oops. sorry, bad form to reply to my own posts, but when I read a little more, I find that the wavelan driver was hacked to support the airport/cards/, not the base.
and since it's all 802.11b, it should work together, right?
what do you have to do to get the WaveLan cards to talk to the airport UFO base, though. I saw a mention on http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Lin ux/Wireless.html of hacking the wavelan drivers to work with the airport base.
from what I've been seeing, airport base + wavelan cards look like the right thing to do... I just need to make sure they do it with each other!:)
(and then I need to make a large antenna and see if I can get wireless access on campus...)
This still doesn't mean I can watch cyrano, which is, as I see it, a problem.
and this also doesn't mean that I won't be moving back to europe at some point, at least for a few years... of course, I never once saw a dvd player that wouldn't play region 1 dvds (except for in the Sony store), and racks of region 1 dvds are all over the place. I just hope the EU would sue to get this breach of trade law cleared up!
Why is it piracy to then buy that film anywhere but in your home country? Is it pirarcy to go to France, buy a movie, and then return home?
speaking of which, I did exactly that this summer. I now own a pristine copy of cyrano de bergerac (wonderful movie, not avalible in anything but region 2, and horrible in any translation) which I cannot watch. I did know this before I went, but I knew I'd regret it forever if I didn't get it. so now what? rip to VCD? never watch it? them's my options. the whole region-coding thing is a real problem for anyone who isn't even trying to "pirate" (by their definition) but simply is bilingual and enjoys movies from multiple countries.
I'd say it would have been a better PR exercise if they hadn't gone around sending emails saying "you ordered at this price. we're shipping at this price. if you don't like it, then cancel your order, it'll sit there until you approve/cancel it".
my boyfriend got one of these, after he got some very nice prices, courtesy of Amazon's little "tests". after that email (though I'm not sure how many people they sent it to -- I know quite a few anyways) I think people are going to be a little pissed.
of course, if they don't publicise it, it's all for nothing, isn't it?
hmm, well for just a pre-order, I was taking someone else's word who is perhaps mistaken. for my order, however, SMAC and Myth II (which I hope is worth it, since I don't know much about it) shows up on my confirmation page as "Your credit card has been charged (a large amount of money)", with no mention of backordering.
When I look up my order on customer service (this link should be in your confirmation email, or lokigames.com or directly here, my order shows as being "completed", though I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean.
All in all, it seems a funny system, at least to me. and I would REALLY like my copy of SMAC to materialize right now:)
Now, I love the work Loki does, don't get me wrong (and I own quite a lot of it, even stuff I don't have and don't know when I'll have it -- more on that later), but if any of em are reading, I think I have to point out something slightly illegal they're doing, though I'm sure it's not on purpose.
when you "pre-order" a game from them (well, it goes through digital river, which is probably why this whole thing happens) your credit card is charged immediately. when you "pre-order" a game AND order another game, your credit card is charged immediately and nothing is shipped until the pre-order game is out. (I found this out by ordering games, which is not really the way I would have preferred). The problem is, that at least in the US, a company is not allowed to let 30 days elapse between charging a credit card and shipping a product.
While digital river is not the same company as loki, they're clearly simply powering loki's system, it's still under the juristiction of loki (and under the lokigames.com domain as well). I'm being charged immediately for something that I'm pretty sure won't be shipped within 30 days of the charge. (this would be waiting on SMAC, which I've been unable to find a ship/release date for. anyone else?)
Now, since it's loki, and I really like having them around (subliminal message: port worms II, port worms II!), I'm not planning on disputing the charges, but I have seen court cases brought by the government (I don't remember if it was federal or state, but my guess would be federal under the interstate commerce bit of the constitution) where companies who did this on a regular basis were charged with nasty things.
I'd hate to see this happen, loki. please fix this up.
