Art is subjective. It can work in degrees and mean many different things to many different people. Art can even fail (in that it doesn't do what it was meant to do) and still function as art. Art is emotion.
A hack or hacking is not subjective. It either accomplishes what it was meant to do and is a success or doesn't and is a failure.
Why is it that everybody wants their job/work to be considered art?
..Steve told em to go fornicate themselves and dropped their music the instant they complained. I don't think they (The Music Industry) understand how much Apple adds to their profits. Apple is a whole new distribution channel for them.
You only need to know about your own little world. "Jack of all trades" are irrelevant in just about every other community these days what makes computers different?
Yeah, I like to know a little bit about everything but I'm not a guru in anything. I can putter along in whatever I'm faced with (PHP, perl, Linux, BSD/OS X, Windows, networking, DNS, SMTP, whatever) but I'm not a guru in any. That's not a good thing. I'd be better paid (and possibly less happy) if I was.
I don't know about irrelevant, but the "Jack-of-all-Trades" is certainly a lot harder to find lately.
I work at a company that desires people with a broad range of technology skills. Hardware, Software, Networking, WWW, SMTP, Development, etc.. Our department is made up of these kind of people (we are a group sandwiched between Tier III and Dev/Test). With the type of application we run (90% proprietary and 100's of servers), we need people who can do some serious troubleshooting with a lot of different technologies.
We are not looking for a person for our group to ease the strain, but most of the people we have interviewed are Gurus.
"Responsible disclosure" is a propganda term propogated by the software firms to a) get as much time as possible to fix security holes, and b) indemnify themselves as much as possible against any public disclosure of said security holes by labeling the disclosers as 'irresponsible'.
I agree that a and b are true, but that doesn't mean there is no such thing as responsible disclosure.
For example: it is irresponsible to release information about a security hole into the wild without informing the software manufacturer.
It's not such a crazy idea to let manufacturers come up with a patch before releasing information (with a reasonable cut-off date).
Releasing the information immediately into the wild means that a million or so script kiddies and minor league hackers are going to be trying to hit that specific security hole before companies even know what to do. Compare this to a small group (comparitavely) of "virtuous" and otherwise experienced hackers knowing about the bug.
If I have a pot of gold hidden somewhere, the odds of it being found are directly affected by the number and type of people who know it exists...
If Office opened and saved OO.o documents, there would be a flood of people migrating away from it.
I think you over stated that. You can already share documents between Word and OO; also many companies have processes and custom bits of code that only run on Office right now and they have a comfort level with the suite and Microsoft.
I agree. But at the end of the day, what people are complaining about is Microsoft's abuse of their market position.
I don't have a gripe with that.
Well if they don't care enough to evaluate at least one or two options I wonder why the question came up in the first place - users like that should probably just stick with what came on their PC.
I agree and I think this covers a good number of people out there. In a generation or so, this will change but who knows what computers will be like then.
They have been convicted of monopolistic business practices - attempting to obtain and secure a monopoly. The same cannot be said of any of the other players, and until the playing field is level the restrictions will continue. The terminology used is irrelevant; what is important is Microsoft's current market position and the lengths they are prepared to go to in order to stay there.
Just because someone hasn't been convicted of something doesn't mean they aren't guilty. There are plenty of companies out there (technology and otherwise) that do the same as MS. Some get called on it, some don't.
Terminology is very important. Words have an emotion/idea associated with them. When you say MS is a monopoly, that has a different meaning than "monopolistic business practices". Trying to be a monopoly (something most businesses do on a daily basis) and being a monopoly are not the same things.
What an inflammatory and completely wrong statement. On the kind of distribution an inexperienced user would (or should) be using, they will never need to recompile the kernel, ever.
Which distribution? Exactly how would an in-experienced user know which distribution to use? I'm an experienced Linux user (not an expert at all) and still don't know which Linux distribution I prefer or should use. I am willing to bet there would be some contention as to which distribution would be best.
Psycho-babble has made it's way into the discussion.
So Windows users are intimidated? Yes I guess our entire IT department is just to intimidated by technology to switch...
Apple users aren't clueless? Are you kidding me? I know just as many Apple users who are clueless as Windows users, but Apple users don't think they are clueless.
Ah yes, the fully evolved Linux user. He is the one who thinks. All else are below their level of thought.
