crashing in the middle of the day, and the only explanations we get are, "It's a Notes thing. It just glitches like that sometimes." As you can tell, I have no particular fondness for our Notes support team, but they're not unique. I've worked at two other companies that use Lotus Notes, and the exact same thing happens at every one of them.
And to the "It's not really an e-mail system, it's a collaborative database application development environment..." people out there, go to hell. No, it's not. There's no such thing as a "flat database." It's called a frickin' table, and it's useless. If it were relational, maaaybe. But then if it were relational, I still wouldn't be using it, I'd be using Oracle, or MySQL, PostgreSQL, even MS SQL Server. You know, something competent.
So it's an awful e-mail system, it's an awful development environment, it's an awful database system. Let's see, that leaves... oh right. NOTHING. Lotus Notes has absolutely no useful value whatsoever. Q.E.D. Companies that use it (speaking from experience) are using it not because it's the best solution to their needs, but because they've invested a lot of money in it. (Which, by the way is STUPID. They're ignoring the cost going forward, which is the only relevant factor that should be considered!) If IBM really had their customers' best interest in mind, they would simply send out letters to everyone saying, "We're sorry, but in six months, we're going to stop supporting all version of Lotus Notes and never release another." Maybe even open-source the code so that maybe competent people can maybe turn it into something semi-useful.
Got me. AOL is one of those things that, even free, still isn't worth it.
At one point, my company had a "strategic business partnership" with AOL to provide personal Internet service for its employees. Everyone got free AOL accounts for a year. Most of the IT group didn't use them, we knew better. The people I know who did had nothing but trouble, and I don't know anyone who renewed their subscription when the free year ran out. The company didn't do it again. I think that the plan got nixed when all the employess started calling our help desk asking why their Internet at home wasn't working.
Oh well, lesson learned, I suppose.
No.
And now that you mention it, yes, that is a foul. Please confine yourself for 10 minutes in the Slashdot penalty box.
Then make it availble as an optional add-on. Problem solved, everybody wins, and you can use it as a real marketing tool without appearing so disingenuous and slimy.
Except that doesn't leave Microsoft the option of getting really nasty in the future. It's interesting how they want to leave that door open.
No, this spin is just... beyond. This is one of the funniest (and saddest) things I've ever read (emphasis mine):
In other words, WGA isn't a means of cracking down on piracy, it's a useful tool that companies can use to save money! This message has obvously been brought to you by the same type of people who try to tell everyone that Digital Rights Management is a wonderful thing because it allows you to access content.
Jesus, are people really that naive? Why can't they just say what it is—a tool to keep people who haven't paid them lots of money from using their stuff. At least I could be on board with their motives. (Being paid for stuff I do is nice.) Am I the only one who is insulted not so much by WGA's existence as I am by how stupid they think we are in pitching it?
Yeah? Well music played from an LP on a good turntable is worse than crap compared to the band playing live in my living room! I admit that when Bono and the boys come over they sure do eat a lot of food, and I sure do miss listening to George Harrison, but it's worth it to know that I am apparently the only one here who truly knows how to not disrepect my music!
I think tonight, I'm going to listen to some Clapton. Sorry for cutting this message short, but I've got a few phone calls to make...
The same way all good—and bad—predictions are made: They made them up. ;-)
Don't be silly. They didn't win. They hated us for our freedom, and we showed 'em good by doing away with it. Problem solved!
In other news:
I hear there's also a bill pending that will make posting fingerpaintings in kindergarten classrooms illegal, and that the Department of Homeland Security will be investigating all reports of graffiti for possible terrorist links.
I just thank god that all of this is making us so much safer and that we can rest assured that we'll never be attacked again. Those weird concepts such as freedom and liberty and privacy have always been overrated anyway.
First of all, I reiterate that I wasn't arguing for virtualization, I was merely stating that it exists and will continue to grow in the future.
Second of all, if your network goes down twice a week, then your IT people are incompetent idiots and should be fired immediately. (Sorry to have to break it to you. I hope I'm preaching to the choir.)