Well, if anyone else (like me) hasn't heard of the guy, it seems he is in quite a lot of trouble due to a charge of match-fixing. Take a look at
http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/c/cronje.html, which has a long series of short news briefs on him.
Lea
it wasn't carmak, afaik. what/I/ seem to have seen on/. several times at least is that he had the Linux version all ready, but that the packaging people stabbed/him/ by deliberately delaying the linux packaging, manuals, etc until way after the windows ones were done...
Too bad NASA didn't decide to send the second Lockheed-built Lander, almost identical to the MPL sent in '98. It was originally slated to fly in '01, and is now
either collecting dust or dismantled. I thought the part of the philosophy of "Faster Better Cheaper" was to take risks and to learn from mistakes so that the next
"cheap" spacecraft would stand a better chance of success.
I'd say that it'd be better for both of em to get to fly. However, if I had to choose one, I'd go with Marsakhod (oops. renamed Fido...).
The MPL was very limited in capabilities. It could go a little distance and look around, was not autonomous at all, and if I remember correctly did not have stereo cameras. Fido is a lot larger and more mobile, more autonomous, has better controls, and a good set of stereo cameras (don't tell me those aren't important when you're going up against a set of rocks like they've got on Mars!)
So, my point is that I think that we need to get up to a certain minimum level of functionality before we start throwing a whole lot of the same thing there... and things like Sojourner just don't provide enough useful capabilities to make it worth it, long term...
Lea
Disclaimer: I used to work on this rover, so I'm probably biased.:)
my dad used something like that (but I'm pretty sure it wasn't ATT mail) quite often a few years back when I stayed in a place without email (7 miles from the nearest phone, as well) since he refuses to touch paper when he doesn't absolutely have to... he's been doing electronic banking for years and years now, and refused to give me my ($5!) allowance ~7 years back until I opened a bank account so he could do automatic electronic transfers...
I'd definitely agree with you on that. some things just don't translate either -- think Cyrano de Bergerac. I have never seen an acceptable translation of it, nor a decent movie besides the Gerald Depardeu (sp) version. which (guess what!) is Region 2 encoded. I'm now looking for a set-top player that will play it as well as my Region 1 DVD's, and Japanese anime. it's entirely insane.
I once had a girl friend who used to complain every time I started to talk abut programming with some friends at parties. (We were all programmers). It's not like I was only talking about programming but just because it wasen't something she liked. And I've seen lots of women act that way. You can see them roll their eyes and say, "here they go again"...
actually, that's a pretty damn good description of what my boyfriend does, since he's a MechE geek... he actually will not go to parties that he knows are all computer geeks (think Eta Kappa Nu banquet -- he hates to dress up, and he hates to talk about programming)
he's a sweetie, and I can't blame him, becasue the humor gets pretty bad when the EECS geeks get together!
but I forgot -- if anyone's interested in discussing this, I'd be more than willing (though there will be several weeks when my email will be unanswered -- but I will do it when I can)]
If women aren't flocking in droves to technical fields, perhaps it is because they don't want to.
in many cases, they don't. however, in many cases, they don't, because they have been conditioned out of it, or just outright told that they could not do that becasue of a simple accident of gender. I'm not all so old (hell, I haven't even finished my BS yet), and I've been told that more than once. now, I'm not claiming that this is a universal experience, but it seems to be fairly widespread.
oddly enough, people do hire me quite readily, and I really do resent the implication that certain people have been known to make (not directly to me) that (in general) it's easier to get by in the computer/science/engineering field as a female, becasue standards aren't as high. as you say, the emphasis is on what you produce -- and if it isn't, it should be.