Now, throw out everything I just said, because it's all bullshit. A computer is a tool, like a wrench or a screwdriver. Some people buy all their tools at Sears, some at Schucks. Some people want a brand and some could care less who makes em. No matter what tool you pick, it says very little about who you are unless you are a shallow person.
Ehm, install it and choose KDE as the default session the next time you see a login screen. Not really hard.
Except that it doesn't always work in my experience. Why? I don't know.
Small correction, most of the time it's not us Linux fantics, whoever this may be, but law enforcement agencies that get on MS for abusing their monopoly.
When MS does it, it's a monopoly. When Apple and Linux do it, it's convenience. I also wish the government would stop changing what words mean. A monopoly means they are the only choice; plain and simple. The government figures we're all too stupid to understand something like unfair business practices or maybe that just doesn't sound sexy enough.
Press on the little update notification on your panel and have _all_ your apps updated. Now that's incredibly hard, you are right.
Until it freezes on some tiny little app after an hour of downloading/updating and you have to start all over. Or if the default server is down and you have to search all over to find out 1. How to change it and 2.What another server is. Or worse if you do a kernel upgrade. Then suddenly you have to recompile and set up your video drivers all over again.
And you are aware that you can share folders on modern linux distros by simply clicking, just like you described for windows?
Which Distro?
Please show me the study that a) supports your conclusion b) finally shows me who this common user is
I am not the parent poster, but this is kind of a rediculous question. If you have ever worked support _anywhere_ you know what the average (aka common) user is like. As for a supporting study, I don't see a list of studies backing up your partisan viewpoint either.
Once again, I am amazed at how some people in the various camps (MS, Linux, Apple) are so inexplicably and fanatically attached to their particular flavor of OS. Not just this post to which I replied, but a good many of them on this discussion.
There's a difference between a monopoly on search engine services and a monopoly in the OS space. Changing search engine providers is as simple as replacing a bookmark, changing operating systems requires some serious expeditures, especially at the enterprise level.
As Google and search enginges in general become more integrated with our respective operating systems is may get more difficult to switch.
Exactly what is there that you can't do on a non windows box?
Play Battlefield 2
Install a new Video Card and have it working without changing an assload of txt files and reading an entire books worth of text.
Use IIS Web Services written by 3rd party
Online banking
This is just from the Linux side. I haven't used OSX, so I am not sure of the capabilities. I know that the only browser my online banking works with 100% of the time is IE and I haven't seen a port of this for Linux. There are also many applications that my company uses that will not work on any browser other than IE. I prefer Firefox, but when I work from home I need to be able to access our ticketing system, Intranet, Team Sites, etc. and can't do this with Linux.
Every couple of years I try using only Linux for a few weeks. Even now my system is dual boot. I always have issues with video cards working. There is always something "un-usual" about it; drivers written by hobbiest, un-supported drivers, drivers require recompiling kernel, etc..
I was happy (last time I tried this) that several of the games I played at the time were usable on Linux, but the graphics just weren't as nice on Linux (this is the fault of the drivers, not the OS).
Every year or 2 I try the experiment again, maybe one of these times I won't come back to Windows.
Actually, my pain level is "negative," since from time to time tasks crop up like mass file renaming, which I get done in a few moments but the Windows users take hours and hours to do. Manually. One file at a time. For hundreds and hundreds of files. THAT is pain.
What, are they stupid?
If they have to do one file at a time, then they don't know what they're doing.
If the people can't affort $5-$10USD/mo dialup Internet access for their desktop, how on earth are they going to affort to buy a modern laptop?
(answer may be used hardware, but lets be serious here)
This has been mentioned in a previous post, but here I go with my version.
I have friends who cannot afford a $250.00 computer (which can be a full weeks paycheck), so they rely on people like me. I always seem to have a PC or 2 laying around (low end machines) with nothing usefull to do. I usually slap these together and give them away. Often they end up using whatever free service I can get them hooked up to, but I'm sure they would appreciate a free service that didn't have pop-ups and ads all over the place.
I think there are probably better things for the government to do with money (health care, housing, etc.) than provide WiFi for everyone, but it's still better than using it to line their own pockets or start a war...
I am seriously amazed at the idiocy of not only our elected officials, but a huge chunk of the US population.
Do they (the morons) honestly believe that the porn industry has been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the.xxx domains to become available so they can finally put sites up? That somehow the internet has been porn free all this time and.xxx will open the floodgates?
