Even let's say that the $25B value is accurate and represents something meaningful, it seems to be a pretty depressing number for the entire ecosystem, isn't it? Microsoft as a publicly traded company alone is currently worth $216.11B and I'm sure we can all agree that the entire Windows "ecosystem" is worth at least that much over again. So the Linux ecosystem is worth, what, 5% of Microsoft's value? And this is at a time when Linux is at a historic "high" while Microsoft is in a pretty firm slump...
Not that I think this is an accurate or meaningful number.
It's amazing how you can be so smug and condescending while still being wrong on every single one of your throaway answers. I'd think you were trying to make a joke if I could find any sort of humour in your post, but I can't. Try reading the article, because it seems that your knowledge on these issues is less than those teenage girls you look down on.
Everyone keeps saying that a solution to the problem of potential voter fraud would be to open-source the code. My question is -- how? Let's say they do and someone reads it and understands it; what guarantee does anyone have that the code they've published is the same as the code on the machines the day of the election? It would be absolutely trivial to cut out the naughty bits before publishing.
If Sequoia really were ready to commit mass voter fraud, I doubt they would have too many moral issues with violating the principles of open source while they're at it.
P.S. to nitpickers: If you find mistakes above, please correct them. I do think this is pretty much on target though... Well, the only big problem is
finds the move that maximizes the minimum loss (as per a minimax algorithm presumably.) You probably meant "minimizes the maximum loss":) Doing what you suggested is, how shall I put this... counterproductive.
Great. A new scheduler will surely attract more masses to Linux than, say, a non-ugly GUI-lib or a sane, standard windowing-environment would. That's the way to go.
Well, no offense, but I'm glad it isn't you that's in charge of making important decisions in that case. I realize that you were probably less than half-serious, but I would hate for the Linux community to ever be in the stage where "attract more masses" is a goal that diverts effort from interesting projects like this one.
With that said, what's wrong with Qt/KDE, particularly the new versions (the ones still in Alpha)? I'd say it is very much a "non-ugly GUI lib", and a "sane windowing environment".
Who ever saw a version of a Microsoft product that was compatible with the previous version?
Are you joking? I hope you're joking. Because the alternative is that you are being criminally thick. I really think Slashdot should have a mod option -1 Misinformed
Say what you will about Microsoft, but backwards compatibility has always been one of their cornerstones. Their compatiblity layers still allow you to run apps from the early 90's on a modern copy of Vista today. I have managed to get some very old VB3 code working with a minimum of modification on VB6, which then, using Project Analyzer, got compiling in.NET in a matter of (admittedly frustrating) days.
And who are you comparing them with? Linux? You must be joking. Linux has trouble (read: is completely unable to) maintain binary compatibility with even relatively recent "old" code because of changing libc versions, etc.
Please, name ONE other operating system out there that can claim to run decade-old binaries flawlessly in its most recent incarnation.
Disclaimer: I'm a dedicated FOSS user and not a Microsoft shill in any way. But please, let's give credit where credit is due.
Perhaps I'm the only one (and thus I will be modded into oblivion) but I don't think this is so bad.
We are, after all, talking about minors here. As a poster above mentioned, America (lots of countries, actually) doesn't allow drinking under the age of 21; why is this? Because minors are not capable of responsibly handling something like alcohol. Well, guess what: most minors aren't capable of responsibly handling gaming either if they feel the need to do it in a public venue for more than THREE FREAKING HOURS per day! Three hours! That's almost 25% of your waking time playing a game. Notice that this does not restrict adults, and it does not constrict what anyone (including minors) do in the privacy of their own home. If any kid is so addicted that limiting his net-cafe time to three hours a day sounds like a terrible punishment, they are in need of help.
I'm 19, so I'm in the same ballpark; I dunno what Chinese society is like firsthand, but I sure as hell don't have more than three hours a day to dedicate to a single asinine activty every single day. In my opinion, anyone who does much more than three hours of gaming in internet cafe's a day is quite analogous to someone with a substance abuse problem; they're both physically damaging, overly time-consuming, money-wasting, and socially awkward.
Toyota voluntarily restricted the airing of the commercial until after 8:30pm in both countries.