These fools acts as if thirty years of conscious gender equalization did nothing to level the playing field.
oh, it did. now jobs aren't listed separately by gender, so these jobs are open to women like me now. women aren't systematically excluded from technical schools. etc.
what do we see? a dramatic legal change in status. however, there are some things that are slower to change -- specifically people. right now we get a few types:
1. the throwback -- either older people or people who learned attitudes from them that I am really emabarrassed to hear expressed (example: my step-grandmother said at dinner the other night "well, I don't understand this fuss about women not being paid as much as men. they aren't as competent, and have babies to take care of". it got worse as she tried to backpedal when everyone's jaws dropped)
2. the over-compensator -- if anyoneever were to give me a chance NOT on my merits as a researcher and a scholar, but instead on my femininity, I would be very, very, very upset. there are people who want to "do a favor". they aren't. truthfully, I've never seen this type in action, but the guy I work for says that they exist -- and that, do what I may, graduate school admissions people have a different standard for female applicants. to them, I have to say that lowered expectations reduce the ability of the objects of your (surely unconscious) contempt to perform as her peers.
3. balanced people -- the people who don't have a heart attack on a MUD or a BBS when I happen to mention I'm female, specifically, and the ones who don't see me only as one of a few prospective dates in the EECS department -- and who don't get frustrated beyond belief when they find I don't want a date, thank you very much. they expect that I'll do as well or better than they do, since many of the females who make it as far as college in a technical field tend to be many of the most competent people in the department.
until we have more balanced people -- which will take time -- people who don't have to consciously compensate for any contempt of their own or others, perhaps you should think twice before posting a diatribe of that type. we'll know we have arrived when it simply isn't an issue anymore -- and if you ask women in these professions, you'll find that many of them consider it one.
the key of C-major has neither sharps nor flats. think the white keys on a piano. and of course, once you start getting into interesting keys, you get all sorts of things...
the key of C# indeed has the same notes as the key of Db, and they key of Db is much more popular, but they are not the same thing. go listen to a piece in F# and one in Gb... a lot of it has to do with mood, and which keys you can/should modulate into. of course this only matters if you're following the rules, but that's what music theory class is for, after all!
also the rule [KEY] sharp == [KEY+1] flat is not necessarily true. take a look at a piano keyboard. notice that there are no black keys between some of the white keys. for example, B#=C, and E#=F (likewise Cb=B and Fb=E -- as a wind player, I see these a lot more often)
you might want to try music theory sometime. very interesting stuff, I think. (but then again, I'm a music person:) )
Can I kill the veggies? It isn't just the (carni|omni)vores that have a sense of humor! (meat tastes bad! ick! cheese, OTOH... mmmm...) Sounds like a good idea, all told, as long as you feed us veggie-types too!:)
the real debate right now is whether it's the partial pressure of water vapor, or the total pressure of the apmosphere that makes a difference. if it's the total pressure, it can pull it quite effectively over the triple point, especially in deep canyons, where the atmospheric pressure should be much greater than on the surface (and 3 meters in the air -- you get quite a nice gradient). I'm not sure which side of the issue I fall on (yet), but it's an interesting argument.
and what, precisely, are you going to make the tether out of? thus far (AFAIK) there is no material that is feasible. carbon nanotubules aren't long enough to make one yet...
and from where comes this "power" that you're running through the cable, if not from propellents?
are you planning to tether it to the ground (since this seems to be what you're implying)? if you are, you can only have it in one orbit - geosynchronous - which would make it awfully hard to "go after" anything. and how big of a chunk of sky would this take up from aviation (safety margains included)? if not, how do you "run power" through the cable?
why would a "nighttime" pass need more energy storage than anything else? this isn't dependent on solar anything.
this is only the beginning of the problems (or ambiguities) with the scheme you've discussed... of course, if I've misinterpreted, please clarify.
well, GPS approach is becoming more widespread (Truckee-Tahoe even has one, and they don't have a tower!) and ILS isn't used as much. only/slight/ problem with this is that GPS approaches tend to be locked into the flight computer and done automagically (well, this is how it's set up in our 414, anyways), which makes it even MORE of a problem if there's interference.
