Goto in C isn't necessarily evil... I've used it quite a lot of times to break from nested loops (like a "break", but a double/triple/... break, which doesn't exist in C but exists in Java for example).
You're ignorant. From your post, it seems you think that the crashes were OS crashes, which is not true. Most (or all?) of the crash information is about applications crashing, not the whole OS. Any application, not just OS code or Microsoft apps.
It's more akin to you turning on your TV and finding out that your channels suck.
Is that crash data in general, or crash data on Microsoft applications or OS parts? I ask because windows can send crash data for any application which crashes...
2.) Tying a trend to warmer temperatures based on older data from the early 1900's is suspect at best. Good, reliable, accurate scientific equipment that measures the temperature wasn't readily available until recently (late 1900's).
Last I checked, the initiative you talked about wasn't official, just a suggestion that was being made to the people who are designing those laptops... Was there any progress on that?
What part of your thick skull is preventing you from understand the statement "hunger isn't necessarily such a big problem in at least some of those countries".
If that was so, they would not need us to supply the laptops.
Have you even read anything about the initiative? The laptops are sold to the countries. Are you suggesting that those countries could design and manufacture the laptops?
As many people will surely say, many of the countries targeted by this initiative don't have as many problems as you think they do. Of course the people aren't going to eat the laptops, but access to them and faster ways of spreading and accessing information helps with virtually everything... At the very least, it will make them more educated and capable of solving their country's problems...
Not all the poor countries are a mass of hungering people...
Not arguing against playing the game, just commenting on some of your points:
there's no instant gratification without years of practice
Not true at all. I'm a guitarist (on both cllasical and electric guitar) and I'd bet that, if all the folks who were in the same music school where I was would spend as much time playing guitar as they did playing games, they'd be playing quite well after two months AT MOST. There are many simple songs, and improvements usually come from one day to another, with periods of little improvement in between.
From all that I have read people are able to hack the kernel already in Vista.
Are you talking about this? If so, notice the first comment in that story:
fta: Rutkowska stressed that the Blue Pill technology does not rely on any bug of the underlying operating system. "I have implemented a working prototype for Vista x64, but I see no reasons why it should not be possible to port it to other operating systems, like Linux or BSD which can be run on x64 platform," she added.
Now, I know your point was that Vista isn't more secure, but that's always a given when you can run code with administrative rights on a machine... With that assumption, all points about insecurity are obvious and trivial...
Building an OS is no trivial matter for any company, not even Google. It is "trivial" when you can control everything about the hardware it's going to run on (for example, OS X being supported exclusively on Apple computers), but when you're trying to build an OS like Windows, which is supposed to run everywhere, the effort takes years, a lot of money, a lot of developers and cooperation with other peripheral-making companies (which you have to convince first). It is a race that Google will not go into, I believe. Think about the fact that even if Google started developing an OS to compete with Microsoft today, they would have to both make a good OS *and* a better one in the same time that Microsoft has to just improve their own current OS. Even if Google is much more efficient than MS at designing and coding, do you still think they can do it?
Their search engine is used by everyone because it's a service which runs on their own servers, where they can control everything. I'd say that building an OS (probably one of the most complicated kinds of client-side software that exists), is at least one order of magnitude more difficult...
Everything adds to value, and I think people will appreciate the possibility of sharing pictures a lot. But yes, your last sentence is undoubtedly true.
My feeling is that, as it stands, the sharing feature will not be very useful for music, but will be great for pictures. People around here share a lot of pictures, usually using cds or flash drives, which are both much less convenient than just sending them over WiFi (that is, if whole folders can be sent).
Well, you could say the same about anything that Sony has on their stock. Do you also see a couple of brand new Sony vaio computers for sale? Do you hear a lot about their stocks being stolen?
Strange... Check out the pictures at the product description at the amazon page for Zune... The colors on this one (supposedly the white version) look quite different from the Zune in the middle of this one! What's up?