Wow! That's very generous of them! Especially since the ad is for Hyundai's product. I wonder why no other company has thought of this before? "In other news, McDonalds has voluntarily restricted the airing of the latest Burger King commercial, citing concerns that people may actually go and eat there."
And YOU, sir, have the most defective sarcasm detector I have EVER seen in my whole life. The joke flew so far over your head that it's in orbit now, approaching escape velocity.
No. Blue and purple are seperated only by a shade of red. If he can't see the red because the cones in his retina don't work properly, blue and purple will seem almost identical.
I'm honestly not trying to insult you or anything, so if you were being sarcastic, I apologize, but just in case, it is possible to make it so that Firefox doesn't automatically download to desktop. Its somwhere in the Preferences, just check "Ask me where to save downloaded files every time".:)
Are you simply too stupid to figure out what the GP was saying, or are you deliberately trying to confuse the issue by focussing on this irrelevant technicality?
The only one being 'too stupid' here is you if you think the distinction between a civil and criminal case is an 'irrelevant technicality'. If you had bothered to read the rest of the post, you would have seen him describe the important major difference between a criminal and civil case -- in a criminal case, you need to prove guilt BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT (which the RIAA is not doing here), and in a civil case you need to prove it in a BALANCE OF PROBABILITIES, meaning over 50% likelihood (which I'm sure we can all agree the RIAA is doing here. A lot more than 50% of files labelled "Metallica" are indeed Metallica, especially when they've found 11 other correctly-labelled files from the same person).
Whether or not what the RIAA is doing is morally right is certainly in question (I agree with the Slashdot groupthink that it's not), but to try and imply that the RIAA is using its influence to fudge the legal process and get away with things they shouldn't be is simply unfair. This is valid evidence in a civil case, and its up to the jury to decide whether or not to believe it.
Re:Probably that you're running Ubuntu, like me.
on
GNOME 2.16 Released
·
· Score: 5, Informative
It's not a coincidence that Ubuntu's release cycle is the same as Gnome's -- six months. That's the defining feature of a new Ubuntu release: a new Gnome release. It was especially designed to be this way.
So to answer your question, 2.16 will be in Edgy. And 2.18 will be in whatever comes after Edgy. And so on.
I'm not sure how easy it would be to still find one of these, but I've had a LaserJet 4P since I was around grade 6 (about 6 or 7 years ago), and it has never failed me yet. It's a cheap, black-and-white laserjet with all of the features you request. And I can personally attest to it's printing quality. I've had it for so long, and it's never broken down or had any real problems. I also network it just fine -- it's currently connected to my LinkSys wireless printerserver.
I don't really have anything to compare its toner usage with, but I have no complaints in that department either. Overall, a great deal.
The charm in games like Guitar Hero and DDR is in the novel way that the player interacts with the game. If you take that out, you're literally left with hitting keys in time to music. What's the attraction? I've never understood games like this or Stepmania or the various other clones.
Magic is really big at my high school (well, I just graduated, but still). There's a regular club that meets every Thursday, and there's easily over 70 members who play. However, the club is divided into two (not disjoint) groups: those who play with real decks, and those who play with proxies.
Basically, the half of us who enjoy the game, but aren't willing to pay hundreds of dollars (we're in high school) for the latest and greatest cards, simply design our decks on paper, go on the internet, print out the neccesary card faces, and glue them onto basic land cards. It's no secret, we're not trying to cheat -- you just announce that it's for a proxy deck, and as long as the opponent doesn't have a problem with that (within our school, almost nobody does), you're good to go. You get all of the fun, without the cost. And since it's easy to print off a new deck, there's lots of interesting deck designs since there's no financial commitement involved in trying out a new idea.
You would think that this would lead to a whole room full of people playing uber-decks of outrageous cards that they found deck lists for on the internet. But in practice, none of us are dicks, and we all end up having a lot of fun. Of course, we can't enter any tournaments like this, but there's so many of us in the school alone that we can sustain our hobby just fine.