do you know if GPS is as suceptable to this sort of interference? (given the flight-charts-on-the-laptop (not to mention civ:ctp on the other laptop, or the TV, or the VCR,...) as well as the use of GPS approaches, I'd guess that they're shielded with this sort of thing in mind)
there is a little "situation" going on in the EECS (electrical engineering/computer science) deparment at UC Berkeley... Microsoft and some large peecee manufacturer made a deal with a professor to port the software he uses to teach CS 162 (OS) to Windows NT (from UNIX that works just FINE thank you) in exchange for some old laptops. that are only allowed to run NT. this pissed off some people, including a) the people who don't want to use them (me included -- I have a laptop. it runs Linux. I am NOT carrying a boat-anchor-luggable around in addition to my nice slim 4 lb. thinkpad) b) the people who don't want to support them, and c) the people who don't want to fix them (but who look like they're going to have to -- or find the money to have someone else do it).
well, fine. that's at least reasonable, although I happen to not like it. let's look at the labs, however: the only hardware we can get at a reasonable price (or free) is stuff gotten from, say Dell or Compaq, that comes with an obligation to run Windows. there are profs trying to replace UNIX labs with windows labs. those labs magically become single-user stations (unstable ones at that). even on the very slow unix boxen, we have 10-15 people at a time using them, during the busy season. what happens when that is forcefully cut down to 1? nothing good, that's for sure.
this is of course leaving out the whole issue of "tech support." there are people who do that. when they call tech support, it's with something like "there is THIS bug in your NFS/OS/whatever. please fix it NOW" -- this is, of course, if they don't have the source and can't fix it themselves. Microsoft is not known for being very responsive to this sort of call.
any unix/linux/BSD companies/people who would like to donate hardware to our labs would be mighty welcome, but there haven't been many (if any) thus far. it would be a very sad thing if CS departments were forced into using windows of one form or another simply becasue they can't get hardware that doesn't have it tied to it.
Slashdot Mirror
oops. sorry, bad form to reply to my own posts, but when I read a little more, I find that the wavelan driver was hacked to support the airport /cards/, not the base.
and since it's all 802.11b, it should work together, right?
Lea
what do you have to do to get the WaveLan cards to talk to the airport UFO base, though. I saw a mention on http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Lin ux/Wireless.html of hacking the wavelan drivers to work with the airport base.
:)
from what I've been seeing, airport base + wavelan cards look like the right thing to do... I just need to make sure they do it with each other!
(and then I need to make a large antenna and see if I can get wireless access on campus...)
Lea
I have to set up several wireless networks, and I'm quite interested in airport, but does it work with x86 linux and assorted windows versions?
Lea
This still doesn't mean I can watch cyrano, which is, as I see it, a problem.
and this also doesn't mean that I won't be moving back to europe at some point, at least for a few years... of course, I never once saw a dvd player that wouldn't play region 1 dvds (except for in the Sony store), and racks of region 1 dvds are all over the place. I just hope the EU would sue to get this breach of trade law cleared up!
fat chance, eh?
Lea
Why is it piracy to then buy that film anywhere but in your home country? Is it pirarcy to go to France, buy a movie, and then return home?
speaking of which, I did exactly that this summer. I now own a pristine copy of cyrano de bergerac (wonderful movie, not avalible in anything but region 2, and horrible in any translation) which I cannot watch. I did know this before I went, but I knew I'd regret it forever if I didn't get it. so now what? rip to VCD? never watch it? them's my options. the whole region-coding thing is a real problem for anyone who isn't even trying to "pirate" (by their definition) but simply is bilingual and enjoys movies from multiple countries.
Lea
I'd say it would have been a better PR exercise if they hadn't gone around sending emails saying "you ordered at this price. we're shipping at this price. if you don't like it, then cancel your order, it'll sit there until you approve/cancel it".
my boyfriend got one of these, after he got some very nice prices, courtesy of Amazon's little "tests". after that email (though I'm not sure how many people they sent it to -- I know quite a few anyways) I think people are going to be a little pissed.
of course, if they don't publicise it, it's all for nothing, isn't it?