Third of all, remote computing and virtualization are not the same thing. In fact, they have nothing to do with each other, unless one of your virtual servers happens to be a Citrix server or something, but that's really stretching. In fact, networking and virtualization have nothing to do with each other either.
See? Works every time.
Because you're typing, and you forgot the ;-)
;-)
I don't know about your company, but I work for a giant Fortune 100 multinational company, by far one of the largest and most profitable and recognizable ones in the world. I'm very familiar with our computing environment, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that running applications on virtual machines is not only common here, it's a very important part of our future.
Yes, real applications, the kind that are business critical.
Is it a smart move? Maybe yes, maybe no. If you want to argue about it, go for it. (I don't really care one way or another.) But is it happening? Hell yeah, it already has.
From TFA:
Shit, man, we can't even get people to go to the polls and vote for free, what makes you think we'll be able to get people to actually pay for getting representation?
First of all, this was a damn good article, one of the most thoughtful and thorough ones I've read in a long, long time.
Second of all, non-U.S. citizens aren't safe. The RIAA and MPAA are pushing our government to force other countries to sign their digital freedoms away in trade agreements and treaties. The article specifically deals with this issue.
Remember, the guy who released deCSS was arrested for breaking no Norweigian law. The Pirate Bay guys have had their equipment seized for breaking no Swedish law. The point is that just as the U.S. flexes its military muscles in places like Iraq, it flexes its corporate muscles in countries such as the one that you call home, wherever that may be. And as weird and hard as it may be to believe, I'm 100% sure that the government in your country is just as capable of doing the same really boneheaded stupid things that the U.S. government has done given the right (*ahem*) incentives.
So no, this is not a problem unique to the United States. Yes, the U.S. may be the worst of the lot, and yes, a lot of this foolishness has arisen primarily because of corrupt greedy U.S. organizations who don't give a flip about consumers there or anywhere else, but if you believe nothing else, believe this: This idiocy will reach you in your supposedly safe and comfortable home country unless you are vigilant and active about stopping it.
Oh my god, you're right! It does look like he wrote this application in .NET solely for the purpose of being a huge burden on everyone! After thinking about it, I guess it really does have nothing to do with .NET probably being the language he's most familiar with. I'm sure that he probably did want to spend several months learning a new language for something that could best be described as an amusing diversion, but chose not to because he wanted to waste the few minutes it would take you to download and install .NET. Come to think of it, I'm sure the fact that most people already have .NET installed probably just makes him mad, because it mitigates the toll his application will take on society.
The fact that it's kind of cool is only a ruse in his more diabolical agenda of making your life miserable for five or so minutes. The fact that we are compelled to install it by means I don't quite understand yet only makes the situation worse. If only we had a choice whether or not we wanted to play with a 5-dimensional Rubik's Cube!
Personally, I think that if you're as outraged as I am, since you're obviously so much smarter then me, you should rewrite his application in a morally superior language. The kink in this fool's plan is that he seems to have forgotten to patent the application (but be careful, it could be another trick!), which leaves the door open for anyone to simply rewrite it!
Please start working on it right away, as this outrage must not go unanswered!
Well, Prohibition worked so well keeping people from drinki—
Wait, I meant that sodomy laws do such a great job of keeping people from being homose—
Well...
Um...
*sticks finger in ears* LALALALALALALALALALALA!!!!!
Um, I'm pretty good at reading, and I read this the same way that person did. Your exact words were:
I thought the same thing. Why in the world should anyone need the root password to copy or delete files from their home directory? That makes no sense. Because I'm good at pretty good at reading minds as well as reading books, I think what you meant to say was this:
There, fixed! No need to get all defensive, and no need to give the root password out to users. It all makes sense now, and I'd be much more inclined to agree.
Mythbusters actually tackled this one not too long ago (episode 49). If I recall correctly, the final verdict was "Plausable." On most modern jets, the electronics and navigation equipment are shielded, so cell phones and electronics won't interfere. They showed that by taking a device that simulated cell phone frequencies and cranked it up on a private jet on the ground, and the avionics didn't even blink.