WAKE UP! The floodgates were open long ago and we're all paddling along in our little spam filled canoes looking for a drink...
Bull. Twelve times as many R films as G films get wide theatrical distribution in the United States, even though the average G film grosses twelve times as much as the average R film.
What do you base this upon? A quick look at the current top 10 shows that only 3 are R rated. If you haven't heard about studios watering down films to try for the all holy PG13 rating then you haven't been paying attention to film news.
Perhaps that would get the parents attention if there was a law saying 18+ games must be purchased by 18+ year olds. Most movie theaters enforce R ratings by not selling tickets to 14 year olds. Why not have the same rules apply to video game sales?
The problem you have here is that software companies may stop making adult games. Look at what the rating system has done to movies? Studios don't want to put out R rated movies because they are afraid of losing a good chunk of their audience.
Having said that, I don't know what the solution is. It's apparent that there are parents who do not actually raise their children, but rely on the rest of the world to do it. Unfortunately it may be up to us as a society to do the work for them.
I have a giant chunk of anger for parents that don't know or want to know how to raise their children.
No, we can't defer to the professionals on a decision like this, can we? That would be like letting an architect design the building.
Actually, it would be more like having the architect who designed your parking garage also design design the cars that are parked there.
IT Professionals (myself included) do not know what is best for end users. End users know what is best for end users. A software company I used to work for had an un-official stance of "users don't know what they need". They are now very close to bankrupcy.
Who's making moral arguments? I just don't understand the legal or rational basis for MS collecting $7M in damage compensation for damages done to people who aren't MS. Maybe there's something "immoral" about that. But it certainly isn't rational - and therefore how is it legal?
It is logical and legal because the spam negatively affects their services which in turn costs them money. If you had enough money (to hire lawyers) and could prove it (spam) was costing you money, you could sue as well.
The difference between abusing a market controlling position and an exclusive market position is, just a distinction without a difference. Again, I don't see why you're defending such hairsplitting, unless you want one of your own. They are screwing you, along with the rest of us. Why do you take it?
There is a huge difference between being in a controlling position and being the only person on the market.
You don't HAVE to buy MS products to use your computer. That (to me) is a major distinction.
They aren't screwing me anymore than Wal-Mart, IBM, GM, BP, Haliburton, The US Government, etc...
With all the social injustice in the world, MS is the least of my concerns.
That doesn't mean I have to like it. Why do you? Do you have delusions of Gates grandeur, that you'd like a multi-billion dollar monopoly yourself someday?
I didn't mean it that way.
I don't like it either, but this is the way the system is set up. Is MS guilty of pushing the bounds of moral behaviour at times? Yes, along with 99.999% of the corporations in the good ole USA. We aren't going to change that by going after MS, we need to go after the system that sets these companies up. That's another topic though...
I also have no plans to make millions. This isn't to say I have an aversion to success or money; it's just not my top priority.
BTW, Microsoft is not a monopoly (though I am not denying that they have tried to be). If they were a monopoly, there wouldn't be any alternatives to their services. There are many alternatives to using MS (Linux, Unix, Mac, Staroffice, etc...). My local utility company is a monopoly.
It must be nice to be Microsoft sometime, when some people want to sympathize with even their stupid moves that do nothing to help anyone but Microsoft.
MS isn't a charity organization (though they give heavily to charities through a foundation). They are a software corporation, of course what they do is supposed to help them (it's a bonus if it helps someone else, not a necessity). They are doing what every other company in this wonderful capitalist society does. Why should they be any different?
I don't think it is an A leads to B thing- Movies won't make kids automatically interested in science, however I think a lot of people were inspired by the cold war to get into science, and movies that made the Russians look bad got American kids into science, and vice versa.
Film, television and print have long been used to inspire people to do things (propoganda). Done properly it can be very effective (After the movie "Top Gun" was released, there was a surge in Navy enlistment).
Slashdot Mirror
Art is subjective. It can work in degrees and mean many different things to many different people. Art can even fail (in that it doesn't do what it was meant to do) and still function as art. Art is emotion.
A hack or hacking is not subjective. It either accomplishes what it was meant to do and is a success or doesn't and is a failure.
Why is it that everybody wants their job/work to be considered art?