Slashdot Mirror
Even let's say that the $25B value is accurate and represents something meaningful, it seems to be a pretty depressing number for the entire ecosystem, isn't it? Microsoft as a publicly traded company alone is currently worth $216.11B and I'm sure we can all agree that the entire Windows "ecosystem" is worth at least that much over again. So the Linux ecosystem is worth, what, 5% of Microsoft's value? And this is at a time when Linux is at a historic "high" while Microsoft is in a pretty firm slump...
Not that I think this is an accurate or meaningful number.
The most comprehensive scan of the entire internet for several decades
As opposed to the great Internet scans of the 30s?
The summary misplaced a comma. The actual total is 500,000 not 50,000.
It's amazing how you can be so smug and condescending while still being wrong on every single one of your throaway answers. I'd think you were trying to make a joke if I could find any sort of humour in your post, but I can't. Try reading the article, because it seems that your knowledge on these issues is less than those teenage girls you look down on.
Everyone keeps saying that a solution to the problem of potential voter fraud would be to open-source the code. My question is -- how? Let's say they do and someone reads it and understands it; what guarantee does anyone have that the code they've published is the same as the code on the machines the day of the election? It would be absolutely trivial to cut out the naughty bits before publishing.
If Sequoia really were ready to commit mass voter fraud, I doubt they would have too many moral issues with violating the principles of open source while they're at it.
After the commercials, "Human Beings May or May Not Be Extinct"!
Well, no offense, but I'm glad it isn't you that's in charge of making important decisions in that case. I realize that you were probably less than half-serious, but I would hate for the Linux community to ever be in the stage where "attract more masses" is a goal that diverts effort from interesting projects like this one.
With that said, what's wrong with Qt/KDE, particularly the new versions (the ones still in Alpha)? I'd say it is very much a "non-ugly GUI lib", and a "sane windowing environment".
I think you mean, "am iNuts?"
It's exactly posts like this that really, really make me wish Slashdot had a -1 Uninformed mod option. Really, where can I sign a petition for this?
Who ever saw a version of a Microsoft product that was compatible with the previous version?
.NET in a matter of (admittedly frustrating) days.
Are you joking? I hope you're joking. Because the alternative is that you are being criminally thick. I really think Slashdot should have a mod option -1 Misinformed
Say what you will about Microsoft, but backwards compatibility has always been one of their cornerstones. Their compatiblity layers still allow you to run apps from the early 90's on a modern copy of Vista today. I have managed to get some very old VB3 code working with a minimum of modification on VB6, which then, using Project Analyzer, got compiling in
And who are you comparing them with? Linux? You must be joking. Linux has trouble (read: is completely unable to) maintain binary compatibility with even relatively recent "old" code because of changing libc versions, etc.
Please, name ONE other operating system out there that can claim to run decade-old binaries flawlessly in its most recent incarnation.
Disclaimer: I'm a dedicated FOSS user and not a Microsoft shill in any way. But please, let's give credit where credit is due.
Perhaps I'm the only one (and thus I will be modded into oblivion) but I don't think this is so bad. We are, after all, talking about minors here. As a poster above mentioned, America (lots of countries, actually) doesn't allow drinking under the age of 21; why is this? Because minors are not capable of responsibly handling something like alcohol. Well, guess what: most minors aren't capable of responsibly handling gaming either if they feel the need to do it in a public venue for more than THREE FREAKING HOURS per day! Three hours! That's almost 25% of your waking time playing a game. Notice that this does not restrict adults, and it does not constrict what anyone (including minors) do in the privacy of their own home. If any kid is so addicted that limiting his net-cafe time to three hours a day sounds like a terrible punishment, they are in need of help.
I'm 19, so I'm in the same ballpark; I dunno what Chinese society is like firsthand, but I sure as hell don't have more than three hours a day to dedicate to a single asinine activty every single day. In my opinion, anyone who does much more than three hours of gaming in internet cafe's a day is quite analogous to someone with a substance abuse problem; they're both physically damaging, overly time-consuming, money-wasting, and socially awkward.
Toyota voluntarily restricted the airing of the commercial until after 8:30pm in both countries.
Wow! That's very generous of them! Especially since the ad is for Hyundai's product. I wonder why no other company has thought of this before? "In other news, McDonalds has voluntarily restricted the airing of the latest Burger King commercial, citing concerns that people may actually go and eat there."
;) Sorry, just being an ass.