Lea
When I look up my order on customer service (this link should be in your confirmation email, or lokigames.com or directly here, my order shows as being "completed", though I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean.
All in all, it seems a funny system, at least to me. and I would REALLY like my copy of SMAC to materialize right now :)
Lea
Now, I love the work Loki does, don't get me wrong (and I own quite a lot of it, even stuff I don't have and don't know when I'll have it -- more on that later), but if any of em are reading, I think I have to point out something slightly illegal they're doing, though I'm sure it's not on purpose.
when you "pre-order" a game from them (well, it goes through digital river, which is probably why this whole thing happens) your credit card is charged immediately. when you "pre-order" a game AND order another game, your credit card is charged immediately and nothing is shipped until the pre-order game is out. (I found this out by ordering games, which is not really the way I would have preferred). The problem is, that at least in the US, a company is not allowed to let 30 days elapse between charging a credit card and shipping a product.
While digital river is not the same company as loki, they're clearly simply powering loki's system, it's still under the juristiction of loki (and under the lokigames.com domain as well). I'm being charged immediately for something that I'm pretty sure won't be shipped within 30 days of the charge. (this would be waiting on SMAC, which I've been unable to find a ship/release date for. anyone else?)
Now, since it's loki, and I really like having them around (subliminal message: port worms II, port worms II!), I'm not planning on disputing the charges, but I have seen court cases brought by the government (I don't remember if it was federal or state, but my guess would be federal under the interstate commerce bit of the constitution) where companies who did this on a regular basis were charged with nasty things.
I'd hate to see this happen, loki. please fix this up.
Lea
Well, if anyone else (like me) hasn't heard of the guy, it seems he is in quite a lot of trouble due to a charge of match-fixing. Take a look at http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/c/cronje.html, which has a long series of short news briefs on him. Lea
for the GUI, check out any history on Xerox-PARC.
Lea
it wasn't carmak, afaik. what /I/ seem to have seen on /. several times at least is that he had the Linux version all ready, but that the packaging people stabbed /him/ by deliberately delaying the linux packaging, manuals, etc until way after the windows ones were done...
Lea
I'd say that it'd be better for both of em to get to fly. However, if I had to choose one, I'd go with Marsakhod (oops. renamed Fido...).
The MPL was very limited in capabilities. It could go a little distance and look around, was not autonomous at all, and if I remember correctly did not have stereo cameras. Fido is a lot larger and more mobile, more autonomous, has better controls, and a good set of stereo cameras (don't tell me those aren't important when you're going up against a set of rocks like they've got on Mars!)
So, my point is that I think that we need to get up to a certain minimum level of functionality before we start throwing a whole lot of the same thing there... and things like Sojourner just don't provide enough useful capabilities to make it worth it, long term...
Lea
Disclaimer: I used to work on this rover, so I'm probably biased. :)
my dad used something like that (but I'm pretty sure it wasn't ATT mail) quite often a few years back when I stayed in a place without email (7 miles from the nearest phone, as well) since he refuses to touch paper when he doesn't absolutely have to... he's been doing electronic banking for years and years now, and refused to give me my ($5!) allowance ~7 years back until I opened a bank account so he could do automatic electronic transfers...
Lea
Cyrano de Bergerac with Gerald Depardieu (sp?) was not released with region 1 encoding, though it was released on VHS with (bad) english subtitles.
I now have a copy with region 2 and nothing to play it on -- yet.
Lea
I'd definitely agree with you on that. some things just don't translate either -- think Cyrano de Bergerac. I have never seen an acceptable translation of it, nor a decent movie besides the Gerald Depardeu (sp) version. which (guess what!) is Region 2 encoded. I'm now looking for a set-top player that will play it as well as my Region 1 DVD's, and Japanese anime. it's entirely insane.