..Steve told em to go fornicate themselves and dropped their music the instant they complained. I don't think they (The Music Industry) understand how much Apple adds to their profits. Apple is a whole new distribution channel for them.
...the oil company marketing team whispering in the reporters' ears.
I don't know about irrelevant, but the "Jack-of-all-Trades" is certainly a lot harder to find lately.
I work at a company that desires people with a broad range of technology skills. Hardware, Software, Networking, WWW, SMTP, Development, etc.. Our department is made up of these kind of people (we are a group sandwiched between Tier III and Dev/Test). With the type of application we run (90% proprietary and 100's of servers), we need people who can do some serious troubleshooting with a lot of different technologies.
We are not looking for a person for our group to ease the strain, but most of the people we have interviewed are Gurus.
I agree that a and b are true, but that doesn't mean there is no such thing as responsible disclosure.
For example: it is irresponsible to release information about a security hole into the wild without informing the software manufacturer.
It's not such a crazy idea to let manufacturers come up with a patch before releasing information (with a reasonable cut-off date).
Releasing the information immediately into the wild means that a million or so script kiddies and minor league hackers are going to be trying to hit that specific security hole before companies even know what to do. Compare this to a small group (comparitavely) of "virtuous" and otherwise experienced hackers knowing about the bug.
If I have a pot of gold hidden somewhere, the odds of it being found are directly affected by the number and type of people who know it exists...
Wow, CNET is really scraping the bottom of the barrel for tech news isn't it.
I think you over stated that. You can already share documents between Word and OO; also many companies have processes and custom bits of code that only run on Office right now and they have a comfort level with the suite and Microsoft.
I don't have a gripe with that.
I agree and I think this covers a good number of people out there. In a generation or so, this will change but who knows what computers will be like then.
Just because someone hasn't been convicted of something doesn't mean they aren't guilty. There are plenty of companies out there (technology and otherwise) that do the same as MS. Some get called on it, some don't.
Terminology is very important. Words have an emotion/idea associated with them. When you say MS is a monopoly, that has a different meaning than "monopolistic business practices". Trying to be a monopoly (something most businesses do on a daily basis) and being a monopoly are not the same things.
Which distribution? Exactly how would an in-experienced user know which distribution to use? I'm an experienced Linux user (not an expert at all) and still don't know which Linux distribution I prefer or should use. I am willing to bet there would be some contention as to which distribution would be best.
Oh...My...God...
Psycho-babble has made it's way into the discussion.
So Windows users are intimidated? Yes I guess our entire IT department is just to intimidated by technology to switch...
Apple users aren't clueless? Are you kidding me? I know just as many Apple users who are clueless as Windows users, but Apple users don't think they are clueless.
Ah yes, the fully evolved Linux user. He is the one who thinks. All else are below their level of thought.
Now, throw out everything I just said, because it's all bullshit. A computer is a tool, like a wrench or a screwdriver. Some people buy all their tools at Sears, some at Schucks. Some people want a brand and some could care less who makes em. No matter what tool you pick, it says very little about who you are unless you are a shallow person.
Except that it doesn't always work in my experience. Why? I don't know.
When MS does it, it's a monopoly. When Apple and Linux do it, it's convenience. I also wish the government would stop changing what words mean. A monopoly means they are the only choice; plain and simple. The government figures we're all too stupid to understand something like unfair business practices or maybe that just doesn't sound sexy enough.
Until it freezes on some tiny little app after an hour of downloading/updating and you have to start all over. Or if the default server is down and you have to search all over to find out 1. How to change it and 2.What another server is. Or worse if you do a kernel upgrade. Then suddenly you have to recompile and set up your video drivers all over again.
Which Distro?
I am not the parent poster, but this is kind of a rediculous question. If you have ever worked support _anywhere_ you know what the average (aka common) user is like. As for a supporting study, I don't see a list of studies backing up your partisan viewpoint either.
Once again, I am amazed at how some people in the various camps (MS, Linux, Apple) are so inexplicably and fanatically attached to their particular flavor of OS. Not just this post to which I replied, but a good many of them on this discussion.
As Google and search enginges in general become more integrated with our respective operating systems is may get more difficult to switch.
Play Battlefield 2
Install a new Video Card and have it working without changing an assload of txt files and reading an entire books worth of text.