But when the wiring wasn't shielded, some of the devices did move the needles, which could cause an issue on some older (or presumably cheaper) airplanes. Also, since you never really know what frequencies devices may start using tomorrow or what kind of output they'll have, the airlines probably decided to ban all electronics just in case.
Frankly, I don't blame them. I'd rather them err on the side of their planes not falling out of the sky.
However, if they use their own equipment (or, in the case of wi-fi, equipment whose frequencies are known) that is well-tested and verified not to interfere with the avionics, I don't see any reason for them not to install it and use it. Will they charge for it? Of course! They have to recoup the cost of testing and installation, plus some of that equipment is specially designed to be used in the air, not just your cheap Linksys router from Newegg.com. And yes, of course, they want to make some money off of it too. Blame relatively cheap air fares or chalk it up to greed, but I don't see anything wrong with it. If you don't want to pay for it, just don't use it.
Oh, by the way, I wouldn't try to get around this rule if I were you. If I recall correctly, doing so is a felony offense.
You must be playing the wrong game, then. Or maybe I just happen to be playing the right ones. The one I happen to spend most of my time in is City of Heroes, and the people there are great. Almost every person I've run across in these games have been exceptionally nice people. And, as I said, I have a few good friends outside of the games now as a result.
Are there idiots? Sure. But to say that they're all idiots (or even to imply that most of them are) is just plain wrong, and as I said, a gross mischaracterization of these games.
And any company that tries to make money by deliberately catering to idiots will soon find themselves broke and out of business. (Or advertising their junk on late-night informercials.)
...And no camaraderie, no sense of accomplishing something (even if it's only virtually) with other people, no real community, no socializing, no making of real friends from parts of the country (and the world!) that you've never been to and would likely probably never have gone, no chatting about that cool quest you ran last night with someone who was there, no sharing of jokes, no showing off some creativity and imagination (and being shown!) with people who appreciate it, and so on.
To each his own, I suppose, and if you don't like MMORPGs because you can't see past the actions of a few people, more power to you. But I think you've grossly mischaracterized the experience of playing one. Some of us recognize those things that you mentioned for what they are: a small price to pay for a much cooler experience hanging out with new friends than just sitting around the house playing by yourself for ~60 hours in a month. I mean, I have nothing particularly against single-player RPGs; I grew up on them. But when all is said and done, they are all just games, and after you've sunk your time into them, there's not much you can say you've gotten from the experience other than, well, fleeting amusement at the cost of possibly massive amounts of time spent. Personally, I'd rather risk a little "jackassery" if it means coming away from the experience with real friends, which is a lot more than just time sunk into a game.
Now that I've played an MMORPG, I doubt that I'll ever play much of any game that's not an MM* game. Of course, that's just my 2 cent's worth, YMMV.
Unfortunately, there usually isn't a choice, and no, it's not a situation that is always one's own fault.
Traffic patterns change. Where I live now, in five short years, places that weren't congested before are now locked up tight every single workday. Am I supposed to move every five years? Also, some of us kind of like the idea of being able to someday pay off our house, but we work in an idustry where people shuffle around every six months to a year. (Thank you, outsourcing!) If I moved every time I've changed jobs to be closer to work, I'd be constantly selling and buying houses, a proposition I'm not too fond of.
Plus, there are factors involved in where you live other than just where you work. I have a friend who has lived in the same house for around 20 years. He knows the people in his community, his kids have grown up there and are still in school, and it's where he'll likely live until the day he dies. When he got laid off, he had to take a job that was around half an hour further away, and he's been trying to find something else closer ever since. Is his commute his own fault? I suppose technically, yes, but it doesn't make his situation any less worthy of sympathy.
My point is that while it's true that some people deliberately make informed choices to move far away from their work, in reality, that is rarely the case, and it's no excuse for people to not raise the question, "Is there any way to make the traffic situation better?"