Lea
I once had a girl friend who used to complain every time I started to talk abut programming with some friends at parties. (We were all programmers). It's not like I was only talking about programming but just because it wasen't something she liked. And I've seen lots of women act that way. You can see them roll their eyes and say, "here they go again"...
actually, that's a pretty damn good description of what my boyfriend does, since he's a MechE geek... he actually will not go to parties that he knows are all computer geeks (think Eta Kappa Nu banquet -- he hates to dress up, and he hates to talk about programming)
he's a sweetie, and I can't blame him, becasue the humor gets pretty bad when the EECS geeks get together!
Lea
but I forgot -- if anyone's interested in discussing this, I'd be more than willing (though there will be several weeks when my email will be unanswered -- but I will do it when I can)]
Lea
If women aren't flocking in droves to technical fields, perhaps it is because they don't want to.
in many cases, they don't. however, in many cases, they don't, because they have been conditioned out of it, or just outright told that they could not do that becasue of a simple accident of gender. I'm not all so old (hell, I haven't even finished my BS yet), and I've been told that more than once. now, I'm not claiming that this is a universal experience, but it seems to be fairly widespread.
oddly enough, people do hire me quite readily, and I really do resent the implication that certain people have been known to make (not directly to me) that (in general) it's easier to get by in the computer/science/engineering field as a female, becasue standards aren't as high. as you say, the emphasis is on what you produce -- and if it isn't, it should be.
These fools acts as if thirty years of conscious gender equalization did nothing to level the playing field.
oh, it did. now jobs aren't listed separately by gender, so these jobs are open to women like me now. women aren't systematically excluded from technical schools. etc.
what do we see? a dramatic legal change in status. however, there are some things that are slower to change -- specifically people. right now we get a few types:
1. the throwback -- either older people or people who learned attitudes from them that I am really emabarrassed to hear expressed (example: my step-grandmother said at dinner the other night "well, I don't understand this fuss about women not being paid as much as men. they aren't as competent, and have babies to take care of". it got worse as she tried to backpedal when everyone's jaws dropped)
2. the over-compensator -- if anyone ever were to give me a chance NOT on my merits as a researcher and a scholar, but instead on my femininity, I would be very, very, very upset. there are people who want to "do a favor". they aren't. truthfully, I've never seen this type in action, but the guy I work for says that they exist -- and that, do what I may, graduate school admissions people have a different standard for female applicants. to them, I have to say that lowered expectations reduce the ability of the objects of your (surely unconscious) contempt to perform as her peers.
3. balanced people -- the people who don't have a heart attack on a MUD or a BBS when I happen to mention I'm female, specifically, and the ones who don't see me only as one of a few prospective dates in the EECS department -- and who don't get frustrated beyond belief when they find I don't want a date, thank you very much. they expect that I'll do as well or better than they do, since many of the females who make it as far as college in a technical field tend to be many of the most competent people in the department.
until we have more balanced people -- which will take time -- people who don't have to consciously compensate for any contempt of their own or others, perhaps you should think twice before posting a diatribe of that type. we'll know we have arrived when it simply isn't an issue anymore -- and if you ask women in these professions, you'll find that many of them consider it one.
Lea
the key of C-major has neither sharps nor flats. think the white keys on a piano. and of course, once you start getting into interesting keys, you get all sorts of things...