Use IIS Web Services written by 3rd party
Online banking
This is just from the Linux side. I haven't used OSX, so I am not sure of the capabilities. I know that the only browser my online banking works with 100% of the time is IE and I haven't seen a port of this for Linux. There are also many applications that my company uses that will not work on any browser other than IE. I prefer Firefox, but when I work from home I need to be able to access our ticketing system, Intranet, Team Sites, etc. and can't do this with Linux.
Every couple of years I try using only Linux for a few weeks. Even now my system is dual boot. I always have issues with video cards working. There is always something "un-usual" about it; drivers written by hobbiest, un-supported drivers, drivers require recompiling kernel, etc..
I was happy (last time I tried this) that several of the games I played at the time were usable on Linux, but the graphics just weren't as nice on Linux (this is the fault of the drivers, not the OS).
Every year or 2 I try the experiment again, maybe one of these times I won't come back to Windows.
What, are they stupid?
If they have to do one file at a time, then they don't know what they're doing.
This has been mentioned in a previous post, but here I go with my version.
I have friends who cannot afford a $250.00 computer (which can be a full weeks paycheck), so they rely on people like me. I always seem to have a PC or 2 laying around (low end machines) with nothing usefull to do. I usually slap these together and give them away. Often they end up using whatever free service I can get them hooked up to, but I'm sure they would appreciate a free service that didn't have pop-ups and ads all over the place.
I think there are probably better things for the government to do with money (health care, housing, etc.) than provide WiFi for everyone, but it's still better than using it to line their own pockets or start a war...
...I hate being associated with the human race.
I am seriously amazed at the idiocy of not only our elected officials, but a huge chunk of the US population.
Do they (the morons) honestly believe that the porn industry has been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the .xxx domains to become available so they can finally put sites up? That somehow the internet has been porn free all this time and .xxx will open the floodgates?
WAKE UP! The floodgates were open long ago and we're all paddling along in our little spam filled canoes looking for a drink...
What do you base this upon? A quick look at the current top 10 shows that only 3 are R rated. If you haven't heard about studios watering down films to try for the all holy PG13 rating then you haven't been paying attention to film news.
The problem you have here is that software companies may stop making adult games. Look at what the rating system has done to movies? Studios don't want to put out R rated movies because they are afraid of losing a good chunk of their audience.
Having said that, I don't know what the solution is. It's apparent that there are parents who do not actually raise their children, but rely on the rest of the world to do it. Unfortunately it may be up to us as a society to do the work for them.
I have a giant chunk of anger for parents that don't know or want to know how to raise their children.
Actually, it would be more like having the architect who designed your parking garage also design design the cars that are parked there.
IT Professionals (myself included) do not know what is best for end users. End users know what is best for end users. A software company I used to work for had an un-official stance of "users don't know what they need". They are now very close to bankrupcy.
It is logical and legal because the spam negatively affects their services which in turn costs them money. If you had enough money (to hire lawyers) and could prove it (spam) was costing you money, you could sue as well.
There is a huge difference between being in a controlling position and being the only person on the market.
You don't HAVE to buy MS products to use your computer. That (to me) is a major distinction.
They aren't screwing me anymore than Wal-Mart, IBM, GM, BP, Haliburton, The US Government, etc...
With all the social injustice in the world, MS is the least of my concerns.
I didn't mean it that way.
I don't like it either, but this is the way the system is set up. Is MS guilty of pushing the bounds of moral behaviour at times? Yes, along with 99.999% of the corporations in the good ole USA. We aren't going to change that by going after MS, we need to go after the system that sets these companies up. That's another topic though...
I also have no plans to make millions. This isn't to say I have an aversion to success or money; it's just not my top priority.
BTW, Microsoft is not a monopoly (though I am not denying that they have tried to be). If they were a monopoly, there wouldn't be any alternatives to their services. There are many alternatives to using MS (Linux, Unix, Mac, Staroffice, etc...). My local utility company is a monopoly.
MS isn't a charity organization (though they give heavily to charities through a foundation). They are a software corporation, of course what they do is supposed to help them (it's a bonus if it helps someone else, not a necessity). They are doing what every other company in this wonderful capitalist society does. Why should they be any different?
Film, television and print have long been used to inspire people to do things (propoganda). Done properly it can be very effective (After the movie "Top Gun" was released, there was a surge in Navy enlistment).
People want to be like their heros...
Only a Sith deal in absolutes.