Slashdot Mirror
Funny that you mention that, since actually Microsoft is helping Firefox developers with Vista.
Goto in C isn't necessarily evil... I've used it quite a lot of times to break from nested loops (like a "break", but a double/triple/... break, which doesn't exist in C but exists in Java for example).
You're ignorant. From your post, it seems you think that the crashes were OS crashes, which is not true. Most (or all?) of the crash information is about applications crashing, not the whole OS. Any application, not just OS code or Microsoft apps.
It's more akin to you turning on your TV and finding out that your channels suck.
Is that crash data in general, or crash data on Microsoft applications or OS parts? I ask because windows can send crash data for any application which crashes...
Have you heard about this?
You can ask questions to the people behind OLPC here. I've skimmed over the page and I think there is no similar question there.
Last I checked, the initiative you talked about wasn't official, just a suggestion that was being made to the people who are designing those laptops... Was there any progress on that?
Have you even read anything about the initiative? The laptops are sold to the countries. Are you suggesting that those countries could design and manufacture the laptops?
As many people will surely say, many of the countries targeted by this initiative don't have as many problems as you think they do. Of course the people aren't going to eat the laptops, but access to them and faster ways of spreading and accessing information helps with virtually everything... At the very least, it will make them more educated and capable of solving their country's problems...
Not all the poor countries are a mass of hungering people...
It can be independent of the current accepted axioms.
Did I say they would? Do they need to?
What do you mean? Anyone can have music lessons too...
Not true at all. I'm a guitarist (on both cllasical and electric guitar) and I'd bet that, if all the folks who were in the same music school where I was would spend as much time playing guitar as they did playing games, they'd be playing quite well after two months AT MOST. There are many simple songs, and improvements usually come from one day to another, with periods of little improvement in between.
The horror
Are you talking about this? If so, notice the first comment in that story:
Now, I know your point was that Vista isn't more secure, but that's always a given when you can run code with administrative rights on a machine... With that assumption, all points about insecurity are obvious and trivial...
Do you know how hard it is to build an OS?
Building an OS is no trivial matter for any company, not even Google. It is "trivial" when you can control everything about the hardware it's going to run on (for example, OS X being supported exclusively on Apple computers), but when you're trying to build an OS like Windows, which is supposed to run everywhere, the effort takes years, a lot of money, a lot of developers and cooperation with other peripheral-making companies (which you have to convince first). It is a race that Google will not go into, I believe. Think about the fact that even if Google started developing an OS to compete with Microsoft today, they would have to both make a good OS *and* a better one in the same time that Microsoft has to just improve their own current OS. Even if Google is much more efficient than MS at designing and coding, do you still think they can do it?
Their search engine is used by everyone because it's a service which runs on their own servers, where they can control everything. I'd say that building an OS (probably one of the most complicated kinds of client-side software that exists), is at least one order of magnitude more difficult...
Would they use hummers if they were outside the US?
Everything adds to value, and I think people will appreciate the possibility of sharing pictures a lot. But yes, your last sentence is undoubtedly true.
My feeling is that, as it stands, the sharing feature will not be very useful for music, but will be great for pictures. People around here share a lot of pictures, usually using cds or flash drives, which are both much less convenient than just sending them over WiFi (that is, if whole folders can be sent).
But do they reward you for doing the opposite, like gmail does?
Pure comedy, man....
I, personally, don't want to be sucked by them.
Let's turn the question around... If you have a laptop with a faulty battery which can kill you, do you want to keep it that way?
Well, you could say the same about anything that Sony has on their stock. Do you also see a couple of brand new Sony vaio computers for sale? Do you hear a lot about their stocks being stolen?
Strange... Check out the pictures at the product description at the amazon page for Zune... The colors on this one (supposedly the white version) look quite different from the Zune in the middle of this one! What's up?
The better question is what do we care and why would you ask? Did anyone say that you should buy a Zune just for FM reception?
or it might be useful for not finding other people, assuming you don't want to find them...