:) )
the key of C# indeed has the same notes as the key of Db, and they key of Db is much more popular, but they are not the same thing. go listen to a piece in F# and one in Gb... a lot of it has to do with mood, and which keys you can/should modulate into. of course this only matters if you're following the rules, but that's what music theory class is for, after all!
also the rule [KEY] sharp == [KEY+1] flat is not necessarily true. take a look at a piano keyboard. notice that there are no black keys between some of the white keys. for example, B#=C, and E#=F (likewise Cb=B and Fb=E -- as a wind player, I see these a lot more often)
you might want to try music theory sometime. very interesting stuff, I think. (but then again, I'm a music person
Lea
Can I kill the veggies? It isn't just the (carni|omni)vores that have a sense of humor! (meat tastes bad! ick! cheese, OTOH... mmmm...) Sounds like a good idea, all told, as long as you feed us veggie-types too! :)
Lea
the real debate right now is whether it's the partial pressure of water vapor, or the total pressure of the apmosphere that makes a difference. if it's the total pressure, it can pull it quite effectively over the triple point, especially in deep canyons, where the atmospheric pressure should be much greater than on the surface (and 3 meters in the air -- you get quite a nice gradient). I'm not sure which side of the issue I fall on (yet), but it's an interesting argument.
:)
I'd post some references, but I'm a little busy
Lea
and what, precisely, are you going to make the tether out of? thus far (AFAIK) there is no material that is feasible. carbon nanotubules aren't long enough to make one yet...
and from where comes this "power" that you're running through the cable, if not from propellents?
are you planning to tether it to the ground (since this seems to be what you're implying)? if you are, you can only have it in one orbit - geosynchronous - which would make it awfully hard to "go after" anything. and how big of a chunk of sky would this take up from aviation (safety margains included)? if not, how do you "run power" through the cable?
why would a "nighttime" pass need more energy storage than anything else? this isn't dependent on solar anything.
this is only the beginning of the problems (or ambiguities) with the scheme you've discussed... of course, if I've misinterpreted, please clarify.
Lea
and since Win is just a nice little DOS wrapper...
:)
and I'll bet that it's more than possible to do this in Linux... after all, we have the Power of the Source!
Lea
well, GPS approach is becoming more widespread (Truckee-Tahoe even has one, and they don't have a tower!) and ILS isn't used as much. only /slight/ problem with this is that GPS approaches tend to be locked into the flight computer and done automagically (well, this is how it's set up in our 414, anyways), which makes it even MORE of a problem if there's interference.
...) as well as the use of GPS approaches, I'd guess that they're shielded with this sort of thing in mind)
do you know if GPS is as suceptable to this sort of interference? (given the flight-charts-on-the-laptop (not to mention civ:ctp on the other laptop, or the TV, or the VCR,
Lea
there is a little "situation" going on in the EECS (electrical engineering/computer science) deparment at UC Berkeley... Microsoft and some large peecee manufacturer made a deal with a professor to port the software he uses to teach CS 162 (OS) to Windows NT (from UNIX that works just FINE thank you) in exchange for some old laptops. that are only allowed to run NT. this pissed off some people, including a) the people who don't want to use them (me included -- I have a laptop. it runs Linux. I am NOT carrying a boat-anchor-luggable around in addition to my nice slim 4 lb. thinkpad) b) the people who don't want to support them, and c) the people who don't want to fix them (but who look like they're going to have to -- or find the money to have someone else do it).
well, fine. that's at least reasonable, although I happen to not like it. let's look at the labs, however: the only hardware we can get at a reasonable price (or free) is stuff gotten from, say Dell or Compaq, that comes with an obligation to run Windows. there are profs trying to replace UNIX labs with windows labs. those labs magically become single-user stations (unstable ones at that). even on the very slow unix boxen, we have 10-15 people at a time using them, during the busy season. what happens when that is forcefully cut down to 1? nothing good, that's for sure.
this is of course leaving out the whole issue of "tech support." there are people who do that. when they call tech support, it's with something like "there is THIS bug in your NFS/OS/whatever. please fix it NOW" -- this is, of course, if they don't have the source and can't fix it themselves. Microsoft is not known for being very responsive to this sort of call.
any unix/linux/BSD companies/people who would like to donate hardware to our labs would be mighty welcome, but there haven't been many (if any) thus far. it would be a very sad thing if CS departments were forced into using windows of one form or another simply becasue they can't get hardware that doesn't have it tied to it.
Lea