You scare far too easily.
And YOU, sir, have the most defective sarcasm detector I have EVER seen in my whole life. The joke flew so far over your head that it's in orbit now, approaching escape velocity.
Just, wow....
No. Blue and purple are seperated only by a shade of red. If he can't see the red because the cones in his retina don't work properly, blue and purple will seem almost identical.
I've always thought Procastinators were people who kept their virginity in exchange for money
WHAT? You can get paid for this? And to think I'd been doing it for free all these years...
And then there's the politicians and police wanting to look "tough on pornography" for the votes and funding.
I get hard on pornography... is that the same thing?
I'm honestly not trying to insult you or anything, so if you were being sarcastic, I apologize, but just in case, it is possible to make it so that Firefox doesn't automatically download to desktop. Its somwhere in the Preferences, just check "Ask me where to save downloaded files every time". :)
Are you simply too stupid to figure out what the GP was saying, or are you deliberately trying to confuse the issue by focussing on this irrelevant technicality?
The only one being 'too stupid' here is you if you think the distinction between a civil and criminal case is an 'irrelevant technicality'. If you had bothered to read the rest of the post, you would have seen him describe the important major difference between a criminal and civil case -- in a criminal case, you need to prove guilt BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT (which the RIAA is not doing here), and in a civil case you need to prove it in a BALANCE OF PROBABILITIES, meaning over 50% likelihood (which I'm sure we can all agree the RIAA is doing here. A lot more than 50% of files labelled "Metallica" are indeed Metallica, especially when they've found 11 other correctly-labelled files from the same person).
Whether or not what the RIAA is doing is morally right is certainly in question (I agree with the Slashdot groupthink that it's not), but to try and imply that the RIAA is using its influence to fudge the legal process and get away with things they shouldn't be is simply unfair. This is valid evidence in a civil case, and its up to the jury to decide whether or not to believe it.
It's not a coincidence that Ubuntu's release cycle is the same as Gnome's -- six months. That's the defining feature of a new Ubuntu release: a new Gnome release. It was especially designed to be this way.
So to answer your question, 2.16 will be in Edgy. And 2.18 will be in whatever comes after Edgy. And so on.
I'm not sure how easy it would be to still find one of these, but I've had a LaserJet 4P since I was around grade 6 (about 6 or 7 years ago), and it has never failed me yet. It's a cheap, black-and-white laserjet with all of the features you request. And I can personally attest to it's printing quality. I've had it for so long, and it's never broken down or had any real problems. I also network it just fine -- it's currently connected to my LinkSys wireless printerserver.
I don't really have anything to compare its toner usage with, but I have no complaints in that department either. Overall, a great deal.
The charm in games like Guitar Hero and DDR is in the novel way that the player interacts with the game. If you take that out, you're literally left with hitting keys in time to music. What's the attraction? I've never understood games like this or Stepmania or the various other clones.
Magic is really big at my high school (well, I just graduated, but still). There's a regular club that meets every Thursday, and there's easily over 70 members who play. However, the club is divided into two (not disjoint) groups: those who play with real decks, and those who play with proxies. Basically, the half of us who enjoy the game, but aren't willing to pay hundreds of dollars (we're in high school) for the latest and greatest cards, simply design our decks on paper, go on the internet, print out the neccesary card faces, and glue them onto basic land cards. It's no secret, we're not trying to cheat -- you just announce that it's for a proxy deck, and as long as the opponent doesn't have a problem with that (within our school, almost nobody does), you're good to go. You get all of the fun, without the cost. And since it's easy to print off a new deck, there's lots of interesting deck designs since there's no financial commitement involved in trying out a new idea. You would think that this would lead to a whole room full of people playing uber-decks of outrageous cards that they found deck lists for on the internet. But in practice, none of us are dicks, and we all end up having a lot of fun. Of course, we can't enter any tournaments like this, but there's so many of us in the school alone that we can sustain our hobby just fine.
the speech recognition field has a long history of staying in such a state forever.
Wow. I think my head exploded just trying to think about that.
Linux geeks admit that the open source OS isn't necessarily a better platform for important applications
Okay, that's it. Turn your card in at the door. We never want to see you again.